Watch out the new Theatrical Trailer for 'Transformers: Dark of the Moon'. By the looks of it the movie seems solid. Not sure what business will it make but the trailer looks pretty awesome. I can tell by watching the trailer that most of the action is taking place in downtown Chicago (which looks cool). It seem the movie studios are pretty tired up blowing NYC in their movies and downtown Chicago is the new location for the action.
Too much sound and destruction. Perfect recipe for the summer movie.
Hell yeah!!! Bring it on.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
SONY - Security On Network (all) Yours
What is the acronym for SONY? Well if there is not then I came up with one. SONY should stand for Security On Network (all) Yours (wow sounds pretty cool, I don’t know how at times I came up with stuff like that). Keeping into the consideration the poundings SONY had to deal with the recent security breach SONY should remove the word security from its dictionary (if it maintains one). This is the biggest security breach in the history as the vital data for 77 million users is on stake. 77 million users. I just cannot comprehend what it feels like when you have such enormous information taken away from your secured vault. This is just amazing and the hammering is still not over. After somebody (oh yeah still we don’t know who hacked it), the PSN (PlayStation Network) is still down and according to the officials of SONY there is still no ETA when things will get back to normal.
As in the past or sometime last month SONY got hacked by this popular hacking group which goes by the name of `anonymous` but for this breach `anonymous` is keeping quiet and so are our friends from China & Russia. I guess this breach is getting a lot of attention and Kristopher Johns of Alabama is the first one to start the lawsuit against SONY the details of which can be found on this link. On the other hand Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal is pretty annoyed with this hacking and is now requesting full investigation in what went wrong. We will come to know the details of this event as and when it is available from SONY and the media. According to the latest developments it seems SONY has posted this new QA where it is trying to cool down its consumers that the credit card information of SONY’s consumers might not be in danger. Read the full QA here.
Please don’t worry your data is safe. At least with these hackers who I guess can take care of it in a much more secure and encrypted way. Security breaches does happen and that is why the field of computer security is there but learning from your mistakes and repeating the same is something which I guess needs to be reevaluated and this is exactly what SONY or as a matter of fact any organization should do.
There has been an ongoing war going on between the hackers and the IT security enforcers and it is hard to comment who is winning. Don’t you think from the position from where you and me are looking at these events the hackers have already won? I guess yes they have and somewhere in these huge organizations people will agree to this but they are keeping quiet.
You know what, time to speak up and fight back, because it is never too late.
As in the past or sometime last month SONY got hacked by this popular hacking group which goes by the name of `anonymous` but for this breach `anonymous` is keeping quiet and so are our friends from China & Russia. I guess this breach is getting a lot of attention and Kristopher Johns of Alabama is the first one to start the lawsuit against SONY the details of which can be found on this link. On the other hand Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal is pretty annoyed with this hacking and is now requesting full investigation in what went wrong. We will come to know the details of this event as and when it is available from SONY and the media. According to the latest developments it seems SONY has posted this new QA where it is trying to cool down its consumers that the credit card information of SONY’s consumers might not be in danger. Read the full QA here.
Please don’t worry your data is safe. At least with these hackers who I guess can take care of it in a much more secure and encrypted way. Security breaches does happen and that is why the field of computer security is there but learning from your mistakes and repeating the same is something which I guess needs to be reevaluated and this is exactly what SONY or as a matter of fact any organization should do.
There has been an ongoing war going on between the hackers and the IT security enforcers and it is hard to comment who is winning. Don’t you think from the position from where you and me are looking at these events the hackers have already won? I guess yes they have and somewhere in these huge organizations people will agree to this but they are keeping quiet.
You know what, time to speak up and fight back, because it is never too late.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Location tracking: Apple's Bug fix coming soon
Keeping into consideration the proceedings in the iSpy controversy (iSpy is what it is called by the media), Apple accepts the location tracking issue goes too far in collecting user’s whereabouts and they will fix that in the upcoming software update for the iOS.
Please check the following link for the complete press release which is now available on the Apple site. This is exactly what I've mentioned in my blog when I came to know about this issue for the first time. If there is a problem then it needs to be fixed and that is what Apple will do. Time to move on.
Please check the following link for the complete press release which is now available on the Apple site. This is exactly what I've mentioned in my blog when I came to know about this issue for the first time. If there is a problem then it needs to be fixed and that is what Apple will do. Time to move on.
Steve Jobs & Andy Rubin explains the location tracking policy (Video)
Watch this video where Steve Jobs (yea Steve Jobs) and Android’s Andy Rubin are explaining and defending the location privacy policy for their respective organizations. It is good to watch Steve in an interview mode rather than the town hall mode. I guess I am seeing Steve after a long time sitting down in front of the audience and trying to explain why Apple tracks consumer location and why Apple won't jeopardize the personal information of its consumers.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
"Quora" - Changing the QA paradigm
I just stumbled upon this site – Quora (which is another QA - QusetionAnswer site). Quora is just in the line with Yahoo answers, Answers.com and ehow.com. The model is same as compared to any QA site where you post your questions from any field and experts reply back to you on your queries. What makes Quora different from any other QA site is that the people who reply back to your queries are industry experts, geeks, venture capitalist and CEOs with the likes of Marc Andreessen, Reed Hasting (CEO Netflix) and Marc Benioff (CEO Salesforce) . As in the case of other QA sites where junk and stupid QAs gets posted, there is a dedicated team of people working in Quora to make sure that only relveant answers and questions gets posted and all others are subject to be deleted without any review.
Quora was started by two former Facebook employees – Adam D’ Angelo & Charlie Cheever. D’Angelo who looks much younger than his age was the former CTO of Facebook and the childhood buddy of Mark Zukerberg. D’Angelo and Zuckerberg even attended the same high school – The Phillips Exceter Academy. It seems Adam was a better programmer than Zuckerberg and ended up securing 8th position in the 2001 USA computer olympiad. Adam graduated from Caltech and worked with Facebook during its initial stages and after graduation joined the company as its CTO. Cheever on the other hand graduated from Harvard and used to work on Facebook connect and Facebook platform according to the information provided by Crunch Base.
In 2009 Adam & Cheever founded Quora and since then the site becomes the hope for many knowledge seekers and providers. The algorithm of Quora works on the answer ranking system with better answers on top and this is something in line with the page ranking system deployed by Google. For more technical know-hows about Quora visit their wiki page or post your query on the site itself and someone will reply you back. According some sources the company rejected the offers from some big players which are ready to pay something in the range of $300 million to buy Quora. In March 2010 Quora raised around $11 million from Benchmark Capital and by all means it is capable of raising more capital.
Quora seems to be a pretty good startup and got the potential to expand. I’ve created my account on the site and will start using it soon. I’ll be curious to learn the business model of Quora and how they will generate the revenue for its investors (seems I got my first question to be posted on Quora)? Do Quora and hopefully you won’t be disappointed. Quora seems to be addictive and this is what the current users are saying. I agree with that statement (without even posting my first question) and the only explanation I can give for the addiction are it’s two co-founders who still have Facebook somewhere hidden inside them.
Quora was started by two former Facebook employees – Adam D’ Angelo & Charlie Cheever. D’Angelo who looks much younger than his age was the former CTO of Facebook and the childhood buddy of Mark Zukerberg. D’Angelo and Zuckerberg even attended the same high school – The Phillips Exceter Academy. It seems Adam was a better programmer than Zuckerberg and ended up securing 8th position in the 2001 USA computer olympiad. Adam graduated from Caltech and worked with Facebook during its initial stages and after graduation joined the company as its CTO. Cheever on the other hand graduated from Harvard and used to work on Facebook connect and Facebook platform according to the information provided by Crunch Base.
In 2009 Adam & Cheever founded Quora and since then the site becomes the hope for many knowledge seekers and providers. The algorithm of Quora works on the answer ranking system with better answers on top and this is something in line with the page ranking system deployed by Google. For more technical know-hows about Quora visit their wiki page or post your query on the site itself and someone will reply you back. According some sources the company rejected the offers from some big players which are ready to pay something in the range of $300 million to buy Quora. In March 2010 Quora raised around $11 million from Benchmark Capital and by all means it is capable of raising more capital.
Quora seems to be a pretty good startup and got the potential to expand. I’ve created my account on the site and will start using it soon. I’ll be curious to learn the business model of Quora and how they will generate the revenue for its investors (seems I got my first question to be posted on Quora)? Do Quora and hopefully you won’t be disappointed. Quora seems to be addictive and this is what the current users are saying. I agree with that statement (without even posting my first question) and the only explanation I can give for the addiction are it’s two co-founders who still have Facebook somewhere hidden inside them.
Monday, April 25, 2011
The black & white world of the iPhone
You know how this works. Some will start the news that the new product is coming and then more and more will get involved and before you know it the product will be out in the market. I guess the white iPhone 4 is not different. The rumors started out sometime back and now today someone posted that White iPhone will be coming here in the US and will start selling from 27th April (which is like after 2 days). Apple don’t say anything about it but the news is out and all over the internet so it had to be true. I never cared about the White phone as I guess Black iPhone simply rocks. These are pretty good marketing strategies where changing the colors of the product may bring in the rise in the product sales. I guess this is something we all learned from Dell. Dell is popular among the consumers for selling laptops, I prefer to call them designer laptops, where you can pick and choose the design of your laptops from the myriad of options.
Anyway if you are waiting for the white iPhone then your wait is almost over, enjoy the white iPhone. I guess soon there will be the comparison between the black & the white iPhone, for me that doen’t matter much as I still don’t own an iPhone or as a matter of fact any smartphone (Oh yeah! I am still a dinosaur or a cave man or a combination of both). What I will be interested in are the sales number of the white iPhone that will boost the existing sales of the iPhone, something we all have to wait till Apple’s Q3 results.
Update: Apple confirmed that the White iPhone is available tomorrow i.e April 28th. Here in the US, the new phone will be available from both AT&T and Verizon.
Anyway if you are waiting for the white iPhone then your wait is almost over, enjoy the white iPhone. I guess soon there will be the comparison between the black & the white iPhone, for me that doen’t matter much as I still don’t own an iPhone or as a matter of fact any smartphone (Oh yeah! I am still a dinosaur or a cave man or a combination of both). What I will be interested in are the sales number of the white iPhone that will boost the existing sales of the iPhone, something we all have to wait till Apple’s Q3 results.
Update: Apple confirmed that the White iPhone is available tomorrow i.e April 28th. Here in the US, the new phone will be available from both AT&T and Verizon.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Apple's evergrowing cash flow
I was just going through the blog of Eric Savitz who now works for Forbes. In his blog he has done an excellent job by letting readers know the power of cash that Apple possess. Keeping into consideration Apple’s cash flow for the end of March quarter and combining the cash value with this quarter and doing the math, Eric reached the magical figure of $67 billion. With $67 billion Apple can do wonders and this is what Eric comes up with.
• For $67 billion, the company could buy, say both Adobe and Netflix, and still have $30 billion or so left over.
• Or they could buy Facbook, which depending on who you ask, is worth something north of $50 billion.
• Or they could buy eBay, and have $20 billion left over.
• Apple’s cash position is more than 2x the market cap of Dell.
• It’s also more than 2x the market cap of Research In Motion; 5x the valuation of ARM Holdings; 9x the market cap of Motorola Mobility.
• For $67 billion, you could buy Nokia…and Research In Motion. And still have cash left over.
• Or they could branch out, and buy General Motors. And have $20 billion still sitting in the bank.
• Or they could buy around 15 billion gallons of gas.
This analysis is pretty cool and reflects why most of the market analysts, traders and investors are sanguine about the future of Apple. To read his full blog follow this link and I am pretty sure you won’t be disappointed.
• For $67 billion, the company could buy, say both Adobe and Netflix, and still have $30 billion or so left over.
• Or they could buy Facbook, which depending on who you ask, is worth something north of $50 billion.
• Or they could buy eBay, and have $20 billion left over.
• Apple’s cash position is more than 2x the market cap of Dell.
• It’s also more than 2x the market cap of Research In Motion; 5x the valuation of ARM Holdings; 9x the market cap of Motorola Mobility.
• For $67 billion, you could buy Nokia…and Research In Motion. And still have cash left over.
• Or they could branch out, and buy General Motors. And have $20 billion still sitting in the bank.
• Or they could buy around 15 billion gallons of gas.
This analysis is pretty cool and reflects why most of the market analysts, traders and investors are sanguine about the future of Apple. To read his full blog follow this link and I am pretty sure you won’t be disappointed.
Apple knows where you are
After the blowout Q2 results Apple is once again back in the news. Yesterday two programmers (Alasdair Allan and Pete Warden) gave this presentation in one of the technology conferences in San Francisco where they presented the data that iPhone and the 3G version of the iPad is secretly tracking the users information and the contents are stored in an unencrypted file which goes by the name of ‘consolidated.db’. This file contains the information in the form of latitude-longitude coordinates along with a timestamp. Pete Warden who is one of the presenter of this information was a former Apple employee and has developed a program if any one wants to take a look at what the data looks like. Please go to this link to download the software in order to view your data and where you have been in the last 10 months. There is an ongoing buzz about this as the privacy of millions of users is at stake.
Once you update your iOS version to 4.0 it started logging your position & location along with timestamp. Moreover when you sync the data of your iPhone to a computer this information will then be download to your computer in the form of an uncrypted file. There has been concerns that though iPhone hack is not easily possible but once this data comes to the hard disk of an computer it opens wide variety of opportunities for the hackers to misuse it. One thing of major concern is, why did Apple did not tell this to anyone and what will Apple use this data in the longer run for? I guess Apple can only answers this questions.
As per the latest information the issue has now got the attention of some of the politicians and as a result of that Senator Al Franken (Democrats of Minnesota) has send the letter to Steve Jobs asking him the reasons why Apple is secretly compling this data. Allan and Pete also checked with the security team at Apple about this and they are waiting for the response from Apple. I recommend going to this link in to get the technical know hows of this issue and watch the embedded video in order to know more details about that. Hope Apple will soon release a statement or a patch in order to fix it.
I am not trying to defend Apple but in the privacy policy which all of us blindly accepts and move on clearly indicates collecting your private and personal information. The policy last got updated on 21st June 2010 along with iOS 4.0. Please check the following snippets from the policy (courtesy - engadget):
We also collect non-personal information − data in a form that does not permit direct association with any specific individual. We may collect, use, transfer, and disclose non-personal information for any purpose.
We may collect information such as occupation, language, zip code, area code, unique device identifier, location, and the time zone where an Apple product is used so that we can better understand customer behavior and improve our products, services, and advertising.
If you don't want to wait for the patch from Apple and for personal piece of mind start backing up the contents of your iPhone using iTunes that will back up your data in an encrypted form. Good Luck with that and let's see what Apple has to say about all this.
Once you update your iOS version to 4.0 it started logging your position & location along with timestamp. Moreover when you sync the data of your iPhone to a computer this information will then be download to your computer in the form of an uncrypted file. There has been concerns that though iPhone hack is not easily possible but once this data comes to the hard disk of an computer it opens wide variety of opportunities for the hackers to misuse it. One thing of major concern is, why did Apple did not tell this to anyone and what will Apple use this data in the longer run for? I guess Apple can only answers this questions.
As per the latest information the issue has now got the attention of some of the politicians and as a result of that Senator Al Franken (Democrats of Minnesota) has send the letter to Steve Jobs asking him the reasons why Apple is secretly compling this data. Allan and Pete also checked with the security team at Apple about this and they are waiting for the response from Apple. I recommend going to this link in to get the technical know hows of this issue and watch the embedded video in order to know more details about that. Hope Apple will soon release a statement or a patch in order to fix it.
I am not trying to defend Apple but in the privacy policy which all of us blindly accepts and move on clearly indicates collecting your private and personal information. The policy last got updated on 21st June 2010 along with iOS 4.0. Please check the following snippets from the policy (courtesy - engadget):
We also collect non-personal information − data in a form that does not permit direct association with any specific individual. We may collect, use, transfer, and disclose non-personal information for any purpose.
We may collect information such as occupation, language, zip code, area code, unique device identifier, location, and the time zone where an Apple product is used so that we can better understand customer behavior and improve our products, services, and advertising.
If you don't want to wait for the patch from Apple and for personal piece of mind start backing up the contents of your iPhone using iTunes that will back up your data in an encrypted form. Good Luck with that and let's see what Apple has to say about all this.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Apple's Q2 earnings
Apple easily surpassed the expectations of the Wall Street and the market. This is the statement which Steve Jobs gave during the quaterly earnings and it makes lots of sense and shows why Apple is still the market leader in creating innovative and amazing products - "With quarterly revenue growth of 83 percent and profit growth of 95 percent, we're firing on all cylinders. We will continue to innovate on all fronts throughout the remainder of the year."
Apple reported total sales of $24.67 billion and total profits of $5.99 billion. Apple only lags in the sales of iPads and iPods and I guess market is not taking that into much consideration as the EPS (earning per share) for this quarter also beats the expectation. EPS for this quarter is $6.4 and the expected EPS was $5.37. Apple’s share rose to 3.91% or $13 in the after hours and now trading at around $355.80.
Following information depicts estimate Vs actual sales for the major Apple products.
Estimate Actual Sale
iPod 9.85 million 9 million
iPad 4.69 million 6 million
iPhone 16.3 million 18.65 million
MAC 3.64 million 3.76 million
For Q3 the revenue guidance is set around $23 billion & EPS at around $5.03. With the current scenario I find no reasons why Apple cannot beat the Q3 estimates as well, but with problems continuing in Japan it is hard to forecast what might happen. Party time for Steve and Apple, but I am sure this has become a regular feature with Apple as the story keeps on repeating quarter after quarter.
Apple reported total sales of $24.67 billion and total profits of $5.99 billion. Apple only lags in the sales of iPads and iPods and I guess market is not taking that into much consideration as the EPS (earning per share) for this quarter also beats the expectation. EPS for this quarter is $6.4 and the expected EPS was $5.37. Apple’s share rose to 3.91% or $13 in the after hours and now trading at around $355.80.
Following information depicts estimate Vs actual sales for the major Apple products.
Estimate Actual Sale
iPod 9.85 million 9 million
iPad 4.69 million 6 million
iPhone 16.3 million 18.65 million
MAC 3.64 million 3.76 million
For Q3 the revenue guidance is set around $23 billion & EPS at around $5.03. With the current scenario I find no reasons why Apple cannot beat the Q3 estimates as well, but with problems continuing in Japan it is hard to forecast what might happen. Party time for Steve and Apple, but I am sure this has become a regular feature with Apple as the story keeps on repeating quarter after quarter.
Groupon - The deal maker
When Andrew Mason entered the University of Chicago in order to pursue a master’s degree in public policy he has no idea what his imagination is capable of. Prior to that Mason got his bachelor’s in Music from the Northwestern University of Chicago and was also the lead keyboardist of the rock band. Soon Mason leave the master’s program in order to test his entreprenuer kicks and found ‘The Point’. Mason’s company ‘The Point’ could not fly and it failed. In November of 2008, Groupon was born from the ashes of ‘The Point’ and from there on there is no looking back for Mason and Groupon.
In simple terms Groupon is nothing but the deal-of-day site. There is a huge competition for Groupon from the companies like LivingSocial, Tippr, Bloomspot, Scoutmob, and BuyWithMe, but what makes Groupon so competetive is its core business design and the funny and attractive pitch they offer to their clients. In simple terms Groupon has tie up with serveral businesses and in return promote attractive deals in order to generate revenue for themselves and for their business partners which can be restaurants, massage parlors & gyms etc . A good example would be Groupon promoting the coupon for some XYZ hair salon. The original price for the hair cut is say $20, but on Tueday between 2-3 this XYZ hair salon will cut your hairs for $12. Why Tuesday between 2-3? That is because the business usually gets slowed down for XYZ during that day and in those hours so instead of sitting idle they want to make money and want you to save $8. Groupon takes around 40-50% from those $12 that XYZ made from that deal and this is how revenue gets generated for Groupon.
As per the current estimates Groupon’s business is capable of generating $3 billion to $4 billion in revenues this year which is significantly higher to what they have made last year i.e around $750 million. Around couple of months back Google tried to buy Groupon for $6 billion and Groupon turned down the offer. There is a speculation in the market that Groupon is working with several major banks in order to launch its IPO (Initial Public Offering or public shares) sometime this year. According to various analyts the IPO could generate $25 billion for Groupon. I guess Mason and the investors of Groupon were smart enough to turn down that deal with Google. Apart from generating fantastic revenues Groupon is also expanding at an enormous rate and has over 5,900 employees another drastic jump for the company this time in terms of the workforce which was around 120 in 2009.
One of the major drawbacks for Groupon and other companies which are in the same business of deals for the day is that this business model is highly vulnerable in terms of copying. In order to beat the competition Groupon will keep on improvising its business startegy and one of the very first steps Groupon took in that direction is by introducing ‘Groupon Now’ which is a new feature that can be accessible via smartphones and can guide the consumer to make use of the deals in real time. Another drawback and this time from the business owners is that they see consumers getting addicted to coupons and would not buy anything without using them.
Mason and his team is working real hard to make Groupon the next best thing as far as deals are concerned. Will they be able to stand out from the ever growing competition or Groupon is another bubble? I guess only time can answers these questions, but what one can analyse from the current trends can predict the success for not only good Mason and Groupon but also for Chicago. With its headquarters in Chicago, Groupon can be the next big thing for Chicago and can help in the economic recovery of the windy city, hope so.
In simple terms Groupon is nothing but the deal-of-day site. There is a huge competition for Groupon from the companies like LivingSocial, Tippr, Bloomspot, Scoutmob, and BuyWithMe, but what makes Groupon so competetive is its core business design and the funny and attractive pitch they offer to their clients. In simple terms Groupon has tie up with serveral businesses and in return promote attractive deals in order to generate revenue for themselves and for their business partners which can be restaurants, massage parlors & gyms etc . A good example would be Groupon promoting the coupon for some XYZ hair salon. The original price for the hair cut is say $20, but on Tueday between 2-3 this XYZ hair salon will cut your hairs for $12. Why Tuesday between 2-3? That is because the business usually gets slowed down for XYZ during that day and in those hours so instead of sitting idle they want to make money and want you to save $8. Groupon takes around 40-50% from those $12 that XYZ made from that deal and this is how revenue gets generated for Groupon.
As per the current estimates Groupon’s business is capable of generating $3 billion to $4 billion in revenues this year which is significantly higher to what they have made last year i.e around $750 million. Around couple of months back Google tried to buy Groupon for $6 billion and Groupon turned down the offer. There is a speculation in the market that Groupon is working with several major banks in order to launch its IPO (Initial Public Offering or public shares) sometime this year. According to various analyts the IPO could generate $25 billion for Groupon. I guess Mason and the investors of Groupon were smart enough to turn down that deal with Google. Apart from generating fantastic revenues Groupon is also expanding at an enormous rate and has over 5,900 employees another drastic jump for the company this time in terms of the workforce which was around 120 in 2009.
One of the major drawbacks for Groupon and other companies which are in the same business of deals for the day is that this business model is highly vulnerable in terms of copying. In order to beat the competition Groupon will keep on improvising its business startegy and one of the very first steps Groupon took in that direction is by introducing ‘Groupon Now’ which is a new feature that can be accessible via smartphones and can guide the consumer to make use of the deals in real time. Another drawback and this time from the business owners is that they see consumers getting addicted to coupons and would not buy anything without using them.
Mason and his team is working real hard to make Groupon the next best thing as far as deals are concerned. Will they be able to stand out from the ever growing competition or Groupon is another bubble? I guess only time can answers these questions, but what one can analyse from the current trends can predict the success for not only good Mason and Groupon but also for Chicago. With its headquarters in Chicago, Groupon can be the next big thing for Chicago and can help in the economic recovery of the windy city, hope so.
iPhone5 won't be out till fall
Apple is having this tradition to introduce the new iPhone in the summer every year. This tradition holds good since 2007 when they first released the iPhone. This year in particular is a bit different and according to various Apple enthusiasts, analyts and the media the new iteration of the iPhone (iPhone 5) won’t be out till fall, September to be precise. There is a buzz that the production of this new iPhone will start in July and the phone will actually come out somewhere in September. There is also this speculation that the design for the new phone is more or less the same when compared with iPhone4. This new phone could have faster processor but nothing is sure about that as well. The Japanese earthquake could be one of the reasons for this delay as we all know how the electronic and automobile industry got impacted by that. Could we see the iPhone in the summer? Well I very much doubt that, coz I have seen this rumors going on for a while now. It started off with a rumor and slowly and gradually it becomes the reality and from the past experience I find no reasons why this rumor won’t be a reality.
So iPhone5 we'll see you in the fall (else Apple is planning to give everybody a big surprise, but that’s not their style).
So iPhone5 we'll see you in the fall (else Apple is planning to give everybody a big surprise, but that’s not their style).
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Paul Allen - The Idea Man
Paul Allen is one of the long lost and forgotten co-founders of the one of the biggest software companies in the world. 36 years ago, Paul along with Bill Gates co-founded Microsoft. Really? Oh yeah. Paul was the one who persuaded Gates to dropout from Harvard to start Microsoft. Paul and Bill share the same school in Seattle (Washington) and Paul was 2 years senior to Bill. They share the same passion for computers which eventually bring them together and Microsoft was born.
As of now Paul has no association with Microsoft and this might be the reason why many people does not know much about him. With time Paul and Bill’s view fall apart which eventually let Paul to leave Microsoft. Moreover Paul faced a near death experience when he was terminally ill with one of the rare form of cancers, but he survived and is now cancer free.
Paul’s new book called ‘Idea Man: A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft’ is out today. Paul Allen appeared on CBS 60 minutes (last Sunday), and this is one of the very few interviews he has ever given. In this interview Paul described his relationship with Bill Gates and described Bill as a gifted programmer and a tough taskmaster and a clever businessman. Paul did not stop here and portrays a very dark picture of Bill Gates. In Paul’s own words he called Gates abusive and at times described working with Gates as working in hell. Paul also brings out the fact that Bill Gates was a screamer and used to yell at people while making his point, he also commented that Bill did not gave up on the arguments that easily and at times these heated arguments between Gates and Paul took very ugly turn and continue for hours.
Paul felt cornered by the acts of Gates. Microsoft hired Steve Ballmer to help run the company and to make matters worse Paul came to know he had cancer and Bill is trying to dilute his shares in the company to nothing (this sounds familiar, watch Social Network and see how Zuckerberg along with Sean Parker diluted the shares of Eduardo Saverin who was one of the co-founders of Facebook). All this happened when Paul was in the middle of the radiation therapy and fighting cancer. Allen left Microsoft in 1983 and left his position at the Microsoft board in 2000. Paul sold around 68 million of shares (he still holds significant shares of Microsoft around 138 million). According to Wikipedia Paul Allen’s total net worth today is around $13 billion. Paul dropped down from the #3 spot on the world’s richest person list to #57 spot.
Paul is still unmarried and is described to be the man of many interests. Apart from computers and technology he is into sports and owns a NBA team and an NFL team, he is into traveling and he possessed a yacht (longer than a football field and has an attached submarine to it), he is into music, philanthropy, search for extra terrestrial life and Hollywood (he is one of the investors in the Dreamworks studio).
According to Paul he has no intentions on taking the revenge with Bill Gates by writing this book (Idea Man), all he wants to depict is to show how Microsoft came into existence and what all he goes through in making his dream come true. I guess ‘Idea Man’ should be the important piece in the history of technological developments with some dark shades. The ride won’t be easy, when someone is trying to change the face of technology. There are lots of sacrifices, harsh decisions, yelling & screaming and relationship constraints when you are discussing the very creation of something gigantic and massive as Microsoft. We are not in a position to judge the actions of Bill Gates and Paul Allen and their relationship with each other, all we know is Microsoft is the one responsible for making PC a house hold name, it is because of the efforts of the people like Gates and Allen you and me have computers everywhere and enjoy their exitence.
I guess ‘Idea Man’ should be a good and interesting read and it is on my reading list (whenever I get time). Till you grab your copy watch this CBS 60 minute video which is equally interesting and fun.
There is one more video of Gates & Allen (this is from the CBS as well).
As of now Paul has no association with Microsoft and this might be the reason why many people does not know much about him. With time Paul and Bill’s view fall apart which eventually let Paul to leave Microsoft. Moreover Paul faced a near death experience when he was terminally ill with one of the rare form of cancers, but he survived and is now cancer free.
Paul’s new book called ‘Idea Man: A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft’ is out today. Paul Allen appeared on CBS 60 minutes (last Sunday), and this is one of the very few interviews he has ever given. In this interview Paul described his relationship with Bill Gates and described Bill as a gifted programmer and a tough taskmaster and a clever businessman. Paul did not stop here and portrays a very dark picture of Bill Gates. In Paul’s own words he called Gates abusive and at times described working with Gates as working in hell. Paul also brings out the fact that Bill Gates was a screamer and used to yell at people while making his point, he also commented that Bill did not gave up on the arguments that easily and at times these heated arguments between Gates and Paul took very ugly turn and continue for hours.
Paul felt cornered by the acts of Gates. Microsoft hired Steve Ballmer to help run the company and to make matters worse Paul came to know he had cancer and Bill is trying to dilute his shares in the company to nothing (this sounds familiar, watch Social Network and see how Zuckerberg along with Sean Parker diluted the shares of Eduardo Saverin who was one of the co-founders of Facebook). All this happened when Paul was in the middle of the radiation therapy and fighting cancer. Allen left Microsoft in 1983 and left his position at the Microsoft board in 2000. Paul sold around 68 million of shares (he still holds significant shares of Microsoft around 138 million). According to Wikipedia Paul Allen’s total net worth today is around $13 billion. Paul dropped down from the #3 spot on the world’s richest person list to #57 spot.
Paul is still unmarried and is described to be the man of many interests. Apart from computers and technology he is into sports and owns a NBA team and an NFL team, he is into traveling and he possessed a yacht (longer than a football field and has an attached submarine to it), he is into music, philanthropy, search for extra terrestrial life and Hollywood (he is one of the investors in the Dreamworks studio).
According to Paul he has no intentions on taking the revenge with Bill Gates by writing this book (Idea Man), all he wants to depict is to show how Microsoft came into existence and what all he goes through in making his dream come true. I guess ‘Idea Man’ should be the important piece in the history of technological developments with some dark shades. The ride won’t be easy, when someone is trying to change the face of technology. There are lots of sacrifices, harsh decisions, yelling & screaming and relationship constraints when you are discussing the very creation of something gigantic and massive as Microsoft. We are not in a position to judge the actions of Bill Gates and Paul Allen and their relationship with each other, all we know is Microsoft is the one responsible for making PC a house hold name, it is because of the efforts of the people like Gates and Allen you and me have computers everywhere and enjoy their exitence.
I guess ‘Idea Man’ should be a good and interesting read and it is on my reading list (whenever I get time). Till you grab your copy watch this CBS 60 minute video which is equally interesting and fun.
There is one more video of Gates & Allen (this is from the CBS as well).
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Peter Jackson's 'The Hobbit' (1st Video blog)
Finally the shooting for Peter Jackson’s much awaited ‘The Hobbit’ begins last month. This project was not in good shape when Guillermo del Toro decided to move on from directing this 2 part epic and then there were some budget conflicts with the studio, but now everything has fallen into place and things are looking pretty good and on schedule.
I am very excited as Peter Jackson is one hell of a director and one of my favorites. The budget for the two part Hobbit movie (Part 1 – Dec 2012 & Part 2 - 2013) will be around $300 million, this exceeds the budget of making the ‘Lord of the Rings’ (LOTR) trilogy which stood at around $285 million. I was a bit disappointed when I came to know that Elijah Wood would not be reprising his role of Bilbo Baggins (as in the previous trilogy) and instead of Elijah the role has now been bagged by Martin Freeman. It sounds a bit illogical when you replace the actor from movie to movie primarily when the story and the script demands the same physical appearance the audience is used to seeing, it is something like whenever we hear ‘Terminator’ it reminds you of Schwarznegger because no other actor can replace him as the Terminator. Good news is Sir Ian Mckellen will play the role of Gandalf the gray and Andy Serkis will play Gollum/Sméagol like they have played in the LOTR trilogy. Peter Jackson has promised that these two movies will be full of fun, excitement, new creatures, new locations and tons and loads of CGI (computer graphics imagery).
Today Peter Jackson has released the first video-blog from the sets of ‘The Hobbit’ and he promised he will continue to do so. It is an excellent marketing stategy specially when a budget of $300 million is at stake and moreover it will keep the audience excited and engaged about the proceedings. After watching the video, I can assue you that something unfathomable is on the way. ‘The Hobbit’ is a prequel to the LOTR and is set 60 years before the LOTR saga. The story revolves around Bilbo Baggins the main protagnist and how with the help of his other friends he try to rescue the land of the dwarfs (The Kingdom of Erebor) which has been conqured by the evil dragon Smaug. Though based on the story ‘The Hobbit’ by J.R.R Tolkien the script of ‘The Hobbit’ (the movie) is not much different from LOTR, but I am pretty sure Peter Jackson will add his midas touch to it. The total earnings for the LOTR trilogy was something around $2.91 billion (world wide) and it seems Peter Jackson is all gaeared up to break his own record.
Gollum is back everybody and so is his and ours ……precioussss.
Enjoy and watch the video.
I am very excited as Peter Jackson is one hell of a director and one of my favorites. The budget for the two part Hobbit movie (Part 1 – Dec 2012 & Part 2 - 2013) will be around $300 million, this exceeds the budget of making the ‘Lord of the Rings’ (LOTR) trilogy which stood at around $285 million. I was a bit disappointed when I came to know that Elijah Wood would not be reprising his role of Bilbo Baggins (as in the previous trilogy) and instead of Elijah the role has now been bagged by Martin Freeman. It sounds a bit illogical when you replace the actor from movie to movie primarily when the story and the script demands the same physical appearance the audience is used to seeing, it is something like whenever we hear ‘Terminator’ it reminds you of Schwarznegger because no other actor can replace him as the Terminator. Good news is Sir Ian Mckellen will play the role of Gandalf the gray and Andy Serkis will play Gollum/Sméagol like they have played in the LOTR trilogy. Peter Jackson has promised that these two movies will be full of fun, excitement, new creatures, new locations and tons and loads of CGI (computer graphics imagery).
Today Peter Jackson has released the first video-blog from the sets of ‘The Hobbit’ and he promised he will continue to do so. It is an excellent marketing stategy specially when a budget of $300 million is at stake and moreover it will keep the audience excited and engaged about the proceedings. After watching the video, I can assue you that something unfathomable is on the way. ‘The Hobbit’ is a prequel to the LOTR and is set 60 years before the LOTR saga. The story revolves around Bilbo Baggins the main protagnist and how with the help of his other friends he try to rescue the land of the dwarfs (The Kingdom of Erebor) which has been conqured by the evil dragon Smaug. Though based on the story ‘The Hobbit’ by J.R.R Tolkien the script of ‘The Hobbit’ (the movie) is not much different from LOTR, but I am pretty sure Peter Jackson will add his midas touch to it. The total earnings for the LOTR trilogy was something around $2.91 billion (world wide) and it seems Peter Jackson is all gaeared up to break his own record.
Gollum is back everybody and so is his and ours ……precioussss.
Enjoy and watch the video.
Minority Report UI: Science fiction to reality
I remember how thrilled I was (and I am pretty sure you all were) when I watched Tom Cruise (in Minority Report) making those Kung Fu moves in the air while navigating through the files in front of the huge transparent display. Watching Tom juggle through those screens was sheer joy and seems some sort of alien technology. Minority Report is one hell of a movie and thanks to the vision of Steven Spielberg and his crew for making such an attempt and giving all of us the peak in the future. Spielberg has always been an egalitarian as far as science fiction is concerned and after ET there was no looking back for him. Time and again it is always fun to watch his master creations. After watching Minority Report I was imagining how long will it take for the human beings to convert this amazing UI (user interface) from science fiction to reality? When will you and I and everybody else, can make those moves in the air and things started to happen on the screen? Lots of such questions came to my mind and some random numbers crossed my brain. May be human beings can achieve and master this sort of technology within 10-15 years may be more. You know what, I was wrong in my calculations very wrong.
Minority Report got released in the year 2002 and I came to know yesterday that if things go as per the plan this sophisticated technology which is being called Spatial Operating Environment (SOE) will be introduced commercially starting Q4 this year, and if you are as excited as I am then we should be thankful to John Underkoffler one of the primary master minds behind this amazing and mesmerizing piece of technology. John who is an MIT veteran and he completed his PhD from MIT and then worked for MIT media lab for almost 15 years. According to John the research for SOE started like 3 decades back in MIT and slowly and gradually it has become what we have all seen in the movie Minority Report.
Spielberg hired John to design the user interface paradigm for the movie and this is how John came to LA and never left. John founded Oblong. This company is now actively working in refining the technology and giving it new meaning so that soon you and I can put our hands on it. g-Speak is the name of SOE’s commercial version due out in Q4 this year and it is currently being used in various high end industries like financials, data mining, aerospace, bioinformatics, geologic explorations, supply chain management and inventory. g-Speak is primarily used to crunch huge data sets containing myriad of information flowing through them. The commercial version will be something which can be helpful for any day to day computing something like sorting music files, photos, presentation and most importantly the ever growing world of gaming.
John along with his team gave this stunning TED talk (in Feb 2010) and the presentation is just jaw dropping. Watch out these videos to see how John and Oblong will change the future of UI. The idea to use the space all around us is just brilliant and the underlying technology is simply grandiose and mind blowing.
This second video is from the site of Oblong (the magic continues...)
Within the span of 8 years (from the release of Minority Report in 2002 to John’s TED talk in 2010) John and his incredible team has transformed the science fiction into reality and I am sure this is how we all will browse data and shape the the future of computing. Kudos to John and his resolute efforts. Hope we all will become our very own version of Chief John Anderton (the name of the character Tom Cruise played in Minority Report) and will give new meaning to this revolutionary technology. The journey from John Underkoffler to John Anderton has been very amazing and by all means has not ended, not yet.
"We're not finished until all the computers in the world work like this."
- John Underkoffler (…and we all are waiting John we are waiting)
Minority Report got released in the year 2002 and I came to know yesterday that if things go as per the plan this sophisticated technology which is being called Spatial Operating Environment (SOE) will be introduced commercially starting Q4 this year, and if you are as excited as I am then we should be thankful to John Underkoffler one of the primary master minds behind this amazing and mesmerizing piece of technology. John who is an MIT veteran and he completed his PhD from MIT and then worked for MIT media lab for almost 15 years. According to John the research for SOE started like 3 decades back in MIT and slowly and gradually it has become what we have all seen in the movie Minority Report.
Spielberg hired John to design the user interface paradigm for the movie and this is how John came to LA and never left. John founded Oblong. This company is now actively working in refining the technology and giving it new meaning so that soon you and I can put our hands on it. g-Speak is the name of SOE’s commercial version due out in Q4 this year and it is currently being used in various high end industries like financials, data mining, aerospace, bioinformatics, geologic explorations, supply chain management and inventory. g-Speak is primarily used to crunch huge data sets containing myriad of information flowing through them. The commercial version will be something which can be helpful for any day to day computing something like sorting music files, photos, presentation and most importantly the ever growing world of gaming.
John along with his team gave this stunning TED talk (in Feb 2010) and the presentation is just jaw dropping. Watch out these videos to see how John and Oblong will change the future of UI. The idea to use the space all around us is just brilliant and the underlying technology is simply grandiose and mind blowing.
This second video is from the site of Oblong (the magic continues...)
g-speak overview 1828121108 from john underkoffler on Vimeo.
Within the span of 8 years (from the release of Minority Report in 2002 to John’s TED talk in 2010) John and his incredible team has transformed the science fiction into reality and I am sure this is how we all will browse data and shape the the future of computing. Kudos to John and his resolute efforts. Hope we all will become our very own version of Chief John Anderton (the name of the character Tom Cruise played in Minority Report) and will give new meaning to this revolutionary technology. The journey from John Underkoffler to John Anderton has been very amazing and by all means has not ended, not yet.
"We're not finished until all the computers in the world work like this."
- John Underkoffler (…and we all are waiting John we are waiting)
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Paul Ceglia: Mark Zuckerberg's new nightmare
It seems there are lots of skeletons in the closet of Mark Zuckerberg. Yesterday there was the news that the Winklevoss twins (Cameron & Tyler) have lost the compensation appeal in the Facebook case. According to the Winklevoss twins the compensation they received which is around $65 million (in the form of cash & stocks) is not enough for their settlement with Facebook and Zuckerberg. We all know and it has been stated in the movie ‘The Social Network` that Facebook (or the so called idea on which Facebook is based) was originally conceived by the Winklevoss twins along with their business partner Divya Narendra and they hired Mark Zuckerberg to code up the site, but instead of coding the site for Winklevoss and Narendra, Mr. Zuckerberg steal the idea and code the site into what has now became Facebook.
In the latest developments which came out today, the person named Paul Ceglia is now claiming a 50% stake in the Facebook. Not 10 not 20, 50%. According to Paul he hired Mark in 2003 (who was 18 years old then) to work on a contract basis and gave $1000 to Zuckerberg for this work. Paul Ceglia who is not clean as it seems was a convicted felon, who has spend some time in the prison for fraud and larceny. Paul first filed the suit against Mark last summer but during that time he was not having solid evidences to support his case. Now Paul hired a top law firm DLA Piper and said to have emails which Mark wrote to Paul during their work engagement from 2003 to 2004. According to Paul, Mark had agreed to gave him 50% stake in the Facebook during the initial stages of the project and Mark Zuckerberg has also signed the contract stating the same. The detail of the emails between Mark & Paul were published in Business Insider and to some extent looks genuine.
Eduardo Saverin, Winklevoss twins along with Divya Narendra and now Paul Ceglia, one thing is for sure that there was some mystery behind the past of Mark Zuckerberg and the so called existence of Facebook. As claimed by Zuckerberg that the complete code of Facebook has been conceived by him and he had not steal the code from anybody. To me the idea for the Facebook or as a matter of fact any project or startup is more important (as compared to its execution or in this case coding), and according to the details we all know it seems that the idea of Facebook does not belong to Mark Zuckerberg.
DLA Piper is a well known and globally recognized firm and they won’t touch the case till they are convinced with the case depth and the evidences they’ll be presenting and supporting. If the claims made by Paul are proved to be true then he could get millions of dollars in settlement, if not, then the prison is waiting for him. Moreover why now, why has not Paul declared these emails long back, what kept him quiet for 7 long years? These are some of the points which can make this case weak and things can go in the favor of Mark Zuckerberg. Accoring to the media's specualtion, it seems Mark has to settle another law suit. I guess by now Mark should have become more proficient in handling such situations. Let’s see how this case turns out to be. By the looks of it seems to be a good case for DLA Piper and Paul Ceglia. Seems everybody is not a fan of Facebook, though they want to make an impression on the wall, the wall of fame and money.
In the latest developments which came out today, the person named Paul Ceglia is now claiming a 50% stake in the Facebook. Not 10 not 20, 50%. According to Paul he hired Mark in 2003 (who was 18 years old then) to work on a contract basis and gave $1000 to Zuckerberg for this work. Paul Ceglia who is not clean as it seems was a convicted felon, who has spend some time in the prison for fraud and larceny. Paul first filed the suit against Mark last summer but during that time he was not having solid evidences to support his case. Now Paul hired a top law firm DLA Piper and said to have emails which Mark wrote to Paul during their work engagement from 2003 to 2004. According to Paul, Mark had agreed to gave him 50% stake in the Facebook during the initial stages of the project and Mark Zuckerberg has also signed the contract stating the same. The detail of the emails between Mark & Paul were published in Business Insider and to some extent looks genuine.
Eduardo Saverin, Winklevoss twins along with Divya Narendra and now Paul Ceglia, one thing is for sure that there was some mystery behind the past of Mark Zuckerberg and the so called existence of Facebook. As claimed by Zuckerberg that the complete code of Facebook has been conceived by him and he had not steal the code from anybody. To me the idea for the Facebook or as a matter of fact any project or startup is more important (as compared to its execution or in this case coding), and according to the details we all know it seems that the idea of Facebook does not belong to Mark Zuckerberg.
DLA Piper is a well known and globally recognized firm and they won’t touch the case till they are convinced with the case depth and the evidences they’ll be presenting and supporting. If the claims made by Paul are proved to be true then he could get millions of dollars in settlement, if not, then the prison is waiting for him. Moreover why now, why has not Paul declared these emails long back, what kept him quiet for 7 long years? These are some of the points which can make this case weak and things can go in the favor of Mark Zuckerberg. Accoring to the media's specualtion, it seems Mark has to settle another law suit. I guess by now Mark should have become more proficient in handling such situations. Let’s see how this case turns out to be. By the looks of it seems to be a good case for DLA Piper and Paul Ceglia. Seems everybody is not a fan of Facebook, though they want to make an impression on the wall, the wall of fame and money.
Monday, April 11, 2011
iPad: The pinnacle of tablet market
Last week I blogged about the report from Gartner which gave us the evidence that Android will keep gaining the momentum in the coming few years as far as mobile OS is concern and today Gartner is back with the numbers for the tablet. According to the analysis, Apple will dominate the tablet market, atleast this is what Gartner is predicting. Slowly Android will gain the market share but not before Apple enjoys its glory. I will shutup now and let you take a peak at the analysis below. The numbers mentioned below are in thousands and upto the best possible precision (taking the decimals into consideration).
Friday, April 8, 2011
Innobell: This app is mightier than the army
The title of this blog seems some what distorted to the original saying “pen is mightier than the sword” but I guess Innobell is one such app which can make the difference to the old saying. In this smartphone era pen is replaced by the ever growing and hugely popular apps and why sword got replaced with the army we will see in this blog.
Shai Magzimof, 20 years old and fresh from high school is from Israel and he is the founder and one of the core developers of this app – Innobell. Shai along with 2 of his buddies, Chaim Kutnicki who is a Software Developer and a MIT graduate and Noam Modai who is also a devloper conceptualized this idea for Innobell which can become huge and got a good potential to share and use software in the smartphone world. Shai spent sometime with Y – combinator the seed funding organization for the startups and he knows how to pitch the idea for this app to the venture capitalists (VC).
In Israel the citizens are suppose to spend 3 years in the army soon after high school, so for Shai instead of pitching the idea for his app to any VC he first need to convince the Israeli army general. After communicating back and forth with the army personals one fine day Shai got the acknowledgement from the general saying that he is ready to meet Shai and would listen to him about his app and what exactly are his plans for the future.
Innobell is a very cool app which lets you share stuff while you are on a call or in the middle of texting. Suppose you call your friend and while on call with him you would like to share the video of the latest song from Kanye West which is on you tube. You can do that and both of you can enjoy the video of the song. Another good use will be sending money via paypall while on call with your friend and the transaction will be done instantaneouly. As of now the app is only available for smartphones running Android. Currently Innobell supports 9 add ons but Shai and his friends would like to open the API for any 3 party vendor to develop their own add ons for Innobell. The app is smart enough to know if your are calling from an Android phone to another Android and will thus enables the add ons on both the phones. This app currently does not support iPhone as the call menu facility is locked in iOS but Shai is confident that in future Apple will make some changes to the call menu and hopefully Innobell will run on iOS as well. Innobell got launched yesterday and more details can be found on the site of Innobell.
Check the video below to see Innobell in action.
So what happened to that meeting between Shai and the general? Well it seems the general got impressed and granted Shai to work on his app for another year and hopefully if things go well this will pay off in future for Shai and his friends. The Israeli army can wait but the smartphone industry is changing every minute and I guess the general took the wise and right decision. This is just awesome that people are realizing the fact that technology is the one thing which is more powerfull that any other thing or government and it had the potential to revolutionize the World. Technology had done that in the past and will continue to do so in the future.
On the lighter note, if you really want to see how pen is mightier than the sword than you need to watch this funny commercial from GEICO.
Shai Magzimof, 20 years old and fresh from high school is from Israel and he is the founder and one of the core developers of this app – Innobell. Shai along with 2 of his buddies, Chaim Kutnicki who is a Software Developer and a MIT graduate and Noam Modai who is also a devloper conceptualized this idea for Innobell which can become huge and got a good potential to share and use software in the smartphone world. Shai spent sometime with Y – combinator the seed funding organization for the startups and he knows how to pitch the idea for this app to the venture capitalists (VC).
In Israel the citizens are suppose to spend 3 years in the army soon after high school, so for Shai instead of pitching the idea for his app to any VC he first need to convince the Israeli army general. After communicating back and forth with the army personals one fine day Shai got the acknowledgement from the general saying that he is ready to meet Shai and would listen to him about his app and what exactly are his plans for the future.
Innobell is a very cool app which lets you share stuff while you are on a call or in the middle of texting. Suppose you call your friend and while on call with him you would like to share the video of the latest song from Kanye West which is on you tube. You can do that and both of you can enjoy the video of the song. Another good use will be sending money via paypall while on call with your friend and the transaction will be done instantaneouly. As of now the app is only available for smartphones running Android. Currently Innobell supports 9 add ons but Shai and his friends would like to open the API for any 3 party vendor to develop their own add ons for Innobell. The app is smart enough to know if your are calling from an Android phone to another Android and will thus enables the add ons on both the phones. This app currently does not support iPhone as the call menu facility is locked in iOS but Shai is confident that in future Apple will make some changes to the call menu and hopefully Innobell will run on iOS as well. Innobell got launched yesterday and more details can be found on the site of Innobell.
Check the video below to see Innobell in action.
So what happened to that meeting between Shai and the general? Well it seems the general got impressed and granted Shai to work on his app for another year and hopefully if things go well this will pay off in future for Shai and his friends. The Israeli army can wait but the smartphone industry is changing every minute and I guess the general took the wise and right decision. This is just awesome that people are realizing the fact that technology is the one thing which is more powerfull that any other thing or government and it had the potential to revolutionize the World. Technology had done that in the past and will continue to do so in the future.
On the lighter note, if you really want to see how pen is mightier than the sword than you need to watch this funny commercial from GEICO.
Thursday, April 7, 2011
HTC beats Nokia in market cap
It seems things are not going as per the plan for Nokia, first the chart in my earlier blog (Android will rule em all) shows Symbian biting dust and on the verge of becoming obsolete and on the second front the market cap of Nokia is now kicked down by another close competitor HTC. Market cap or capitalization is nothing but dollar equivalent of the amount of shares for a particular company in the stock market.
HTC is a Taiwan based company and is famous for making ostentacious models of the smartphones. Nokia on the other hand is a very big and very old player in the field of mobile phones and mobile telecommunication. Finland based Nokia has slowly lost the steam and as per the reports the shares of Nokia got shrunk by 19% whereas on the otherhand HTC shares have soared to 33%. RIM or Research In Motion stood at the 3rd place as far as market cap is considered. RIM which based in Canada is really trying hard to bounces back with the tablet (Playbook) it is planning to launch soon (Apr 19th).
Here is the table for your analysis. Though HTC leads Nokia by the slight margin as per this table, but I guess the HTC lead will be increased as Nokia still have a lot to do by getting rid of Symbian and utilizing Windows mobile platform to its advantage.
Android will rule em all
According to the latest predictions by Gartner (one of the world's leading information technology research and advisory company) Android’s mobile platform will dominate the smartphone market and lead way ahead of its competitors. Be it Apple’s iOS or the RIM, Android will be in a commanding position till 2015 grabbing the majority of the market share. Predictions for the current FY 2011 for Android is very impresssive around 38% where as iOS market share will be around 19% and RIM’s share will be something around 13% (The % mentioned are World Wide).
Surprisingly Gartner’s analyst seems to be in love with the concept that now Nokia is happy to run WP7 (Windows Phone 7) Windows mobile OS on their smartphones. For details please see the chart below. It is no surprise that the current Nokia mobile OS (Symbian) is a dying breed and will soon perish, but interestingly Windows phone will see some surge in the coming years as per the predictions by Gartner.
Here is the very sweet chart, courtesy Gartner (how can they calculate the figures to be such accuarte to the very decimal point is still a mystery to me).
Anyway Android as we all know is going strong and will continue to be open source in nature as per the latest comments by Andy Rubin who is the founder of Android and now works with Google, after Google acquired Android in August 2005. Andy was responding to the latest buzz that Google is taking long time to release the source code of the latest Android OS 3.0 codenamed Honeycomb to the developers and the developers are under the impression that Android will no longer be open source. In another incident the developers of the Android platform are protesting due to the fragmentation issues within Android, that will be make coding Android an uphill task. Anyway the numbers in the chart above predicts that there is no stopping for Android as of now or anytime soon.
Surprisingly Gartner’s analyst seems to be in love with the concept that now Nokia is happy to run WP7 (Windows Phone 7) Windows mobile OS on their smartphones. For details please see the chart below. It is no surprise that the current Nokia mobile OS (Symbian) is a dying breed and will soon perish, but interestingly Windows phone will see some surge in the coming years as per the predictions by Gartner.
Here is the very sweet chart, courtesy Gartner (how can they calculate the figures to be such accuarte to the very decimal point is still a mystery to me).
Anyway Android as we all know is going strong and will continue to be open source in nature as per the latest comments by Andy Rubin who is the founder of Android and now works with Google, after Google acquired Android in August 2005. Andy was responding to the latest buzz that Google is taking long time to release the source code of the latest Android OS 3.0 codenamed Honeycomb to the developers and the developers are under the impression that Android will no longer be open source. In another incident the developers of the Android platform are protesting due to the fragmentation issues within Android, that will be make coding Android an uphill task. Anyway the numbers in the chart above predicts that there is no stopping for Android as of now or anytime soon.
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Epsilon: Hackers strikes back
In the recent cyber attach Epsilon one of the Worlds largest internet marketing firm has been hacked and as a result the hackers got the email ids of millions of people. Epsilon worked as a third party marketing company with various major organizations and if you are the customer of these big organizations then chances are your email address is with these hackers. Major clients of Epsilon includes Citi, Marriott, Best Buy, Kroger, JP Morgan, Bank One & Walgreens.
Epsilon deals with major email marketing and claims to be number 1 in the World, sending around 40 billion emails annually. Seems the hackers hit the jackpot and yours and my email-mailboxes can be flooded with more junk emails (duh !!!).
I got 2 emails in just one day one from Marriott and another one from Citi teaching me what should I do in case of such breach (as if I don’t know any of this before). Once again hackers have proved that the security system is vulnerable and can be compromised easily. Hope there is no major information in the wrong hands at the right time.
These are the emails send to me by Marriott & Citi (atleast this the best they can do at this time).
------------------------------------------------------
April 4, 2011
Dear Marriott Customer,
We were recently notified by Epsilon, a marketing vendor used by Marriott International, Inc. to manage customer emails, that an unauthorized third party gained access to a number of Epsilon's accounts including Marriott's email list.
In all likelihood, this will not impact you. However, we recommend that you continue to be on the alert for spam emails requesting personal or sensitive information. Please understand and be assured that Marriott does not send emails requesting customers to verify personal information.
We take your privacy very seriously. Marriott has a long-standing commitment to protecting the privacy of the personal information that our guests entrust to us. We regret this has taken place and apologize for any inconvenience.
Please visit our FAQ to learn more.
Sincerely,
Marriott International, Inc.
------------------------------------------------------
Dear Customer,
Recently, Citi was notified of a system breach at Epsilon, a third-party vendor that provides marketing services to a number of companies, including Citi. The information obtained was limited to the customer name and email address of some credit card customers. No account information or other information was compromised and therefore there is no reason to re-issue a new card.
Because e-mail addresses can be used for "phishing" attacks, we want to remind our customers of the following:
Citi Cards uses an Email Security Zone in all of our email to help you recognize that the email was sent by us. Customers should check the Email Security Zone to verify that the email you received is from Citi and reduce the risk of personal information being "phished." To help you recognize that the email was sent by Citi we will always include the following in the Email Security Zone in the top headline portion of all our emails:
Your first name and last name
Last four digits of your Citi card account number
And recently to increase security, we have added your “member since” date located on the front of your card, where available.
Epsilon deals with major email marketing and claims to be number 1 in the World, sending around 40 billion emails annually. Seems the hackers hit the jackpot and yours and my email-mailboxes can be flooded with more junk emails (duh !!!).
I got 2 emails in just one day one from Marriott and another one from Citi teaching me what should I do in case of such breach (as if I don’t know any of this before). Once again hackers have proved that the security system is vulnerable and can be compromised easily. Hope there is no major information in the wrong hands at the right time.
These are the emails send to me by Marriott & Citi (atleast this the best they can do at this time).
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April 4, 2011
Dear Marriott Customer,
We were recently notified by Epsilon, a marketing vendor used by Marriott International, Inc. to manage customer emails, that an unauthorized third party gained access to a number of Epsilon's accounts including Marriott's email list.
In all likelihood, this will not impact you. However, we recommend that you continue to be on the alert for spam emails requesting personal or sensitive information. Please understand and be assured that Marriott does not send emails requesting customers to verify personal information.
We take your privacy very seriously. Marriott has a long-standing commitment to protecting the privacy of the personal information that our guests entrust to us. We regret this has taken place and apologize for any inconvenience.
Please visit our FAQ to learn more.
Sincerely,
Marriott International, Inc.
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Dear Customer,
Recently, Citi was notified of a system breach at Epsilon, a third-party vendor that provides marketing services to a number of companies, including Citi. The information obtained was limited to the customer name and email address of some credit card customers. No account information or other information was compromised and therefore there is no reason to re-issue a new card.
Because e-mail addresses can be used for "phishing" attacks, we want to remind our customers of the following:
Citi Cards uses an Email Security Zone in all of our email to help you recognize that the email was sent by us. Customers should check the Email Security Zone to verify that the email you received is from Citi and reduce the risk of personal information being "phished." To help you recognize that the email was sent by Citi we will always include the following in the Email Security Zone in the top headline portion of all our emails:
Your first name and last name
Last four digits of your Citi card account number
And recently to increase security, we have added your “member since” date located on the front of your card, where available.
Friday, April 1, 2011
Go(ogle) Larry Go(ogle)
Google won’t be same on Monday 4th April, when the company opens its door for its employees and to the World. In one of the major shifts in the company’s management hierarchy the legendary Eric Schmidt the current CEO of the company will step down and gave the baton to Larry Page. Now Larry who as we all know is one of the co-founders of this amazing company and he is all set to guide Google in its future operations.
Under the leadership of Eric Schmidt Google has outperformed the expectations of everybody and Google became one of the best internet companies in the World. During Eric’s 10 year term with Google as its CEO, Eric took the company’s revenue from $100 million to around $30 billion. The decision to hire Eric as the CEO was expressed as amazing and absolutely brilliant by Larry & Sergey.
Larry is ambitious, brilliant and amazingly confident when it comes to decision making but managing Google as its CEO will be added as another challenge into his list of extraordinary and impeccable things he has ever done. We have to see how the market will react to this change as I am pretty sure the investors are keeping their fingers crossed and every body wants Larry to outperform just like Google.
Under the leadership of Eric Schmidt Google has outperformed the expectations of everybody and Google became one of the best internet companies in the World. During Eric’s 10 year term with Google as its CEO, Eric took the company’s revenue from $100 million to around $30 billion. The decision to hire Eric as the CEO was expressed as amazing and absolutely brilliant by Larry & Sergey.
Larry is ambitious, brilliant and amazingly confident when it comes to decision making but managing Google as its CEO will be added as another challenge into his list of extraordinary and impeccable things he has ever done. We have to see how the market will react to this change as I am pretty sure the investors are keeping their fingers crossed and every body wants Larry to outperform just like Google.
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