Apple Versus The Rest Of the World

Several weeks before Apple is expected to weigh in with a multimedia device with 10-inch touch display, Hewlett-Packard unveiled the prototype of a slate-type computer during Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's evening address at the Consumer Electronics Show here.

The HP device, also touted as a multimedia device with video player, e-reader and multitouch, should be available this year. No name or price were announced.

It's "a beautiful little product," Ballmer said. He showed a demo of the slate PC running Kindle software for the PC, which made the slate look much like a Kindle but in full color.

Earlier, Lenovo introduced what it claims is the first hybrid PC for consumers with a detachable screen that can function as a multitouch slate tablet or a clamshell laptop.

"We are seeing the next wave of technology -- the convergence of the Internet, Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity, and its impact on everything from smartphones to netbooks to slate computers," says Rory Read, president of Lenovo.

Both had better be good, analysts caution, because Apple's tablet is expected to make a big splash. Apple has declined to comment on its plans.

The new entries should invigorate the middling $950 million U.S. market for tablets, says David Daoud, an analyst at IDC. Sales declined 25% in 2008, and were expected to drop again in 2009. "Apple could do for the tablet market what it did for smartphones with iPhone," Daoud says.

Indeed, Apple could help define a decade-old market interpreted as anything from a large phone to a Kindle or slate device, says Mike Stinson, vice president of marketing at tablet manufacturer Motion Computing.

Ballmer's second address as Microsoft CEO focused on new PCs, software and product momentum, most of it tied to Windows 7. He said PC sales jumped 50% the week of the Windows 7 launch on Oct. 22. Holiday PC sales surged 50%, year-over-year, largely due to Windows 7, according to market research firm NPD.

Ballmer was joined onstage by Robbie Bach, head of Microsoft's entertainment division. Project Natal, Microsoft's controller-free gaming and entertainment system for the Xbox 360, will be ready for the holidays in 2010. It lets gamers play through spoken commands and gestures.

Courtesy:USAtoday.com

Penstroke and Keystroke

While the power struggle has existed for quite long, it is in the near past that the keystroke has shown overpowering dominance to the pen stroke. While Magazines and Newspapers had once routed power from telegraphs and radios, it is time for another power transfer to take place. Today you can find several newspapers migrating to the digital realm. With Google expanding his access to many newspapers and Microsoft not trailing far behind, even news giants like Rupert Murdoch are facing the tremors.

After the recent digital boom,we can see that each keystroke is landing massive punches in the information sharing space. It is as if everyone has a space to share their thoughts. If Facebook can show a growth of more than 1000% this year and we can see new blogs and sites springing up daily, it leads to one conclusion- that the internet is spawning a new turn of information exchange. This form of communication (through online forums, web blogs etc) was always anticipated to be a major breakthrough but the response is overwhelming with major organizations promoting forums and sites. Online forums are promoted by organizations (eg Java by Sun, eclipse by IBM etc) so that the popularity of these forums increase the popularity of the product discussed in them. This form of advertisement, though very popular and successful, is isolated to a small group of people and the reach isn’t global yet.

Organizations across the globe are now unraveling the power of the Internet to boost their revenues. While organizations like Google and Microsoft have already made it big here, other product based organizations are utilizing the existing frameworks to generate additional revenue for their organizations. I am at present working in a pilot project in our company that uses web 2.0 and social networking sites for generating revenue. Even though we haven’t faced a lot of success, the results are encouraging as we are seeing continuous improvements in the online market space. We also find a nascent deal of activity from other organizations. Although not measurable in the vast internet, we occasionally brush each other during our online activities. It will be remarkable to see how this is taken up across organizations globally. One thing for sure, the Internet is a complex child of several brilliant human brains and it would be a dishonor to them if a simple solution be provided to beef up the commerciality of the internet.

Thank you and wishing all of you a Happy Pongal !!!

100% Natural

I have been in Karnataka for the past six months but it was just two weeks ago that i got the chance to explore this magnificent state. Having been in several uninteresting trips in other states of India, we had a ZERO expectation from this tour; that was the only disappointment for me in the entire tour.

“ The command that nature has over our heart is surprising, two completely contradicting forces created ; The calmness pervading in nature can be matched only by the turbulence pervading in our hearts ”

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Two days of nature in December’s cold climate is a treat for everyone. My fruit of the basket would be Talacauvery and Madikeri. The beauty of the Coorg mountain was enhanced by the colorful girls who played and danced in the streams and dew-filled green meadows. The Talacavery is exceptionally beautiful in the early mornings as we get to see the revelry of the mist. In a couple of minutes, the mist brings about so many visionary changes to the landscape that it delights photographers and others equally. It covers all god’s creations with a translucent white blanket and even the most clouded of hearts obtains clarity for a couple of moments. As the mist fades from view, it regains form in our hearts allowing us to continue our mindless struggle

I shouldn’t forget the most sarcastically impressive place in the trip – Nagerhole National Park. No regrets on not being able to see many wild animals as we got to see a lot of domesticated wild animals( oxymoron is a must here). We got  to see a overly civilized kind of deer (breed i am unfamiliar with + photo added) which would eat chips and bajjis but wouldn’t accept grass or straw. There were other relatively wild deers and shy elephants that we encountered in our safari trip. They claim that there are panthers there and as i heard the standard answer as to when they saw them was 3 days ago.

Overall this trip was excellent and is a must go for everyone who has a weekend and a 1500 rupees to spare. I hope our guide is the permanent guide of this trip as he had a soothing voice and an amazing vocabulary of some language he spoke ( I think he mentioned Welcome and Ladies and Gentlemen somewhere in his loquacious speech)

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Dreams on fire 24x7

There is a stark difference in me in the past few months. I cannot discern what the change is but i can feel it within me. I feel that i have to delve deeper into myself so that i can find out the reason.

I stood thinking for a while and then stopped standing and took a seat. After some time , I felt sitting doesn’t stimulate my brain and took out my headsets and put some Hip-hop music(don remember the name) and lying down started to think about this topic at hand. I thought about it for a maximum of two seconds and switched my brain on to several other topics that usually fill up any youth. Thinking on such lines, I started delving deeper into the realms that i didn’t want to permeate but was forced to as i fell deeper into it.

Jerking off, I again steadied myself and called on to say that i had a task at hand and shouldn’t stop at any chance. I started thinking about the topic of the change and the dreams started off once again. There she was standing , in a pleasant day with sunshine pouring over her. Yes, Indeed, she was a splendid sight. Dressed in Orange and Black, there she stood ready to go. I felt that i was the luckiest man on the world for getting her. I mean how many people dream about her every day and night but here i was holding my palms over her.

It was exactly three months since i met her and decided at that moment she was mine to take home. However, she was adamant on staying there for a few more days before coming with me. I just love my new bike Apache RTR FI 160.

I bought the bike three months ago . I decided on my first try itself that she was perfect for me and was what i wanted. I had to consider the fact that i had to shell out 70K for this beauty, but who would go for the beast when you had such a beauty. I bought it 2 days later and after another couple of days, she was officially mine(registered in my name). I have already crossed the 1800km mark and she was been relentless in her delivery till date( lets keep our fingers crossed).

I have this peculiar habit that whenever i have a experience, i like to share it with the sea. As it is generally possible due to proximity of the sea from my house, I took her for a spin and showed her off to the envious public. I took her down the ECR and completely forgot about the rest of the world . At that moment, it was only me and her. I was in cloud 9. This feeling of ecstasy was short-lived as i had to come back by an hour.

On a fine tuesday morning , I lay fidgeting in my bed thinking of what kind of atrocities they were committing against her. Powerful she was, yet beastly they were. I decided that the tension was too much to bear and called up the beasts on what was her status and they said she was finally there. Happy with the news, I took a bus to KPN Travels and awaited her arrival. On the back of the truck, I saw her tied and gagged up. Worrying about the safety of her vital parts, I checked her over. Happy with the results, I paid the guys for transportation from Chennai to Bangalore.

Her first service is over now and it would be due in a month for her second service. We have had a rollicking time till date. She is a wonderful social animal, I must accept. She creates the most wierdes

t situations for the owner. If some stranger approaches her, she knows that her owner will look after her and would sit smilingly and there would be one fuming owner censuring some poor chap who just came to have his hair duo checked. However, she completely believes her owner’s judgment and loves the people he does.

The Big FIght IBM Google Cisco Microsoft

I had recently gone through some market studies that attest the dynamic nature of the markets. The World's premier organizations are groveling all over the floor in an attempt to dominate one another. One slip and we can say good bye to that company. Being in one of the companies, I can see the intense level of competition and the volatility of trust that exists between them

A wonder in all this is that it is still unbelievable that they co-exist in this turmoil. Apart from this regular feature, there are the recessions to also look out for. All companies invest into risk so that they obtain maximum dividends from it. There is a saying in Finance which goes " The more risk you are ready to take, the more money that you can earn" and we can see the the major organizations ready to invest greater percentages in risk . But before we take the literal meaning of risk, we got to understand that there is no risk that companies jump into the well without knowing its depth. The only concern that is present is whether they should or should not take these calculated risks. The benefits are innumerable but they do have their shortcomings. One major risk that had spurned this recent recession was the suprime crisis. Lets discuss that later on another post but coming back to our mainstay topic.

A typical example of such rivalry is between IBM,Google and Microsoft. Now, we have found that Cisco also wants to join this elite group with its new product WebEx Mail.It iss a hosted e-mail application that lets customers move from Microsoft Exchange but continue to access e-mail through an Outlook client if they desire. Enterprise Collaboration Platform is a hodgepodge of tools with which companies are already familiar, including team spaces and communities, profiles, a corporate directory, and social networking tools. Cisco also unveiled a Show and Share video app and a tagging solution called Pulse. This is coincidental to google's recent unvealing of Google Apps Sync which allows people to shift to Google Apps using either their own interface or that of Microsoft Outlook.

Cisco is pitting Enterprise Collaboration Platform as an alternative to IBM Lotus Connections and wiki platforms from MindTouch, Socialtext, Jive Software, Awareness and others that have similar tools. Show and Share has promise, given Cisco's enterprise video chops.Yet Google has Google Video for businesses, and MindTouch offers an extension to Kaltura to offer video for enterprises. Pulse is nice, but IBM Lotus Connections has offered its Dogear bookmarking tool for a few years now. According to Cisco, collaboration world has been focusing on documents and PCs within the confines of the company firewall. He argued that Cisco is bringing video collaboration not just to PCs, but to phones and mobile devices using telepresence between corporate firewalls.

So, while previously Cisco focused on letting employees within big businesses work together efficiently, Cisco is applying its network security provisions to its collaboration software to let colleagues, partners, suppliers and customers work together across their firewalls.This "intercompany collaboration" is the theme for Cisco's Collaboration tool. Pulse, he said, is a search app that analyzes network data in motion, looking at who is talking to whom to "learn the social graph" associated with corporate networks. Pulse, for example, indexes Web surfing behavior and YouTube videos and tags them based on social relevance. They can tag information and assign it social relevance based on the info flowing through the network, don't have to be in the application either on the server or on the client.

Fair enough. So how is Show and Share different? Cisco said the app was built with enterprise scale from the start.Unlike Google video for enterprise and others of its ilk, Show and Share is on-premises, not hosted. It also boasts several security permission levels, from department to workgroup to companywide.There is also one-click recording from telepresence solutions like Cisco WebEx Connect, Cisco's Flip consumer digital camera or smartphones. Users can create chapters or upload a transcript, making clips more production-ready.This makes editing much easier and is a departure from apps such as Adobe Premier. Finally, Show and Share can work with enterprise content distribution networks from Akamai.This means large businesses can push the video clip into a branch, so that when people press play, they can watch the video without impacting the wide area network because the clip is local.

Pulse and Show and Share sound like unique products, but they also seem as if they were meant to work together: social tagging with enterprise video. Pulse and Show and Share, while not currently interoperable in their first release, will be integrated to work together.

Consumers will eagerly wait as their choices are multiplying with newer technologies pouncing upon each other to gain the upper hand in the market. This is a good time for a company to invest in one of the products as all of them are eager to sell fast to prove their unquestionable dominance..