Off the top of my head

New Internet Rules: Privacy does'nt matter ( AOL blunder)

2006-08-08T18:34:00.000-07:00

After my last post, i had almost decided to put-off this blog. ( more on that later)
But AOL blunder is too much for me to stomach.

NYT reports AOL made a blunder by making public the search queries of users.
OK they realized it. Fine.
But at the bottom of article there are comments/trolls which makes me puke.

"I don’t think there is a real privacy concern,” Mr. Linden said, “especially in a day when we see millions of credit card numbers leaked by one group and millions of Social Security numbers released by another government agency.”
The uproar, he said, would hurt university researchers trying to explore new types of searches who did not have access to data about users.

Do they consider real online people as frogs in the laboratory, on whom they can dissect as they wish?

Google, about which i have privacy concern, seems like angel considering these thugs.
There are few who realize this, but for masses, its going to be too late.

Mumbai Blast: Inept Government. What people should do?

2006-07-13T19:21:00.000-07:00

Last time when the parliament was attacked, india moved its forces. It costed millions of dollars. For india and its neighbour. Will such a terrorist act happen again? I am sure, they will think hard before doing it. (because it costs our neigbour too)

For past 10-12 years, time and again bus/trains/markets gets bombed ritually. And what goverment does. "We salute the bravery of our citizens". What ?

First things first. Say, If you are trusted to guard a small fortune. But it gets looted time and again. What would your boss do ? If it were a bank, forget the boss, the whole bank goes down with you (if it happens the second time). But here, its human life we are taking about !
The terrorist does his job(sarcasm). What is our police, intelligence, leaders doing ? They say, you have to solve the underlying problem. Fine, but before that they need to stop something like this happening. Today its, kashmir. Tomorrow it could be assam , reservation and some day may just that "some-guy-having-a bad-day". So, are we going to wait till all problems get solved? I bet, there would be no-one left.

With heavy heart, i say, if you are a indian, living in big metro, then its "each one for himself and god-for-everyone". Trust history, it makes no difference, for governement, whether you get bombed or its the dog on the street. But its our life. Our family/friends and dear ones. They trust you with thier protection.

So what we do?

Change the government? (But the previous government was no better.)

Make you own societies? Hire private protection. They make sure, the bus/train you get in is safe. Use markets, with video surviellance and trusted private protection.
( Seems too extreme and costly)

Emmigrate to other countries. ( Easy way out. But you can't take everyone)

What other practical choices do we have?

Colossal Business Disaster: How Intel Burnt $ 5Billion into $600 Million

2006-07-01T05:59:00.000-07:00

Embedded.com reports that intel invested around $5 Billion dollar into the business that it sold to marvell for $600 million this week. That makes it one of the worst business disasters of all time.

How can a big and successfully company, full of so many bright/talented people do this ?

I guess, only a "big and successfully company" can do such a thing. Intel had so much success on its side, that its easy to see that it got carried away.

While harvesting dollars from desktops, intel saw the mobile/handheld market coming. A company who's executives monopolists desktop business, tried to extend the same philosophy over embedded market. It made huge investments and tried to buy into the market.

And the results:
From the baseband processor market of $6.5 Billion(mobile-phones), intel last year had revenue of $8 Million ( that's 1 %) !

I believe, there is a lot of heated-thinking going inside intel and this decision is a strong step towards "moving on". Intel is at the forefront of many upcoming -technologies which have great future. And so does intel.

And there are lessons learnt for everyone. Big-or-Small, whenever we venture into unknown domains, do it with utmost caution.

This is one of those business-stories, which many of us will remember for long time to come.

How will collaboration shape future jobs

2006-06-29T05:40:00.000-07:00

Why do people form companies to work ?
Why do we work?

Forming a company, gives a focus to all activities. Within a company, it becomes a need to collaborate towards more productivity. This creates better products and more profits. Win- win for all.

The new web2.0 resurgence has given a boost towards more collaboration. delicious/digg/myspace/youtube are pulling more and more users towards this activity.
Initially people are collaborating for fun.
In times to come, this activity will spill over from fun towards productivity. When people realize that its easy to collaborate with like-minded over the network and create products more efficiently, the concept of 'office' job will change.
The tools/ways and people to do this are not there, at present. But this future seems not too far to me.

In the political-landscape, we have evolutionised from monarachy/communism/socialism/ to a democratic setup. Similiar evolution in socio-finanacial landscape is long overdue ?

When will web2.0 do a safe landing on my desktop ?

2006-06-25T08:55:00.000-07:00

Web 2.0 has become synonymous with desktop like look and feel on browser.
But , for a true desktop feel, desktop to network transition should be made smooth. I mean, browser should manage cache of my important web2.0 services and user should connect to network only to check/post new contents. Any application doing that ?

I believe, in times to come the browsing/web/desktop experience will significantly change.
To start with, don't you feel centralised Wikipedia doesn't make sense. Distributed/Unassociated computing is coming. Is it ?

US Agency Datamines You, Are you Surprised ?

2006-06-10T04:46:00.000-07:00

""New Scientist Magazine has discovered that Pentagon's National Security Agency, which specialises in eavesdropping and code-breaking, is funding research into the mass harvesting of the information that people post about themselves on social networks. And it could harness advances in internet technology - specifically the forthcoming "semantic web" championed by the web standards organisation W3C - to combine data from social networking websites with details such as banking, retail and property records, allowing the NSA to build extensive, all-embracing personal profiles of individuals.""

Check out the full story here

I am not surprised. All this information is laying so open, that anyone can do it. What is the issue then, if that happens to be NSA.

The fault is of the no-data-privacy policy over the web.

Embedded Chip makers Seeing a Boom ?

2006-06-10T04:08:00.000-07:00

Latest announcement from Nvidia just strengths the feeling that embedded chip makers will soon experience a booming market

"Nvidia posted record revenue of US$2.38 billion for its latest fiscal year through Jan. 29, and is on track to generate close to US$3 billion in its current fiscal year, Rob Csongor, vice president of corporate marketing, told Reuters on Friday.

He said some of the best growth was coming from mobile products such as cellphones, as well as new computers being outfitted for 3D graphics for use with Microsoft Corp.'s new Vista operating system due out late this year."

Weak Forecasts from Intel had led the suspicion for a slowdown. But it seems, growth in desktop market is narrowing and the handled-device market is witnessing strong growth.

Hack any network using USB Drive

2006-06-09T08:35:00.000-07:00

I have never realized how easy it is to hack any network , until i read this ,

Steve Stasiukonis of Secure Network Tech , first bought some USB drives, infected it with trojans to email passwords/info to him. He then scattered the Drives across the company parking area, for employees to find them. All the USB drives collected by employees were inserted into the PC.

He says, "Of the 20 USB drives we planted, 15 were found by employees, and all had been plugged into company computers. The data we obtained helped us to compromise additional systems, and the best part of the whole scheme was its convenience. We never broke a sweat. Everything that needed to happen did, and in a way it was completely transparent to the users, the network, and credit union management."

Wow !

Am i the only one getting paranoid on Web Privacy ?

2006-06-08T07:38:00.000-07:00

Open Source Software advocates give reason for there stand that, if one day M$ takes its ball back home then what will you do ?

Now open source tools are powering many of the popular sites. Everyone can have his own ball to play with. But, the question has now turned around.

What about the data that these sites are collecting ? Who owns that ?

I know people sticking to there mail accounts for past 10 years. The data in those accounts are priceless. Yet, these guys have no backup's or archives. Same on online albums/music collections/documents.

Web 2.0 promises lots of carrots to average Joe. But Joe does not realize that its actually a plan to cage him. What if the player takes the ball-back-home ?

What is the Web 2.0 Data Privacy Policy?

Coming Soon: Gadget revolution ?

2006-06-07T06:35:00.000-07:00

Can you see a gadget revolution coming?

Web is sprouting with cool applications which make browser as the desktop. Once user gets into the habit of using the browser for most of his daily routines, the average desktop becomes obselete. You can as well run the browser on a handheld device.

Intel sees this.

Intel is shifting its gear from desktop oriented processors to more embedded machines. There will be growth in either heavy-duty processors (servers/gaming machines) or power-saving embedded ones.

But, this time there's no Microsoft/Dell to save intel. Gadgets market has huge competition from big and small vendors.

And that's when, companies are forced to innovate. Currently, there's no competions to mobile phones in the gadget area.

There's a huge untapped potential in this area waiting for the next Intel's/M$ to exploit.

IBM investing $6 B in india, but where ?

2006-06-06T17:16:00.000-07:00

Recent announcement from IBM on investing $6 B in india is really astonishing.

BigBlue has its research facilities in india, but its major focus is on outsourcing. IGSI. Even Top 3 Outsourcing vendors Wipro/Infosys/TCS together do not add to $6 B in revenue. So what's IBM planning to do.

Are they building a FAB in india? Are they boosting there research facilities? Outsourcing does not, by any means, warrants this huge investment. Or its just a gag !

( I am not too optimistic about huge research spending in india. Top indian talent ( students/teachers) jump to US. The kind cutting edge research IBM does (robotics/nanotech/quantum-computing etc ) requires cream -of-cream talent. )

Beware of sites which requires login as Email ID

2006-06-05T21:51:00.000-07:00

There are quite a few sites which require the login as email ID. Eg bloglines.

When typing in the password after the email ID, inadvertently we put our original mail password.
However honest the intention of the site, making users spell out there original password is bad idea. If there had been a standard for login form, this would have been a strict No-No.

Many people use their corporate mail ID's to register. This is even worse. The whole corporate security is blown apart with this mistake.

e-mail is the most personal online application. It's no-one's business to play tricks on it.

2006-04-15T19:25:00.000-07:00

Apple strategy

Let me connect some points:
1) Apple has a beautiful OS and diehard fans. There numbers are miniscule.
2) Ipod 'windows' the mp3 market. (It does this not because of lack of choice but with elegant design)
3) Itunes is the largest online music library.
4) Home entertainment is set to pick up, with PC centric digitalization moving to TV centric digitalization. (The underlying theme for this change is having fun)
5) Apple has unveiled its plans to place it's box besides the TV, with a remote.
6) From desktop, people are moving online. Google /yahoo are driving this.
7) Google/Yahoo go for communities. Especially young people.
8) youths gather around music/fun. Youths love Ipod-apple.

Apple does bootcamp to run windows on Mac upon intel platforms

Apple no longer fears $icrosoft on this, because the context of battle has changed.
$icrosoft kept users because of office/hw-interoperability/cost.
But when most people already own one-or more PC, they won't prefer that PC to sit besides the TV as fun-box. Instead it has to be as cool as Ipod.

Apple need not even worry about the Xbox effect.
The more mkt-ing pushes it as game-box. The more it looses charm as apple-killer. (It could be Sony-killer though).
$icrosoft understands the move towards online application and towards that fun box. As always it would try to do something which is little bit of both.
Since the market for both these are in nascent-stage, it stops it's release of vista. (My take, vista is not delayed not because of things-to-do, but rather because need-to-know-what-to-do. By the way, this way designing 4 years in advance and then developing is outdated)

It would be intresting to see how little-bit-both works.

Apple choice is tricky,it seems. But Steve jobs is a master at it.
From a-million different mp3 solution he pulled out a Ipod-trick. This is though easier in comparison.
Apple has now chance to become the gadget of choice in living room. A million companies crowd there products there. Most of them adding no value, rather just pricking on competitors limitations.

Another Trick unfolds. Have Fun .

2006-04-14T05:21:00.000-07:00

Is doing a $icrosoft on net possible ? Highly unlikely.

Say the most likely things I do on net are :
search,read news, chat, mail, online forums.
using tools : photo-sharing, store-favorites,video sites

Of course, all these sites neatly log all my information and details.

Now , Imagine a situation where all these are on a single company/enterprise site.
Scary, isn't it?

But the corporations don't get it. $icrosoft did it, because the software runs on a box under total-user control. If ever I feel scared, I'd burn it.

On net, the safe bet for me is to use independent tools. Two particularly lethal combination's to avoid are:
1) email - any of my favorite tool
2) search - any of my favorite tool

Visualize yourself as a manager of all these fellas (tools). If these fellas try to group together under one , then sure it's a signal for impending trouble.

As if the experience with $icrosoft was not enough, corporations are having dreams of repeating it online.

What they smoking?

2006-04-13T08:33:00.000-07:00

what's happening to my best buddy ?
Google.

Google is the perfect tool. (2001)

But last few years, there's so much happening around it, that i am puzzled and dismayed.

Google was the perfect tool:
When using it, it did not reflected its priorities.
It gave its neat response to my queries. Whether i am at in LA, Brussels or Singapore it abstracted all that is personal. I never felt it as a American-product but rather as Computer-Science marvel.
Other day I read its CEO's remark. "When we look at myspace, its interesting. That's where we are going". That says it all.

Please leave google alone.
There is so much to do in search that I believe it will keep google busy for the most part of century. But where are they moving the ship ?

To Personalization and community.

In next few years, I see the halo around google becoming more americanised. As they go for personalization I can see the people in other parts of world distancing from google and joining there own communities.

Google was trying hard to distance its gmail based solution from its search tool. But with login link and personalized search, it crossed the limit.

The worst that happened was google news. How could they do this? Google news displays a blatant preference for US view. With a cursory glance on gnews, I know the preferences of google.

In between there was blog/jobs/video/classifieds/ ... and now calendar

It looks like a company of greedy-hungry people trying to put finger in every pie.
Of course, they have to make money. But at the cost of my favorite tool was never a good choice.

Waiting for the next pure search only site, which just searches and does not 'save'.

2006-04-12T09:28:00.000-07:00

Just wondering, how much attention do companies really pay on 'design'.

Some designs are not so evident (backend tasks). But, that which is thrust on users face has to be aesthetically pleasant. Smooth backend design adds to the sweet sensual feeling.

Backend design is more engineering design and front end is artistic.

Some of the cool design coming out recently has been from CE industry. The elegant style of Ipod, the smooth looks of popular phones. Some very careful attention has gone into them, which makes them a work of art.

Recently, I have seen few house interiors having elegant design. Some fine resturants.

Some great movies. Some amazing music.

But i am still searching for that perfect online example.

Some of popular sites are so nasty (say yahoo) that i wonder, how would the guy in his elegant house , listining to beautiful music feels about browsing .

The Online technologies are still focused mainly on being tools. But some of the stuff is old enough to qualify for major design uplift.

So whats stopping them?
Where are the michelangelo's carving there first peices ?

I am interested because its the sensual touch that lasts. As mortal beings, we don't change our sense of beauty often. We even feel the pleasure thinking about them , even when they are no more.

Its so natural to us and so begs more attention.