Nike and Google's Venture.

For companies like Nike,Addidas,Coco-Cola,Pepsi..brand building eats up more of their revenues and ofcourse their market value depends upon the brand value. It won't be surprising if they enter the internet stream to build their brands..And now Nike partenered with Google to form an Online community Joga.com (Joga is about "Joga Bonito" -- Portuguese for "play beautiful" ) akin to Myspace.com. It's not yet another one for all internet users, but for only Soccer fans...where they can share their passion about soccer by uploading fotos, videos and accessing their favorite athletes from Nike.

Here Google also eyes it as an opportunity to enter into social community space. Though it acquired Orkut, it doesn't serve as an healthy competitor to Myspace and Google hopes that Joga will have some answers.Once Joga makes itself big, then you can expect similar ventures for Basketball, Baseball,cricket,F1 and it goes on.

For you to be a member, it's the same Google way. you should be referred by an existing member so that you can get an invite else you should wait for the invitation from Joga.

Let's see how Google or Nike benefits from Joga!

Category: Business!, Technology!
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When Ad is the king.....

As I was crawling in the net, I stopped at this page where I saw an unusual way of displaying the ad..though its is not static, it flips as you point the mouse over the corner of the page. Category : Technology!
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Microsoft to offer free parental Web monitoring .

Microsoft Corp. said on Monday it plans to include a free service to help parents control and monitor what their children are doing online in its upcoming Windows Live offering of Web services. Read more

Category: Technology!
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100 Fastest-Growing Tech companies.

Business 2.0 has listed the 100 fastest growing tech companies and expectedly the list was dominated by US. Only five Non-US companies from Five countries made into the list and an Indian Company Infosys found a place in the top ten! In terms of Job growth,Infosys is 12th with growth percentage of 43.4%.


The top ten :

1. Ceradyne (Manufacturing, Military)
2. J2 Global Communications (Business Services)
3. Clinical Data (Scientific Instruments)
4. Ventana Medical (Medical)
5. Comtech Telecommunications (Telecom, Military)
6. Electronics Boutique Holdings (Retail)
7. Biosite (Medical)
8. Infosys Technologies (Business Services)
9. Cognizant Technology Solutions (Business Services)
10. Websense (Software)

Though there were many unknown names in the list, I found some brands here..
14. eBay
16. Apple
21. Qualcomm
44. Adobe systems
54. McAfee
58. Perotsystems
77. Dell

Category : Survey!, Technology!
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Know about RFID!

Won't you feel better, if your Search time reduces or if you get the results faster?...I didn't mean the Google Search in the web world..it's about your search for ID cards, some old letters, books and the missing pair of the socks in your home. If you were waiting for this, then welcome to the world of RFID-Radio Frequency Identification.


RFID is a small object which can be embedded in any physical object, animals, plants etc...This RFID can store information about the products to which it is embedded. If it's a perfume, then the Tag will have information about the price, Manf.date, perfume flavor, the company's name and other pertaining information. If you find this something similar to Barcode, then have this... RFID will be able to communicate by transmitting and receiving signals which can be read from longer distance even when it is mobile.This allows you to track the product even if it is away from your sight. And that's why I told that you can search the missing pair of your socks!!! All the pertinent information will be available in an erasable computer memory present in the RFID tag. With the help of the RFID reader you can transmit the signal thereby activating the RFID Tag.Once its enabled you can read and write the information in the RFID tag. Don't worry about the Size, it is thinner than a paper and this makes the job easier to embed it under your skin.The information available in the tag can be read by the RFID reader.This will enable the retail shop owners to have their products' data to be stored in the computer database. And this database will not be just serving as a storage house.. instead it will help the Retailers, Shop owners to deduce a trend from their customers... like they can track what flavor of perfume is highly sold in a particular season and it will enable the retailer to order that flavored perfume more in the specific season. I remember reading in Friedman's 'World is flat' about Retail Giant Wal-mart's heavy investment in RFID. The good news is that RFID has expanded its horizons beyond the retail space. This RFID is considered as a step in connecting the physical world with the web world. Analysts compare this industry to the PC industry in the early 80's and were excited about its future.
Src:Avio

RFID is being used in Securities. The most notable example of this is Lauren Scott California, the apparel maker that raised eyebrows last year with its plan to create pajamas embedded with RFID tags to protect children from kidnappers. Parents would need to set up RFID readers around their home, creating a perimeter that the child can't pass without a parent knowing. Another Exciting area is in augmenting the customer's expediency, by means of 'Contactless payment' system.

You can't just ignore this technology as 'Just another one' which just makes a grand debut and bursts later. Global Retailers have mandated their suppliers to use the RFID technology aided by global standards. This approach has allayed the doubt over its presence in a broader array.

Ok..lets see the other side! There were concerns about the privacy of the customers who buy the goods with RFID. This may be a threat as the details of the customers can be read by any RFID readers. But legislators are advised to take care of privacy concerns by de-activating the RFID by the customer as and when needed.


What people say:

"We are heading toward a world in which billions of networked objects and sensors will report their location, identity and history" - European Union Commissioner

"RFID could solve the mystery of missing socks and that's a very important contribution to society" - Vint Cerf, Google's chief internet evangelist

"Privacy and security we have to guarantee 100%" - Zygmunt Mierdorf Metro AG.

When I use RFID to search my other pair of socks, will you call me as a lazy guy?

Categoty : Technology!
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Can Live beat Google?

Microsoft has unveiled its 'Windows Live Search', ofcourse the Beta version.This is being launched after Microsft announced some months earlier about its Upgraded search that may compete Google and even may overtake it!.

Some notable features in Live are:Search preview,Scoping tools, Infinite(?!) scroll and the image searches which allow you to preview the full image without leaving the results with Infinite Scrolling and the Feed search.

If Microsoft thinks that it can beat Google in search, then these can be the advantages:
1) User friendly name --> Live.com. I have a notion that the 'Google' is always better than 'search.msn.com' and 'search.yahoo.com'.Now, 'Live' the name is cool!
2) Infinite scrolling - You will have all the results in a single page and thus preventing 'Next page' clicks.
3) The customized home page is the same as Google, 'Live' can be ahead of google...if it finds a solution to organize multiple feeds in the Customized home page. I am perplexed with my Google homepage!
4) The Infinite scrolling for Image search will have its scoring points.(Along with thumbnail-image-sizing customization and filmstrip view )
5) Readily available feed search is a good idea..though usage of feed searches are comparitively low.
6) Macros search will have its own advantages, especially for frequent netizens.

Microsoft has accepted that it should improve its relevancy in the search results.
Also, they are not expecting a great turnover in the search engine market share due to the available features!

But when Google replicates Live features, then it could be a 'Back to Zero' game for MSN. For Live to happen with its new features, Microsoft has sacrificed the speed of the search.We should wait and see whether speed really matters!

But when I tried Live's News, Google is far far better.Google scores in organizing the news in a better manner.But at end of the day...You must give me the right results with a few or almost no scrolls!!!

Category: Technology!
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Pak Mood.

After so much of rains and thunders 'Before,duirng and after' Bush' visit to India and Pakistan....Pakistan is really feeling the heat on Bush' way of handling their country. Though Bush said that, he is touring India as a friend of Pakistan and viceversa...it didn't happen that way. The visit was clouded around Nuclear deal and which didn't happen in Pak.
A Pak leader said "Bush was here for night stay and rest.. The American President only attended a banquet, hosted in his honour by President Pervez Musharraf and returned".
But though it was in Bush interests in signing the deal...he can't ignore Pak after his long travel..afterall he need Bin-laden.

Morever Pak media is clearly critizing Bush that he tilts towards India and Pakistan is being slowly ignored.

Does their Mood reflect below ;)...This picture was taken in Pakistan as Bush tries his hand on Cricket with pakistan college students!



Afterall he bowled a 'Googly' to pakistan!



Category: Media!
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Top Ten Accidental Discoveries!

Check these Accidental Discoveries!

Read in Wired!

Category: Interesting!
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Google Bombs!

Here are some interesting Google Bombs (A deliberate attempt to rank a website higher in Google searches for a particular word). The Google algorithm work this way; if a website is linked by other sites through a particular word then Google will top that site in its search results for that particular word. This is being exploited by netizens and led to Google bombing. The most prominent bomb is 'Miserable failure' which leads you to George Bush's Biography from Whitehouse website. The words 'Great president', 'Worst president' and 'Miserable' will lead you to the same page!

Some more bombs:

Hell - Microsoft's Home page.
More evil than Satan himself - Again to Microsoft
Weapons of mass destruction - It lead to a page with a text The weapons you are looking for are currently unavailable. . . . Click the Regime Change button, or try again later.
Out of Touch Executives - Used to lead to Google's own corporate information page.
French military victories - see French military victories (practical joke). Points to a faked Google page implying there are no French military victories.
Gastrointestinal dysentery returns Kres Chophouse & Lounge in Orlando, Florida, a restaurant that fired a server for blogging about work.
Searching for '1' will lead to Mozilla browser, whereas 'o' to Internet Explorer!

Unfortunately, the political leaders and presidents are most affected by the bombs.

Liar – to Tony Blair, the UK Prime minister. As he was accused for misleading public over weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
Buffone(clown - Biography of Italian prime minister jämmerlicher Waschlappen (German for 'miserable washcloth') returns the government page of Christoph Blocher, a Swiss Federal Council.
lul (Dutch word?!)n the web page of the Belgian politician Hugo Coveliers
Miserabile fallimento - official Silvio Berlusconi (Italian Prime Minister) biography. 'miserabile fallimento' is the Italian for 'miserable failure'.
Opportunist - Links to the web site for the former leader of the opposition in the UK, Michael Howard.
Raar Kapsel ('Weird Haircut' in Dutch) - Returns the biography of the Prime Minister of the Netherlands, Jan Peter Balkenende, who is known for his distinctive hairstyle.
Totalt fiasko - Used to return the official Goran Persson (Swedish Prime Minister) biography. The phrase is Swedish for 'miserable failure'.
Tyhma lehma, Finnish for 'stupid cow', used to brought up home page of Tanja Karpela, Finnish Culture Minister.
Miserable, (Spanish for 'miserable') links to the Official Biography of ex-minister Angel Acebes.

The list still grows!!!

Also, Check this strange Google links.

Category: Interesting!, Technology!
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Who am I ?!

I am used to advertisements in the televisions, which lets the consumers to speculate the products. It goes like stopping the ad with the tag 'to be continued' else they keep on shouting a word with no meaning or multiple meanings to it...but at end of the day...these ads will make the people to 'have a word' on it during their chat and thus the company succeeds by 'Word of mouth' marketing. Now, I fell into this trap :-(. Read this!

Now, Microsoft is having its take on these styles of marketing with the name 'Origami' http://www.origamiproject.com/. The product could be a new software or hardware for the consumers. And Microsoft claims that, it can be used in the office, beaches, cars, mountains...and it will be all along with you. But the speculators believe that it could be a software, as Microsoft is basically a software company. But you can't rule out gaming systems like X-box or some compact device or even a phone. Wait till Mar 9th.

But, it didn't stop with Microsoft. Chip Giant Intel has already started a similar strategy for its product named 'Ultra mobile PC' http://www.umpc.com, but the details stops here and for this you should wait till March 7th!

Category: Technology!, Software!
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Another step...

When the thinking goes weird....this can happen.

You can browse the web using the legs; this is what Microsoft calls as 'Innovation'. Nevertheless, the researchers in Microsoft never care about deploying their products in stores or worry about their success if deployed.

The concept goes like this- you can dance on the floor to make the mouse work just as you do with hands. The floor will have pictures of buttons, which will work with a tap by your feet or a jump will do to scroll the files. This being dubbed as 'Step Mail', it lets people conduct routine e-mail tasks -- including scrolling, opening, closing, deleting, flagging, and placing messages in folders. But this kind of innovation will surely help the users who have intricacy in using their hands, though it's not a complete alternative.This Step User Interface is one of more than 150 unique concepts featured at the sixth annual Microsoft TechFest.

The researchers are trying to build similar products by considering this field of physical solutions.


Category: Technology!
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