Razors and Nanotech?

with every few years, we are seeing increase in the number of blades in razors. "The Economist" come up with good analysis on this razor war. Where this going to end,

http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=5624861

"........70 years after King Gillette invented the safety razor for someone to come up with the idea that twin blades might be—or, at least sell—better........"

The analysis provides few scenerios, and key finding...

"just like Moore's law—the observation that computer chips double in power every 18 months or so—it seems that technology as well as marketing determines the rate at which new blades are introduced."

One prediction is,
"..........the 14-bladed razor should arrive in 2100...."




My prediction:

"by 2100 nanotechnology will evolve and most of razor will have millions of tiny blades capable of shaving only... Lets see who will break Million blade in one razor mark"

Lets see, how good pundit I am...

bye for now..

iPhone: Something is brewing

Apple, an icon for 2 digital age, is again brewing somthing in ots backyard. Seems like its really in backyard, in the silicon farms of Tiawan.

iLounge published the unconfirmed report but seems reliable,

"Apple is working on “an iPod with phone functions” and could use Taiwanese electronics manufacturer Hon Hai Precision to build the device, says Johnny Chan, a J.P. Morgan analyst.... ...............ho declined to be identified said Taiwan Green Point Enterprises, which makes plastic cases for the iPod, is in talks with Apple for a role in the phone..."

http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/news/comments/7368/

The market is full of rumor about iPhone. Although the domain of iPhone.com is not owned by Apple, but iPhone.org is.

This is the screen shot from Register.com.

(the screen shot is copyrighted material of Register.com)

Interesting fact: It's not that iPhone.org is owned by Apple, but Apple registered this domain in 1999. Seems they had a plan from late '90s.

Should I say, Thought Leadership. But why didnt they buy iPhone.com. OK, was not available at that time. But current owner bought just now. Am I missing something in thought leadership.

Question, when did Apple Launch iPod?
hmm.. October 2001.

http://lowendipod.com/ipod/1g.htm

And When did Apple registered the iPod.com domain?
Interestingly in October '98. (Date from Register.com)

2001 was really a watershed year in Apple history.. Check this link,

http://www.lowendmac.com/history/2001.shtml

bye for now...

Mozilla Fiefox 2.0 alpha-1: product from matured company(?)

Mozilla foundation provided the alpha version of Mozilla Firefox 2.0a1 (2.0 Alpha version, seems like pre alpha).

The link:

http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/tinderbox-builds/pacifica-mozilla1.8/firefox-2.0a1.en-US.win32.installer.exe

http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/?C=M;O=D

(Seems like it was 1.8 release)

Its really pre-production release. I am playing with this more than a day now. Before download, think twice:

• No plug-ins from 1.5xx will work.
• Its not going to resolve “infamous” memory leak issue with Firefox. So don’t open more than 4-5 tabs (With 7-8 tabs, I had to go for coffee just check where did I type my last characters)

But it is really fast compare to others (even 1.5x). It provides really smooth experience with web browsing. And you can manage your RSS feeds much better than earlier versions.
I am sticking to new one, although I am missing my 10+ plug-ins.

But I don’t have to go any Blogs and news sites. I am reading from toolbar folder (RSS feeds). (Again, why can’t we integrate our outlook into this)

Those who want to show themselves as geek (;) and dig into Firefox memory problem, check this link. Mozilla foundation has given a spin to this problem, showing its feature (seems like people are maturing within corporate environment),

http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/ben/archives/009749.html

Ciao...

Bubble is back or Brains are dead or Only I am crazy

I dont know why I wrote this line, but something is wrong somewhere. I didn't even hear this during the great mellinium gold rush.

Fox is acquiring a company which has not even started its beta service. The company was from the great web 2.0 domain. They are (rumors) are paying 10m, but not bad for small group of guys who hasn't even completed their html/http/javascript coding.

Fox is acquiring NewRoo:

http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/03/14/fox-to-acquire-startup-newroo/

So whats next after NewRoo...

even my 2 and half year old son can answer this: "NewKanga"....

Oh Lord.... Why didnt I watch "Winnie The Pooh" in my childhood... I am so out of corporate branding...

Google, acquisition and Web2.0

Google is making lot of headlines, although not very nice product. But it gobble up a nice product from the market. I am hoping it will nicely integrate that into its portfolio.

Google bought Writely.
http://writely.blogspot.com/

I wrote about this in my January blog.
http://balyanpage.blogspot.com/2006/01/online-documentation-and-sharing-we.html

This deal highlights web2.0 acceptence in a market.

Whatever be the fate of this deal, but seems like web2.0 is maturing and geting the acceptance in the marketplace...

hoping its not a bubble of last decade...

Hedging your investment: Mars "Google maps"

Google is wiered company. Not sure what those are thinking. To me, it seems like they just want to be in news. Dont have product, throw someone's hobby in the google domain. WHo cares, the services are not tied to revenues. Google jsut launched "Google Mars"

Try http://www.google.com/mars/

And its all XML, if you want to integrate this map with Mars Crime data, go ahead. Its easy...

Waiting for more to come from these guys..

Interesting: miniaturization of Wireless technology

National Geography is tracking dragonfly with tiny (real tiny) transmitters. will try to find about the details of the device (and the manufacturer)

"The transmitters—which weigh 0.01 ounce (0.3 gram) and are about 0.4 inch (1 centimeter) long—are glued to the insects' undersides. A single wire antenna runs the length of the abdomen, and a tiny battery powers the device for up
to a week."

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/10/1012_051012_dragonfly.html

bye for now...

Korean Broadband Market (year old data):

I came across very interesting blog by rediff founder, Ajit Balakrishnan, on Korean market. He put together some facts, he found during his Korean trip (a year back),

-> 90%+ traffic is in Korean language (who says English is Internet langua franca)
-> 1.5Mbps is considered as Broadband (not 300K like in other part of world)
-> How Internet bandwidth is consumed: 40% is p2p traffic ( music, porn), 30% is video-on-demand ( people watching TV shows they missed), 10% is gaming and the balance is http traffic (according to his contact).

with 40% p2p traffic, I want to analyze how its impacting entertainment industry...

No Free Lunches: Taxing WiFi

Finally some biggies are able to push through the legislative maneuvering what they were saying from last 2-3 years. White elephants are not able to innovate, so they are planning to kill the fast growing sectors.
The budget which is sent to congress (by the US President) has clause of imposing the tax on Unlicensed Spectrum (read WiFi). Why they didnt tax Ham Radio, and whats the urgency to tax WiFi.

The news item can be read here:

http://www.rcrnews.com/news.cms?newsId=25545

The Budget details can be accessed at this site:

http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy07/browse.html

Now you must be asking, how congress can kill this naive but exploding phenomenon,

If I am a lobbyist, I will put this clause in Telecommunications act '07,

the owner of Equipment shall pay a royalty of $xx amount for each channel and for each individual user accessing the spectrum on the spectrum, only if,

• The user of channel(s) is not the owner equipment transmitted the airwaves in unlicensed band.

This small legislation will kill all the hotspots as well as the plan by municipalities for deploying WiFi.

Good Luck Silicon Valley..

Back to Future: Bubble is back

This phrase has been so much that sometimes its just doesnt make sense to use. But sometimes you finds the things repeating and happening in a way, you cant stop.


Whats so great about this picture?

Some guy pasting all the little yellow "post me" all over the room. Either this guy is crazy or working in some Indie movie.
No, this guy works in Venture Capital firm.
His role: Go through the old articles (First dot com boom time) of the technology magazines like Red Herring, Wired...

Wired Magazine detailed about a Mayfield VC who's perfecting the art of refurbished ideas. Allen Morgan reached the heights of gold mining by hiring a 24-year-old to flip through old magazines for business ideas.
Morgan's researcher, Ankur Luthra (picture posted), reads through a stack of Red Herring, Industry Standard, and Wired issues and slaps post-it notes on stories of now-dead dot-coms.

The link to story is,

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.02/mayfield.html?pg=1&topic=mayfield&topic_set=

What should we call this.
Going back to past, or going back to Future.

Only time will tell whether these guys are right or fooling themselves. But with Google stock touching all heights, Microsoft is moving "live" project like a new goldmine, braodcasting is moving to IP network, and people are again talking about e-community; these guys may be on right path.

Another thing, I am liking Microsoft "Live", although nothing special compare ot My Yahoo or personalized Google... but the first thing coming from Microsoft after a long time, which is good.. more on this later...

Google: Advance search options

Lot of people always think (I used too), how to control google search results or how to make these focussed. I have no idea why google doesn't provide Advance Search link on this site.

http://www.google.com/advanced_search?hl=en

Try yourself...

Long Distance talker

Have you ever thought of, who are the most long distance talkers?
TeleGeography (a research division of PriMetrica, Inc.) came up with 2005 Global Communications Traffic Map.
You can decide yourself, who talk most on long distance or say, who are less social within their own community…


More is coming....

"Rise of the Stupid Network": a futuristic vision or a simple truth

Some words, documents or saying become immortal in this world. There is one paper written by AT&T Labs engineer, David Isenberg (www.isen.com). Although the article as well the author was disowned by AT&T. But history is telling that the company is disowned by the market and customers both, and tragedy is, for the same reason the paper discussed.

The copy of paper is posted here:

http://www.rageboy.com/stupidnet.html

This was really a drastic change in thinking in '98. I read that this was written in one weekend (I also read that Neitzche also wrote most of his classics in one week or weekend).

Anyone who works in corporate world (and esp communication industry), should read this.

Bye for now...

Test Blog from Blogger MS word plugin

Test Blog from Blogger MS word plugin

Online Documentation (and sharing)

We have seen so many technologies and applications coming up, reaching the new heights or fading in the oblivion. But there are some great things always coming. In last 3-4 days, I found these (really) interesting concepts maturing to products. The idea is very simple, online document sharing.

Try these 2 (& you don’t need to download and install anything)

http://tracker.jot.com/

http://www.writely.com/

In my opinion, these will be “must have” tools for mobile work force. Think of changing/updating the excel sheet from Palm Treo or Blackberry (no saving of big file or sending huge attachment). Or think of giving ownership on the based of sheet within one file so that multiple owner can update together.

Yes, Microsoft is big and will surely fight back. That will be best. I am hoping, my next to next computer will not have any memory hungry MS office tool..
Or as Charles De Gaulle once commented to his officer (on the greatness of some people in his administration): "The graveyards are full of indispensable men."

Ciao

Day is a short time (Truveo is AOL)

In this Internet bussiness "day" is short span/time. Yesterday, I found a really good video search engine (Truveo). I was about to put the post on blog. This is (was) great site, much better than google. (http://www.truveo.com/) And just today, AOL bought this company. Although AOL record with acquisition is terrible. Lets hope, this time, they use some brains...
(AOL si not telling, how much furtune is burned for this 12 employee company)
News about acquisition
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,124327,00.asp

ciao...

I am back to blog-ging

Finally some hopes from Africa

After coming back from India, I am just busy with office work. Its carzy (going on).
Got this vacation (Thanksgiving vacation time), but still busy with some work.
Lot of things changed in Technical field, albeit with its own speed. Nothing drastic.

On political front, some watershed events happend. Although not much people might be looking towards Afrcis. A sort of revolution is going on there. (although I am not that revolutionary thinking guy, its all up and down for all ideology).
In Libera, a small "African country", a "woman" won the "free and fair election" and put the county on "democratic" path. Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf is first Africa's first elected female head of state.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4465992.stm

A good article is written by Fareed Zakaria on tis issue..

http://www.fareedzakaria.com/articles/newsweek/112805.html

This is very interesting topic. I will keep writing on this...

Have a great vacation time...
Ballu

Hi everyone...
I am not able to update my blogs/logs form a long time.. came back from India about 2 weeks back... and after that visited New Jersey on official visit for a week.... I will be updating this post frequently...

Cheers...

India Trip

These days, I am on a month long trip to India. I am not able to update my blog. Will write in details once I will have internet connection available...

Cheers...