Technology Confetti

I have moved

2009-02-03T10:31:00.000-08:00

Dear Patrons,

Finally I have given in to my friends' persistent advice to move my blog to Wordpress. Blogger vs Wordpress debate had been going for too long and I admit that Wordpress surely has many advantages over Blogger. Fortunately I have been able to import all my posts and comments at the new address.

I have moved my technology blog to following URL:
http://www.jasginder.com/bizblog

I have brought my technology, marketing and finance blogs under single blog - Business blog. Please update your Blogroll and bookmarks (if any!).

ISRO's Bhuvan to take on Google Earth

2008-11-08T02:34:00.000-08:00

Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO)'s satellites have been making news all over world for their remote sensing capabilities. Come March 2009, ISRO will launch its own IRS (Indian Remote Sensing) image portal called Bhuvan. This was announced by ISRO Chairman G Madhavan Nair while delivering a lecture on “Benefits of Space to the Society,” organised at an inaugural function in Gandhinagar on Tuesday.

The portal will offer detailed satellite views of our subcontinent to users - akin to those seen on Google Earth and Wikimapia, but with a difference; this one will give sharper and more detailed pictures than provided by Google. Google Earth, which can zoom up to 200m, will have good competition in Bhuvan, which has a sharper zoom level capability of up to 10m.

While Google Earth provides single-layer information, Bhuvan would provide multi-layer information. Additionally, you would be able to view the images date-wise. The entire service makes use of Indian satellites and its focus will be the Indian subcontinent. ISRO plans to use it to enhance urban and forest planning and traffic management. Like Google Earth, a "special" version would be in the offing for professional and corporate users who might need higher resolution data. Of course, this would come at a price, though the base version would remain free. Apart from Bhuvan, ISRO is also readying an information portal called "Bhu Sampada." Both services are expected to be operational by March 2009.

Nair said that upon being integrated with application-specific Spatial Decision Support (SDS) tools, these two unique portals would open up a new era of collaborative mapping in the country. “These are not mere image or information browsers, but are the mechanisms for providing satellite images and thematic maps to the user community for the purpose of development planning,” he said.

Google's another attempt to monetize on YouTube

2008-10-08T07:00:00.000-07:00

In its continuing effort to find a way to make money from its YouTube unit, Google introduced on Tuesday a type of e-commerce ad that YouTube users can click to buy digital goods from Apple’s iTunes or Amazon.com.

Under the new program, viewers of a video with a music track, for example, would be able to click on an icon to download that song from one of the two music stores. "If you like the song, you don’t need to leave Google or leave the site to buy it,” said Bakari Brock, business affairs counsel at YouTube.

The new ad format is the latest that YouTube has introduced in recent months as it tries to turn the site’s large audience into substantial revenue. So far, that effort has met with limited success, according to many analysts.

Google, which paid $1.65 billion for YouTube nearly two years ago, is counting on the video site to help it expand into new forms of advertising at a time when the growth of its core business — small text ads that appear next to search results — is slowing down.

Mr. Brock said the new ads were YouTube’s first step toward building a viable e-commerce platform. For now, the program is limited to buying songs from EMI or the Universal Music Group on iTunes and Amazon. The recently released video game Spore is also available, Mr. Brock said. Over time, YouTube plans to expand the program to include other stores and other merchandise, like concert tickets, he said.

Music labels could choose to place the e-commerce links next to their own videos or on videos uploaded by users, whose images or soundtrack they identified using YouTube’s Content ID system, which allows content owners to find unauthorized material on the site.

Google executives have sent mixed messages about their ability to make money from YouTube. Earlier this year, Eric E. Schmidt, Google’s chief executive, said it had taken longer than he expected to find the right advertising models for YouTube. Last month, he said that he was satisfied with YouTube’s progress.

“You Tube is a huge end-user success and we are awaiting the monetization that goes with that, and we believe it will come,” Mr. Schmidt said. “We are where we should be.”

Peekaboo:
On Tuesday, YouTube also introduced a larger viewer that it said was suitable for the growing number of long-format videos available on the site.

Indian entrepreneurship surging in recession

2008-09-11T08:36:00.001-07:00

The fans of social bookmarking sites (like Digg) would be knowing how such a site - Reddit got its vital money during startup phase. YCombinator, an early stage investment firm had provided the seed funding for it, Scribd and many others. It idea is simple, help to get the new Internet ventures off-the-ground on the cheap, with typical investments ranging from $15,000-$20,000, when they need it the most - in earliest phase.

Well India has got its own version of YCombination in form of Morpheus Venture Partners providing seed capital and mentoring to startups in India. For some time they have been conducting interviews with the interested startups and yesterday only came out with the list of startups that they will be betting on. For the moment investments come directly from MVP’s partners as opposed to the fund, which is currently in the process of raising $5M from investors.

Here is the list of startups which are gearing up for new age challenges even as the traditional industries are trying to either converge or cut costs to survive the bear run.

1) CallGraph: Call Graph is a service to record, track, monitor, share and transcribe your calls. It is designed for distributed teams who use services such as Skype for their meetings, conference calls etc 2

2) Crederity: Crederity is a new service that applies sophisticated technologies and programs to helping people and businesses easily establish trust on the Internet. As the web’s first guaranteed trust builder, Crederity enables people and businesses to certify their own integrity and that of others.

3) DeskAway: DeskAway “simplifies teamwork”. DeskAway is a subscription-based online team and project collaboration service that enables small businesses & teams to organize, manage & track their work online.

4) Dhanax: dhanaX stands for exchange of dhana or wealth, works with the vision to connect people from different economic backgrounds and thus create wealth for them. dhanaX is an online/offline people-to-people lending platform that lets Indians to lend and borrow money from fellow Indians.

5) Fachak: A platform where you can share any form of content from a document to a video, it just needs to mean one thing to you - Fun! Fachak is in its pre-release stage right now but is soon going to be in private beta. You can register yourself for the launch invitation on the website.

6) LifeMojo: LifeMojo’s focus is on creating a platform for delivery of preventive health care services and partner with renowned health experts for their consultation.

7) SutraHR: Sutra HR is a full services People Consulting firm which has a unique partnering model with Digital, Mobile and Internet startups and entrepreneurial companies in India, to find retain assess and train talent to take them to the next level and beyond.

For additional details, check out the MVP website here.

VISA payWave - next wave in payment mode?

2008-07-14T10:58:00.000-07:00

Reacting to the success of RFID as payment mode, VISA has branded its RFID card as VISA payWave. Called so as one just needs to wave his/her card near the accepting POS terminal for transaction to be carried. To ease the faster payment, one doesn't even need to sign for most of the purchases made under $25.

According to the VISA website, over 32,000 retailers from 20 top brands accept Visa payWave payments, and the list is rapidly growing. Visa payWave is intended to make it simple to save time every day—at quick service restaurants, drugstores, movie theaters, convenience stores and more. The participating issuers are BB&T, Chase, INOVA FCU, SunTrust and Wells Fargo as of now. Some of the major names of merchants who are already accepting the card are Mc Donalds, CVS Pharmacy, 7-Eleven and Jack in the Box. The complete list of eligible merchants is provided at its sitepage -
http://usa.visa.com/paywave-merchants/

Well there are lot of benefits for users over here, like

Checkout is faster and easier for cardholder as no swiping needs to be done in RFID cards
VISA allows no signature for most purchases under $25
As you remain in control of your card during the transaction, the risk of fraud is greatly reduced
VISA is giving the Zero Liability this card too, which ensures you are not responsible for fraudulent or unauthorized transactions.
These cards also have a magnetic stripe so in case RFID reader isnt there, you can pay by normal swiping method.

But then it needs to be seen how much faith do cardmembers show in RFID payment methods. There has been recent reports of people being able to forge the RFID cards as what a legitimate merchant terminal can read from the card, a malicious scanning device can also read without a consumer’s consent or knowledge. Hence the design takes the prime importance over here. The most basic info of the card, the name of the cardholder is abused the maximum with these devices. There has been a good article on the vulnerabilities in First-Generation RFID enabled cards at blog of RFID Cusp, you can access it here -
http://www.rfid-cusp.org/blog/blog-23-10-2006.html

Visa has also announced that it is currently migrating to an enhanced global specification, Visa Contactless 2.0, to further support the growth of Visa payWave around the globe. The new global contactless specification is based on the international EMV chip standards, enabling Visa to take advantage of the industry's most advanced cryptographic techniques for Visa payWave transactions, regardless of where the card was issued or where the transaction takes place.

"Visa payWave is an excellent example of Visa's approach to innovation and our ability to extend the value of Visa to new stakeholders and new market segments," said Elizabeth Buse, Global Head of Product at Visa Inc. "As the payments ecosystem expands, so does Visa's opportunity to deliver innovative products and services to a diverse set of stakeholders."

Sources: VISA websites

GTalk now provides the invisible model option

2008-05-29T20:31:00.000-07:00

Probably one of the most important features I saw in chatting apart from chatting was the option of ‘invisible mode’. It lets you to have an important chat without everybody bombarding you with pings and hence your screen. It has been a strong feature that was missing in Gtalk and I know about many people who didn’t used to come online on Gtalk, me included, as everybody would be seeing you and hence it ends up a time consuming thing, especially when you have come online for some work on Gtalk.

But then voila, Google has now brought this option in its latest version of Gmail chat. For the people using AIM in Gmail (Google allowed AIM clients to be Google chat compatible few months back), invisible mode also makes them appear signed out on the AIM network. Invisible mode is one of the most requested chat features and so it’s a much awaited addition, starting in Gmail Chat, and in the future all Talk clients.

But at the same point Google’s official Gmail blog has mentioned that the chat may not be useful if lot of people go off line. So do give a feedback to them in case you have any opinion on this…

HTTP -> Web -> Web 2.0 -> Shift

2008-05-27T19:55:00.000-07:00

Internet has been seen as an invention as significant as discovery of uses of fire. These inventions/discoveries change the entire path on which the future of not only humans but also of the earth. But then with every such discovery/invention is attached the front runners, the laggards and the ones who doesn’t want the new change at all or may desire to be in oblivion of it. Fate of internet has been no different.

Web2.0 has brought in as much confusion as the benefits. It is changing the habits of the people without them knowing if that is a health practice or not. Recent studies have shown that more and more number of people have been discarding the newspapers as the source of news/info. People have started going to blogs and social bookmarking sites for the same. Its fast, it’s visually appealing, tangible, customized and interesting. But then there is what I call a ‘baggage attached’. When one decides to search for a news on such platforms, one is actually going to a mega mall of news to pick the things one likes. There will be many brands (read source) of the item (read story) wanted and one gets to choose various brands of same item, or maybe with different flavor – say spicy, Page 3, thriller etc. But what baggage that is contained is that you end up spending more time, looking at the variety, additional flavors. You may never be able to find the actual item you wanted and may end up buying/consuming the one that is flashy and catchy.

And not only habits it is also the understanding that is yet to mature. The older websites were ranked on the parameter of page views. You may see huge amount of money being pumped in various web2.0 startups. But in middle of this Web2.0 craze people are forgetting to check the feasibility of revenue. Page views won’t give a real picture of the success/ following of the website. Technologies like Ajax, Rich Media and widgets are making this parameter a loser.

The technologies today are trying to make the communication between server and communication low while making the change /page load on customer end minimal. All info requested is loaded on the page asynchronously and without letting user have to reload the entire page. So effectively there was a zero page load over here when user looks for additional information. Hence companies like AC Nielson have already started looking at other indicators like unique visitors, time spent on site per visit, no of clicks per visit etc as better metrics to drive the business goals.

As they say, shift happens!

Yahoo all set to GLUE you to its new search

2008-05-12T11:48:00.000-07:00

Yahoo has released a new type of search result for India called “Glue Page.” Instead of the usual text listing, some queries – like blog, Taj Mahal or asthma – will now trigger a comprehensive and very visual result page. This page contains different elements laid out in boxes; there’s “normal” search results, encyclopedic information from health sites or Wikipedia, news results, YouTube videos or Google blog search results (yes, they’re integrating results from competitors, though Google is also a partner of Yahoo in some areas) and more.

This is a very interesting prototypical service; part meta search engine and part original results from Yahoo, and a bit like Google’s universal search approach that brings in results from images, videos, maps, news, or other sources as appropriate. It is also similar in appearance to Ask since its redesign last summer.

What is interesting is that the option is available only in India, maybe because its result of Indian development center. Also its not available for all results but is only triggered in the “glue” approach when the topic is broad enough to yield lots of results from diverse services.

Yahoo Glue only works for certain categories of searches (sports, travel, entertainment, health, stocks, and tech), but it does produce a more satisfying experience than the traditional list of blue links. The only issue is that the results take a little bit longer to load. But humans are visual creatures and we respond better to the visual display of information. Yahoo Glue brings in results in three different panes, both from Yahoo and elsewhere. They can be images, videos, Wikipedia entries, HowStuffWorks entries, sports stats, and news, and results from other sources.

And the dynamism is the beauty of it. Search for the “Taj Mahal” and you get pictures and videos of the Taj Mahal, and a link to the Wikipedia entry. Search for Angelina Jolie and you get a bio, pics, YouTube videos, music charts, news, and results from Yahoo Answers. Search for “soccer” and you get league tables. The traditional link results are still available in the narrow left-hand column, but you almost ignore them.

Farewell from TechConfetti

2008-04-05T13:15:00.001-07:00

Dear Reader,

It has been a tough decision, after all its no easy to destruct something that one has created oneself. But this blog has not been getting the attention it deserves from a long long time now. So I have thought if I cant contribute anything worth while here, its best to say farewells and make it rest in peace.

For all those who bump here from time to time, thanks for your patronship. It still matters!

-Author

Yahoo to Buzz

2008-02-21T11:21:00.000-08:00

A new Yahoo service called "Buzz" that's set to launch later this month. Widely understood as the competitor to Digg, the popular user rating site; it is a buzz tracker for news items picked not only by user voting (like Digg, Propeller, Reddit, et al), but also for items people are searching for both on Yahoo and on the company's publisher network.

A subject's buzz score is the percentage of Yahoo! users searching for that subject on a given day, multiplied by a constant to make the number easier to read. The data is collected from Yahoo! search log files. The Yahoo! Buzz Index counts the total number of people searching for specific subjects.Weekly leaders are the subjects with the greatest average buzz score for a given week.

By combining with the search results, Yahoo surely would have a great upper hand on other rating services. But then all other players are already established; so going should be tough. According to Valleywag, the release date is set for February 26th, which falls on a Tuesday.

Buzz, built under the direction of VP Tapan Bhat, will begin with a limited number of publishers -- about 100 -- and will rank stories based on popular search results and user voting. By summer, Buzz will open to the entire Yahoo Publisher Network. In other words, if you let Yahoo sell ads on your site, it will allow your stories to appear on Buzz. Word is Yahoo plans to launch the site on buzz.yahoo.com, which currently tracks popular search results.

Nokia releases Maps 2.0 beta

2008-02-15T01:29:00.000-08:00

Previously available only to a select group, Nokia is turning the beta version of its Maps 2.0 navigation app onto the masses. In addition to the car mode existing users will be familiar with, 2.0 adds "Walk," a new mode tailored to pedestrian use. Another new feature is the ability to purchase "multimedia guides" for destinations that hook you up with photo, video, and audio streams that detail places to go and things to see on your magical journey.

Version 2.0 also adds real-time traffic information and hybrid satellite views, both features that help to bring Maps in line with Google Maps for Mobile. The beta is available immediately, while a final cut is expected to be available in the second quarter of the year.

Separately, Nokia has announced that it'll be bringing its Maps franchise to Series 40, swinging open the door to high-function navigation on the company's mass-market, non-smartphone handsets. It'll be ready in the first half of 2008, though no plans have yet been outed regarding availability on specific Series 40 devices.

Nokia Maps 2.0 Beta comes with compatible Nokia Map Loader, also available for download from its website. Nokia is offering the navigation service on the 6210 for free. While Nokia offers all its maps for free, the company charges users of other navigation-ready devices weekly, monthly or yearly subscriptions for the navigation service.

But a caution, Maps 2.0 is still in Beta and therefore not supported by Nokia care.

via ZDNet

Now a mouldable mouse

2008-02-03T04:21:00.000-08:00

The market has been filled with mouses of all shapes and sizes, but some of you must be feeling that still something is missing. Well, thanks to the folks at Lite-On, you'll never have to suffer the debilitating discomfort of an unshapely mouse ever again. The Mouldable Mouse will make all your bad memories of ill-fitting input devices float away, using a lightweight modeling clay combined with a nylon and polyurethane fabric to make up its surface. Once you're palming your new best friend, you can shape its contours to whatever form you desire, though we're pretty sure making a perfect cube will present a challenge. The "stick-on" buttons and scroll-wheel can be added to any location you like, and communicate via RFID (wow!).

It has also won a Red Dot design award. But a big question is on its feasibility. It may get hardened on some initial design which may not be very right as it may require creative skills, or else on other hand it may be too soft and soggy kind. So whatever, the real test will come when it comes to actual users out of lab.

The next age digicams

2007-11-14T10:53:00.000-08:00

Our mobiles have gone from just a mobile version of landline phones to that of a small computer or hand held, the desktops have given way to the quad core functionality specific laptops or tablets, GPS has simplified the life for some and complicated for others and all the while we know that the digital cameras have just fought a linear fight of more Megapixels, more optical zoom and larger screen. Isn't it? Though some vendors have been giving small features but nothing has changed the mainstream usage of digital cameras.

Well things may be in for a change now in next few years as many advanced features have already been integrated into these digicams and poise for a mainstream usage in next few years. These advanced pieces of technology can now not only identify which one of your friends are you clicking a snap of, but also if the person being photographed is happy, sad, angry etc. You would have already seen the adverts of Sony having launched the camera that can identify the faces from background and focus on these faces for better clarity, it can identify eight faces in one single shot! Take the case of Fujifilm’s new FinePix S6000fd, once Face Detection is activated, it automatically identifies faces in the scene and prioritizes them in as little as 0.05 seconds. It simultaneously displays a green rectangle around the top-priority face, and a white one around other faces before the picture is taken (see pic)

In another feature called auto tagging, the camera attaches tags as the pictures are taken. The tags can be of time, people names or geography etc. Like the cameras embed timestamps in photos, which makes it possible to sift through pictures by date. able to screen for photos only of a particular person could dramatically speed up the search process. Fotonation is one company which supplies face-detection software for dozens of camera models from vendors like Samsung, Pentax, and others. Location, too, is another useful attribute that can be attached to photos through a process called geotagging. Geotagging can be used both to look for photos whose location you know and to figure out what exactly is in a photo you already have at hand. Flickr launched a module in 2006 that lets people geotag their photos by dragging them onto maps. Photos tagged with location data before upload also can be shown on maps if a Flickr member chooses to enable the feature. The map can be set up to show photos from a particular time, uploaded by a particular Flickr member or tagged with particular text labels--"cable car" in this case. Flickr, which now houses 36 million geotagged photos--roughly 3 percent of its total archive.

Face recognition is another feature which is gaining commercial attention among the digicam software developers, these software can detect the images of people among a big set of images. Along with it a research into expression recognition is taking up pace, it understands what mood the person is - smiling, angry, anguish , sad etc. Marian Stewart Bartlett has showed results of her research of work at the Machine Perception Lab at the University of California wherein it lets a computer monitor 30 of the 46 codified components of facial expressions. That includes movements such as raised eyebrows and wrinkled noses.

Here as shown in the picture on the right, researchers have turned expression-recognition technology into an art exhibit showing the increasingly strained efforts by models to maintain a chipper smile for more than an hour. The top picture is when the model starts the show, but she wont be able to keep that smile for very long, which is acceptable, the software displays a green bar to show its acceptable. What wont be acceptable for channel's marketer is a worn out smile, so the software observes the expressions and a buzzer goes off when a waning smile sends a monitor into the red zone. This sends a signal to the model to get the smile all backed up or to indulge.

In the demonstration, software tracked Stewart's face from a video camera and recorded expression parameters. Analyzing the data, the computer can draw conclusions about people. For example, when comparing a video of a man's face as he experienced actual pain from immersing his hand in cold water to another in which he faked the pain, people had about an even chance guessing which showed the authentic pain. The computer, though, had 72 percent accuracy, she said.

All in all you can say that the digicam R&D market is far from dead, rather than working on age old problems only say red eye reduction etc, the companies are pushing in the moolah to get the latest technological edge over each other and ask for premium from customer.

Photo Credits:
GeoTagging
Expression Recog

World's fastest train -TGV

2007-11-05T11:48:00.000-08:00

If you have been to Europe then its imperitive to ride TGV. TGV (train à grande vitesse, French for "high-speed train") is France's high-speed rail service developed by private major Alstom (also developed Delhi Metro) and SNCF, the French national rail operator. First established between Paris and Lyon in 1981, the TGV network runs across France and adjacent countries. TGVs link with Switzerland through the French network, with Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands through the Thalys network, and the Eurostar network links France and Belgium with the United Kingdom; where Thalys and Eurostar are fast speed trains developed by other countries.

Lets talk about speed now, how fast have you traveled in trains? Indian trains run at maximum speed of 160Kmph. On 3 April 2007 a modified TGV train reached 574.8 km/h (357.2 mph) under test conditions. The voltage on the test track between Paris and Strasbourg was boosted to 31,000 volts and extra ballast was tamped onto the right-of-way. By doing so, it beat the 1990 world speed record of 515.3 km/h (320.2 mph), set by a similarly shortened train (two power cars and three passenger cars).

TGV already runs at 320 kmph, and in case you have traveled by it, you would have already realised the effect its acceleration has on your ears as soon as it passes through the tunnels. See the video here -

Tshirts with electronic flashing print, that responds to music

2007-10-31T10:13:00.000-07:00

You would have worn plain shirts, styled shirts, funky shirts or at best patched shirts; here Urban Junkie brings to you the lifestyle eye catcher - Flashing T-Shirt. Yes, you read it right, a shirt that flashes according to the kind of music being played in ambiance. Named T-Groove, the shirt dances to the beat of the music showing off different dance moves with a new funky psychedelic design.

The T-Groove™ shirt is made from 100% cotton. It has a fully functional light up panel that reacts to the sound of the music. But then the thump at a pub will be different from the one at your friend's party, so the new designed battery pack has a sound sensitivity dial to adjust the sensitivity of the T-Groove to make it more diverse for different environments. The end result is an awesome sound sensitive music T-Shirt that commands attention. The logo is powered by 4 x AAA batteries. Manufacturer claims, flashes to the Beat products are all robust and tested to certain extremes.

As the music beats the circular bars light up, the girl dances and the party begins!

Details -
Price £19.99 - £24.99
Order Website: Link
Designs Option: Various options of design available

Product LookUp - Nokia Vertu

2007-10-01T02:32:00.000-07:00

India has not only seen an impressive growth in IT sector but the telecom sector too has shown sky rocketing growth. The Indian call rates in mobile telephony are lowest in world, and you can see the impact. You are riding in a rickshaw in India and in middle of your travel the driver stops as he has got a call from his friend to goto some place asap as there are foreigners willing to pay more; or you don't have call balance left in your cell, you are outside the hostel of your girlfriend and the guard there offers you his Nokia 1100 for a call or your sweeper gives you his/her 'contact number'. The examples are galore, it has also been proved already that we Indians like to talk a lot and the kind of money an average middle class person is earning makes him/her keen to show the 'class' using best of handsets and best of features. Mobile handset market has been showing huge double digit growth. In this situation how long could a person stay satisfied having their 6600/ N-Series / Walkman / Razr handsets? And if we can see all this in India, how the hell can the elite in Europe or US stay calm with their options?!

For many the handset is a style statement, it shows your profile to others. So companies like Nokia had changed from giving instruments to gadgets to lifestyle statements. One of such offering by Nokia, and the most expensive one is Vertu.

Vertu is an independently run British-based manufacturer and retailer of luxury mobile phones. The company is wholly-owned subsidiary of the Finnish mobile phone manufacturer Nokia. Its most expensive model ever made is the Signature Cobra, at US$310,000 ; the most expensive regular model is the Signature Diamond at US$88,000. Its competition is not mobile phone makers but the ones in league of Rolex or TAG Heuer. The mobiles are made from very expensive materials such as gold, sapphires (for the mobile screen), rubies (for the bearings) and fine leather. Plus, each mobile is hand-made in it factories in United Kingdom and Germany. Its mobiles are only available in its own branded stores, leading department stores such as Harrods in London, and authorized retailers.

To commemorate 60th anniversary of Ferrari, Vertu had launched a new phone, the Vertu Ascent Ferrari 1947 Limited Edition. Using hand-polished titanium for the chassis the limited edition handset draws inspiration from Ferrari GT cars and is quite visible. Seemingly Vertu worked closely with Ferrari’s design team to develop this exclusive limited edition phone. The nose on the front of the phone features the famed Ferrari Prancing Horse, while on the rear back plate there is a scaled down iconic Ferrari brake pedal, crafted from high-graded aluminum, like that used in Ferrari cars. But the designers did not stop here, to underline the exclusivity of the Vertu Ascent Ferrari 1947 Limited Edition each piece is individually serialized from 1 to 1947 - paying homage to the very year when the first car to bear the Prancing Horse marque was built by the founder, Enzo Ferrari.

In summer season collection Vertu had launched Vertu Ascent in Strawberry and Cream options. The Ascent range is crafted from premium fine leather and is hand finished. The leather is resistant to normal spoilers like lipstick, petroleum etc. The normal range is available in other colors too. Lightweight at six ounces, Ascent range has got a balanced weight. It's made of ceramic, stainless steel and a durable alloy called Liquidmetal, finished with hand-sewn leather and a screen of sapphire crystal, a material second only to diamond in hardness.

When launched, the phone used to come with a free year of Vertu Concierge service. There would be London-based "global advisers" which are available at all hours of the day or night, and can handle travel and entertainment arrangements as well as "international assistance" worldwide.

Adobe scores with Q3 earnings release

2007-09-18T02:53:00.000-07:00

Adobe released its Q3 earnings yesterday, amid all the eyeballs set on it it gave investors the earliest possible look as to how healthy the technology industry have been in Q3. The next-earliest major tech company to report earnings, as Utility Belt reports, is Oracle (ORCL), which releases its results on Thursday – but aside from that, no other big players is coming in until Intel (INTC) and Yahoo (YHOO) share their numbers on October 16.

Bruce Chizen, CEO Adobe Bruce says the growth in Q3 was outstanding. Revenue was $851.7 million, up 41 percent from a year ago. CS3 adoption and Acrobat momentum are the main reason, but Chizen cites growth across all businesses.

With Q1 earnings of $649.4 million, Q2 at $745.6 million and Q3 at 851.7; Adobe sure is laughing its success of Creative Suite and Acrobat success. According to Bruce the company is poised to break the $3 billion revenue mark, and they're positioned to achieve double-digit growth well into the future. Looking forward to the fourth quarter, Adobe said it expects revenue of $860 million to $890 million.

And according to him a majority of corporate customers still haven't upgraded, which is surely a good sign for future revenue from CS3. The fact that the suites are doing better than the individual products shouls sound like a song to Adobe's ears. Though the ability of Microsoft to wreck havoc on its revenue sources still troubles Adobe, still its happy as it has not rested on its prior success but is still thriving ahead to deliver better features to its users. No doubt more than 98.5 percent of people with computers have Flash player installed, and more than 90 percent of people with computers upgrade their player within a year of a new release*. Even Microsoft's own MSN site has a lot of Flash on it,Bruce pointed out, demonstrating that Silverlight (Microsoft's new competitor to Flash) is not yet there. Knowing there is a competition, still being miles ahead of it really should result in some nice strategic planning.

Being an ardent performer, Adobe is doing customer research on big customers who have not yet moved. Considering this information the company is gathering, and the fact that CS2 had performed for a long long time after its release, it seems CS3 will also go on to rake in revenues for a long long time. The next quarter will be an interesting one when most of the European and American firms will set aside their budgets for new product buying and upgrades. It would be interesting to watch the division of individual packages to suite buyers.

A list of few happenings at Adobe -
March - launched its Creative Suite 3 product line
May - announced that it has agreed to buy privately held media software company - Scene7
June - unveiled its Visual Communicator 3 software, designed to create video broadcasts
July - introduced its FrameMaker 8 software
Sep - announced the release of its Font Folio 11 software
and announced a tie up with BEA Systems Inc. (BEAS)

Sources:
Adobe website
Utility Belt
RTT News

Now go GPS by P2P positioning software

2007-09-04T04:00:00.001-07:00

In Adobe we used to feel that almost every hardware job can be done in 'soft' way i.e. a software can replace almost any hardware. And I must point it out that if you start thinking, it'd be very hard to justify 'almost' here.

And today I struck upon this gold, Navizon, while browsing through the internet wormholes. Frustrated by low performance of GPS in congested cities, Houri and his fa wireless positioning system that works on Pocket PC PDAs by triangulating signals from Wi-Fi access points and GSM cellular towers which means in lay man term that it finds out the current position of gadget holder by location information sent by three different WiFi or GSM signals.

All the user needs to do is to load the software on a Pocket PC with built-in GPS and, ideally, both Wi-Fi and cellular phone functionality. wi-fiplanet.com explains the functionality as.

"As you walk around your city, the device receives broadcast signals from Wi-Fi access points – hotspots, home Wi-Fi networks, company WLANs, Navizon adds cell towers to the mix. The Navizon software takes signal strength measurements from the built-in Wi-Fi and/or cellular radios – at three different locations for each AP or tower detected. Since Navizon knows its own location from the Pocket PC’s GPS, the readings of signal strength are enough, using sophisticated algorithms, to triangulate the position of each AP or tower. The software then records those locations. The Navizon software does all of this automatically. Once the software has built a database of local AP and tower locations, it can accurately calculate its position by triangulating from three or more of them – again by measuring signal strength and applying proprietary algorithms. It works even when GPS doesn’t"

Registering as a user at the Navizon site, which one can do for free and without downloading any software, gives access to the Google Maps the Navizon software uses. One can now define a region by clicking at opposite corners of an imaginary rectangle and see a display of all the known APs and towers in that area. Their locations show up as map pins – red for GSM, green for Wi-Fi.

MSNBC has already said that Microsoft is also planning a similar system of positioning, by recording the position of every address on a giant map, it had created a positioning system that would make it possible for anyone with a WiFi-enabled laptop computer to identify their location to within 30.5 meters.

With GPS systems giving low performance, this methodology for positioning may soon be in vogue.

Sharp gets sharper

2007-08-22T10:31:00.000-07:00

It is the strongest desire of every product manager to make his/her brand achieve a status of an icon and only handful of the toiling ones are successful. RAZR by Motorola not only enjoyed that status all over world but also paved the way of Motorola's sales surge. After the long dominance of Nokia and complaints by people that Motorola has been too complacent and sluggish; the model made the company feel confident in telling world that they are technology company and will indulge in only tech superior products. The Razr has been one of the best-selling cell phones on the market since it was introduced in 2004.

The razor sharp features got the public crazy and soon the sales registers started ticking at incredible pace for the model. Motorola followed it with some lower end models which had similar features. While the Razr franchise has helped Motorola increase its market share over the past couple of years, the company's executives have been criticized for commoditizing the product by allowing mobile operators to slash prices on the phone to entice subscribers to sign up for service.

The CEO Ed Zander commented in May that "The Razr is more than a product, it's a brand," Zander told reporters and analysts at Tuesday's event. "When I reach for a tissue, I grab a Kleenex. When I order a soda, I say I want a Coke. And even when I talk about an MP3, I call it an iPod. The Razr is also a brand, and we will market that for years to come."

But the sharp has just got sharper now; Motorola is launching its new RAZR2 across the world. It was launched in May end in Korea, a fortnight ago in US and will be launching it tomorrow in India. The Razr2 features a large external screen for viewing incoming calls and text messages without opening the phone, as well as a stainless-steel internal frame for durability and a scratch-resistant glass surface. Motorola included its CrystalTalk patented technology on the Razr2, which automatically adjusts the phone's audio to make calls clearer in noisy environments. But the most impressive thing about the Razr2 is its multimedia capabilities, including a full HTML browser, Google mobile search, a music player, and a videoconferencing feature that lets the users stream live video calls. RAZR2 V8 comes complete with 512MB end user memory or 2GB memory, USB 2.0 high speed for fast music file transfers, Windows Media Player 11 synchronization for simple music management and a music touch screen on the external display for effortless control. Motorola plans to introduce a lot more phones -- both smartphones and feature phones -- with similar capabilities making the battle murkier for handset market.

But the billion dollar question is will the RAZR2 bring back Motorola stocks back from the doldrums? Nokia has been bothered by the recent mass recall of now infamous BL-5C batteries and iPhone is supposed to come quite late in India; so it's a striking time for Motorola and they know it well!

The catch up on the marketing campaign related to the launch will be done in my marketing blog.

Now comes the Air Mouse...

2007-07-22T06:29:00.000-07:00

Logitech has come up with an 'Air Mouse' which resembles Wii and hence is being talked of as Wii-remote for non-game console entertainment. To be made available from August onwards at a premium price of $150, the MX Air Mouse is supposed to go along with all the wafer thin wall big LCD screens that have been catching sales.

Pic-1 - Logitech's Air Mouse

If you have used the Wii remote (see pic 2), then you must be aware of the low sensitivity of it in cases where you need minor adjustments. So as pointed out by Utility Belt , the author of the blog had problem trying to positioning it on top of just the right box before clicking. That is when used for applications, for TV i think it should be pretty okay even while choosing a channel from a list of drop down (remember Dish's menus?)

Pic-2 - Wii Remote*

But the author talks on basis of a trial product that was given to him. Actual product will hit markets most probably by August and has been going through rigorous testing procedures and some enhancements.

I had a chance to have my hands on the Wii remote when i was in Lyon, France. Its the fifth home video game console released by Nintendo. It is actually a wireless controller, called the Wii Remote, which can be used as a handheld pointing device and can detect motion and rotation in three dimensions. So effectively you can make a swish motion in a golf game, as you would do in a normal real world.
And by the way, Wii, which started a little low as compared to PlayStation and XBox 360 in sales in Japan, the heart of this market, has taken away the lead from it. While XBox 360 leads the pack worldwide; in Japan it won’t move much.

*pics courtesy Business2 blog and Nintendo's site

Google way ahead in search providers' share

2007-02-22T01:02:00.000-08:00

Here is the list of Top 10 Search Providers for December 2006, Ranked by Searches in U.S.

Provider Searches(000) YOY Growth Share of Searches
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Google Search 3,035,617 22.6% 50.8%
Yahoo! Search 1,412,904 30.1% 23.6%
MSN/Windows Live Search 499,946 -9.7% 8.4%
AOL Search 362,140 7.8% 6.1%
My Way Search 141,527 4.7% 2.4%
Ask.com Search 128,452 17.2% 2.1%
EarthLink Search 31,930 17.6% 0.5%
Dogpile.com Search 30,487 2.1% 0.5%
Comcast Search 26,931 N/A 0.5%
NexTag Search 26,835 123.2% 0.4%
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Source: Nielsen//NetRatings MegaView Search, January 2007

Clearly Google has a massive lead. With MSN dying to get into that field, and coming in the arena with the services like the video support and all, its sure gonna be an important factor that ho held the lead in past. Yahoo which itself supported the rise of Google has been revising its marketing plans after suffering constant dips in its traffic. It has since upgraded its services, accepted Web 2.0, strengthened its peripheral products and launched in advertising big time. Its a strong urge to get back to where it was before Google became the party pooper for it. Although only time will tell about the decisive blows but one thing is for sure, Google is going to rule the roost for couple of years more.

Google’s Santa Radar

2006-12-28T01:58:00.000-08:00

Google has released a special data layer for Google Earth that supposedly uses a Santa Radar to track the location of Santa Claus and his fleet of reindeer. Seems like it was also there last time, but this time one can download the data layer to track all the houses that he covers on his trip.

To use the radar, first you’ll need to download Google Earth if you don’t have it already. Then you’ll need to download and open the Santa Radar data layer.

A Snapshot:Enjoi :)

Orkut opens the gates!!

2006-10-22T10:01:00.000-07:00

I log on to my Orkut today evening on diwali day, and guess what is the surprise ?? Orkut Invites are no longer needed in order to sign up for Orkut !!! Its open for joining for one and all from front page !!!

There has been a mad rush lately to get the Orkut invite, which some people had time of their life selling on eBay or distributing through chats, playing the mating game all the way. But no more, simply goto Orkut homepage and click on Join Orkut link or log on with your Google Account.

This will give more traffic to Orkut and will give competetion to MySpace, with which ironically Google had a deal for advertising. Also read from insideorkut blog that Google is now allowing Orkut users to choose who they can get friend requests from based on language.

Sorry guys, i know u all will miss the brazillian beauties ;)

Zune launches on Nov 17th !!!

2006-10-16T23:43:00.000-07:00

It has been quite a time since Microsoft came up with the teaser for Zune (see my blog post here). Finally Microsoft has come up with a date for its launch, not before the net got filled up with comparision and hatred sites. The date has been decided at November 17th, Tuesday with launch only for US market.

The Zune device will retail for $249.99 U.S. and is create new ways for entertainment fans to connect and share media experiences device-to-device through the use of wireless technology and new software scenarios.

Launching in 30GB storage, this places it head to head with other 30GB media players such as Apple’s iPod. The Zune features a couple of capabilities not present on the ubiquitous iPod including an FM tuner and wi-fi music sharing capabilities. In addition, the Zune marketplace is offering both pay-per-download songs for 79 Microsoft^® Points each (99 cents) and a $14.99 per month “unlimited” music download option. The Zune will also come preloaded with a handful of music videos and tracks (See MS website for details)

Whether it will be all to take on iPod is yet to be seen.

Source: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2006/sep06/09-28ZunePricingAvailabilityPR.mspx