Thanks to facebook, I have been able to connect to several friends that I have not had contact with over serveral years. Had it not been for my MIS class, I would continue to remain cut off from so many people. On the flip side, I get friend requests from people that I would be happy to forget…. I didn’t add a contact for some weeks and got a message from him asking why I hadn’t done so yet??? So I apologized and added him and am now swamped with useless junk updates and messages.
India Unveils World’s Cheapest Laptop…
The ‘world’s cheapest laptop’, developed in India, was unveiled by Union Minister for Human Resources Development Arjun Singh at the Tirupati temple on Tuesday, February 3, 2009.
The laptop, jointly developed by several organisations, such as the University Grants Commission, the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras, and the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, will be priced at around $10 to $20 (about Rs 500 to Rs 1,000), officials said. This laptop is expected to reach the market in about six months.
The project has already created a buzz in the laptop industry across the world.
The laptop has 2 GB onboard memory with wireless Internet connectivity. To make it useful for the students, especially in the rural areas, the scientists have made it a low power consuming gadget.
The $10 laptop is being seen as India’s reply to One Laptop per Child’s XO and Intel’s Classmate. The XO, created by scientist Nicholas Negroponte and MIT Media Lab was originally targeted to cost only $100 but by the time it was ready to enter the market its cost went up to $188. The Classmate notebook PC from Intel was priced at $ 300 a piece.
In contrast, the Indian government’s effort to market lap top at only $10 has caused a flutter in the international laptop market and many players are curious to know the details of the costing and how the Indians have managed to keep the costs so low.
What is 3G?
After becoming the recent owner of the iPhone 3G, I was intrigued at learning more on what exactly is 3G and its advantages? Here’s what i came across. Check it out….
http://www.pcworld.com/article/106149/mobile_computing_the_newest_wireless_technology.html
Yes, you can: How to initiate change your company can believe in
As an IT professional, you don’t often have the luxury of going with the flow. With businesses everywhere seeking both efficiencies and revenue growth, IT’s mission is increasingly geared toward implementing and even spearheading many types of change. That’s never been more true than in today’s economic climate. “Where do we think productivity is going to come from? From technology,” says Charles Beard, CIO at San Diego-based Science Applications International Corp.
In a 2008 Gartner Inc. survey of 1,500 CIOs worldwide, improving business processes was identified as the No. 1 priority for CIOs. And in a late-2008 survey of 100 IT leaders by CIO Connect, an independent networking forum for top CIOs in the U.K., 62% of the respondents said that their board-level colleagues were increasingly turning to them for insight and leadership in the area of business change.
Check out this article from Computerworld.com… interesting comments too that relate to our discussions in class.
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=332647
Internet has taken recruiting to a new level
I read an interesting article on how the internet and information available through it has taken recruiting to a new level… Check out the article below at:
http://msn.foxsports.com/cfb/story/9172486/Internet-has-taken-recruiting-to-a-new-level?MSNHPHMA
My IT Goof
I struggled to upload my IT Goof, thanks to wonderful Windows on my Dell laptop, which would not allow Java Applets to update… I emailed it to Blake and Dennis through WebCT, only to find out that it didn’t get to them either. Finally ended up sending it to Blake directly and hope he has recieved it.. cos I don’t have a grade yet!!! Help!!!
Twitter’s new status – Investing
It’s 1:15 a.m. in early January, and I’m in a hunt for a big trade. Energy is running out of gas; tech is tired; drug makers are comatose. Gotta keep looking — the market opens in a few hours.
Then an e-mail pops up in my inbox. It’s from an economist in Hong Kong. Says Taiwan’s exports were down 47% in December from the year before and that half of the decline came from plunging Chinese demand. I didn’t know that. Sounds bad enough to make iShares MSCI Taiwan Index (EWT, news, msgs) a good short-selling candidate, since the exchange-traded fund had been up lately. But is that fresh enough news to be tradable?
Only one way to find out now, and that is through the Web’s newest 24-hour global information collective: Twitter. When you absolutely, positively have to know something at 1:20 a.m. and don’t know whom to ask (or if you do, they’re probably asleep), or have a burning ambition to make a quick comment that will be widely and instantly seen, this is the solution. And lately, a lot of traders, investors, analysts, journalists, executives and other early adopters of all things financial and digital are turning to this remarkable resource.
Created by a couple of young Web developers in 2006, originally to provide personal status updates — in no more than 140 characters — for a Bay Area delivery business, Twitter has evolved into an amazingly flexible platform for short bursts of real-time conversations by groups of people involved in niche activities.
For some people, Twitter is merely an amusing distraction. But for many investors, it has become as essential as the Internet itself, serving as a worldwide squawk box in which trade ideas are blurted out, analyzed, opened in real time with real money, observed and closed in an endless loop of symbols and passion. Somehow, and no one is quite sure why, the conversation has not yet devolved into the sort of mean, grubby, spam-filled vipers’ nests that Web bulletin boards and chat rooms became a decade ago. It’s still a place for well-mannered gentlemen and ladies who simply try to learn from each other, collaborate, commiserate and celebrate.
Because the ethic is to help, collective ideas are not shouted out merely to be heard. To gather enough followers so that his or her comments are heard, each Twitterer, as users are called, must find a way to build his or her reputation. A common type of “tweet,” or post, is a short link to a news story, blog entry or chart topped with a five- to 15-word explanation.
You gain in reputation if a post is found valuable enough to be “re-tweeted,” or passed along by your followers to theirs. That new circle will then have its interest piqued in your ideas. If some folks in that circle decide to follow you, you’re off and running in building a “Twitterverse” for exchanging views.
Essentially, tweeting is a combination of micro-blogging (posting quick, time-stamped ideas in a public journal), instant messaging (posting to people receiving in real time), texting (posts must be as short as SMS cell phone messages), high school (posts must be cool if they’re going to build your reputation and attract followers) and mass communications (posts can be seen by a single follower, if you’re just starting, or thousands, if you’re as cool as venture capitalist Fred Wilson.)
Note: The above article is from msn.com on 1/15/08
2009 CES
Since 1967, at the start of every year the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is held in Las Vegas. The 2009 show just concluded last week.
The International CES is the industry’s largest educational forum to help companies expand their businesses and understand new technology. Approximately 200 conferences and more than 300 expert speakers encompass International CES conferences, Industry Insiders and SuperSessions to discuss hot industry trends and topics.
Keynote presentations feature executives from the world’s largest and most successful companies and result in remarkable media coverage for the speakers. CEOs rank the CES as one of their top 10 most desired speaking opportunities, according to a Burson-Marsteller Most Valued Podium survey.
It showcased and honored innovations like Pano, a new type of server-based computer designed to replace corporate desktop PC’s. Called a “Zero Client”, it is a minimal hardware-only device, containing no software and no operating system.
For more cool stuff from the CES and CNET’s top winners check out: http://ces.cnet.com/
iPhone
I got my wife a new iPhone for Christmas. Now I wish I could trade in my corporate Blackberry for one. She wanted to get a Samsung phone similar to the iPhone but with more “features”. Once she got hold of the iPhone and made it to the App store, it was a whole different story.
In the last class we discussed a case on Apple and how they revived themselves with the iPod. When Apple first launched their iPhone, almost immediately a slew of competitors started working on touch screen phones. So what does Apple do next to maintain its competitive advantage? Enter into an agreement with AT&T to introduce the iPhone 3G and launch the App Store. Both of these once again showed why Apple is a successful and innovative company.
Blown away…
One – Thats the vote my team got for our debate on Wikis.. and that vote wasn’t from my brother either.
Our team didn’t do very well as most of didn’t believe in the cons of implementing a wiki… But we will bounce back with the case studies.
Good case presentations on WalMart, HEB and Procter and Gamble.
Prashant's Blog 