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Saturday, January 31, 2004
Uut and Uup Add Their Atomic Mass to Periodic Table
"A team of Russian and American scientists are reporting today that they have created two new chemical elements, called superheavies because of their enormous atomic mass. The discoveries fill a gap at the furthest edge of the periodic table and hint strongly at a weird landscape of undiscovered elements beyond." posted by Farookh at 11:09 PM Comment (0)  
Friday, January 30, 2004
TiVo acquires Strangeberry - 2004-01-27 - Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal
Strangeberry was a company started by Javasoft/Marimba team of Arthur van Hoff and Jon Payne. They did some kind of a Java implementation of Apple's Rendezvous protocol. Wonder what Tivo wants to do wih them... posted by Kaushik at 8:00 PM Comment (0)
BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Nasa to rethink Hubble decision: "Nasa chief Sean O'Keefe, responding to criticism, has agreed to reconsider his decision to abandon the successful Hubble Space Telescope. " posted by Kaushik at 7:54 PM Comment (0)
New Scientist: "Imagine how different politics would be if debates were conducted in Tariana, an Amazonian language in which it is a grammatical error to report something without saying how you found it out - as Alexandra Aikhenvald tells us its speakers tell her. Tariana is in danger of dying. With each such disappearance we risk losing insights into different ways of thinking. Aikhenvald told Adrian Barnett about the race to record languages" posted by Kaushik at 7:49 PM Comment (0)
CNN.com - Newest electronics short on simplicity - Jan. 30, 2004
Hardware is going the way of software. Manuals are poor and sooon people will be willing to put up with buggy hardware just like they do with software. posted by Kaushik at 7:33 PM Comment (0)
"Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation, met on Thursday with Indian President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam to discuss "the ethical issues related to the use of proprietary software," according to the Free Software Foundation of India." posted by Farookh at 4:29 PM Comment (0)
"The economy is indeed buoyant. Gross domestic product grew 5.7 percent in the country's first quarter, which ended in June, then jumped 8.4 percent in the next quarter, compared with levels the previous year. And the bounce is being felt across nearly all business sectors." posted by Farookh at 11:30 AM Comment (0)
Thursday, January 29, 2004
"...is the world's second most popular internet search engine, but still far behind market leader Google." 6% to 70% but, really? I think they are counting Yahoo towards Google. Didn't expect Jeeves to have more market share than MSN Search. posted by Farookh at 11:20 PM Comment (0)
As expected for some time now, Pixar drops Disney: http://money.cnn.com/2004/01/29/news/companies/pixar_disney/ posted by Farookh at 6:50 PM Comment (0)
Used this site yesterday called The Work Number. It is a company that provides employment verification of employees of companies that have signed up with them (FedEx, MS, GE, etc). I thought it was a very interesting business. Say I am buying a house and my lender needs to verify my employment. I go to The Work Number, sign-in and generate a verification token (a number). I give my lender this number and my SSN. He logs into The Work Number and gets the verification. The token is valid for one use. I can generate tokens for verification with salary or without and also for INS documentation. I can also have them snail-mail it to me. A little like ADP, few know about but have found a niche segment of the business landscape. posted by Farookh at 10:45 AM Comment (0)
Monday, January 26, 2004
The Original Macintosh
Anecdotes about the development of Apple's original Macintosh computer, and the people who created it. posted by Amit at 10:01 PM Comment (0)
"Sir" Bill Gates
"Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates is set to receive an honorary knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II, in recognition of his services to global enterprise. " posted by Farookh at 1:29 PM Comment (0)
Saturday, January 24, 2004
Dynamism.com - Gigabeat G20
Saw this in Wired titled "Silver is the new White". Smaller and lighter than the iPod but no scroll wheel. Available only in Japan currently. posted by Farookh at 8:48 PM Comment (0)
The Guts of a New Machine
Nice read about the design, the aura, the innovation that is iPod. "But it was Dell that one investor quoted in the Journal article held out as the rival with the greatest chance of success: ''No one markets as well as Dell does.'' This was causing some eye-rolling in Cupertino; Dell is not a marketer at all. Dell has no aura; there is no Cult of Dell. Dell is a merchandiser, a shiller of gigs-per-dollar. A follower. Dell had not released its product when I met Jobs, but he still dismissed it as ''not any good.'' posted by Farookh at 8:01 PM Comment (0)
Friday, January 23, 2004
Google eyes email-based ad delivery
And now Google is onto direct-mail advertising. iVillage and a few others are supposedly already using them. It is a matter of time before Google supports identities (email id/profile) and starts leveraging it for targeted scenarios. They already have identities from blogger and even from Google Groups. They could start mining those and creating targeted profiles. Also, when I post a question to a group (even now), they could see that I asked "How does the Nikon D100 compare to a Canon 10D?" and display digital camera ads on the thread. Wonder if they will do something like that. posted by Farookh at 5:39 PM Comment (0)
Thursday, January 22, 2004
Google spawns social networking service
...called Orkut "Buyukkokten, a computer science doctoral candidate at Stanford University before joining Google, created Orkut.com in the past several months by working on it about one day a week--an amount that Google asks all of its engineers to devote to personal projects." Neat! Friendster.com has received over $10 mil in VC investments! posted by Farookh at 6:46 PM Comment (0)
Now Where Was I? New Ways to Revisit Web Sites
"ELECTRONIC bookmarks were supposed to answer the problem of Web-site recall. If you came across a site that you expected to need in the future, you simply added it to your Favorites list in Internet Explorer for safekeeping. With an application that simple, what's not to like? Quite a bit, as it turns out. Researchers are finding that despite the early promise of bookmarks, people seem to be abandoning them." I for one have given up on a favorite list. I just use Google or ask Kaushik. :) posted by Farookh at 6:13 PM Comment (0)
I didn't know Amazon sells their platform. "Amazon's Linux systems also are the basis for the e-commerce engine the company sells to other retailers, including Toys "R" Us, Target, Borders Group, Nordstrom, The Gap, CDNow and the National Basketball Association." -fm posted by Farookh at 4:52 PM Comment (0)
Wednesday, January 21, 2004
I played with the Fossil SPOT watch today - a gadget-freak colleague of mine has it. Looking at the pictures I expected it to be bulky, but it has a nice form and clean design. The antenna is on the wristband (unlike the Suunto model which has the antenna around the watch face). Needs a $10/month service but otherwise pretty nifty. You can get IM messages on it as a nice balloon and different watch faces every month, an at-glance channel that cycles through top news etc., a stock channel that gives you price and also charts - intraday, 1yr. etc. Very tempting! :) posted by Farookh at 7:37 PM Comment (0)
Tuesday, January 20, 2004
...and KlipFolio is also kind of like Konfabulator – the popular Mac product I was reminded. posted by Farookh at 11:49 PM Comment (0)
Came across KlipFolio a short while back and installed it. Very elegant UI. Though, I don't think I would like to read RSS feeds and other news via this, but definetely a good peripheral info UI. Kind of like the dashboard of MSN or the upcoming sidebar of Longhorn. -fm posted by Farookh at 6:11 PM Comment (0)
Monday, January 19, 2004
NASA should sell Hubble instead of abandoning it. I am sure Paul Allen would be interested. He can maintain it using SpaceShipOne.
posted by Farookh at 4:38 PM Comment (0)
Sunday, January 18, 2004
NASA scientists turn body clocks to red-planet time
"More than 250 scientists working on the Mars Spirit rover mission are living on Mars time, a phenomenon that is creating one of the worst cases of collective jet lag on record. The time it takes for Mars to rotate on its axis is 39 minutes and 35 seconds longer than Earth's daily rotation, so scientists must adjust their schedule that much later every day to keep up with Spirit." posted by Farookh at 10:30 AM Comment (0)
Friday, January 16, 2004
Nasa to abandon Hubble telescope
Nasa is halting all space shuttle missions to service the Hubble Space Telescope, a move that will lead to it becoming useless within four years. The US space agency took the decision because, under President Goeorge W Bush's new space programme, the space shuttle will be retired in 2010. The United States will instead focus on voyages to the Moon and Mars. posted by Kaushik at 5:52 PM Comment (0)
Thursday, January 15, 2004
Puzzled monkeys reveal key language step To recurse is human. posted by Farookh at 7:19 PM Comment (0)
Wednesday, January 14, 2004
Naveen Jain (InfoSpace guy)'s new company: http://www.intelius.com Its a public record search company - basically all your US public records. This includes criminal records, property records, personal information, etc. Supposedly made around a million bucks last quarter with a very large profit margin since all they are doing is aggregating publically available records in one place. One of my colleagues mentioned that I would be surprised by the amount of personal info that is available out there. He had tried a day-pass and found his property deeds etc. online. Scary! Job candidates could be screened over this, potential mates could screen each other, etc. -fm posted by Farookh at 1:40 PM Comment (0)
Tuesday, January 13, 2004
Kodak to stop selling traditional cameras
"NEW YORK - Eastman Kodak Co. on Tuesday said it will stop selling traditional film cameras in the United States, Canada and Western Europe, another move by the troubled photography company to cut lines with declining appeal in favor of fast-growing digital products." posted by Farookh at 10:16 PM Comment (0)
Bush to Seek Unmanned Mission to Moon This Decade
Didn't know the plan was to retire the shuttle so soon. I would've thought they would wait for a replacement before doing so. "He will propose increasing NASA's budget by 5 percent a year over the next three years. Other resources would be reallocated, including $3.5 billion a year for the space shuttle, once it is retired on completion of the International Space Station. " posted by Farookh at 5:55 PM Comment (0)
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