Thought Beans Blog

Lively, Google’s newest product, aimed at the social networking market. The users can create an avatar & personal virtual room that can be used on the web. This can be used on a blog, chat profile & others.  With facebook’s rising popularity, Google has been aiming high for the social networking & introduced the Open social platform.  First we have to sign up for the Google account & download a browser plug-in. Then we can create an avatar with customizable hair color, skin & tone. The templates are also available which can be used for the avatars. This is part of Google’s bigger plans of moving into social networking arena.  There is also the option to create the rooms. Rooms can then be added with add ons like music, photos , videos & others. The embeddable code is also available to post it anywhere or the with the URL the user can be sent directly. Myspace, Facebook & other social networking sites have been getting millions of visitors every month & Google’s bread & butter. i.e adwords & adsense can be used extensively  to milk money. Google has been experimenting with various social networking ways to tap into the huge market.  Website can be found at http://www.lively.com/html/landing.html

Yahoo has announced that it has entered into a non exclusive agreement with Google to serve ads in its pages for the US & Canadian sites. This is a for a period of 10 years. With Microsoft deciding to shut the door for further negotiation on Yahoo deal, the deal has come at a right time for Yahoo. Will this mark the end of Yahoo or a new beginning for yahoo? The deal will bring millions of dollars over the years to Yahoo. Once the darling of wall Street, the time is going tough for Yahoo. Most of the companies which yahoo bought have not done well except Flickr & the MSFT & Carl Ichan issuses hurt Yahoo where it hurts most. Also there is exodus of top people from Yahoo & Jerry Yang & his team have to prove the wall street that they can monetize better than MSFT deal. Carl IChan is now left holding stock certificates of Yahoo. He has poured billions into Yahoo stocks hoping to cash in on the MSFT- Yahoo deal. Yahoo should come out with new products & focus on its core competency.

Apple has released the 3G iphone & will be available on July 11th in US & other countries. There has been lot of rumors over the 3G iphone & the Apple WWDC event in SF was sold out. Such was the build up that Twitter had made special arrangements to cover the event in case the service goes down. It has a battery life with with 300 hours of standby, 8-10 hours of 2G talk & 5 hours of 3G talk with 7 hours of video. 8GB is retailing at $199 & 16 GB at $299. It weighs 133 gms with Bluetooth 2.0 & wi-fi. Apple’s new MobileMe service will also be launched with the iPhone 2.0 software. It will be launched in most of North America & western Europe by July 11th & rest of the countries later on. This new phone is not available online & will have to be purchased at the store & there is also 2 year contract with AT & T. It is also 2.8x faster than EDGE on the iPhone. With this iphone Apple will be going heads on with other Phone makers.

NASA’s Mars explorer Spirit, which has taken the photos on planet Mars, has sent a curious photo this time. The photo looks like a naked woman with her arm outstretched. She is walking down a hill on the planet Mars. NASA has not confirmed this yet. Recently French Scientists have found that Mars has dense clouds of carbon dioxide ice clouds. Even Nasa Scientists have also been puzzled by this. This news has been met with humor like ” it is Osama bin Laden or a tiny rock of a few inches high”.  The Blogosphere has been set agog with the image. This has added fuel to the fire. With the debate on whether life exists on Mars or not still going on, the image of a Woman in Mars is sure to add fuel to the fire.

After the launch of Live documents, Sabeer Bhatia, has now launched SabSeBolo.com, first free audio conferencing service. Registration is reuqired for the service. After registration, an activation link is sent & this is to be activated. Once activated, conference id, dial number & pin number is sent by email. This is first such service in the country & can be a trendsetter in the audio conferencing service. To start a Conference call, a number is to be dialled & upon entering the pin number & conference id, they can communicate. There is no software required to utilize the service.

With the number of telecom users in the country increasing, there is a huge potential to tap the audio conferencing market by bringing many together. Even the corporates can make use of such service for to schedule conference call for team members & clients. For small business who cannot afford costly services, this can be a very useful service.

Sabeer Bhatia of Hotmail fame has launched a new product called Live Docs. This, according to Bhatia, has all the features of Microsoft office 2007 & is free online. Live documents has been developed by his bangalore based company instacoll. This has wiki capabilities as well & can be accessed in a Browser. This has good security features as well. The docs can be shared & edited on the web & browser as well. This can be used on Linux or Macs as well with More features compared to Microsoft Live. More info can be had at http://www.live-documents.com/

Adding to the Spectrum allocation tussle between GSM vs CDMA, is the number portabality issue govt is planning to introduce. The Number portability will give big advantage for the users to move easily across the operators. It was Reliance, a CDMA operator which stirred the nest about the Spectrum allocation. Now GSM operators alleage that this would give big advantage to CDMA operators. Reliance is in plans for rolling out GSM services. GSM operators led by COAI says number portability should be introduced for both fixed & mobile operators. There is a shadow war being played out by both the service providers.

Google’s bid for 700 mhz spectrum, plans for optic cables & itsmuch rumoured Gphone is all indication of Google’s march for the wireless/mobile industry. Google powered phones would help people to use variety of Google powered applications on mobile. Google has already contacted companies like Taiwan’s HTC, LG & others for possible coordination. One of the prominent features of the G powered phone would be open access for the software. This would help developers to build applications for a variety of purposes.

MIcrosoft has finally agreed to comply with the Decision of the Antitrust decision of the European commission. Microsoft has challenged the decison in the European Union court which upheld the decision of the European commission. MS has been fined half a million euros & more in 2006 for non compliance.  MS has been facing the heat of the antitrust regulators in the US & Europe. The European commissioner has stated that it is a victory for consumers & more fine will be in the offing if MS didnot comply with the commission. Also MS would make available the open source for software developers.

Albert Fert & Peter Grünberg will share the 2007 Nobel Physics prize for their work on how to manipulate magnetic & electric properties of atoms to store more data. Their combined work called as giant magnetoresistance.  Their work is the basis on which modern day gadgets like ipod, MP3 are working.  Member of the Royal Sweedish Academy said, ipod, Mp3 would not have existed without this technology. This is one of the earlier applications of Nanotech in mp3 devices. The first devices using giant magnetoresistance came in early 1997. Their work also led to the advent of new & dense smaller types of memory devices. Dr. Grünberg got his Ph.D in Germany in 1969 & Dr. Fert in 1970 from France. They will share $1.5 million awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences