Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Google to Launch G-Phone

India is slowly becoming a market which can be ignored by companies at their own peril. Take for example Apple , it did not launch its I-Phone in Indian market simultaneously with other markets because of production bottlenecks and constraints, but Google is launching G-Phone which will be simultaneously launched in Indian market also.
Apart from technological companies others like automobile companies are also especially concentrating on their product portfolio for the Indian market. Innovating for Indian market is paying off with growing number of millionaires even the companies selling premium products stand to benefit.

Another benefit which google has is that it is tying up with multiple service providers unlike apple which only supports AT & T officially.

Blade Servers

Blade servers are used to create a high density computing experience for the users. Blade servers aer mounted on a chassis in either 5 or 10 per chassis depending on the user requirement. It not only saves valuable reality space but also can be used to decrease overall TCO of managing a datacenter by sharing the heating and cooling plus other support costs.
Blade servers can be used where you require a highly scalable system whichgrows along with the growth of business so that individual blades can be added as and when required.

Sunday, October 28, 2007

Power and Cooling

Power and Cooling forms a very important factor in a Data Center Management. Power requirements and cooling requirements both can come down to a very low percentage if Multicore system is used or Blade servers are deployed. A critical measure of efficiency is the cooling reqired for a particular level of heating which in turn depends on power. The temperature of the data ceneter should be kept at a range bound degrees as any deviation from the levels can cause serious malfunctions in Data Center and cause downtime and outages which are detrimental to the business success.

Heating is an important factor in Data Center design as with increase in reality costs savings due to form factor efficiency is capped by the heat dissipated by powerful smaller servers as only 20-35% of Data Centers space can be used to place rack computers.

Thursday, October 25, 2007

Self Sufficient Laptops

Laptops are increasingly becoming a wonderful piece of technology. Some months back the average weight used to be anywhere between 2.5 kgs to 2.99 kgs which is now come down to 1 KG square. Also the piece used to be without any camera now it comes with inbuilt 2.0 MP web cam. Also there are inbuit speakers and high configuration systems available at a fraction of cost of the previous rates.

So a laptop can double up as a personal entertainment device as well as your business companion. You can work and stay connected to the world on the fly while being completely mobile.

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

MMOG

Online games are highly evolved with Massively Multiplayer Online Games. Milllions of people take avatar and play games with in virtual environment. These games are also used for simulation studies in the field of Medicine and behavioural science for example Irrational behaviour. Some are free and some require to be subscribed to. Shattered Galaxy and Boundless Planet are a few of strategy oriented games. You can learn how to strategise using these games and sometimes strike gold because sometimes when you get a useful idea you can use it to launch realtime business.

Saturday, October 20, 2007

Document Technology

There are new applications by xerox in Document management technology.What are they. They are as following.
1. A document redaction software which is used to erase parts of documents so that only authorised people like top managers and inside people can see them. Also this gives rise to intra document security as separate documents need not be created for haring or security purposes.
2. Another application renders parts of print on an ordinar paper illegible to people but can be viwed only under specil ink, to mark passport of dangerous crminals who are beyond the claws of law or dangerous paedophiles who can not be caught on camera.

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Server Energy Efficiency and Consolidation

Servers are getting highly power hungry and cooling requirements of servers are inceasing with each passing day. 25% of a data centers cost is only spent in footing energy bills, which is quite a large percentage sometimes going up to 44%. Also real estate costs more in cosmopolitans and any form saving would add to total cost pruned by managers of datacenter.

To reduce the cost of energy consumed now a days the rtend is to go in for multicore servers, dual, quad or eight core servers from sun, IBM , AMd et al are already there in the market catering to the data center demand.

Multicore servers can reduce power requirements upto 66% and can also be used for server virtualisation.

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Storage Virtualisation Technology

So if you have an organisation wide storage which may be spread across network servers or multiple storage devices like tapes, opical, Sata et al then if you want to make it easier for users to use it then it is better to go for Storage Virtualisation. IN this the actual details of the storage device and physical location as well as the type of storage can be hidden from the user. One advantage could be that ordinary users can carry out complicated ack up and recovery operations and the method is highly user friendly.

The storage is given an abstraction. There are hardware and software devices to attain storage virtualisation. If you use hardware devices for packet switching its prone to evasdropping and if you use software controllers then the systems are inoperable with other vendors devices.

Storage abstraction can be used for cost savings in case of consolidation of infrastructure post M & A.

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Technology CoE

There are good economic cycle periods and the bad ones. Similarly there are technology cycles. Like when a new technology is introduced in the market and especially if it is a radical new version then it is damn difficult to find skilled knowledge workers who can disseminate and deliver the technological processes to new products. So what is the solution.

The solution is to set up a technological CoE ( Centre Of Excellence ). This centre can be used to have a minimum of 15-25 people who develop organisation repatoire of best practices and processes to be used for scaling the product development. When skill repository is developed fully then you can train more people on the same technology and set up a full fledged profit centre around the technology. Although the CoE would first be just a cost centre but later it will become a source of business growth and cash revenues.

Also you could milk the concept further by setting up a customer centric CoE which could be used to create a interface for customers to excel at their business by outsourcing their technical requirements.

Monday, October 15, 2007

Data Intensive Applications and Technologies

Storage requirements are increasing of late. With the advent of HD video technology more and more storage is required for applications like film making. One camera footage of a HD Video would be roughly 1 TB . Huge by any known standards. Similarly all the footage of all cameras would add up to Humonguos ( PetaByte = 1024 Tera Bytes ). Great so any advance in storage technology is surely going to help digital cinema. Also any 80 core processor or Core 2 80 Processors would make rendering and encoding of digital content more faster and accurate.

Best of luck to the film fraternity of the world.

Sunday, October 14, 2007

Technology And Security

The security of web sites are more compromised today than ever, what with applications using cloud computing are ever increasingly using the net to connect to the partners and stakeholders like the suppliers, distributers and sometimes even the end users themselves. This collaboration on one hand increases the synergistic effect of business and increased revenues but also results in incresed threat vis - a -vis internal threats and external threats like social engineering and phishing of data.

So if you are into Extra Corporate enterprise relationships make sure that you take the requisite steps to stem the menace of compromised security. Make sure you are connected to stakeholder through secure VPN and make sure there are right security policies in the organisation to curb social engineering.

Occasionally take the help of ethical hackers to proactively scout your business site and server for vulnerabilities and periodically conduct a security audit to check the security readiness and DR and BC readiness.

Saturday, October 13, 2007

Strategical Role that Technology plays in OD

OD includes managing and developing people which are the most critical asset of any company. OD includes better productivity and human capital utilization which can be achieved through technology applications deployment. E-learning can be used to cost effectively train the Knowledge Workers and increase their contribution to achievement of organizational goals.

Technology can provide strategic tools to the workforce to work smart with gadgets like PDA and UMPC’s creating a direct connection with SCM which captures almost live data making decision making at the top level management more relevant and timely resulting in heavy corporate profits.

Technology Companies and Depreciating Dollar

Indian Software exporting and Outsourcing companies are the ones which are surely going to suffer due to a depreciating dollar. Their top line and margins are surely going to get thin and profitability going to go down. The companies take recourse to lobbying with the govt. to take steps to stop appreciation of Rupee against the dollar. But the greater good of Indian Technological companies lie in an appreciating Rupee. As it would increase the net purchasing power of the individuals as well as the companies. This will result in an ever improving and alluring domestic market.

The US companies which outsource to the Indian Tech. firms will soon loose the arbitrage enjoyed by the former and result in making outsourcing untenable to the US companies. All in all Indian companies stand to gain relatively more in overall terms compared to the US technological companies. Also the employability of US Technological workers improve as a whole.

Mobile Advertisement Technology

India and the World is seeing rapid rise in mobile connections. In developed countries like the US , UK and Europe there is a rapid rise in number of cells a household or an individual uses. This results in massive opportunities arising for the technological innovations in marketing.

If one has a database of mobile users who are customers , then they can be easily contacted for customized product and service offerings. Payments can be made via Cellular mode. Cells can be used for marketing products in a customized way.

In Bangalore Malls actually use BlueTooth servers to target customers with offers which can be downloaded from Hoardings giving the exact details of offer and customized offers according to customer purchase history. Sales van be closed more easily and turnover can be increased. Also movie tickets of Multiplexes can be booked through Cells. All in All cell is turning out to be a massively important device for marketers to reach customers by leveraging mobile technology. With high tech devices being churned out at least prices this segment is only likely to see further growth. With digital distribution of entertainment content like Audio and Video on demand cornering a greater market share of telecom companies in India in the near future.

R&D and Technology

R&D outstrips Product Development and Adoption

Lots of research in Technology sphere, like Robotics and Consumer Electronics and Durables. Also Wireless technology, but adoption is slow. There are various reasons for this slow adoption. One of them being lots of funds already sunk into previous technologies which are unable to give the required ROI. In such a scenario the telecom companies are not wishing to invest in expensive infrastructure required for costly upgrades which benefits only the consumer and not the companies who invest. And any company leave alone technology companies exist for the sole purpose of making profits.

Take robotics, Research Pilot successful models are available but are not cheap enough for commercial exploitation. And also in the case of technology is not even properly tested for safety of commercial use with human beings. Also what will happen to human living if AI applications take over the mundane technological task. Also many Human beings would not be capable of higher level jobs which they may be offered in absence of mundane jobs.

Ethics and Technology

Ethical Dimensions of Technological Products

Apple allows people to use software updates to unlock its i-Phone to be used with other than AT&T. Apple has taken no steps to proactively dissuade users from adopting this practice. Have you ever given a thought to why they allow people to hack their i-Phones. Well I tried to put some pressure on my mind.

Do they want to increase their i-Phone sales at any cost to make it another block buster record breaking product like the sibling product i-Pod and place it in the same league. Or are they having the technology to fill the gap. Or they just want people who love apple products to use them at any cost giving them viral publicity at no additional cost.

News You Can Use

ConvertTube.com

Want to convert your videos into formats like mpg, mov or any other format while downloading itself from any site. Just add your URL to the video to the textbox on the homepage and choose a format and click on download in requisite format on the click of a button.

A cool utility to change the format of video.

Natural Language Processing

What is the future of technology. Is it a software development language in which you just list the goals and specify the language and programming paradigm to be used to get the software package ready in a jiffy. Well while such a scenario may be possible in a few or one decade with AI and Expert Systems making fast inroads into our increasingly technological existence. While vested interests and ethical considerations may make it possible to employ Human beings in future in mundane tasks like upkeep of the computer and peripherals.

Our first step in that direction is to create computers that can understand native languages with all its verbose nature. Search engines are being designed which can understand natural language. There have been defeated attempts at it, but still many ventures keep trying the lucrative segment as keyword search is not as user friendly to the non geeks.

University of California is also designing a Search Engine which annotates songs based on inputs from human inputs form a online game Listen Game, which will allow users to search songs based on attributes rather than artiste or label. Like you are in a mood to hear Funky songs, just type Funky songs of Beatles, and lo presto you have the results in front of you. Cool innovation I say.

Birds Can See Magnetic Field

Size Is not related to technological advancement is not only just proved by the fact that migratory birds can see magnetic field and use it as a compass to guide them through out the globe. Miniaturization and excellence can go hand in hand.

It only proves just like nature may have designed microcosmic life which may be very small in size but may be having Intelligence very high compared to that of a human being. I am sure future research may reveal such fantastic revelations. Maybe we are Co-inhabiting Earth with many other microcosmic intelligent species we are not aware of and they may have a role in our destiny.

Safe Banking Transaction Technology

In the IT security market and Banking Transactions online new technology needs to be developed all the time to beat hackers who make it a habit to regularly dupe investors of millions of dollars of money, by fraudelent transactions like phishing et al.

Tokens are one way of having safe banking transactions. One Time Password tokens are used to generate one time passwords which are safer than static passwords. Also smart tokens can be used to embed a chip in the token which authenticates user to the web site of the bank. Technological advances which makes life of hapless customers go a bit easy. Thats all about hardware security device and safe banking transactions.

More later.

Friday, October 12, 2007

Phantom Cell

Mobile phones can cause phantom sensation. A recent study has shown that people are feeling their cell to be an integral part of their personality. If they are not carrying a phone, still they can feel the presense of the phone. The use of cell phone is almost approaching the levels of Addiction in people using it. More ever recent studies have shown that cell phones are harmful to the hearing capability of a Human Being esp. children. Also this growing addiction problem is only going to accentuate in the future with call rates dropping due to competition with internet phone and also internet phone plans availoable in countries like the US.

I suggest people should use mobile technology to leverage their relationships and business and should not become slaves to technology.

Thursday, October 11, 2007

Technology Can be Dangerous

Already there is a serious problem caused due to untested technological products like Cells which have proved to be harmful to the consumers. Further with werable computers and virtual reality advances being made at an astronomical rate. New types of crimes like Hijacking the brain of a Human Being and doing various acts with it and showing them a different dream while they go through some other physical process takes place.

I think VR technology is a greater danger to the Humanity compared to Robotic invasion envisioned of the future.

Previous blunders by great intellectuals of developed world includes the Y2K bug which causedbillions of dollars lost due to poor technological prognosis.

Unified Communications

With advent of increasingly new ways of communicating, like mobile, chat , e-mail et al there is a need to manage the interface across all these media. Let us think it this way. If you are at office you want to be contacted at office number on mobile, if you are at home you want to be contacted at your Home computer through E-Mail. So the result is there needs to be a way to manage your contact through various interfaces and gadgets.

This is achived through Unified Communications. What with Microsoft having a dedicated server for it although an integrated solution is still a distant dream.

Wednesday, October 03, 2007

Peer To Peer Learning and Technology

Peer To Peer learning can be enabled by using technology. Wiki's and Corporate blogs can be leveraged to create knowledge sharing and dissemination in organisation. It is a useful tool to document knowledge so that an organisational pool of knowledge can be created which can be used by ensuing employees.

Corporate blogs can be used to manage an interface with peers of other companies of the vertical to gain objective insights into working and challenges of technology in other companies. Any sharing of knowledge results in multiplier effect on the overall knowledge of the company.

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