Friday, May 11, 2012
According to Derrick Connell, corporate vice president of Bing, the update will roll out in the next few weeks. Users will be receiving a notification after signing up at the Bing site. “Increasingly, the Web is about much more than simply finding information by navigating a topically organized graph of links,” says Qi Lu, president of Microsoft’s Online Services Division. “We’re evolving search in a way that recognizes new user paradigms like the growth of the social graph, and will empower people with the broad knowledge of the Web alongside the help of their friends.”
i) Left which is core search results
ii) Middle containing snapshot which has useful links
iii) Right which has content from social media
Friday, May 11, 2012 0
Saturday, May 5, 2012
Last quarter Apple sold iPhones like banana in China, the figure touched 8 million. No doubt that it is the best smart phone available, still I think it is unsustainable going forward.
This exorbint sales helped Apple post record breaking profits in U.S. Analysts have praised the effort and seem too bullish for my liking. I have three main reasons why it seems tough:
A.) More than half of 30 million iPhones in China are unlocked and being used on unathorized China Mobile that limit the user experience to 2G only.
B.) Apple is far from getting right product for China market. It is a pain to use iPhone for texting as Chinese input on iPhone is not user friendly. Multiple Chinese bloggers and community experts have expressed their concern. The only option is to jailbreak and install third party software to make iPhone work smoothly.
C.) The third seasons arises from first two. Since Chinese users have unlocked and jailbreak their phone, they can download App Store applications for free. Chinese apps are limited Siri does not work in China.
Apple iPhone comes with entire ecosystem. In China, it seems this ecosystem is broken. Local players provide much better solution to Chinese users at fraction of cost.
Saturday, May 5, 2012 0
Google has come hard to big blog networks with huge links and term them as "Fake SEO" techniques. Below is screenshot of what big webmasters are receiving:
When did it start?
It seems all the buzz started with de-indexing of large link networks. It means that Google will remove these networks (inter-linked, self sustain planet of sites) from its crawler. Strangely, few of these networks have been running for years and made millions of dollars already.
Why is it happening?
Few of the reasons that I have collated are:
> Involvement in any artificial link networks
Sunday, April 1, 2012
Today, I got a call from a good friend who was asking for benchmark lending rate charged from bank. He was looking to finance his home loan and was confused with these terms. I thought I should write a post on this topic clarifying few of these complex terms.
Prime Interest Rate
The bank minimum charges prime interest rates for any lending, mainly to its prime (trustworthy) customers. There rates are bare minimum, on top of which it lays additional interest rate based upon default risk/trustworthiness of a customer. But do not confuse this with the benchmark prime interest rate.
Benchmark lending
Benchmark lending rates are used to determine prime interest or lending rate. One common benchmark for PLRs is LIBOR. LIBOR stands for London Interbank Offered Rate. This is the rate at which banks in London loan each other funds in the money market. In India, we have MIBOR (Mumbai Interbank Offered Rate). Below is the screenshot of LIBOR 3 month over a period of time.
How Lending Rate is determined
Its majorly prevailing markes conditions. Economy, inflation, deflation, repo rate, reverse repo rate, money supply, exchange rates etc are few factors that determine these rates.
Sunday, April 1, 2012 0
Sunday, March 25, 2012
In short, Windows Phone 8 is the son of Windows 8, which tallies with previous rumors that WP8 would even use the Windows 8 kernel. Taking a quick gallop through ancient history might seem a bit obtuse, but back in reality this is a no-brainer for Microsoft. Windows Phone 7 apps are just Silverlight apps, and Windows Phone 8 apps will almost certainly be XAML-based Metro apps. Microsoft has already said that WP7 and WP8 apps would work on Windows 8 with only a few changes to the code — but really, there’s no technical limitation that would prevent Microsoft from providing a framework that can run WP7 and WP8 apps as-is in Windows 8.
There are practical concerns, however. For a start, Windows Phone 7 apps are designed for low-res (800×480) portrait displays, while Windows 8 will generally be used in landscape orientation and at much higher resolutions. Thanks to the Metro style’s reliance on geometric shapes and typography, scaling itself probably won’t be an issue, but I foresee a lot of apps that hug the left and make very little use of the rest of the screen. The Windows Phone and Windows 8 app stores are obviously quite different as well — the approval processes are completely different, for a start — but this isn’t an insurmountable issue.
Sunday, March 25, 2012 0
Sunday, March 18, 2012
Sunday, March 18, 2012 0
I know this is rather a controversial post this time but I feel it is important to express my experience of Mumbai.
Its been almost a year since I moved to Mumbai. At the start, I did not like Mumbai and everyone whom I interact still don't. People who I always turn for advise said that I will start liking it, however its been on the other side, now I hate Mumbai. This post is why I started hated this once a beautiful city.
1. It stinks big time. Wherever you look, its dirt and blackness. Bad politics and people loving gutters is a norm here.
2. Rains and world best sewage system: I don't think any word is required. 4-5 months when it pours in mumbai, it makes mumbai the worst. How can people live in flood for half of the year? For rest half, it is extremely humid.
3. Annoying taxi and auto wallas: It is quite tough to find taxi and overcharging is omnipresent. Forget those third class local trains, has anyone seen "Delhi Metro".
4. Few Marathi people like talking local language and take pride. God tell them that National Language in India is "Hindi", please talk in that if other person is not from Maharastha.
5. Unsafe: I don't feel safe, girls safety has been raised after recent incidents.
6. Expensive: You get shit for best of dollars. Moreover, no one wants to interact with each other, too much ego to this small life.
7. Lost night life: Not enough now. With few pubs and discs, people call it night life. How many times you can go out in one year and there aren't many options apart from pubs. People who don't drink, I can only say sorry.
8. Food: Believe me, the so called best "Bade Mia" is not even close of any Delhi roadside food. I just hope someone tell the stupid restaurants here how to cook even decent food.
9. Blasts everywhere: In last one year, it is very sad to see 2 blasts happening in Mumbai. If Mumbai police is most incompetent then why should people living here suffer. Get few commandos from Delhi.
For many, this post may seem anti-Mumbai but the point is the city has lost its charm and even true Indian like me doesn't enjoy it. Having cribbed so much, I would like to suggest Mumbai Turnaround 3 formula:
World class - sewage system, public transport and affordable living. We can see some projects not get approval in mid of city if our Marathi ministers go for break in Tihar. Anyways, it seems unlikely in near future so overall Rating of Mumbai:
If I count 20 cities of India, then I place Mumbai at 20. I can't think any worse city than this in India.
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