The Evolution of the iPod: Apple squeezing its competitors

As Gump called it, the "fruit" company has ushered in yet a new generation of the uber-cool and the uber-profitable iPod. From a consumer standpoint, Apple seems to be releasing a newer version every year and it looks just out of the world. From a purely technical standpoint, Apple seems to be reducing the design time for a new generation which requires a significant level of planning and thus, a greater number of resources from it competitors. This keeps Apple far ahead of its competitors given they still havent closed in on the "cool" of the fruit brand.

A Relaxing Vacation in San Diego

Just a fast update. A bunch of our undergrad friends decided to visit San Diego and also meet up with Mahesh for a relaxing vacation by the beach and it was a Blast! Kayaking, Sailing, Swimming, Boogie boarding, Football, Tabletennis - all in all, it was a great trip to sync up with long time mates. I will get back with details and photos.

VMW - BuZzzzing in Silicon Valley today!

Sounds like the luxury carmaker BMW, but this is the innovative virtualization software maker "vmware" making its debut in Wall street! It took off with good acceleration like it's luxury counterpart and shares are up by 80% already. For starters, virtualization is a software technology that makes it possible to run multiple operating systems (windows, Mac OS X, and Linux, etc.) on the same hardware, thereby increasing the utilization and versatility of hardware. For more details on virtualization, follow this wiki link or vmware's page. EMC, a software behemoth, bought it for a bargain in 2004 and vmware is already up 17 times the value it was bought for...

Brazil 3 - Argentina 0: Signalling the end of the classic "passing" game?

Argentina wanted to play the game with the classic passing style, but it came unstuck against Brazil's rapid counterattacking offense and a compact defense. And, not to forget the 37 fouls to interrupt the fluid passing game. Football has taken more of a physical nature over the last couple of decades, and this seems to have left many of the south-american nations behind. Argentina, the most popular of such nations, and the team I have been supporting ever since I was a kid, will keep searching for their trophy while still playing their way! History will tell us if they get there or change their style. As a football (soccer) fan, I just hope the classic passing game comes back in a big way :).

Involuntary Judgementalism: Are we a victim or the cause?

It is human nature to form an opinion as we perceive our surroundings. Our perception of things as we see/hear/touch/taste/smell gives us an idea of what we think of those things. This idea forms the basis for all of our actions in relation to that thing. Sometimes without our knowledge, this opinion forms a critical part of our decisions. As time flies by, these opinions still have a say on our decisions irrespective of where we are and what we do. It gets to a point where we are being judgemental about things even when we dont realize it. We like to believe that we always make rational decisions, but do we? Is man a victim of involuntary judgementalism or merely the cause for it? Are we sophisticated enough to figure if our decisions are truely rational?

A grim time with tech sector lay-offs?

While some companies are still interviewing people for new jobs and growth, we have had a slew of layoff announcements in the last weeks. Some examples that come to mind are:

1. Motorola axes 4000 jobs

2. IBM cuts 1570 jobs

3. Dell removes 7000 jobs

Add this to Bernanke's recent comments on interest rates and the persistence of slump in the housing market, it calls for a cautious approach to the near future.

Seaworld, Shamu, Universal, and the Disneyworld

A bunch of us friends decided to drive to LA and SD in the past weekend. We drove through highway five for most of the way before taking a host of other roads. Apart from visiting a couple of old friends, we hit three theme parks in three days and needless to say, Shamu, the killer whale, and Seaworld emerged as the best of the lot even though in fairness, they are different beasts to be compared to each other. I am tired, but I need to get back to work.

Status: food's great in CA

For people who read my blog to know my status, I moved to california (bay area) two weeks ago and started my summer work. Life has been fun the past days: getting to meet a host of old friends, learning to play tennis, and eating amazing south indian food in the bay area. I will get back to work now and give details of my road trip soon.

Change: The Sole Eternity of Life

I wondered about things that have been permanent in life ever since I have been a child, and it took me long and hard to realize that there is absolutely nothing that is permanent other than my parents. Then, I had to think long and hard to realize that I have been changing everyday in some aspect and that is probably the only thing that hasnt changed :). It is a parody that change is the only permanent thing in my life and I wonder if it will go away sometime...

Pushing People to a Corner

It is amazing how certain people respond when they are pushed to a corner and have nowhere to go. If you are a person doing research in Psychology, this probably is a area that you heard about a lot. Anyway, I was amazed by a series of events in which an person can totally avoid habitual events that are inherently part of everyday life (think sleeping, everyone sleeps for five hours atleast each day on the average). The object under study had to meet a deadline that could only have been accomplished if he worked continously for a week, getting about two hours of sleep every day. One would think that after about a week, you would probably feel tired and would sleep days together to get better. Surprisingly, the person picked it up as a habit and has been fitting his schedule around two-three hours of sleep every day. It gives you the path that so many things taken for granted are more or less changeable if you want to! It gives a new foray in the beautiful journey that is life.

Successful people measuring success: An irony or Consummation?

The following blog attempts to think about the lives of people who cannot make it even when a country is riding a wave of success and better living. The example being used as the artifact is a lower middle class family in India which can exploit the ongoing globalization/technology wave sweeping the country. The family is teetering on the edge of the poverty line because the their living through supply of products to small vendors is washed by the arrival of supermarkets. More info can be found here. While the technology crowd can afford the negative effects of inflation, other struggle to make ends meet.

Some people have questioned why the family did not invest their children's time in education and that those people have to blame themselves for their state now. This brings us to the bigger question, " While most people get lucky with the positive wave, purely because of sheer dumb luck and not because they brought about the change, they get successful and start questioning others; Is letting such successful people measure success a good idea or a moronic idea?" While I understand that history is written by winners, I think it is better that successful people think about ways of improving society rather than giving amateurish advice.

The Song of the Indian maid: Keats it is!

To Sorrow
I bade good morrow,
And thought to leave her far away behind;
But cheerly, cheerly,
She loves me dearly;
She is so constant to me, and so kind:
I would deceive her
And so leave her,
But ah! she is so constant and so kind.

Diversity Evolution: A peaceful theme for the 21st Century

Will the 21st century be the flag-bearer to the arrival of what I call the "global" man, who can live, travel, and sleep in the country of his choice and contribute to the growth of the "globe"? Given that people in many countries are so very diverse and contribute to the total growth of the economy, I view a future that will be relatively peaceful and "man" will be free to live, eat, and sleep wherever! Of course, there is economic imbalance and that creates restlessness and there is a long way to go, but I hope we break the barriers and create the unified globe.

lucrative graphics chip market: Intel wants a piece of the pie

Intel is hiring for a new "visual computing" group that will build many-core chips graphics processing capabilities for the scientific community. Given that this market returns a revenue of $5 Billion every quarter, it looks like a good investment to get into. Further, Intel is looking to have it own piece of the GPGPU (General Purpose Graphics Processing Units) or the CPU+GPU market that AMD is already touting. Looks like a new area of work for the program analysis folks and the hardware designers.

Lake Chad, Africa: A lost lake

Lake Chad used to be the third largest inland water body in Africa until sixties. Since then, the lake has shrunk by a whopping 95% due to a combination of agriculture and global warming. Delving further into the reasons would show that human activity and agriculture have been around the area long before the sixties. So, is human activity a significant reason why the lake is shrinking? reason yes, but not significant. That leaves us with one thing that has been a big debate for some time now; global warming. While newspaper and academicians don't seem to have a clear consensus on this issue, we do know that it is the human race that is causing lakes to dry up. I think it is time that we actually make an attempt at identifying the cause and work on correcting it.

Predicting like a market analyst: Difficult or Easy

This is one of those random thoughts that come across your mind when you think about the technology industry in general. How does a new gadget like the iPhone perform? What is the best initial prediction to make? Come to think of it, you have around tens of thousands of new electronic gadgets coming out every year. Of these, some where between 1% and 5% are of good quality that should even have made it past the design process. I believe that does not include the copycat and shadow products out there. Of the good quality ones, only about 10% make it to the market at the right time. Of the right timed ones, only about a tenth of them really capture people's imagination and become a huge hit that changes the lives of people. I am just guessing the percentage and there is no proof to support them , but I think they would be in a reasonable ballpark. SO, finally we have about one of two products every year that may succeed depending upon the complex equation that is the consumer. Given all this, I think the market analyst's prediction that "I question if the product will succeed?" seems to be right almost always.

Two behaviors that are common among market analysts are "I dont think the product will make it" or "always predicting in the same direction for the company quarter after quarter". So, I am beginning to wonder if you can say "no" to the product's success and still have a great record that fails once in ten thousands times because those are the products that really make it?

I understand predicting a product's success margin is a hugely complicated job that depends on infinite factors, but, there are people who bank on market prediction and make the big bucks. So, is market prediction almost always easy? Can u make the big bucks with a negative attitude?

New year, resolutions, and people

It is the new year! And, it is time for resolutions that help orient people towards their goal, atleast theoretically, and temporarily. January is one of those months where euphoria is high enough that everyone has an amazing perspective of the coming year: the images of things coming through to fruition and the wave of expectation and excitement. And during this time, I wonder, if last year has made me a better person in society? Can I get rid of my known follies? I have quite a list of things to do that have been on me since long, but, will I finally take the steps to chase my ambition, which brings me to a question; Do I know what my final goal is? I begin the quest today to these questions during this "man made" new year with the words of Alfred Lord Tennyson in "The Brook",

I chatter, chatter, as I flow,

To join the brimming river,

For men may come and men may go,

But I go on forever.