Now, this is a comparison we thought we never would make. Nevertheless, here it is. Come March 2009, ISRO (Indian Space Research Organization) will launch its own IRS (Indian Remote Sensing) image portal called Bhuvan. The portal will offer detailed satellite views of our planet to users -- akin to those seen on Google Earth and Wikimapia, but with a difference; this one will give sharper and more detailed pictures than provided by Google. Google Earth, which can zoom up to 200m, will have good competition in Bhuvan, which has a sharper zoom level capability of up to 10m.
Apart from the "geek" value of this service, ISRO plans to use it to enhance urban and forest planning and traffic management. Like Google Earth, a "special" version would be in the offing for professional and corporate users who might need higher resolution data. Of course, this would come at a price, though the base version would remain free.
Now, the differences. While Google Earth provides single-layer information, Bhuvan would provide multi-layer information. Additionally, you would be able to view the images date-wise. The entire service makes use of Indian satellites and its focus will be the Indian subcontinent.
Apart from Bhuvan, ISRO is also readying an information portal called "Bhu Sampada." Both services are expected to be operational by March 2009.
The news in Tech circle for last few days is about merging of Microsoft and Yahoo! and the main motive seen behind this is to counter Google growing market share. For few month it is believed that Yahoo! is not doing so well. And Microsoft has been struggling to get a larger piece of the Internet market pie, which is growing in terms of reach internationally and in cash turnovers n eCom.
Microsoft is the largest software company and Yahoo! was the largest internet company. But now Yahoo! has lost that spot to Google, which Microsoft has been eying for some time. Also over past few months Google has released an array of Free software tools and internet tools which are probably alarming Microsoft.
Now we have to wait and watch if the Microsoft and Yahoo! merger happens or not, and are they combined together able to check Google's growth.
I personally feel, in the end users will benifit, since both Microsoft and Google will put their best to offer diverse, user friendly and robust services for free or at competitive rates.
Came accross a very interesting diagram and writeup on The Life Cycle of a Blog Post. Do check it out.
You have a blog. You compose a new post. You click Publish and lean back to admire your work. Imperceptibly and all but instantaneously, your post slips into a vast and recursive network of software agents, where it is crawled, indexed, mined, scraped, republished, and propagated throughout the Web. Within minutes, if you've written about a timely and noteworthy topic, a small army of bots will get the word out to anyone remotely interested, from fellow bloggers to corporate marketers. Let's say it's Super Bowl Sunday and you're blogging about beer. You see Budweiser's blockbuster commercial and have a reaction you'd like to share. Thanks to search engines and aggregators that compile lists of interesting posts, you can reach a lot of people — and Budweiser, its competitors, beer lovers, ad critics, and your ex-boyfriend can listen in. "You just need to know how to type," says Matthew Hurst, an artificial intelligence researcher who studies this ecosystem at Microsoft Live Labs. Here's how the whole process goes down during the big game.
Finally I got hold on the book "The Google Story" by Devise Vise. I have been hearing about this book for few months. And wanted to read it.
I ave not finished the book, but just started reading. After going through Preface and few chapters, I am convinced that everyone should read it. Specially people using internet, in IT field and students of Computer Science it is a must read.
The book describes the story behind Google. How the technology and the business model evolved and has become a successful one. Google is not that old company. Just started in 1998 and has already become threat to the monopoly of established players in the market in certain areas.
I will post some more interesting things form the book soon.
It’s everywhere and everyone’s doing it. Be it flying, traveling by train or going to a movie—e-ticketing is becoming the preferred mechanism.
For the record we thought that it would be interesting to rattle off some statistics that speak volumes about the growth of e-ticketing in transportation.
The online passenger reservation site of Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation Ltd’s (IRCTC) sales from the Internet booking of train tickets in a single month (August 2007) totted up to a staggering 12,90,608 tickets generating revenues of Rs 110 crores. Direct online ticketing now accounts for 40 percent of the tickets sold at most airlines. Air Deccan does an average of Rs 30 million worth of transactions per day.
These are exciting times for Indian e-ticketing. Sales are robust and large corporations and enterprises are pulling out all the stops in their attempts to grow online sales. Online ticketing has caught on with high acceptance in the Indian market. There are many vendors who are trying to capture this space and large corporations are firmly behind online ticketing.
The transition from Web 2.0 to Web 3.0 may seem to be a faster one than from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0. The question remains, does this new version of the Web do anything for the end user?
Not very long ago, we were talking about the evolution of Web 2.0 and here we are already discussing another new term, viz., Web 3.0. To many, it may sound like another marketing gimmick while others may feel that it is just another name for upcoming Web 2.0 applications. To add to the confusion, major players in the Internet space themselves believe that there is no clear definition of Web 3.0. One thing is for sure; there is a new age of the Web that is about to place its foot in the mainstream and perhaps be the future of the Web.
E.O. Wilson: TED Prize wish: Help build the Encyclopedia of Life
As E.O. Wilson accepts his 2007 TED Prize, he makes a plea on behalf of his constituents, the insects and small creatures, to learn more about our biosphere. We know so little about nature, he says, that we're still discovering tiny organisms indispensable to life; yet we're still steadily destroying nature. Wilson identifies five grave threats to biodiversity (a term he coined), using the acronym HIPPO, and makes his TED wish: that we will work together on the Encyclopedia of Life, a web-based compendium of data from scientists and amateurs on every aspect of the biosphere.
Classes are useless. If the company receives any resume and we find the guy has attended classes we throw the resume out," declares Bhavin Turakhia.
Bhavin is the 19-year-old director of Web hosting and applications development company Direct Information Private Limited. The company has built a turnover of Rs 400,000 over the last six months of its existence.
The unconventional HRD policy will not sound so drastic when you consider that the four-head-strong staff of Direct Information is hardly out of college and still at war with teachers who are generations removed.
Bhavin has just graduated from Bombay University with a bachelor's degree in commerce. But he founded Direct Information when he was still at college.
Web Promotion Executive Divyank Turakhia is 17 and the second founder. He is Bhavin's younger brother. Divyank is also studying to graduate in commerce and is currently in the first year of the programme.
Systems Analyst and Project Leader Hitesh Makhijani is 20. Hitesh joined the venture only two months ago. He too is going to graduate with a degree in commerce. Hitesh is in the final year.
Technical Support Executive Rahul Monga is the oldest man in the start-up. He is 23. Out of college for two years now... And considered over the hill by his colleagues.
"Yeah! He's the buddah out here..." chorus the others.
Vijay Barve
For the record we thought that it would be interesting to rattle off some statistics that speak volumes about the growth of e-ticketing in transportation.
