Europe worries Infosys

DAVOS: Infosys Technologies, India's No. 2 software exporter, sees the debt crisis in Europe as one of its top concerns.

"Although we can't do much about it, we can actually increase our footprint and get more customers," Chief Executive Kris Gopalakrishnan said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Infosys, which counts Goldman Sachs, BT and BP among its clients, plans to hire more people in the new fiscal year, increasing its staff by around 25,000 from its current 127,000.

Infosys said it added 5,311 employees in October-December quarter of 2010. The company hired 11,067 employees in the third quarter this fiscal, but nearly 5,756 employees left the organisation during the same period, bringing the net addition at 5,311, the company said.

The company has also revised its revenue guidance upwards for the fiscal 2010-11 for the third consecutive time on a healthy double digit growth of 24 per cent year-on-year during the third quarter (Oct-Dec).

In a regulatory filing, the IT bellwether said its consolidated revenue for the fiscal under review would be Rs 27,445 crore, projecting 21 per cent year-on-year growth, according to the Indian accounting system.

iPad 2 unlocked

Time for a roundup of some of the most popular and widespread iPad 2 related rumors doing the rounds.

#1 - Smaller, thinner iPad

Everything that Apple makes gets smaller and thinner, so this a no-brainer!

#2 - Front/rear camera

Given that the current iPad has a space in the design for a camera, and given that Apple released FaceTime video tool for the iPhone and the Mac, the next iPad is almost certain to have a forward-facing camera. What about a rear-facing camera? Dunno, not sure how anyone would be able to sensibly use one.

#3 - 7-inch iPad

Doubtful, especially given that Steve Jobs himself bad mouthed the 7-inch market. It’s hard to see how Apple could price them competitively enough given that a full-sized iPad start out at $500.

#4 - High-resolution 2048×1536 panel

A retina-display style panel on the iPad would fall into line with the iPhone, but the 2048×1536 number being thrown around at present is awfully high resolution - even 1080p HD video would either be windowed or need upscaling. It also takes a lot of processor power and a big battery drive such a large screen. A screen like this is also unlikely to be cheap.

This resolution would however allow existing iPad apps to be upscaled x2 in the same way that iPhone apps are upscaled on the iPad.

Not sure which way to call this one.

#5 - Better speakers

Absolutely. The iPad’s speakers are … well, to put it mildly … plain awful.

Highly likely the next iPad will have better speakers.

#6 - Multi-core processor

Why not? The iPad could do with more power, especially if it’s going to have that high-resolution screen.

#7 - More storage

Absolutely. Next …

#8 - SD Card slot

I keep hearing rumors that the iPad will have an SD Card slot. Also, the mockups and case designs that are turning up have SD Card slots in them.

So, would Apple put an SD Card slot in the iPad?

I don’t think so, and here’s why. Apple will sell you a 16GB iPad for $500. If you want 32GB that’ll cost you an extra $100. A 64GB version will add another $100 to the price. But what if that 16GB iPad had an SD Card slot in it? Well, then I could bump up the storage by 64GB (taking it to 80GB in total) for as around $50 by buying an SD Card.

Apple might be disruptive, but it’s not disruptive to its own pricing structure.  

Thoughts? What would you like to see on the next iPad?

U.S.-Israel Tested Worm Linked to Iran's Atom Woes

WASHINGTON: Israel has tested a computer worm believed to have sabotaged Iran's nuclear centrifuges and slowed its ability to develop an atomic weapon, The New York Times reported.

In what the Times described as a joint Israeli-US effort to undermine Iran's nuclear ambitions, it said the tests of the destructive Stuxnet worm had occurred over the past two years at the heavily guarded Dimona complex in the Negev desert.  

The newspaper cited unidentified intelligence and military experts familiar with Dimona who said Israel had spun centrifuges virtually identical to those at Iran's Natanz facility, where Iranian scientists are struggling to enrich uranium.

"To check out the worm, you have to know the machines," an American expert on nuclear intelligence told the newspaper. "The reason the worm has been effective is that the Israelis tried it out."  

Western leaders suspect Iran's nuclear program is a cover to build atomic weapons, but Tehran says it is aimed only at producing electricity.

Iran's centrifuges have been plagued by breakdowns since a rapid expansion of enrichment in 2007 and 2008, and security experts have speculated its nuclear program may have been targeted in a state-backed attack using Stuxnet.

In November, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that malicious software had created "problems" in some of Iran's uranium enrichment centrifuges, although he said the problems had been resolved.

The Times said the worm was the most sophisticated cyber-weapon ever deployed and appeared to have been the biggest factor in setting back Iran's nuclear march. Its sources said it caused the centrifuges to spin wildly out of control and that a fifth of them had been wiped out.

It added it was not clear the attacks were over and that some experts believed the Stuxnet code contained the seeds for more versions and assaults.

The retiring chief of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency, Meir Dagan, said recently that Iran's nuclear program had been set back and that Tehran would not be able to build an atomic bomb until at least 2015. US officials, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, have not disputed Dagan's view.

Neither Clinton nor Dagan mentioned Stuxnet or any other cyber-warfare possibly used against the Iranian program.

Israel has voiced alarm over a nuclear Iran and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said only the threat of military action will prevent Iran from building a nuclear bomb.

Israel itself is widely believed to have built more than 200 atomic warheads at its Dimona reactor but it maintains an official policy of "ambiguity" over whether it is a nuclear power.

Any delays in Iran's enrichment campaign could buy more time for efforts to find a diplomatic solution to its stand-off with six world powers over the nature of its nuclear activities.  

US and Israeli officials refused to comment officially on the worm, the newspaper said.

-courtesy times international

Memory Is Just Now a Nanowire

IBM's ultra-dense racetrack memory is closer to commercialization.

New research brings closer a new type of computer memory that would combine the capacity of a magnetic hard disk with the speed, size, and ruggedness of flash memory.

The storage technology, called racetrack memory, was first proposed in 2004 by Stuart Parkin, a research fellow at IBM's Almaden Research Center in San Jose, California. Now a team led by Parkin has determined exactly how the bits within a racetrack memory system move under the influence of an electrical current. This knowledge will help engineers ensure that data is stored without overwriting previously stored information.
The new work also helps explain a mystery that surrounded the basic physics of the racetrack memory—whether the bits act like particles with mass, accelerating and decelerating, when moved by electric current. "To further develop racetrack memory, we need to understand the physics that makes it possible," says Parkin.
In racetrack memory, bits of information are represented by tiny magnetized sections called domain walls along the length of a nanowire. These domain walls can be pushed around—to flip a bit from "0" to "1" or vice versa—when electrical current is applied. Unlike current storage technology, racetrack memory has the potential to store bits in three dimensions, if the nanowires are embedded vertically into a silicon chip. The stored information is read magnetically.
In 2008, the journal Science published a paper coauthored by Parkin that showed how multiple domain walls can traverse the length of a nanowire without being destroyed. The new work, also published in Science, specifies the velocity and acceleration of domain walls as they make their way along a nanowire when an electrical current is applied.
"There's been debate among theorists about how domain walls will respond," says Parkin. Researchers understood the motion of domain walls when they were exposed to magnetic fields, but they still had questions about how domain walls move in response to an electrical current—a crucial point because an actual memory device would use electrical current to manipulate bits. One important question was whether domain walls would behave like particles with mass, taking time to speed up and slow down.

Facebook’s Modern Messaging System: Seamless, History, And A Social Inbox

We’re here today at the St. Regis in San Francisco where Facebook is unveiling what CEO Mark Zuckerberg is calling a “modern messaging system”.

Zuckerberg recalled talking to high schoolers recently and asking them how they communicate with one another. They don’t like email. “It’s too formal,” Zuckerberg noted. So about a year ago, Facebook set out to overhaul the system. But this isn’t just about email.
“This is not an email killer. This is a messaging experience that includes email as one part of it,” Zuckerberg said. It’s all about making communication simpler. “This is the way that the future should work,” he continued.
Here are the keys to what a modern messaging system needs according to Zuckerberg:

• seamless
• informal
• immediate
• personal
• simple
• minimal
• short

To do that, Facebook has created three key things: Seamless messaging, conversation history, and a social inbox. Essentially, they’ve created a way to communicate no matter what format you want to use: email, chat, SMS — they’re all included. “People should share however they want to share,” engineer Andrew Bosworth said.
All of this messaging is kept in a single social inbox. And all of your conversation history with people is kept.
Alongside the product on Facebook.com, this is going to work on their mobile applications as well. An updated iPhone app is launching shortly. It’s important that you can keep messages going while you’re on the go, Bosworth noted.
But you don’t need an app. It’s important to note that this can work with SMS too.
And yes, everyone can get an @facebook.com email address if they want. But they don’t need to get one — you can use any email address. And yes, IMAP support is coming soon too (but not just yet)
In order to make this work, “we had to completely rebuild the infrastructure that this system is build on,” Bosworth noted. People are aware of Facebook’s Cassandra system, but now they’ve built something new called hBase (working alongside the open source community again).
He said that 15 engineers have worked on this product — remarkably, this is the most that have ever worked on a single Facebook project.
Right now, this system is merging four main things: SMS, IM, email, and Facebook messages. Zuckerberg said that they’d consider other tech, like VoIP in the future. But right now this is mainly about consolidating text-based messages.
This messaging system will be rolling out pretty slowly over the period over the next few months, Zuckerberg said.

Intel's Light Peak interconnect technology is ready

An Intel executive on Friday said that its Light Peak interconnect technology, designed to link PCs to devices like displays and external storage, is ready for implementation.

Light Peak, announced in 2009, was originally designed to use fiber optics to transmit data among systems and devices, but the initial builds will be based on copper, said David Perlmutter, executive vice president and general manager of Intel's Architecture Group, in an interview with IDG News Service at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

"The copper came out very good, surprisingly better than what we thought," Perlmutter said. "Optical is always a new technology which is more expensive," he added.

Perlmutter declined to comment on when devices using Light Peak would reach store shelves, saying shipment depended on device makers. Intel has in the past said that devices with Light Peak technology would start shipping in late 2010 or early this year.

For the majority of user needs today, copper is good, Perlmutter said. But data transmission is much faster over fiber optics, which will increasingly be used by vendors in Light Peak implementations.

Intel has said Light Peak technology would use light to speed up data transmission between mobile devices and products including storage, networking and audio devices. It would transfer data at bandwidths starting at 10 gigabits per second over distances of up to 100 meters. But with copper wires, the speed and range of data transmission may not be as great.

PCs today are linked to external devices using connectors like USB, but Perlmutter refused to be drawn into a debate on whether Light Peak would ultimately replace those technologies.

"USB 3.0 already has a traction in the market. I don't know if that will change," Perlmutter said.

There could be co-existence, with USB, display and networking protocols running on top of Light Peak.

"Look at [Light Peak] as a medium by which you can do things, not necessarily as one replacing the other," Perlmutter said.

Light Peak: 
Interesting Facts:

·  If you were using Light Peak at 10Gbps, you could transfer a full length Blu-Ray movie in less than 30 seconds.

·  If all the books in the Library of Congress were digitized, they would amount to over 20 terabytes of data (a 2 with 1 3 zeroes after it). If you used Light Peak technology operating at 1 0 Gb/s, you could transfer the whole library of congress in less than 35 minutes.

·  If you had an MP3 player with 64GB of storage, it would only take a minute to fill it up with music using Light Peak at 1 0Gbps.

·  The optical fibers used in Light Peak have a diameter of 1 25 microns, about the width of a human hair.

·  With Light Peak you could have thin, flexible optical cables that are up to 100 meters long. With Light Peak you could have a PC at one end of a football field talking to a device at the other end of the field.

·  With Light Peak at 1 0Gbps, one could transfer close to 10 million tweets in one second.

·  Light Peak can send and receive data at 1 0 billion bits per second. That is a 1 with ten zeros after it. If you had $10 billion dollars in single dollar bills and piled them on top of each other it would form a stack about 700 miles high.

·  Optical modules traditionally used for telecom and datacom are physically larger than the Light Peak optical module. For example, 1 20 Light Peak optical modules could fit in the area of a traditional telecom module.

·  The Light Peak optical module was designed to be lower cost than telecom optical modules through clever design and volume manufacturing. Telecom optical modules may cost more than 10 times more than Light Peak modules.

·  The first laser was invented in 1960 by Dr. Maiman. Some of his contemporaries commented that his invention was a solution looking for a problem. Today, lasers are everywhere including doctor’s offices, internet data centers and in factories for cutting thick sheets of steel. With Light Peak, you will have lasers in your everyday PC.

·  The lasers used in Light Peak are called VCSELs (Vertical Cavity, Surface Emitting Laser) and are a mere 250 microns by 250 microns in dimension. This is as wide as two human hairs.

The Best New Tablets

               

Tablets! Tablets tablets tablets. They're the hot ticket at this year's CES. Just about everyone's got one  I've parsed, prodded, and played with the main contenders. And this one's best. Well, these ones.

My Favorites

Motorola Xoom
               

It's been a too-long wait for a usable 10-inch Android tablet, much less one that makes us blush. But the Xoom looks like the platonic ideal of a Honeycomb slate: dual-core 1GHz processor, 2-megapixel front camera, 5-megapixel rear camera and 1280x800 display. And did I mention she's a looker? Xoom's at the head of what's soon to be a very large pack right now, but it's hard to grant it a clear-cut victory based on promise alone. Until Google's tablet-friendly OS makes the scene, we won't know what it's like to actually use Xoom.

BlackBerry PlayBook
              

But you know what's here, right now, running Quake 3 in 1080 and a slideshow at the same time without breaking a sweat? BlackBerry's business-minded PlayBook tablet. It's 7 inches of wow, with an OS that purrs and hardware—a pixel-dense 1024x600 display, 5MP rear and 3MP front-facing cameras, dual-core 1GHz processor—that keeps up with just about anybody. And while there's nothing flashy about the design, it's got the kind of perfectly competent, sturdy build you'd want for a business tablet. So why is PlayBook not a winner? Well, I had still not entirely sold on the 7-inch screen, and BlackBerry's got a long ways to go before its app cupboard doesn't feel so bare. But in terms of tablets you can use, right now, here at CES? It's tops.

Runners Up

Asus Eee Pad Slider
                

We're into the Asus Eee Pad Slider mostly for the sheer audacity of it. It's a 10.1-inch tablet that goes the Tegra 2 route, meaning it'll have plenty of graphics horsepower. Oh, and if you want a physical keyboard? It's lurking right there beneath the display, just waiting to slide out. Unfortunately that sliding mechanism's a little jerky right now, and while the form is decidedly different, I'm not ready to say that it's better. Not just yet, anyway.

Dell Streak 7
            

The 7-inch version of Dell's Streak has all the guts of a show pony—Tegra 2 processor, a 1.3MP front and 5MP rear camera—but the real story is that Streak 7 is the first tablet that can tap into T-Mobile's 4G wonderspeeds. Even if you love a 7-inch slate, though Streak's going to be hobbled, at least at first, by running Android Froyo instead of Honeycomb, and by a WVGA screen that'll seem a little dull next to its sharper competitors.

Honorable Mention

• LG T-Mobile G-Slate
• Lenovo LePad

'Google illegally gathered personal data'

SEOUL: South Korean police have found evidence that Internet giant Google illegally collected private data while producing its Street View mapping service, a report said.

Yonhap news agency said the police's cyber crime unit has decoded data stored on hard disks used for Google Street View and found evidence of illegally gathered private information.

"We've discovered records and contents of emails and online messenger chats individuals exchanged through Wi-Fi networks," said a police official quoted by Yonhap.

Around 10 Google employees in South Korea and the US said during the probe that they had no knowledge of what had been collected, the report said.

A police agency spokesman confirmed the report but refused to give details. A spokeswoman for Google in Seoul declined to comment.

The police investigation echoes those in the United States, Germany and Italy and comes after Google admitted its Street View cars, which have been cruising and taking photographs of cities in over 30 countries, had inadvertently gathered fragments of personal data sent over unsecured Wi-Fi systems.

Street View allows users to see panoramic street scenes on Google Maps. Google agreed last November to delete private emails and passwords mistakenly picked up from wireless networks in Britain by its Street View cars.

It has also agreed to improve the way it trains staff on data protection issues as it seeks to manage a global row over the cars.

Google Officially Posts Android 3.0 Sneak Peak, Touts “Holographic” UI

By- Hitesh

If you were on the Internet today, you undoubtedly saw that Google accidentally posted an overview video of Android 3.0 “Honeycomb” on YouTube earlier — then quickly pulled it. Before they did, I was able to record it and grab all the key screenshot of the Tron-like overview. Now Google has officially reposted the video, as well as a brief overview of Android 3.0 on their mobile blog.

Google was clearly waiting for the OS to be previewed at CES in Las Vegas. Now that it has, here’s what they have to say:

Honeycomb is the next version of the Android platform, designed from the ground up for devices with larger screen sizes, particularly tablets. We’ve spent a lot of time refining the user experience in Honeycomb, and we’ve developed a brand new, truly virtual and holographic user interface. Many of Android’s existing features will really shine on Honeycomb: refined multi-tasking, elegant notifications, access to over 100,000 apps on Android Market, home screen customization with a new 3D experience and redesigned widgets that are richer and more interactive. We’ve also made some powerful upgrades to the web browser, including tabbed browsing, form auto-fill, syncing with your Google Chrome bookmarks, and incognito mode for private browsing.

At first glance, this UI looks impressive, and an improvement over what Android has looked like until now. And that is particularly important if Google is going compete with the iPad and attempt to own the tablet space in the same way that they have the smartphone space this year.
Personally, I think I’m most excited for the true Chrome-like tabbed browsing. Obviously, Google says to stay tuned for more, as Honeycomb isn’t expect to hit until later this year.

The Brutal Decline Of Yahoo Is Now An Infographic

-By Hitesh

In light of today’s rumored 20% Yahoo staff layoffs, this infographic representation of the portal’s death spiral is as painful as the comments we are inevitably going to get for posting it.

And while much cruder than and not as philosophical as Paul Graham’s must-read essay “What Happened to Yahoo!,” it does get the point across. For those of you too busy to scan through either Graham’s post pretty much sums up Yahoo’s trajectory in this one sentence,“But there are worse things than seeming irresponsible. Losing, for example.”

Supersonic Stick on the Wrist for Blind People

It’s common for blind people to carry a white cane to assist them when they go around town, but a new “Supersonic Stick on the Wrist for Blind People” concept is one that could help them do away with that. The device uses supersonic signals (what we call sonar) to send out signals and receive them when they bounce back, warning the user of oncoming danger through sound and vibrations, turning the user into a walking bat of sorts (since they use sonar too). The device is small enough to fit comfortably on the user’s hand, which is good news, since the user will be able to easily have it around at all times.
-By Hitesh

!!Mount Everest Gets 3G Mobile Network!!

The world’s highest 3G network base station was set up at the bottom of Mount Everest on Thursday, thanks to Ncell, a mobile phone and Internet operator in Nepal. The base station was set up at an altitude of 5,200 meters, offering 3G services up to 3.6MB/sec, though they could boost it to 7.2MB/sec if there is sufficient demand. The service is mainly targeted at the 30,000 tourists that go there every year and while the 3G services have not been tested at the top of Everest, it’s been said to be theoretically possible. Up to 50 people can use the service at a time and the capacity can be increased if needed. Four of the base stations are run by solar power with a back-up battery that can power the stations for up to three days. Foursquare anyone?
-By Hitesh

2011′s Top 10 Most Anticipated Gear

-By Hitesh

Who’s ready for 2010 to expire? Man, we are. It’s not that 2010 was a bad year or anything, but it was all iPad-this, iPhone-that with a bit of Android news bits scattered here and there.
With the products in the following list lined up for release, 2011 is set to be a much more balanced year. Of course Apple will still be a major part of the news cycle, but everyone from Nintendo to HP to even start-up companies like Notion Ink should be able to enjoy a fair share of the spotlight too.
3DS
Backstory: Nintendo randomly announced a 3D version of the Game Boy last March. The announcement really came out of nowhere. Nintendo, “Hey, yo. We’re working on a 3D version of the DS. BYE!” But then E3 rolled around where the 3DS made its official debut and we went hands-on. Neither announcement mentioned a price or release date though, which has caused the industry to speculate wildly. Finally Nintendo announced that while a 2010 launch was originally planned, the 3DS will hit Japan on February 26 with the US and European launch in March.
Hot in ’11: 3D is fun, but the current implementation with glasses and whatnot kills the appeal. The 3DS does not require glasses and it’s really 3D. Hollywood might be bumbling around with the tech, but the Nintendo 3DS could kick it mainstream. The system is going to be pricey with a sticker around $300, but this is no Virtual Boy. It’s the real deal and something you’re going to have to peep at Best Buy to believe just how good the games look in 3D.

iPad 2

Backstory: Steve Jobs sat down in a comfy leather chair on the stage of San Francisco’s Moscone Center and effortlessly launched the iPad. It’s now one of the fastest selling gadgets in history with over 3 million sold in the first three months of its life alone. Some estimates put the iPad on top of the entire tablet scene with a whooping 95% marketshare. But it’s not perfect. Ports are missing, there’s no camera, the 4:3 aspect ratio is no good for movies, etc. That’s where the iPad 2 comes in.
Hot in ’11: Apple could simply morph the current iPad into a different size and it will still break all sales records. But here’s hoping the company listened to the criticism of the original iPad and worked in some of the suggestions. Early leaks seem to indicate that it will at least have a camera, which only makes sense with Apple’s recent Facetime virtual product strategy. A lower price would be nice as well even if it means a smaller screen size.

BlackBerry PlayBook

Backstory: RIM is constantly talked about like they’re the underdog in the smartphone race, but the Canadian-based company quietly stays their course while shipping out BlackBerrys en mass. Each quarter they ship more than the previous. They know what they’re doing and the company’s first tablet, the PlayBook, is set to capitalize on that brand love. It was announced way back in September after a series of leaks and pre-announcements, though it won’t hit the market until the first quarter of 2011 (probably March). Will it be an also-ran like the Storm? Maybe. But maybe not.
Hot in ’11: RIM knows a thing or two about what the enterprise market wants in mobile — maybe even more so than Microsoft or Apple. That’s where the PlayBook will make the biggest impression. Corporations will likely snap up the PlayBook instead of the iPad as long as it integrates with their IT infrastructure without issue. The PlayBook might not be as a big of a hit with the direct consumer market — it will likely steal Samsung Galaxy Tab sales rather than iPad sales — but RIM will be just fine as long as companies and government agents buy them for execs. Obama loves his special NSA-secured BlackBerry. Perhaps he’ll get a special PlayBook as well.

Motorola Droid Tablet

Backstory: The current crop of Android tablets suck on pickles. Even the Samsung Galaxy Tab is only for die hard Android fans. That’s not Samsung or any of the manufacturers’ fault though. Google’s current versions of Android are simply not meant for tablets. Android 3.0 is set to change that and the Motorola Droid tablet will likely be the first out of the gate rocking the new interface. Mainstream consumers are more familiar with the Droid brand than Android, mainly because the line has been the only real hit hardware during the OS’s short life.
Hot in ’11: Motorola knows how to make Android handsets. The hardware is top-notch. So is the marketing. Motorola and Google have been said to be working closely on the tablet so it should correct many of the downsides of the current Android tablets. Hopefully both companies follow Apple’s lead by creating a product centered around the user experience, not hardware specs — but having a Tegra 2 in there will be nice.

Verizon iPhone 4

Backstory: The iPhone 4 is great. AT&T is not. That’s that.
Hot in ’11: The iPhone 4 is great and so is Verizon. That’s that.

PalmPad

BackStory: Palm’s last ditch effort in the smartphone world went herp and derp. But it wasn’t the software’s fault. The Pre and Pixi ran the [potentially] amazing webOS operating system. It just so happened that the hardware and wireless carrier roll-out were both sub-par. So tl;dr, Palm was on the quick road to gadget purgatory until HP bought them up for just over a billion dollars. The new overlords quickly went on record stating that new webOS products, including tablets, were on tap. The PalmPad – or is it palmPad? — could be the first real iPad contender.
Hot in ’11: WebOS provides a fantastic user experience and just feels like it could be even better on a larger screen. The PalmPad’s philosophy will likely be a lot like the iPad’s where hardware takes second chair to the software. Then with the power of HP’s market-leading manufacturing and distribution channels, the PalmPad is set to be a hit.

Sony PSP phone

Backstory: Android phones are well established in the mobile phone market now. They might be known as Droids by many consumers, but that marketing coup from Motorola only helped grow the entire sector. Then there’s Sony Ericsson, whose Android phone, the Xperia, isn’t exactly a market leader. The PSP phone could change that by being the first true gaming mobile phone — well, first since the N-Gage died.
Hot in ’11: Apple pretty much has the mobile gaming field to themselves right now. There are only a handful of Android games worth talking about. But there are a plethora of PSP games. If Sony can combine the mobile power of Android with the gaming library of the PSP, it would instantly capture a significant chunk of the tasty Android marketshare pie. Well, as long as it launches on the right carrier at a competitive price.

Notion Ink Adam

Backstory: Notion Ink revealed a stunning hardware concept in late 2009. Then CES 2010 rolled around where the hardware took a different form and the company showed off the clever interface. But that’s where the fairytale ends. The Adam was first supposed to ship in the summer of 2010. That didn’t happen. Then it was delayed until November. They missed that deadline, too. Now the tablet is up for pre-order with the first batch already sold out with an early 2011 ship date expected.
Hot in ’11: The price is right and the hardware seems adequate. The software demos released by the company show a smooth and fluid interface. The young company made some marketing blunders primarily by over-promising and under-delivering, but if the Adam actually starts to ship worldwide on time and lives up to the hype, it could be a great tablet for many users.

Chevy Volt 2.0

Backstory: GM’s Chevy Volt went from working concept to dealer’s lots in record time. Just under four years for those keeping track. The automaker is taking a fair amount of flack for the $41k+ sticker price though. Still, GM is moving forward and the rumor is another vehicle (or two) based on the Volt’s Voltec’s plug-in hybrid powertrain will be unveiled during January’s North American International Auto Show.

Hot in ’11: The next Voltec vehicle is said to bring the technology downmarket a bit. This was of course the plan all along as automakers develop platforms that are shared by many vehicles, but a lower-priced Volt should act as a counter to many of the arguments against the high price. This cheaper Volt will likely have a more pedestrian styling and lack some of the techno-wiz gadgets on the inside of the Volt. It’s the price that matters. The goal should be to bring the price closer to the $30k mark before government tax credits kick in.

The Old Republic (BioWare’s Star Wars MMO for the PC)

Backstory: Is there any game that can possibly “dethrone” World of Warcraft? Yes, it’s called The Old Republic, and it’s tentatively penciled in for a release some time next year. There’s a few reasons for this, chief among them that BioWare generally makes OK games. Whether or not it knows how to make an MMO is yet to be seen. Plus, the game (obviously) has the Star Wars license, and those guys are nothing if not loyal to the universe.
Hot in ’11: The Old Republic should be a very important game in 2011, but that’s assuming EA Louse’s accusations weren’t truthful. The Louse shook the industry to its very core a few weeks ago when he (it?) accused BioWare of being a bunch of bumbling fools who have no idea what they’re doing, burning through cash like they’re in a Rick Ross video. (Does he burn cash in videos? It seems like something he’d do.) But considering the game has literally years of hype going for it, I can’t see it being anything but a big hit—at least for the first month.

Skype goes down and Twitter goes insane- By Hitesh

Breaking: Skype appears to have has gone down. We’re trying to ascertain why and get comment from the company. However, as of this moment Skype is not working for millions of users, and the angst is playing out on Twitter right now.

Of course what’s so funny is that so many of us now use Twitter DM (direct message) and perhaps even Facebook IM as a sort of alternative “Skype-a-like” IM platform that there are now potential alternatives. It looks like for now that Skype has huge issues though – and it’s coming at a delicate time for the company as it tries to forge path independent from former owner eBay.
Update: Skype has clairified on its blog that the problem was down to the failure of “supernodes” which “act a bit like phone directories for Skype.” Many of these were taken offline by a problem affecting some versions of Skype. Its engineers are now creating new ‘mega-supernodes’ over the next few hours.

Update: Skype has posted an update saying on its tweet:

Avatar is 'most pirated film of 2010' - By Hitesh

Avatar grossed nearly $2.8bn at the worldwide box office

Sci-fi epic Avatar was the most pirated film of 2010, according to data released by a file-sharing blog.

James Cameron's blockbuster was downloaded 16.6m times on one file-sharing site alone, TorrentFreak said.
Second on the list was comic book action film Kick-Ass, with 11.4m downloads, followed by Leonardo DiCaprio in Inception with 9.7m.
Last year's top-pirated film was JJ Abrams' Star Trek reboot, which was downloaded close to 11m times.
Cameron frequently touted 3D film making as the industry's best hope for combating piracy, however, it did not stop millions from downloading it for free.
Despite topping the list, Avatar still took nearly $2.8bn (£1.8bn) at the worldwide box office to become the highest-grossing movie ever.
Oscar-winning film The Hurt Locker also featured in the top 10 list at number nine.

MOST DOWNLOADED MOVIES ON BITTORRENT

1. Avatar - 16,580,000 downloads
2. Kick-Ass - 11,400,000 downloads
3. Inception - 9,720,000 downloads
4. Shutter Island - 9,490,000 downloads
5. Iron Man 2 - 8,810,000 downloads
6. Clash of the Titans - 8,040,000 downloads
7. Green Zone - 7,730,000 downloads
8. Sherlock Holmes - 7,160,000 downloads
9. The Hurt Locker - 6,850,000 downloads
10. Salt - 6,700,000 downloads

Although the film had already been available on file-sharing sites for most of 2009, its popularity increased online after it won six Oscars this year.

Box office Notable absentees from the top 10 include two of the best grossing movies at the box office this year - Toy Story 3 and Alice in Wonderland.
However, Kick-Ass and Matt Damon war film Green Zone were both hugely popular among the downloading public, while their box office figures were relatively modest.
TorrentFreak said the figures were collected from several sources, including reports from thousands of BitTorrent trackers.
All release formats, including versions filmed using cameras in cinemas were counted.

Why We Need PageRank for the Social Web

It is truly remarkable how the right people with the right idea at the right time can change the world. Larry Page and Sergey Brin did this in 1999 with PageRank. To a large extent, this simple fundamental insight helped Google organize the Internet in the early days just as the web was exploding. Building on this, Google became the de facto front door to what I will call the “content web,” where most users are searching for, and finding, information created by publishers in a fairly static manner.

Fast forward a decade, and today, more and more content is created and curated by people on networks such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. The content web has lost its primacy as the main source of information that matters to most people on a daily basis. Instead, a person’s Facebook news feed or Twitter stream is increasingly becoming the place to go for people to tap into the web. Users discover interesting news articles, get recommendations for movies and browse funny videos via their social streams. On an average day, I click on more links from these places than from a Google search results page.

This “social lens” to the web is becoming more valuable and Twitter and Facebook are evolving to be the new gateways to the Internet.

Just as PageRank fundamentally revolutionized how the content web evolved, I think there’s a new metric, which will shape how these social streams evolve and become more useful. I like to call this an “engagement score.” The link juice of this world is basically the level of social engagement that a person can generate with a post on their stream.

Tied to a web identity across many platforms, this score would be a measure of how “useful” the person’s stream is to other people. Whether it’s curating good content, creating interesting social content or just being important enough to make news, a person’s engagement score is a measure of how much they contribute to the quality of the social web.

For example, Om sharing this post on Twitter will be more effective than me doing the same. His tweet will reach more people, get more impressions, clicks, re-tweets and more “@” mentions than mine, and his Facebook update will get more likes and comments than mine. Om’s social engagement is clearly higher than mine.

It’s likely that users who engage with Om’s tweet have a higher social engagement score than users who engage with mine. Just like the PageRank of a website is determined not just by the number of links to the website, but also by where the links are coming from, social engagement should be determined not just by the sheer number of followers, re-tweets, comments but by considering who the commenters and re-tweeters are.

It’s also valuable for this engagement score to be network-agnostic and tied to a web identity rather than a single network. Om’s audience is his, irrespective of whether his posts are read on Twitter, Facebook or this blog. A robust model for measuring social engagement will help shape and organize the social web and will become integral to effective information organization and discovery on the Internet.