Posts tagged google
2008 Top 20 Billionaires: What do they do with so much money?
Mar 8th
Warren Buffett overtook Bill Gates and that Mexican fellow to become the world’s richest person. His net worth is at $62 billion USD.
Pop quiz: Do you know how many zeroes are there in a billion??
Yahoo vs Google: why Yahoo lags behind?
Mar 7th
You wanna know why Yahoo lags behind Google? Look at the image below that I took from Yahoo’s careers site today (WW10.4). It shows all open reqs, sorted by date (descending).
As you probably noticed (follow the arrows please! 
), the sort hasn’t happened properly. How did the coder miss this? No unit tests funda in Yahoo engineering?? How did the QA team allow this page to go online?
Microsoft wants to buy Yahoo!
Feb 1st
Today Microsoft has made a proposal to buy Yahoo!. All the outstanding stocks sum up to a whooping amount of $4.4bn ($31/share). This is an amazing offer and if the deal goes through, Microsoft will get a good holding to take Google heads on. The news just popped up, I am sure before I hit the bed tonight (IST), the web will be abuzz with this. Couple of things I noted in the initial reports:
IndiaInfoline states:
Microsoft has developed a plan and process that will include the employees of both companies to focus on the integration of the combined business. Microsoft intends to offer significant retention packages to Yahoo! engineers, key leaders and employees across all disciplines.
Hmm…so the headcount reduction Yahoo announced some days back holds good or is it going to increase? Will Microsoft clean out Yahoo’s house…sac all the no ROI projects? Specifically, what is the impact going to be on Yahoo India where most of the work is of sustenance nature (Quote: one of my friends working there)??
Another thing to note is the amount Microsoft is offering – $31/share. Already the prices of Yahoo stocks have gone up by $9.82, after seeing the MS proposal. This brings the price to $29.1. Has Microsoft offered a low price / stock?? I am not sure (my knowledge of how money works is very limited). BTW, you can see the actual letter sent by Microsoft to Yahoo board of directors here.
Interesting things that may happen, if the deal goes through:
- Microsoft will become “Microsoft!“, trying to keep the “Yahoo!” tradition alive
- Finally, you will be able to send messages to Xbox Live from Yahoo!
- Yahoo mail and Hotmail will be merged. More potential users for Hotmail.
The potential beneficiaries will be the Yahoo shareholders – a massive payday for them today 
Google Street View: See US streets in 3D
Jun 5th
You probably have already bumped in to the all-new Google Street View feature provided by Google Maps. This is one of the most amazing features I have seen, it allows you to view a real photo of any street (provided Google has a camera there), have a virtual walk through, zoom in and have a clear look at the sign boards and more, all in a glorious 360degree view!! Mind boggling. Currently it supports only San Francisco Bay Area, New York City, Las Vegas, Denver and Miami. Hopefully Google expands this to India soon (hmm, I know I am being too optimistic….may be we need to ask for an Amazon.in first!).
Another feature, still in beta, is Mapplets. These are technically small Google gadgets that can provide a specific functionality based on the Google Maps API. For example, Google currently has a mapplet for real estate search that pin points in the map the houses that match your search criteria.
When I checked this morning, I was pleasantly surprised by the number of sites built around Google Street View. These sites offer interesting links and placemarks that everyone needs to see in Google StreetView. I have listed some below:
- Urban Street Sightings : This Blog captures the best urban snapshots.
- Streetviewr: Lots of cool positions from Google Streetview.
- Laudontech Streetview: Contains lots of interesting people, places and sightings on Google Street View.
- Davidsterry Streetview Links: Streetview pictures are sorted by votes.
- Streetview Sightings: Another blog for streetview sightings.
- Crazy Street View : Crazy pictures from Google Street View.
- Streetview Spotting : Streetview locations arranged into categories.
- Streetview Fun : Another blog.
- Boing Boing also hosts some of the best streetview articles, pictures and videos
BTW, don’t forget to check out the top 15 Google Streetview sightings.
Myheritage.com: Find your celeb look alike!
Apr 6th
Myheritage.com provides an interesting feature, you give it your photo, it will tell you which celebs look like you. Interesting. Above are the people it told me I look like. Do I? Anyway, since I have Steve Jobs there, I’d say, Myheritage.com is doing hell of a job BTW, who is that Chang lady and Butler? I probably have to look up them in Google first.
Just for fun, I gave it a Dilbert photo. It couldn’t identify the face first, with little prodding it said “No matches found!”. Clever! Then, I decided to check that with some actual celebrities. See what I got.
Why people hate PS3?
Mar 15th
I stumbled upon this funny video in Youtube, on where Sony went wrong with PS3. Listening to Phil Harrison had me in splits 
Movies in Google Videos
Mar 2nd
One big downside of having an online Video uploading site like Youtube or
Google Videos is that it provides a perfect platform for the Video pirates to upload and share their movies! When I searched for these videos an year ago, I found hardly one or two. But, recently I came across a post in one of the Tamil blogs, which had a direct link to a TV serial in Youtube, this made me curious again. Look what I found now
Disclaimer: Note that none of the videos I have listed here were uploaded by me. I am just listing the videos I found in Google. If you are associated with any of these movies and want them to be taken off the list from here, please do contact me. Video piracy is bad and do pay for all your movies. Thanks.
Tamil films
Bharathi (பாரதி)
Part1:
Part2:
Part3:
Google?? Browser???
Sep 21st
Lately, Google is poaching (abducting?) a lot of Sun & Microsoft employees. It is rumored that Google is forming a group for building a new browser. Assuming the news is true, what features will the new browser have?? An integrated search of your computer as well as the net, a no-nonsense fast loading application??
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/09/21/google_browser_hirings/
