Venkat's Weblog

Motorola's Spin-off

It is time to take a peek into the happenings of the major companies. As you all know I have been posting on some of the companies which have made difference to technology. One such company which has a great brand name but yet is falling into troubled water is what we would be talking about. Any guesses, well it is Motorola.

Motorola has not been having a great year, infact the loss value for the company is around 60% for one year. This has led the management’s decision to split the company into two for better management and administration, the proposed split is to be completed by the year 2009. The company would be split into two sections, one taking care of the Mobile Phone Device and the other of Networking and Set top boxes for television. Now let us observe the possible outcome of such a ‘spin-off’s’ as per some analyst reported in ‘Reuters’.

Some are of the view that the split would help the company to attract possible mergers or even prominent investors; it would also enhance the recovery of the mobile devices (as there are no breakthroughs after the much celebrated ‘razr’ phones). On the other side many feel that this split would discourage many of the top engineers and other professionals in the company from continuing and in the process might loose on its human asset. Even Brown (CEO of Motorola) has not clearly defined as to how Motorola’s 66,000 employees would be split between the companies.

The split as I envision is a slow and a difficult process, during which time Motorola might loose some of its engineers and other employees, but after the split it would be much easier to restructure both the companies and work on lines of strategic improvements. Motorola still enjoys a great brand name and I agree when analyst say that the Mobile device unit should utilize Motorola’s brand image.

iPod to become responsible

After a man filed for a lawsuite against Apple saying that using iPod can lead to hearing loss, Apple has released a new software update for iPod which let the users set the maximum volume. The software caluculates the quet time i.e the time at which the music was switched off and then restarted, also the best part is it caluculates as to how long the user has been listening to the song and what volume before turning the volume to a safe level gradually. This action by Apple would greatly help iPod listners. The growing concern about hearing loss that an MP3 or an iPod could create in the years to come has led to the research team to come up with this software which could put the users concern to rest. But do bear in mind that this software can be used only in case of some iPod's.

To ease Air Traffic

Remember my observation on the delay of flights in my post two day's back on 'My Travelogue', looks like the FAA or the Federation of Aviation Administration read my thoughts and of many others like mine. They are in the process of bringing about a planned Air Traffic Control Network 'NextGen'. The present ATC or Air Traffic Control system was built during the World War II and obviously the aging process is beginning to show; it is forecasted that the system would become obsolete by 2015. Already the non compliance of the sytem with the present day Air Traffic is shown through Plane delays, Technical problems etc.

So what does the new system do; for one the new system would install GPS systems on the Aircraft which not only provides information about Ground stations but also about other planes within its range, this would eliminate lot of problems like that of landing, avoid collision etc. This new system is based on a satellite based system called as the Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast orADS-B. Pilots can also receive weather forecast which used to be verbal relayed from the ground station.

This new system would definetely help in easing air traffic and help in predicting the range of other airoplanes and weather. I really hope that the ADS is implement at the earliest, to help people like me who find it real fustrating waiting in airports for hours together; can you think I could have clinched a deal in those hours!

Source: Wired.com

Making Life easier!

Yes this seems to the motto of Charles Simnoyi, whose Intentional software's latest release help in writing programmes! Yes one has to just lay down few paremeters and viola it will write its own code, apparently no programming skills are necessary. I was as appalled as you are when I read about this in Business 2.0 magazine in an article titled 'What's Next'. The advantage of such a software is to make the experts much more innovative and leave the programming to the software. What's more one can see the resulting software immediately.

Simonyi's greatest hits as titled in the article are the worlds first graphical word procesor release in 1974, MS word in 1984,MS Excel in 1985 and the latest is all set to create ripples in the IT world. According to the article 'Intentional technology caters on the Domain Workbench, a human language and graphically friendly representative of the software.' Apparently users write directions on spreadsheet, flowchart or even forms to describe what the software has to do. But as Intentioanl attempts to patent its product many are skeptical of this move, in this age of opensource.

But whatever be the shortcomings or hurdles that Intentional may have to face, I beleive it is a great technology breakthrough which would save time and would help in channelising the professionals skills in a more defined way.

The Next Big Thing

As Tom Krazit puts it in his article. "Intel has new ideas for mobile computing", talking in the
'Intel Developer Forum' Dadi Perlmutter and Anand Chandrasekar exectuvies, Intel unleashed the new Mobile Internet Device, and also the plan to bring about a whole new network services to service them. For the past many years Intel has been concentrating on Mobile strategy on notebooks, but looks like they would like to take it more than PC's nowadays.

As far as processor sections are concerned, Intel plans to ship silverthorne which has many integrated features. Discussion was also on 'Moorestown' a low power concept which is promised to consume ten times less power. Intels another strategy is to increase the demand for MID as an alternative to smart phones, to get the Internet in one's pocket. This strategy is adopted by Intel after its failed attempt to get its chips into the mobile phones!

Next discussing on WiMax Krazit feels that Intel would also publicise the use of WiMax as an alternative to cellular networks and would be ready to test many of its product on this technology.

Next year Intel is planning to bring out 'Montevina' which has many of the features discussed above. After unleasing many of its product in the forum and discussing on the various technology, Intel seems to be all geared to prove its dominance on technology to the world!

Education via phone

I came across this article by Jessica Marshall in the 'New Scientists' and wanted the share it with you. What attracted me to the article was the research by the people at the University of California regarding the medium to spread education.

The University found in their research that the teachers in Mysore, India were not quite well equipped with language skills to teach children English, and also that many of them kept away from school to provide income to their family. But the research also found that 19 out of 47 had cell phones and hence decided to use this medium to spread education! Well smart phones are not only for the well informed and for the corporate bigwigs, it could has help in imparting education and theryby providing equal opportuity as this report clearly shows. Well the method used by John Canny's group at the University ofCalifornia found that they could use a very popular game in South India to impart the language skills. For eg. they use the game called 'tree tree' in which the user have to move the on screen figure, which is called out. The other one is where the user has to move one of the animals among the many and help it to cross the road, this way one can learn about animals, plants, vegetables etc.

Canny's group plans to incorporate bluetooth, and to include speechrecognition, so students get feedback on their pronounciation based on whether the phone software recognised what they said.

ZMQ has developed a software for HIV education for cell phone users in Africa and India. Now this is what I call as 'Optimum use of existing resources'!

The Story of Apple Continues.....

Well after the launch of Apple TV, now it is the turn of Apple to face some music from EU (European Union). Well the EU has strongly objected to iTunes being downlodable only on iPod.

If Microsoft is blamed of praciticing Monopoly, then Apple is not far behind, it seems that Apple uses digital rights technology to limit consumers free use of songs downloaded or brought on iTunes, and even transfer some of the songs from Mp3. Apple Inc. is ofcourse silent over the entire issue, and many countries in the European Union hope that this scenario changes and that all iTune songs can be freely bought and downloaded not only through iPod but through other means as well.

When 'wow' is not the word!

Yes, the Government of United States are finding the costing of Vista too costly and might be forced to drop the idea of upgrading the software as of now. But it is too early to come to a conclusion as the Government body might take some time to decide on the upgradation factor. Meanwhile the Government Department which has taken the decision of not to upgrade the software is that of the United States Aviation Ministry, Department of Transportation.

After Dell had decided to adopt Open Source, as MS's software had become too costly, many eyebrows were raised. Well it might not be too long that Microsoft might be forced to think about the cost factor and take the necessary steps to reduce the same. Or the 'wow' might turn to become -'ouch' too costly

Go Wireless

Latest Survey shows that one third of the Internet Users in the United States use the wireless for sending emails checking the net etc. Well the most important gadgets used are that of cell phones, laptop and handheld personal digital assistant. Wireless network gives the freedom for one to send of a quick email or check or give a glance to the stock market. Guess the entire world will soon gear up towards wireless and wires and cables will be things of the past.

Social Networking

Well Social Networking is in vogue now. Following Youtube is now Stick Cam which gives in live feed about people in front of their web cam. Well people have recorded their entire day/week or months on webcam and feed it on Stickcam site, such that people can have some real 'reality' show on their comp. This might appeal to some exhibitionist. Well there is news that this stickcam will be used for that of After-Oscars party, and also for some private parties...Well with Stick cam guess nothing would be private about these parties any more! Thanks to social networking!