December, 2009

When Google Runs your life OR maybe not

A recent Forbes article on Google is a very interesting read. Here is an extract:

Your day begins with a wake-up call from your Google Android phone. As you run to the shower, you hit Google News and check headlines, then Gmail. Your first appointment of the day has been moved to a new location; Google Maps will direct you there. Quickly update your expense report–including the printout of that sales presentation using, say, Google Template–and shoot them to the back office in India (in Hindi, if you prefer, with Google Translate). Your boss wants to discuss your group’s contributions to some marketing documents? Lean on Google Groups. You’re not even out the door yet. You have the rest of the day to search for work-critical information on the Web while you’re at the office–to say nothing of snatching a few moments to download a game, check stock prices, organize your medical records, share photos and pick a restaurant and movie for the evening. How convenient. And a little creepy, perhaps.

Here is the full Dec 10, 2009 Forbes article.

If you don’t like this then you can decide to opted-out of Google and go and live in the Google Opt-out Village. Sounds like fun 🙂

Google Opt Out Feature Lets Users Protect Privacy By Moving To Remote Village

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The network IS the computer!

litl netbookSun Computer’s vision is: “The Network is the Computer“, well I think this is finally starting to take shape in the form of cloud computing. Bandwidth, even at speeds approaching 30MBps, is still orders of magnitude slower than main memory. However, I love the netbook-type (or webbook) computer that a company called, Litl, recently launched. The machine is a thing of beauty and follows in Apple’s design footsteps. Simple UI, easy to use, and does what it’s made for very well! I think it looks a litl 🙂 like the OLPC laptop.

OLPC

Here is a Youtube video by the CEO, John Chuang.

I think that litl has a head start on Google. Google’s own Web operating system is called, Google Chrome OS, and with GCO on a netbook the netbook will immediately launch the Google Chrome browser with all your data stored in the cloud. Very similar to the litl’s approach to software.

Here are some other write ups on litl: ABC Technology&Science, Engadget, and Wired.

OSNews preview.

Very interesting stuff. Would you buy a litl netbook? At $699, it’s a bit pricey for me.

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10 Free (or Cheap) Tools for Start-ups

Inc. magazine recently published this list of 10 free or cheap tools for Start-ups. I use Skype, Zoho and Google Docs. I would add TaDaList from 37signals and Evernote. Easy to use free software.Did they miss any good ones?

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