Linux :Two Decades

The history of Linux is an interesting thing in its own right, and even more interesting when taken in context of the history of computing in general. The Linux Foundation has a number of events lined up to celebrate Linux’s 20th birthday, including a new 20th Anniversary Website and a video contest to be judged by Linux creator Linus Torvalds!

The Key to Linux's Sucess is that it came at the right time, right Place, and the right kind of environment.If for instance ,Richard Srallman hadn't set the base for creating a free operating system way back in1983,by creating the Free Software Foundation and all the components Required for an OS other than the Kernel. Linux would never have been created. Linux Torvalds completed the Last Piece of the Puzzle by creating the Kernel, and Later switched it to the GNU General Public License. Together GNU software ans the Linux Kernel formed a complete operating system that was free for everybody to use, modify, and distibute.

In fact, today Linux is the largest collaborative development project in the history of computing, which means that the 20th Anniversary of Linux is an opportunity for the community to come together in celebration of this great success story and in collaboration on how it will define the next 20 years of Linux.

We’re kicking things off with an exclusive video produced by The Linux Foundation that is one way to tell the Story of Linux:

We hope this video will inspire submissions for the annual Linux Foundation Video Contest,  for which Linux creator Linus Torvalds will choose the best. 

Google Salutes Jorge Luis Borges with Doodle

Today 24 August 2011, birthday of Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo aka Jorge Luis Borges. Google Celebrates his Birthday by Displaying the Doodle on the Homepage.

Jorge Luis Borges was an Argentine writer, essayist, poet and translator born in Buenos Aires in August 24 1899. His work Embraces the "character of unReality in every Literature" His famous books Ficciones published in 1944 and The Alpeh published in 1949 are compilations of short stories interconnected by common themes such as dreams, labyrinths, libraries, animals, fictional writers, religion and God. He died in Geneva, Switzerland in June 14 1986.

In Google Doodle Jorge Luis Borges Represent the "L" of the Google.

Google plus vs Twitter

Editor’s Note: This post originally appeared on Mike’s personal blog and was republished here with his permission.

Here’s a mid-Summer prediction for you… The Google Plus v. Facebook debate is a sideshow. The real battle will be between G+ and Twitter… and while Google+ will become a franchise for The Goog, Twitter will win.

Here’s my thinking.

Before Google Plus, Facebook was mostly for personal, LinkedIn was mostly for professional, and Twitter was in the middle:

I think G+ will make people focus Facebook all the more on their personal lives, and LinkedIn all the more on their professional ones. I’m already considering de-friending all of my professional contacts on Facebook, so I can post family and political stuff there without having to master the Byzantine administrivia of Facebook’s “privacy controls.”

I’ve already started to interact more with my professional contacts over on G+, which has become the default among the digerati crowd with remarkable speed. But while the Circles feature is brilliant, simple, and useful in clustering groups, I’m not going to get my Aunt Lala to dump Facebook and master G+  at this point, so home base for family etc. will stay in Facebook.

G+ is actually more about Twitter’s franchise, in the great middle of indiscriminate social networking. But while the feature set in G+ is much more robust than that of Twitter, in the end Twitter works because it’s simple, and it will win the shootout for the center because of two other important factors in this dialogue: Apple and Microsoft.

Apple has already embraced Twitter in it’s new OS, and I predict Microsoft will make a few more lame attempts at a consumer social net before realizing it’s franchise is in Office and setting it’s sights on LinkedIn by acquiring Slideshare. With that said, the OS wars will keep Google at bay, and ensure Twitter’s franchise as the mass market social medium of choice.

The result will be this:

That’s my take, anyway. What’s yours?

Google's big buys

Google's big buys

A list of some of Google's biggest and/or most important acquisitions to date.

Applied Semantics, April 2003 ($102 million)
Built AdSense, the paid search ad platform that still drives most of Google revenue and profits.

Picasa, June 2004 (terms not disclosed)
Image-organizing tool remains one of Google's most popular services

Android, August 2005 (terms not disclosed)
The platform started by ex-Danger head Andy Rubin is now the second-most popular mobile OS in the world.

YouTube, October 2006 ($1.65 billion)
Video-sharing site that was initially a copyright risk now earns more than $1 billion a year.

DoubleClick, April 2007 ($3.1 billion)
Helped launch Google's display advertising business.

FeedBurner, June 2007 ($100 million)
Helped users and advertisers manage RSS feeds.

Postini, June 2007 ($625 million)
The company's e-mail security services have become key features of Google's enterprise apps business.

GrandCentral July 2007 ($45 million)
The technology behind Google Voice.

AdMob, November 2009 ($750 million)
Gave Google a major technology inroad into the mobile advertising business.

On2 video compression, February 2010 ($133.9 million)
With this acquisition came codex that Google later renamed WebM and is pushing as a new Web video standard.

ITA, June 2010 ($700 million)
Purchase of travel search company was opposed by competitors who felt it would give Google unfair power.

Like.com, August 2010 ($100 million)
Visual search and e-commerce engine boosted Google's product and image search sites.

Slide, August 2010 (terms not disclosed)
Social media company founded by PayPal veteran Max Levchin was purchased as part of effort to make Google products more "social."

AdMeld, $400 million (June 2011)
Aimed at helping Google optimize online display ads.

Motorola Mobility, August 2011, pending ($12.5 billion)
Would give Google valuable intellectual property and get it directly into the handset business.

Google's patent play: $12.5B for Motorola Mobility [Full Report]

Motorola has a history of over 80 years of innovation in communications technology and products, and in the development of intellectual property, which have helped drive the remarkable revolution in mobile computing we are all enjoying today. Its many industry milestones include the introduction of the world's first portable cell phone nearly 30 years ago, and the StarTAC--the smallest and lightest phone on earth at time of launch. In 2007, Motorola was a founding member of the Open Handset Alliance that worked to make Android the first truly open and comprehensive platform for mobile devices. I have loved my Motorola phones from the StarTAC era up to the current DROIDs.

It may be the boldest move yet by a company known for being audacious: Google is spending $12.5 billion to buy Motorola Mobility. But the big prize isn't Motorola's lineup of cellphones, computer tablets and cable set-top boxes.

Google wants to pony up $12.5 billion to acquire Android handset maker Motorola Mobility. Buying Motorola would give Google thousands of patents that could provide it with a great deal of protection; it would also give it the ability to produce its own mobile hardware. Other Android phone makers have expressed support for the deal, though privately they may be very nervous.

The patents would help Google defend Android, its operating system for mobile devices, against a litany of lawsuits alleging that Google and its partners pilfered the innovations of other companies.

In addition to the existing trove of patents that attracted Google's interest, Motorola, which introduced its first cellphone nearly 30 years ago, has 7,500 others awaiting approval.

Phone makers and software companies are engaged in all-out combat over patents for mobile devices. The tussle has been egged on by the U.S. patent system, which makes it possible to patent any number of phone features.

The deal is by far the largest Google has pursued in its 13-year history. Motorola Mobility's price tag exceeds the combined $9.1 billion that the company has paid for 136 previous acquisitions since going public in 2004, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Buying Motorola also would push Google into phone and computer tablet manufacturing, competing with other device makers who rely on Android. The largest makers of Android devices are all supporting a deal that Google CEO Larry Page said was too tempting to resist.

"With mobility increasingly taking center stage in the computing revolution, the combination with Motorola is an extremely important step in Google's continuing evolution," Page told analysts in a conference call Monday.

What is Google getting with its planned $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility?

After coming back from the brink of bankruptcy and splitting from Motorola Solutions at the beginning of the year, the company has faced a myriad of problems. Beyond the loss of market share, Motorola has suffered from high-profile product delays, including its first 4G LTE phone from Verizon. Pricing miscalculations led to the lackluster debut of its Xoom tablet, as well as the Atrix 4G smartphone, which came with a pricey laptop dock accessory.

Certainly, Google's acquisition of Motorola is largely about its portfolio of 17,000 patents (with 7,500 more pending). But even if Google plans to run Motorola as a separate unit, there are bound to be issues that Google will need to deal with.

For instance, Motorola's share of the smartphone market in the second quarter fell to 4.1 percent from 4.9 percent, according to a recent study by Gartner. At the same time, Samsung Electronics' share nearly quadrupled to 15.8 percent, while LG Electronics' share similarly quadrupled to 4.6 percent. HTC saw its share slightly increase to 10.2 percent.

Still bullish 

Google and Motorola put on their best faces today with the announcement.

"We're really excited about this whole business and working with Motorola and their team," Google Chief Executive Larry Page said today on a conference call. "There's tremendous opportunity here."

Jha said on the call that the company will continue to use its strong relationships with its carriers to drive sales. During the last quarterly conference call, Jha added that despite a weak forecast for the third quarter, the fourth-quarter results should pop as a result of a number of new product launches.

Motorola is expected to benefit from working even more closely with Google. Analysts say the company will likely get access to the latest features from Android, giving it a leg up on the competition. Such an advantage, however, may alienate some of Google's other allies in the Android world.

In the end, Motorola's issues may not be a huge priority for Google.

"It's about the patents," said Avian Securities analyst Matthew Thornton. "Operations are house money."

Games for Google +: Finally Google Announced !

Google has announced a big move toward mainstream adoption today, integrating Web-based games within the brand new social network. "We want to make playing games online just as fun, and just as meaningful, as playing in real life," the announcement says. Titles include Angry Birds, Bejeweled Blitz, Zynga Poker and Sudoku. Google has launched a new Google Plus Platform Blog to help

 encourage more.

According to Google Plus Blog

Today we’re adding games to Google+. With the Google+ project, we want to bring the nuance and richness of real-life sharing to the web. But sharing is about more than just conversations. The experiences we have together are just as important to our relationships. We want to make playing games online just as fun, and just as meaningful, as playing in real life.

That means giving you control over when you see games, how you play them and with whom you share your experiences. Games in Google+ are there when you want them and gone when you don’t.

Game On Between Google Plus and Facebook

Games are an important feature for a social network that wants to compete with Facebook for users' attention, not to mention its gaming business. "There is terrific potential for games on Google Plus," Billy Pidgeon, a game analyst at M2 Research, told VentureBeat games specialist Dean Takahashi in a report on developer anticipation of games on Google Plus two weeks ago.

"Opening up gaming on other social networks gives other publishers more opportunity to compete outside the Zynga-Facebook matrix, and can also help Zynga escape dependence on Facebook."

Takahashi wrote that he spoke to a number of game developers who were confident that Games on Plus would launch soon and that it "would change the game industry" when it does.

Read More Here

Internet Explorer Users Are Dumber, Study Shows

A company called AptiQuant, a self-proclaimed "world leader in the field of online psychometric testing," published the results of an online study that tested the IQs of users and grouped the results according to which browser respondents used.

The study found that users of Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Opera were all slightly above average in IQ test results, but Microsoft Internet Explorer users tended to be lower on the IQ scale.

These results aren't surprising because browsers such as Chrome, Firefox and Opera are generally used by professionals and other assorted "geeks," while Internet Explorer is the default option on Windows computers and is mostly used by the inexperienced and those who don't even know there are other options.

Opera users will be happy to know they averaged the highest IQ scores of all the browsers. Firefox, Chrome and Safari scores were relatively similar to each other, but lower than that of Opera.


More Detail Here

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