ACE Awards Finalists from EE Times!

Now these are the companies that you probably want to look into for your next career move! There are some big names and some unknown small companies but all made it to the list!

The 2008 ACE Awards finalists

The 2008 ACE Awards finalists are:

Company of the Year -- Small/Medium (Under $750 million in sales) award
celebrates the company that exhibits the highest degree of professionalism,
staff development and retention, customer focus, technical excellence and
profitable growth -- a true leader in the electronics sector.


-- Green Hills Software
-- Moschip Semiconductor
-- National Instruments
-- Silicon Laboratories, Inc.
-- Wind River Systems

Company of the Year -- Large (Over $750 million in sales) award
celebrates the company that exhibits the highest degree of professionalism,
staff development and retention, customer focus, technical excellence and
profitable growth -- a true leader in the electronics sector.


-- Altera Corporation
-- Arrow Electronics, Inc.
-- Microchip Technology
-- Research In Motion
-- WIPRO

Design Team of the Year award goes to a group of innovators whose
system or IC-level design made a significant contribution to the
furtherance of technology and whose project management abilities were
creative, efficient and inspiring.


-- 3dLABS Semiconductor -- DMS-02 processor
-- IBM -- Embedded DRAM (eDRAM)
-- NXP Semiconductor -- PNX5100
-- PA Semi -- PWRficient dual-core processor (PA6T-1682M)
-- Research In Motion -- BlackBerry Curve

Executive of the Year award goes to an individual who brought
leadership, technological and fiscal vision to a company, organization or
company division during a calendar year.


-- Bluetooth Special Interest Group -- Michael Foley, Executive Director
-- Cadence Design Systems, Inc. -- Mike Fister, President & CEO
-- Energy Curtailment Specialists, Inc. -- Glen Smith, President & CEO
-- Research In Motion -- Mike Lazaridis, President & Co-CEO
-- Sun Microsystems -- Gregory Papadopoulos, CTO, EVP R&D

Innovator of the Year award goes to an individual who has brought
leadership, creativity and out-of-the-box thinking to technology, a product
or business.


-- ARC International -- Carl Schlachte, President & CEO
-- IBM Research -- Dan Edelstein and Satya Nitta
-- Philips Medical Systems -- Binwei Weng, Software Development Engineer
-- Tilera -- Anant Agarwal, CTO
-- Tropos Networks -- Cyrus Behroozi, Chief Scientist

Most Promising New Technology award goes to a compelling electronic
component or enabling technology, such as software, that is outstanding in
its technical design, potential for market impact and demonstrates
leadership in its area.


-- Element CXI -- Elemental Computing Array - ECA
-- IBM -- Nanotechnology
-- SkyCross Inc -- iMAT, Isolated Mode Antenna Technology
-- Tilera -- TILE64
-- XID Technologies -- Face Synthesis

Start-up of the Year award goes to a venture capital (or pre-IPO
financed) start-up (under three years in business) electronics
manufacturing (device or system) company that demonstrates excellence in
business development and/or technology development processes with the
potential to become a technical or market leader in the global electronics
industry.


-- Blade Networks Technology
-- Kovio, Inc.
-- Stream Processors, Inc.
-- Tilera
-- XMOS Semiconductor

Ultimate Products of the Year awarded to the most significant product
introduced in the last 12 months in each of seven categories, as determined
by large-scale peer review. Finalists in each category were chosen by
qualified readers of EE Times and eeProductCenter.com on a quarterly basis
via electronic balloting, from a list of nominees submitted to readers by
expert editors with accompanying editorial reviews. The top two ranking
products from each category over the past four quarters automatically
qualify as finalists. Electronic ballots will be sent to frequent
responders to select the winner in each category from the field of
finalists.



Analog
-- Texas Instruments -- ADS5463
-- Cirrus Logic -- CS4525
-- Analog Devices -- ADA4937-1 and ADA4938-1 differential drivers
-- Maxim -- MAX5092 LDO regulator
-- Supertex -- HV758IC
-- Vishay -- SiP12510, SiP12511 White LED Drivers
-- OKI Electric Industry -- ML86V7665 Video Decoder LSI
-- 4-channel -- ADS1274, 8-channel -- ADS1278, Texas Instruments -- ADSx


IP&E
-- DDP -- SL3 Series Stack Lamp
-- OSRAM -- Platinum DRAGON LED
-- Planar Systems -- 1080p Hi-Def LCD Thin Displays
-- Planet82 -- Color SMPD
-- Omron Electronic Components -- EE-SX1 photomicrosensors
-- Corning Cable Systems -- OptiSnap Connector
-- OSRAM Opto Semiconductors -- OSTAR Headlamp LED
-- Nextreme -- eTEC


Processor/Memory
-- Texas Instruments -- TMS570 MCU
-- Toshiba America Electronic Components -- TC904XX SoC Solutions
-- Adtron Corp -- I25FB and A25FB Flash Disks
-- AMD -- Athlon 64 Processors
-- Freescale Semiconductor -- Multi-core Communications Platform
-- Texas Instruments -- 16 MHz MSP430F47x4 Ultra Low-Power MCU
-- NEC Electronics -- 400-MHz ARM926EJ-S processor
-- Ramtron International -- FM111x 4-bit state savers


Logic Interface & Programmable Logic
-- Applied Micro Circuits Corp -- 3ware 9650SE SATA RAID Controller Family
-- Xilinx -- LX330 - 65-nm FPGA
-- Broadcom -- BCM7118 Cable Set-Top Box Chip
-- Lattice Semiconductor - DDR2 SDRAM IP Core
-- Xilinx -- Virtex-4 FPGA-based Deserializer Reference Design
-- Altera -- EP3C120 Cyclone III FPGA
-- Analog Devices -- ADV7520NK Low-Power HDMI v1.3 Transmitter
-- Altera -- EP3SL150


Power
-- Vicor -- V-I Chip Evaluation and Validation Boards
-- Analog Devices -- ADuC703x
-- FDK Corp -- FPMR05SR75 Senpai Series Converters
-- Endicott Research Group -- Smart Force Family of LED Driver Solutions
-- Texas Instruments -- UCD9240 Integrated Power System Controllers
-- Maxim -- MAX15020 High-Voltage DC-DC Converter
-- Allegro MicroSystems -- A6281 Driver
-- austriamicrosystems -- AS1301 Inductorless DC/DC Boost Converter


RF/Microwave
-- Telegent Systems -- TLG1100
-- Comsol -- RF Module for COMSOL Multiphysics
-- Jennic -- Reference Design for JN5139 Wireless Microcontroller
-- Broadcom -- BCM4325 Wi-Fi/Bluetooth/FM Transceiver
-- Xceive Corp -- XC4000
-- Zarlink -- ZL70101 Transceiver Chip
-- GCT Semiconductor -- GDM7003 RF chip
-- Quellan -- QNx220 RF Noise Canceller


Test/Measurement
-- AEMC Instruments -- Model OX 7104-C Power Kit
-- Pico Technology -- PicoScope 5204
-- Link Instruments -- DSO-8502
-- Agilent Technologies -- N5990A Option 102
-- Agilent Technologies -- N6705A DC Power Analyzer
-- Tektronix -- MSO4000 Mixed Signal Oscilloscopes
-- LeCroy -- WaveExpert 100H
-- Tektronix -- UWB Software for DPO/DSA70000 Oscilloscopes

Why DoubleClick is right for Google!

Most people keep on thinking why Google bought DoubleClick when they have their own AdSense network for advertisement. That is because most people are not familiar with how the advertisement market is being formed. The large portion of the web based advertisements are in display and text based advertisement where Google is only strong in text based advertisement.

The aim that Google is going for is for them to dominate the display based advertisement market as well. With help from Doubleclick algorithm, Google can optimize the advertisement delivery to each of the servers, effectively delivering relevant advertisements to people in need. Thus, complementary effect that DoubleClick can provide to Google, which can give rise to Google advertisement market yet once again!

Also, in more detail here's why Google bought DoubleClick:

1. DoubleClick's products and technology are complementary to our search and and content-based text advertising business, and give us new opportunities to improve online advertising for consumers, advertisers and publishers.
2. Historically, we've not allowed third parties to serve into Google's AdSense network, which has made it hard for advertisers to get performance metrics. Together, Google and DoubleClick can deliver a more open platform for advertisers, and provide the metrics they need to manage marketing campaigns.
3. By combining Google's infrastructure with DoubleClick's knowledge of agencies and publishers, we can create the next generation of more innovative ad serving technology, one that significantly improves the efficiency and effectiveness of online advertising.
4. To manage ad inventory, some of the largest publishers use DoubleClick DART for Publishers – but a good portion of it goes unsold. It's our view that the combination of DoubleClick and Google will help these publishers succeed by monetizing their unsold inventory.

You can find more detail from GoogleBlog on article Why we're buying DoubleClick.

Rise and Fall of Google?

I can remember the time before Google became so popular. There were few search engines that were not very good but dominating internet searches. Those were AltaVista, Lycos, Remarq, and Yahoo. Most of you wouldn't remember any of the search engines other then possibly Yahoo which is still standing against Google as one of it’s major but lagging competitor. When internet itself was fairly new, I even remember reading a book on how to use internet of which basically covered how to use Yahoo search engines!

If you want to read bit more on old search engines, I have found an article Dead Search Engines by Greg R. Notess covering some of these stories on this topic alone. Please do visit and indulge yourselves.

Like those old competitors who have perished within a short period of time after the introduction of Google, for all we know, Google can perish also. There is no such thing as forever dominance in any business models. Provided how fast the information travel after introduction of internet which gave rise to growth of Google, it can also work against itself when the new niche online search engine which can do better job then Google does.

There had been many startups which invest themselves in search engines. I have found two which looks very promising, hakia beta and Mahalo Alpha.

The hakia beta concentrate and distinguish itself with their new search algorithm accounted for their own search methods. You can read in more detail from their site but here are quotes on their technologies:

Different than a familiar R&D agenda in a search engine company, we undertook highly specific research tasks solely dedicated to the advancement of the core-competency in Web search. The main challenge is to make science work in a constrained deployment environment where speed, coverage, accuracy, and ease-of-use are high priority considerations.

Ontological Semantics (OntoSem) is a formal and comprehensive linguistic theory of meaning in natural language. As such, it bears significantly on philosophy of language, mathematical logic, and cognitive science... read more. Also available on this Web site is an interactive system to show how the words are analyzed.

Query Detection and Extraction (QDEX) system was invented to bypass the limitations of the inverted index approach when dealing with semantically rich data... read more. We have an interactive system to demonstrate QDEX operation for authorized users. You can request access to test this system, or Login using your access code.

SemanticRank algorithm of hakia deploys a collection of methods to score and rank paragraphs that are retrieved from the QDEX system for a given query. The process includes query analysis, best sentence analysis, and other pertinent operations...read more.

One of the research activities in hakia-Lab is the conversational (dialogue) systems where the search engine communicates with the user in an elevated level of confidence. More advanced forms of this function will be launched in the near future... read more. You can request access to test this system, or Login using your access code.

Mahalo Alpha meaning thank you in Hawaiian, concentrate on "human-powered search engine. It’s a fresh new concept which does not seem possible. However, they are building what seems more focused rather then being generic. I am not sure how they are planning to incorporate the fast growing internet itself. We’ll see their on-going progress. Quote from their site is available here:

Mahalo is the world’s first human-powered search engine powered by an enthusiastic and energetic group of Guides. Our Guides spend their days searching, filtering out spam, and hand-crafting the best search results possible. If they haven’t yet built a search result, you can request that search result. You can also suggest links for any of our search results.

Mahalo. We’re here to help.

Google Green for better or worse?

As I have mentioned and covered many times about Google, it is hunger to expand and marching toward the online dominance. We all hope that Google will not make same mistake the Microsoft has made (from all the indicators are showing Google is definitely have different strategy which seems to be working).

I have received the news from downloadsquad
Google goes Green(border) with another acquisition! Go green here does not mean Google is going energy efficient but they have acquired GreenBorder who's niche technology is the isolation of your online internet sessions. This means that whatever you do online, when the browser get closed, all the information will be wiped out. Where do you say this can be helpful? In many places specially when we are living in a world full of viruses, spywares, and adwares. You got it right, they'll no longer have their way into your system via browser!

This is another cool idea that get evolved as new problem arises. Let's hope that Google get these tools better integrated into what they have now and offer them to us for free! Hopefully with not too much advertisements...

Microsoft -> Google -> what's next?

Among many things, there are so many indications of how similar Google's growth compared to former Microsoft. It had always been in my mind that what is going to kill Google like how Google killed Microsoft.

Microsoft is still somewhat growing strong company. However, when you look at it deep down and follow the news, it seems like Microsoft is trying desperately to somehow beat Google. With such a huge resources that Microsoft has, they've been trying for many years now but for some reason they are not being able to catch up on innovation that Google have shown.

While I was reading through articles, the The Final Days of Google: It is going to be an inside job from I,CRINGLY jumped out of the crowd. I think it is the most likely scenario of how Google can crumble on it's own feet. If you read through the article, the reason for Google's demise can be categorize in three folds:

The flaw is simple and is composed of three parts. First there are those thousands of ideas and technologies that are being developed by Google employees in the 20 percent of their week devoted specifically for that purpose. That number of new ideas is far too high to be practical and too high even to be considered safe.

...

Google has designed a working environment that provides almost everything their technical people need except a guaranteed sense of satisfaction. By design each worker is no more than 100 feet from a bathroom or food and drink (at Google the food is always free). This creates an environment where people tend not to go home, which Microsoft discovered and leveraged decades ago. But nobody works every minute they are AT work, which means the Google Geeks are constantly talking with each other, team building, bonding, and goofing off. And for 20 percent of that goofing-off time I'll guarantee you that many of these people are discussing their pet projects, 99.75 percent of which have been REJECTED by the company.

...

Now a word about stock options and vesting. Google employees get stock options that vest over a period of four years. In any high-tech company there is an employee change of attitude that comes with being fully vested. At Microsoft in the 1980s some people wore buttons that said "FYIFV," which stood for "F**k You I'm Fully Vested." At companies that have gone public, as Google has, there is often also an outflow of employees around that four-year anniversary. We'll see that at Google, too, no matter how cushy it is to work there.

Google buying yet another company? (Feedburner)

Google had been on hot streak on acquiring top online companies. Now there is another rumor about Google Acquiring Feedburner? posted by Pete Cashmore in mashable. It does seems makes sense based on what they can offer from Feedburner as the quote below, however, it seems too soon to acquire many companies within such a short amount of time. I can foresee that there will be quite a huge amount of chaos and confusion at Google try to get all the mergers through and put each companies technological and strategic strength together and create synergy.

We’ve seen some ridiculously false rumors over the past few weeks, so we’re not buying into this one until we see a press release. But it does make logical sense: Vecosys hears from a “VERY trusted source” that Google is buying the RSS management and advertising service Feedburner, and that the deal would have been announced sooner if it wasn’t for that itsy bitsy DoubleClick purchase.

For us, it passes the smell test: Feedburner has been a prime acquisition target for over a year, and Google needs to get into the RSS ad market. They could even merge Feedburner’s stat tracking with Google Analytics, providing all your stats in one place. The question is: why wouldn’t Google buy Feedburner?

Google can be GREATEST EVIL of ALL TIME

Google have been holding it's growth rate and buying companies at premium prices like I have posted in my previous posts. Lots of them have been providing Google with more headache than superior gain. YouTube, for example, was purchased $1.65 billion dollars while it is suffering from billion dollar law suite from multiple sources as it have been springs up quite often in the news. Forbes have written a fairly elaborate article on the possible trouble that Google might get into from purchase of the Double Click: Google's TroubleClick.

Not only DoubleClick's clients possibly compete against Google, but Google's access to user's web browse behavior tracking from DoubleClick can have privacy issues for users. With the Google's huge search and behavioral algorithm combined with DoubleClick's user behavioral model, your whole privacy can be compromised.

"Now that DoubleClick has lost its independence, it's an uncomfortable feeling," says Andy Mitchell, managing director of AdLINK, a British online advertising network that has used DoubleClick's ad service. He says he is considering dropping the service if the deal goes forward and thinks other networks may do the same.

Mitchell says that DoubleClick has always promised ad networks that their data would not be shared or used to work with advertisers and publishers directly. He worries that trust will be diminished now that the company is owned by a possible competitor.

Jeff Green, chief operations office of DoubleClick competitor AdECN, argues that content providers will think twice about dealing with Google. He also predicts that ad networks will fret over working with a company that has direct ties to publishers and advertisers. "They're afraid that Google will want to cut out the middleman," Green says. "As an ad network, you'd be partnering with someone owned by another business basically dedicated to killing you."

Green says he's spoken with six ad networks that have expressed misgivings over the DoubleClick buyout. And he's particularly concerned about the company's new ad exchange, a Nasdaq-style online advertising marketplace announced earlier this month. "Now it's as if Nasdaq owned Merrill Lynch," Green says. "You can't be both a referee and a player in the game."

...

On top of this long list of conflict of interest problems, DoubleClick also brings Google its history of user-end privacy controversies. The advertising service was one of the first to use "cookies," the often-criticized small files downloaded to users' computers to track their surfing. In 1999, DoubleClick tried to create a database of user profiles that would include personal information like names and addresses. That threat to consumer privacy unleashed a storm of protest against the company, as well as a Federal Trade Commission investigation and a class-action lawsuit, which was settled only in 2002 when DoubleClick agreed to make user data anonymous. Now the company also allows users to opt out of receiving cookies.

But privacy advocates like Alissa Cooper, a policy analyst at the Center for Democracy and Technology, worry that DoubleClick's privacy issues could resurface under a new owner. And given that the new owner is Google, a company with an enormous stock of private data in its own right, the potential for information invasion is even greater.

Cooper worries that DoubleClick's massive amount of private data about users' online behavior could be linked to Google's reams of search data to create detailed profiles of individuals. Privacy watchdogs have speculated that both Google's and DoubleClick's databases would be vulnerable to data leaks and ripe for abuse by a prying government. A combined information pool would be even more dangerous.

Must have for an entrepreneur

Codswall have gathered together The Freelancer’s Toolset: 100 Web Apps for Everything You Will Possibly Need written by Yoav Ezer. If you are an entrepreneur who is looking for tools to get started, here are all the things that you'll need.

Running a business for yourself means you have to be inventive and always on the lookout for a new and better way to get things done. Innovation junkies, take note: the Internet has a lot to offer. From invoicing to marketing, these are tools that freelancers need to know about.

Here are list of tools that are linked and described in Codswall's site in categories:

Organization
Calendars & To-Do Lists
Money Managements
Storage
Project Management & Productivity
Writing & Design Tools
Security & Privacy
Mobility & Contact
Marketting & Networking
Business & Legal
Client Contact & Feedback
Website Tools
Printing & Packaging
Tools to Give & Take
and more

Google, GOOD or EVIL?

I have posted about how Google merging through the whole online scene couple days ago on May 11th "Google = Web technology absorbent?"

Apparently, I'm not the only one who think that Google might be growing too fast too big with too much control and power. San Francisco Chronicle presented article WHO'S AFRAID OF GOOGLE? written by Verne Kopytoff, Chronicle Staff Writer on Friday, May 11, 2007 wrote about "Firms in Silicon Valley and beyond fear search giant's plans for growth."

In the valley's cutthroat culture, Google is the equivalent of king. And as in many monarchies, the subjects are both submissive and restive.

Rich Skrenta, chief executive of Topix, a local news and community forums Web site in Palo Alto, described Google as being so ahead of everyone else that there is no real No. 2. Startup executives cower at mounting a challenge, he said.

"It's past fear -- it's the stages of grief, it's resignation -- and now everyone's depressed," Skrenta said.

...

Google building Big Brother?

Fear of Google also extends to its amassing of vast amounts of information about user behavior. Privacy advocates have called the repository of search query histories and e-mail the ultimate Big Brother that law enforcement and civil litigators could use to glean juicy personal information.

...

"People can get sensitive about that kind of information being known. But if Google didn't keep that information, people wouldn't be able to get to it," Opsahl said.

In response to the complaints, Google vowed recently that it would make it harder to link users to what they search for online. Under the plan, the company would shroud the information it collects about users in anonymity after keeping it for 18 to 24 months. Opsahl said the idea doesn't go far enough.

...

But he cautioned that the warning sign will come when Google becomes so dominant that customers cannot do without it. How well will Google deal with its customers' problems then?

...

Wary of Internet giant

Google's long tentacles have many running scared:

Silicon Valley: Concerned that Google's outsize ambition is squashing startups and raising salaries in the tech industry.

Madison Avenue: Fears that Google is taking over the advertising business and making established ad agencies irrelevant.

Hollywood: Takes umbrage at widespread piracy on Google's YouTube video service, claiming it violates copyright law.

Privacy advocates: Worry that Google's collection of personal information will create a massive database that can be mined by government.

Source: Chronicle research

Google = Web technology absorbent?

Google has the most recognized brand name (source: news.com) of year 2007 beating Microsoft and many other widely well known companies by fairly large margin. From this results, more people know about Google compared to Coca-Cola or Microsoft or GE! Take a look at the following figure for yourself.

1. Google--$66.4 billion
2. General Electric--$61.9 billion
3. Microsoft--$55 billion
4. Coca-Cola--$44.1 billion
5. China Mobile--$41.2 billion
6. Marlboro--$39.2 billion
7. Wal-Mart--$36.9 billion
8. Citigroup--$33.7 billion
9. IBM--$33.6 billion
10. Toyota Motor--$33.4 billion

Even after the incredible growth that Google has enjoyed, they are still looking into expanding and dominating the online market space. Not only developing and improving their own technologies, "Google Searches for Mergers Big and Small." Acquisitions of the big and well establishes companies in the recent months were meant to plug holes in businesses according to Chief Executive Eric Schmidt.

Google paid $1.65 billion to acquire video-sharing site YouTube in November, it's biggest deal at that time. Then, a month ago, it announced a $3.1 billion deal to buy DoubleClick, which offers advertising delivery technology and services.

On top of it, purchase of the smaller and developing companies are to acquire their engineering talent and their technologies to incorporate to Google of which most of them succeeded with astonishing figures.

Schmidt said that the company continues to view small technology acquisitions as the bread-and-butter of its merger strategy, mainly as a way to obtain new technology and talented engineers.

"In the past, we would buy businesses in lieu of (hiring) engineers," Schmidt said. These days, Google buys a start-up once every few days, or around one a week, he estimated.

Two examples of this approach—Keyhole (Google Earth) and Urchin (Analytics)—had strong technical teams, a technology head start, and were bought relatively inexpensively in the hopes of later generating billion dollar revenue streams, he said.

It looks like Google is absorbing all innovative technologies while other similar competitors like Yahoo and Microsoft is missing the opportunities. Because Google is web based and user base, such a fast growths and popularities Google has enjoys was possible.

Who would have thought Google could have beaten both Microsoft and Yahoo in such a short time in their established online market space? This shows that other companies innovative edge can do something similar to Google as well. Perhaps, Google knows this and that might be why they are trying to absorb all the big and small companies with good prospects or technology base.

Microsoft on a buying streak

The inquirer.net have published that Ballmer still fancies buying something to expand already a huge company.

THE SHY and retiring, softly spoken, CEO of Microsoft, Steve "sounds of silence" Ballmer has told Reuters that he is still shopping and has not given up hope that he will be able to buy something big quite soon.

The recent decline of Yahoo purchase shows that not that many companies are willing to join Microsoft if they have a choice. The cultural differences (or lack of culture) provided negative views toward Microsoft as a whole, not to mention their actions to seek for dominance in the software and internet market as a whole.

In the past, Microsoft has acquired many companies over past years, where not all of them worked out toward Microsoft's favor. Giant AntiSpyware for example, was a huge failure. Giant AntiSpyware itself was a great company until it got acquired by Microsoft. Now, their defender product shows miserable performance against their competitions.

However, these are risk that Microsoft needs to overcome especially when Microsoft is looking to acquire more companies to obtain instantaneous market share rather then doing their own ground up developments. Now that i think about it, I think it would have worked out better if they did indeed developed their applications ground up with their talented resources... What do you think?

Joost funding of $45 million

It is no secret that Joost is moving forward specially running close to the public release. With such prestigious founders from Skype, there is no question that it'll move forward and at least will make some noise.

Joost raises $45 million

The internet television platform started by Skype founders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennström has raised $45 million in capital.

Sequoia Capital, Index Ventures, Li K-shing, and CBS have all put some money in, although that's not a comprehensive list. So far, Joost had been funded primarily out of the pockets of Friis and Zennström.

Apple + Sun = ???

We all know that there are lots of talk of possible merger between Apple and Sun. Their had been talk of the merger before and there is no reason for that to fire up again in the future. Even now, lots of work are being done between the two companies including open-office and J2EE. In a long run, it does makes sense against the competitions. Their cultural behavior are similar and their innovative directions are somewhat similar. With their alliance, they can definitely fire-up the heat against their competitions.

Seth Weintraub has written a good summary on his site: Sun and Apple Forging Alliance.

Google's new layout?

While I was searching thru the web with google, all of the sudden I noticed that the layout of search results from google seems to be somewhat different! Google is known to run tests on unsuspected people. When I first saw this layout, it was quite useful. It almost had similar feel as the google desktop application.

Also, it seems like I wasn't the only one who saw the new layout. Check out the story on techcrunch.

Microsoft + Yahoo???

Apparently Microsoft is hoping to join with Yahoo in order to overcome Google's dominance in internet related businesses success that Google have shown. According to forbe Microsoft is lagging behind both Google as well as Yahoo by large margin. The formal negotiation of $50 billion dollar have been initiated.

Microsoft has asked Yahoo! to enter formal negotiations for a proposed acquisition worth about $50 billion. Something along the lines of “all your search are belong to us” or “you will be assimilated, resistance is futile” comes to mind regarding this possibility.

However, according to WSJ from gizmodo have reported that Yahoo have turned down the Microsoft's offer due to lack of MS vibe!

According to the WSJ, it looks like Yahoo is going to turn down Microsoft yet again. They claim that Yahoo just wasn't feeling the MS vibe.
...
And thanks to the reader, only known to us as "Dean", for envisioning what the possible merger could of looked like down the road. Mmmm, pie.– Ben Longo

Joost unlimited!

If you haven't heard, joost is now offering unlimited invitations to the current beta users. Previously, they were only limited to the hand-full of beta users and anyone who wanted to join had to receive limited invitations from current joost beta testers just like that of gmail during it's initial test phase. As of today, joost have removed limitation to amount of invitation that can be given out by current beta testers.

It is like YouTube but with more legal television contents as well as better resolution. According to Joost:

Joost is a new way of watching TV on the internet. With Joost, you get all the things you love about TV, including a high-quality full-screen picture, hundreds of full-length shows and easy channel-flipping.

I am fortunate enough to get myself an invitation and have been very pleased with quality of the television that I can see. If you would like to join and require an invitation, please leave me a comment with your email address. I'll send you an invitation as soon as I can.

Joost unlimited! ==REMOVED==

Due to technical difficulties, this post could not add comments. Thus, I'm removing this post and re-creating the new one. Please repost your comments in my new post since I have lost the once that were posted here.