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November 3, 2011
by Vikash
0 comments

Shipped : Google in Plus

“Think about it this way. Last quarter, we’ve shipped the +, and now we’re going to ship the Google part”, said Larry Page during the last quarter’s earnings call. And today Vic Gundotra, Senior VP, Social, wrote about Shipping Google in Google Plus. Google, today, have integrated YouTube in Plus. And have also launched two Chrome extensions -- one that lets you +1 any web page (whether or not that web page has a +1 button) and the other that lets you see your G+ notification anywhere on the web.

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November 1, 2011
by Vikash
2 Comments

Googlebots Go Smart !

Googlebots are Google’s search bots -- those spiders that crawl and index the web pages. Well, these bots have just got a little bit smarter. How ? Most of the commenting systems prevalent on websites use a third party commenting software -- Facebook comments/Disqus/Intense Debate etc. And more often these commenting engines use Javascript to display information and are as such difficult to be crawled by search engines, thus missing out on any SEO boost from them. Now, no more. Googlebot can now crawl your comments section as well. Confirmed by a tweet from Matt Cutts :

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710800

October 26, 2011
by Vikash
0 comments

Can NOKIA stage a comeback ?

I’ve had a long history with Nokia, on a personal level (with their handsets) and professionally too. So, personally, yes, I would love to see the Finnish giant stage a comeback, from the deep vicious self-dig hole, they have gotten themselves into, these last few years. From being the global leader that they were to turning into a second grade citizen, its been a journey, they’d wish would end soon. Its been more of a humiliation than anything else. We shall not get into what got Nokia into the sh*t they are now in. But will rather focus on current developments amidst the Nokia World Conference, London that just concluded. Earlier this year, NOKIA entered into a partnership with Microsoft to develop WP7 smartphones, choosing Microsoft’s Mobile Platform as the road ahead (and killing its troubled Meego platform). And there had since been much curiosity as to what would the combined forces of Nokia’s proven hardware lineup and  Microsoft’s promising Mobile platform come out with. Well, out they came with first two WP7 phones running on NOKIA’s hardware -- LUMIA 800 and LUMIA 710.

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October 21, 2011
by Vikash
0 comments

Re-inventing Android : Ice Cream Sandwich

In a rather short span of time, Android, Google’s Mobile platform has taken over the mantle of the most popular smartphone OS. Android has always been powerful -- specs wise. But there was no denying that User Experience could have been easier, more intuitive and beautiful. There was the problem of fragmentation across devices. And to top it all, Google rushed into a half finished thing called Honeycomb for the Tablet segment. But amidst it all, Google had their vision intact. With Android 4.0 -- Ice Cream Sandwich, Google addressed the better part of these problems. With a revamped UI, Ice Cream Sandwich plans to woo its audience. ICS also unifies Android across form factors ie;  the same OS will run across phones and tablets. Plus a host of new features will usher in a whole new lot of fun.

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October 15, 2011
by Vikash
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Nuance, Swype, Siri – the next steps in Mobile

Mobile is a multi billion dollar industry and is the cynosure of all eyes (read Google, Apple, MS, Samsung and who not!). The Mobile Ecosystem is ever evolving with Android triggering an innovation war. While the Mobile OS supremacy is the battle royale, there are other smaller, yet very useful technologies which are potential game changers in the Mobile landscape. Nuance and Swype are two of them. And then there is Siri, well its virtually Nuance empowering Apple devices. We will come to Siri a little later.

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ballmy

October 3, 2011
by Vikash
0 comments

Android : Trouble knocks again

Android grabbed highlights this week, for different reasons and at least one of them, not the right one. While the ecosystem churned out another device in the form of Amazon Kindle Fire, which has gained some early appreciation, the perennial sneaky Joker (read Microsoft) pulled another stunt on Android, this time with a major Android OEM -- Samsung. Kindle Fire first.  Amazon CEO Jeff  Bezos demoed the product last week. Amazon went after the tablet form factor with some aggressive pricing. The product may not boast of some snazzy specs, but is just about the ‘device’ which a commoner would want at an unbelievable tag of $199. The product has a new web browser silk, that uses the power of Amazon cloud service EC2 to accelerate the browsing experience.

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