Another Dot Com

If you are interested in office applications, try Zoho. They offer an online office solutions - some for free, some for fee.

I tried some of Zoho’s office apps…and, it’s not MS office, but it works.

Let me know what you think.

Wow! 100 million Ipod sold by Apple. Big number, right? Let’s see….if 1 song is sold per year….$100 million in music revenue. I think it’s safe to say that Microsoft Zune won’t be catching Apple anytime soon.

The next Mac OS may offer multi-sized icon interface (resizing icon based on your choosing)…and, guess where I’ve seen this before???? When I worked for a Eazel headed by Mike Boich and Andy Herzfeld back in 2000, we worked on the very same thing for Gnome desktop. In addition to multi-sizing, we also allowed users to tag icons with varius tag images so that you can easily identy them.

Google has acquired Adscape Media for $23million.  Adscape Media’s patented technology, AdverPlay™, allows advertisers and publishers, measurable in-game advertising opportunities. Simply put, Adscape products are integrated with Video Games….Then, real-time or scheduled ads can be delivered to user through Adscape AdverPlay and Real World/Virtual World Gateway (enables two-way text, audio and video communication via SMS Text or eMail).

Google, with their bankroll, can now make deals with Gaming companies to serve their ads on video games. I’m sure a revenue split/share model will be used. Another ad revenue channel..good move, Google!

I read on Cnet that Microsoft may be acquiring Tellme by end of the week. What a cool deal. I really like this move by Microsoft….Tellme is already profitable and they are one of the leading voice recognition service company. Mass consumer adoption/use of voice recognition is still several years off, but it’s coming — home management, home entertainment systems, phones, computers, everyday life, it’s coming. Tellme acquisition really helps to move the needle on Microsoft’s voice recognition product/service strategy. Now..It’s your move Google.

The battle for supremacy continues between Google and Microsoft. Google will be selling their web-based office suite for $50/year. For 50 bucks, here’s what you get from Google. 10 gigabytes of email storage, word processing, spreadsheets and calendar. Boring! I think Google came up short here. If you decide not to upgrade to Vista, stick with what you have for now….or, get Open Office. Open Office is free and it’s better than Google Online Office Suite.

IBM is donating idemix, a privacy tool to manage user information, to Higgins Open Source Project. Microsoft Infocard better get their act together. Higgins project has major backing from the open source community along with Novell and IBM.

I was little disappointed with Apple TV when it was introduced last week. It’s cool that Apple TV is HD enabled, it’s expected that Apple TV would be tightly integrated with iTunes and iTunes services, and I knew the form factor would be clean and sleek. But, I wanted to see little more…like Tivo like feature on Apple TV. Apple TV sports 40 Gig drive - just to use that drive space sync’ing with iTunes is a waste. If Apple TV is going to be connected to my home entertainment system, it would have been cool to record TV and Movies directly on to Apple TV drive.

Big Brother of the Internet Era is Google. I’ve seen several news reports on how Google’s user search activity reports were used to nab someone on a criminal charge. Now, I’m not saying that catching criminal is a bad thing. What I’m saying is… what is Google storing on their servers about every user coming to use their search? It seems like they are collecting way too much about Google search users. Netscape was sued over some ridiculus claim that Netscape Smartdownload collected user specific data and tracking them…..not true, but the suit dragged on for years. I think Netscape/AOL ended up settling the suit out of the court. If Google is able to pinpoint “per computer”, “per Keyword”, “Per who knows what”….don’t you think that’s considered as collecting personal info? I didn’t see any privacy statement on Google that states what Google collects and how it’s being used. Have you?