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Monday, June 30, 2008

The Smart Shopper Series

Let me to introduce you to the smart shopper series that I propose to initiate here at !!pseudonormicks!!

This series would comprise of posts that deal with various aspects of consumer shopping spanning across topics like how business works, tips and tricks to smart buying and of course some great deal listings.

This is not a well thought of and a well planned attempt, so kindly bear with me if it doesn't live up.


Currently I am also researching on building up a service that caters to individuals who value their time and money while out shopping. For the same purpose I've initiated a survey that would help me understand consumer preferences.

The short questionnaire would take you approximately 7 minutes to fill up and you can find it over here.







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Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Data portability on social networks : Bain or Boon ?



Last week's Trend Candy (Trendhunter’s weekly newsletter) got me a catchy piece of news in their Hot trends section. The head line went like “Celebrity MySpace Hacking - Paris Hilton & Lindsay Lohan's Private Pics (GALLERY)”. After being a spectator to most of their private videos, the ‘private pics’ dint lure me as much as the phrase ‘data interoperability’ which was featured as a teaser for the aforementioned trend.
I decided to Google the phrase ‘data portability” and came up with the observations:

• Dataportability.org is a work group, on the lines of ‘Open id’, that works on the philosophy of promoting the capability of controlling, sharing and moving data from one system to another thereby enabling the user to control, move and share all his personal identities and data.

• If enabled across a variety of social networks, it will allow the user to control all his accounts across these networks in a central manner. For example if you wish to change your email id from abc@xyz.com to def@pqr.com , then using data portability , you wont have to undergo the pain of changing this across every other social networking website.
Furthermore, the myriad web apps that drive users crazy can also interoperate the user’s data across various networking websites. So you can buy your friend a beer or buy him for $x at social networking site A and sell him for $y on website B. All thanks to data interoperability.

• Even though data portability lets a user access all his friends and media across all the websites and widgets, there is a possible downside to it. Different websites and web apps govern the users with their own terms of service (TOS). So In case if a user wishes to interoperate from a popular social networking site to a lesser known website then there is a fair chance of TOS conflict and in the process the user may lose his rights over his own data, very aptly phrased by Nitin Borwankar at Gigaom as
“The real problem — and the elephant in the room – is not whether web app vendors “allow” me to take my data and go play elsewhere, but whether they “play fair” with my data when it’s in the web app.”
• Going ahead on the TOS conflict, in case a user wished to delete his account from website x, he would do that in a simple manner, but website X might have already provided his email and other identity details to all the networks in the DP workgroup. Which means, there exists a possibility that the user wont be allowed to delete his account from website Y, that already posses the ID details of the user thanks to data interoperability. The argument can be furthered to a point where certain websites allow users to make different friends group thereby restricting certain friends from personal data like say ‘birthday’ or 'relationship status', while other websites in the network might not respect the same set of restrictions thereby ensuring that the users privacy is not guaranteed.

Some social networks who have already adopted data portability
|Myspace.com |Yahoo.com |Twitter.com |Ebay.com|
*courtesy Techcrunch


With all these pros and cons, it seems data portability is definitely a novel initiative trying to sort out the mess for web2.0 users; but for it to implement, a heavy collaboration amongst various social networking websites is expected else the user would eventually land up into a bigger pothole trying to save him self from a puddle of mud.Till then, I'd recommend that you read all the TOS and stop the old habit of blindly clicking on "I accept the TOS" for the sake of safeguarding your own sovereignty in Web2.0.
These are my views from a little bit of browsing across the web, I'd like to know your comments to reach a more stable conclusion.


* picture courtesy :dataporatbility.org




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Monday, June 09, 2008

Rechargable AA size USB batteries





Tired of buying the conventional Li-ion AA batteries that have to be either thrown out or plugged into an additional charging unit for hours to get back their power?
If you said yes, then maybe Moxia has an answer to your worries. The USB cell ,launched in Sept,2006 ,is just like any other AA batery just that when it gets discharged, all you have to do is remove the its cap and plug it into a USB port on your computer to charge.

Sweet ans simple, right?
Theres more to it:

  • Doesn't have to be thrown like the alkaline batteries creating a toxic waste.

  • No need to carry a charger, plug it into your computer,gamestation, TV or anything that has a USB port.

  • The rechargeable AA NiMH Battery gives 1.2v ,1300mah output.

  • The price is slightly on the higher side at INR 600.00 for a two AA cell pack (I bet fake models from China would already be available, so be careful)

  • Also in the pipeline are other forms of batteries like phone batteries (see adjascent pic) the 9V battery(pic below) and the AAA batery.



These batteries are developed by Moxia Energy, a UK based company that specializes in renewable energy power resources and related innovative design and engineering solutions. Their idea is to help the human to cut off from the electricity grid for petty issues like lighting, fans, charging etc. !!

With their cutting edge technology focusing on the need of the hour (especially because of the constant decay in the conventional energy resources the world over) they would definitely inspire many a young engineers to focus on this international reality.


Postroll: http://www.moixaenergy.com | http://www.usbcell.com





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Sunday, June 01, 2008

This job portal is shining

Shine.com went live this earlier this week and i caught it up on the very first day. They began with a catchy campaign that lured job seekers in on the basis of getting them a job that gave them the apt salary; also promising initial registrants a lucky draw prize comprising an entire months salary.

I thought I'd do some job hunting to while away my time and so I signed up for the same.
Like a traditional portal Shine would ask you to enter all your preferences and past work experiences along with your resume. But what makes this job portal different is its real time job matching technology, that gets you your median salary instantaneously the moment you update your profile. In case you're not happy with the indicated salary, you can test the effect of modifying certain elements of your profile (trial and error) to see how u can raise the median salary in your profile range. This real time tracking technology has been made with a collaboration with Redmatch, an international recruitment player.

A fresh and cool look with this powerful matching algorithm makes Shine look pretty bright. But time will only tell whether it'll have a monstor-ous impact in this naukri arena.


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