Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Is Google stifling innovation?

See http://bit.ly/6NzbNc


Adam Raff makes a good argument. At the same time, the Google platform opens up new opportunities for innovation. Assessing the net trade-off would be an interesting research topic.


Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Mathematical Proof of the Inevitability of Cloud Computing

(Posted by Mona Masghati)

In the emerging business model and technology known as cloud computing, there has been discussion regarding whether a private solution, a cloud-based utility service, or a mix of the two is optimal. My analysis examines the conditions under which dedicated capacity, on-demand capacity, or a hybrid of the two are lowest cost. The analysis applies not just to cloud computing, but also to similar decisions, e.g.: buy a house or rent it; rent a house or stay in a hotel; buy a car or rent it; rent a car or take a taxi; and so forth.

Follow this link to continue: http://cloudonomics.wordpress.com/

Monday, December 7, 2009

Search By Sight With Google Goggles

(Posted by Dhirendra Sharma)

Today Google released information on two new key technologies as described below:

1). Google Goggles: Use pictures to search the web. Refer to below links:

a). Google goggles labs

b). An article in the Washington post


2). Real-time web search: Mixing the real-time information with ranking technology":

a). For example, get the latest news even if it is "not the popular news of the day". See details

b). An interesting article on the wired.com website:

Publisher Lays Out Plan to Save Newspapers

A German publisher is proposing a marketplace for news, some free, some a la carte and some bundled.

Instead of separate pay walls around individual newspaper Web sites, Mr. Keese wants publishers and Internet companies to work together to create a “one-click marketplace solution” for their online content. In that system, Google or other Internet gateways would display links to newspaper articles, videos and other content from a variety of providers, as search engines do now. But some of the items would include something new: a price tag....

A single mouse click would allow the user to pay for and view the pictures. Readers could also buy flat-rate packages providing access to content from a variety of media companies, Mr. Keese said, just as they can subscribe to unlimited data access plans via mobile phone networks.


Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Open Source as a Model for Business Is Elusive

(Posted by Yuri Ramos)

This article is closely related to the debate we had recently, about Open Source Software vs Paid Software.