Netizen

Monday, November 12, 2012

Yahoo Mail Overhaul In The Offing

Image representing Yahoo! as depicted in Crunc...

I do have a Yahoo Mail account. It is the one I never shut down. But it is not one I use. I do use it for Craig's List. But other than that.

I think I left after I'd click saying this is spam and emails from that same address would still show up.

'Age of Marissa' to kick in with Yahoo Mail overhaul?

Yahoo is readying "a major overhaul" of Yahoo Mail for December that will sport "a cleaner, 'more Gmail-like' design." .... Gmail saw 287.9 million unique worldwide visitors during the period, edging out Hotmail, which finished with 286.2 million unique visitors. Yahoo -- the once mighty e-mail power -- came in third with 281.7 million. ..... Yahoo, however, holds a comfortable lead in the United States with 76.7 million, compared to second-place Gmail with 69.1 million and third-place Hotmail with 35.5 million.

Along With New Homepage, Yahoo Also Set to Launch a “Gmail-Like” Email Reboot to Slow Gmail Gains

the latest iteration of Yahoo Mail will be released in early December, just after the new homepage is rolled out widely ..... has publicly committed the company to releasing innovative and mobile-focused products as a key differentiator

As Fantasy Football Servers Fumble on Game Day, Yahoo Rolls Out More Homepage Tests Ahead of December Launch

upwards of $350,000 for a prime placement for a day, rising in price depending on complexity. ..... Yahoo was going to veer toward a “mobile first” sensibility. “Yahoo will have to be a predominantly mobile company”

Marissa Mayer Makes Her Move at Yahoo!

At Friday's close of $17.26, the stock is up 20% from its 52-week low. ..... Mayer, who sources tell me is greatly respected in Silicon Valley, has a sort of Obama moment, if you will—in the '08 sense, not the '12 sense. Having taken a rather bad hand, she enjoys tremendous good will in her effort to restore hope to Yahoo! and engender change. ..... As powerful data centers churn out incredible computing power and analyze every single move a Web user makes on every fast new gizmo in their hands, it's time to be aggressive, Ms. Mayer.

$199 Chromebook: Look At That Price Point

$249 was good enough, but $199 is a better price point. Will it have hit $149 by the end of next year? Lower? Earlier?

Google, Acer launch $199 Chromebook

But what I am really waiting for is the $99 tablet.

More Rumors Point to Possible $99 Nexus 7 Launch

Sunday, November 11, 2012

Aakash

How a $20 tablet from India could blindside PC makers, educate billions and transform computing as we know it

India has 900 million cell phone subscriptions, but in a country where smartphones are rare, 95% of Indians have no computing device. Which means the Aakash, or something like it, could become the sole computer for hundreds of millions of people in India, not to mention elsewhere in the developing world.

Now you can buy Aakash Tablet Online [But Will You?]

The screen is rather unresponsive. Sometimes I had to push the screen really hard to get a response..... It also heats up really fast. Which means in the heat and dust of India, it could face problems.... The tablet failed to install anything from the Android App Market.

Yeh Dil Aap ka Huwa

Via Manohar Sah

Saturday, November 10, 2012

Skyfall: A Bond Movie For The Times

There is a touch of Bourne to it. One of their own comes to make damage. You train a spy and he turns on you. Only Bourne is a good guy, here the designation is to the bad guy. But then that is why you put James in the movie. James, James Bond.

And modern warfare is cyber. Skyfall has a ton of that. Bond has to travel back in time.

Cyber Pearl Harbor Will Be From Stateless Entity Like Al Qaeda

"Do you feel safe?" I thought that was a powerful line.

Skyfall has the usual dose of Bond action. And the scary guy from No Country For Old Men is the bad guy here.

Call It

I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. Bond does not cease to surprise. The final part in Scotland is really something.

The Quartermaster scene is really something. Welcome to the new world.

This is another movie I am looking forward to. Zero Dark Thirty. Music makes for much of the action.

Friday, November 09, 2012

Skyfall

Mandarin Within Reach

Amazing: Microsoft turns spoken English into spoken Mandarin – in the same voice

language translation that goes far past what we thought was currently possible...... has taken in oodles of data, and can thus have that translated Mandarin spoken. And the final kicker: he has fed the system an hour’s worth of his voice, and thus the software will speak in Mandarin, using his own tones. ..... Just over two years ago, researchers at Microsoft Research and the University of Toronto made another breakthrough. By using a technique called Deep Neural Networks, which is patterned after human brain behavior, researchers were able to train more discriminative and better speech recognizers than previous methods. ..... rather than having one word in 4 or 5 incorrect, now the error rate is one word in 7 or 8