Blogdex
Blogdex is a research project of the MIT Media Laboratory tracking the diffusion of information through the weblog community. Ideas can have very similar properties to a disease, spreading through the population like wildfire. The goal of Blogdex is to explore what it is about information, people, and their relationships that allows for this contagious media.
Blogdex crawls all of the weblogs in its database every time they are updated and collects the links that have been made since the last time it was updated. The system then looks across all weblogs and generates a list of fastest spreading ideas. This is the list shown on the front page. For each of these links, further detail is provided as to where the link was found, and at what time.
A very interesting project and an equally interesting site.
McDonalds Experiments with Kiosk Technology
MSNBC reports that McDonald’s has, in some stores on an experimental phase, eliminated the middle man standing between the fast food lover and his burger, with an advanced test of technology that promises to shorten lines and give consumers more control over ordering. McDonald’s, which only recently admitted its service problems and vowed to fix them, is ironing the kinks out of technology some believe will transform fast food the way similar systems have revolutionized bank transactions and airport check-ins.
Each kiosk allows a customer to place an order directly with the kitchen, using a touch screen with pictures of food, English or Spanish text and verbal prompts.
McDonald’s is not worried about the loss of the personal touch; it hasn’t reduced the number of employees in their stores, but just reassigned them to other tasks such as delivering food. And they are trained to assist if someone struggles with the technology.
Customers like visiting the McDonald’s more often now because they don’t like to stand in lines and they are not supposed to be doing that anymore.
India Shining
News that made headlines in Indian Internet Business:
Monster.com buys Jobsahead.com Read Here
Ebay buys Bazee.com Read Here
Rediff.com announces 1 Gb free email service Read Here
US CEOs Appeal for Outsourcing
HindustanTimes.com reports that top American CEOs including Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer have petitioned the US Congress not to throw up barriers to outsourcing. They have also sought a major revamp of the American education system, saying it lags behind that of India and China when it comes to technology courses.
Much to the delight of the executives, some Senators backed outsourcing despite it being a politically-sensitive issue in the run-up to the November elections. As Senator Bennett put it: “Let us not be carried away with the concept that trade hurts American jobs.â€
The Spirit of nation building
Every now and then the powers of the country throw up a new surprise, even to cynical beings like myself. But this one is a surprise of hope- Rangaswamy Elango of Tamil Nadu. A chemical engineer from Tamil Nadu, this villager Dalit boy decided to run…..back to his village and catalyze the development of a backward region as a Sarpanch. Although Rangaswamy is socialist in his approach (which, in the setup he works in, is a better beginning than none at all), one cannot help but admire the spirit of the man, who reawakens the spirit of nation service as existed in the days of the old.
Read on further…
Yahoo Mail
Yahoo! Mail finally became 100 Mb today. And unlimited email storage for its premium customers. The email service providers war is hotting up. Wondering if and when Microsoft follows suit and does the same for Hotmail.
Need Gmail ??
I came across a very interesting site called Gmail Swap and could not help laughing. Endless are the things that people would do for a 1Gb account on Gmail. Anyways, this site is for all those, who have not got their gmail accounts. Here you can leave a request and some humble soul will send you an invite out of love or pure unadulterated altruism.
The site punchline says it all:
“gmail swap tells the people with gmail about the people without“
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