Month: July 2009

Categories
Business Finance Social Technology

Microsoft and Yahoo! reach search agreement

Microsoft and Yahoo! are today expected to announce plans of a new search and advertising partnership aimed at helping the two companies to better compete with Google. Under the terms of the deal, Microsoft’s new search engine, Bing, is expected to power all Yahoo! searches, while Yahoo! assumes responsibility for handling advertising sales. The two companies are likely to leverage Microsoft’s ad-serving technology to deliver relevant, contextualised advertising alongside search results.

Read the article: Microsoft and Yahoo! ‘to confirm search deal’

Categories
Business China Education Finance India Life Science Social Technology

Skilled Immigrants on Why They’re Leaving the U.S.

A long wait for a green card, coupled with the soft U.S. economy, is prompting an exodus of some of the best and brightest — Lured by the prospect of climbing to the top of his field, New Delhi native Swaroop Ganguly came to the U.S. 10 years ago and earned a PhD in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Texas at Austin in 2005. He became an expert in an emerging technology called spintronics, used to power semiconductors, and worked at several chip companies, including Freescale Semiconductor. But Ganguly, now 32, is moving back to India this summer. Although he has been doing postdoctoral work at the University of Texas, he figures his prospects for research and professional development are probably better in his home country. “I feel quite excited about going back,” he says.

Read the article: Skilled Immigrants on Why They’re Leaving the U.S. – BusinessWeek

Categories
Education Innovation Life Productivity Science

The Cone of Learning

Something very interesting, slightly questionable, but beautifully summarises how different ways of learning can affect retention of information. Taken from Robert Kiyosaki‘s book ‘Financial IQ’, the diagram is inspired by but a highly convoluted version of the second graph below known as the ‘Cone of Experience’ originally conceived by Edgar Dale in 1969 (notice that it did not have any numbers).

The Cone Of Learning by Edgar Dale
The Cone Of Learning (source Financial IQ by Robert Kiyosaki)

‘Cone of Experience’ originally conceived by Edgar Dale:

Original Cone of Experience Edgar Dale
Original Cone of Experience Edgar Dale

Verbal Symbols < Visual Symbols < Recordings Radio Still Pictures < Motion Pictures < Educational Television < Exhibits < Study Trips < Demonstrations < Dramatized Experiences < Contrived Experiences < Direct Purposeful Experiences.

Categories
Education History Politics Science Technology

Moon landing tapes got erased, not lost

The original recordings of the first humans landing on the moon 40 years ago were erased and re-used, but newly restored copies of the original broadcast look even better, NASA officials said on Thursday.

“The good news is he found where they went. The bad news is they were part of a batch of 200,000 tapes that were degaussed — magnetically erased — and re-used to save money.”

Read the article: NewsDaily: Moon landing tapes got erased, NASA admits

Categories
Art Business Education Finance Life Social

If you want to be rich, first stop being so frightened

If you wish to be rich, however, you must grow a carapace. A mental armour. Not so thick as to blind you to well-constructed criticism and advice, especially from those you trust. Nor so thick as to cut you off from friends and family. But thick enough to shrug off the inevitable sniggering and malicious mockery that will follow your inevitable failures. Not to mention the poorly hidden envy that will accompany your eventual success.

Read the article: If you want to be rich, first stop being so frightened

Categories
Business Innovation Productivity Technology

Google to launch operating system

Google is developing an operating system (OS) for personal computers, in a direct challenge to market leader Microsoft and its Windows system.Google Chrome OS will be aimed initially at small, low-cost netbooks, but will eventually be used on PCs as well. – BBC

Read the article: Google to launch operating system