exertia

• Microsoft® Windows® XP Home/Professional operating system
• Dimensions: 5.8" x 4" x 1" (148mm x 101mm x 26mm)
• Weighs 1lb (450g)
• 1 GHz processor
• 256MB system RAM
• 30GB internal hard drive
• 3D graphics w/ 8MB video RAM
• Full-function, QWERTY thumb keyboard w/ hotkeys for commonly used commands
• 5.6" HDTV-quality display (1024 x 600)
• Lithium-ion Polymer battery (2-6 hours battery life*)
• Integrated 802.11b (11 Mbps) /g (54 Mbps) Wi-Fi
• USB 2.0 port
• Internal microphone/speaker with headphones and ear bud jacks
• Integrated 1.3MP digital camera

Optional

• Low-Power Interactive Display (LID) module
• Bluetooth®
• Wide area networking
• Ethernet (10/100Mbit)
• Support for external VGA
• NTSC TV Output
• Additional USB 2.0 ports
• DVD-CD/RW drive

Technology Review ran an interesting series on 10 “cool” emerging technologies, amongst them Universal Authentication and Pervasive Wireless [via Emergic].

Here’s an interesting post on how to fight and get your money back if you filed a rebate but never got a check. Includes links to the Better Business Bureau (BBB), Federal Trade Commission (FTC), State Attorney Generals and Small Claims Courts among others.

The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) has an informative survey on its website - Foresight 2020: Economic, industry and corporate trends. Some of the key points:

1. Globalization - redistribution of economic power.
2. Demographics - positive impact for the US and Asia, negative for Europe.
3. Atomization - Fragmentation of the supply chain; importance of collaboration; increased standardization.
4. Personalisation - customizability, modularity.
5. Knowledge Management - KM will offer most scope for productivity gains as the relative importance of price competitiveness declines.

Here are some sites with good deals, bargains and coupon codes:

• Spoofee.com - lots of freebies
• eDealinfo.com
• Deals2buy.com

Fortune has an interesting article that examines this question:

George W. Bush, America’s first President with an MBA (Harvard, ‘75), is settling into the White House. The nation itself thus joins the ranks of some 40% of its 100 largest companies, which are also run by MBAs. You’d think America would be in good hands. But do MBAs make effective CEOs? No one, as far as we could tell, has ever checked. So we began to snoop around…

The Global Outsourcing 100 is out! Many Indian companies like Wipro (# 7), HCL Technologies (# 11), Mastek (# 12) and Satyam (# 56) have made it, although Infosys and TCS are conspicuous by their absence. IBM is # 1. An amazing transition from the no. 1 hardware manufacturer to the no. 1 services provider!

Guy Kawasaki has useful suggestions for bloggers to get more visibility [via Emergic]:

1. Think “book” not “diary.”
2. Answer the little man.
3. Collect email addresses.
4. Collect links for blog rolling.
5. Scoop stuff.
6. Supplement other bloggers with a followup entries.
7. Acknowledge and respond to commenters.
8. Ask for help.
9. Be bold.
10. Make it easy to join up.

Maybe the most controversial one is where he asks bloggers to be more disciplined and treat their blogs as books not diaries. I think that would be contrary to the whole philosophy of spontaneity in blogging. Anyways, an interesting post and he has some useful links as well…

Strange paradox: Sun has invented lots of great stuff including Java, J2EE and Solaris… but it makes a loss. Microsoft, so to say, never invented anything new. All its best-sellers were copies of other successful pioneers (Excel from Lotus 123, IE from Netscape, Windows itself from the Mac and to top it all, DOS was purchased from an outsider). Still it is the most profitable IT company.

Sun’s CEO Scott McNealy had to resign… Bill Gates is the richest man in the world.

Seems to prove that inventors aren’t always the most successful people.

The McKinsey Quarterly had an interesting article on Pratham the Indian educational NGO. I have been keeping myself updated on Pratham’s activities through its website at http://www.pratham.org. They are indeed making great progress on the educational front and especially getting visibility internationally. Pratham recently came out with the landmark Annual State of Education Report (ASER 2005) has also launched library initiatives in various places.

Also worth checking out is the Education World website.