Tune of The Times

Couple of weeks back, Google did what even the world's powerful governments don't have the balls to do. They stood up to the Great Wall of China. And to say that Google did not have a big enough presence in China is complete BS - companies with much smaller amounts to lose in China do not dare to do so. So this is a call to action to all American companies doing business in China and other countries with authoritarian regimes.

Apple tablet anyone? How about a MS/HP Tablet? Déjà vu ???? The tablet rumor mills are turning and pundits are trying to predict if the devices will succeed or fall flat like last time - for starters read this .

I was reading a blog post by Kevin Kelly recently - The triumph of the default . It's a very interesting read about how Defaults are a big and important part of our everyday lives. Be it new products, the web, using a car we are always leveraging Defaults to simplify our life. Without Defaults we would be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of choices a system presents. Defaults give us the ability to use something effectively while learning to gain the flexibility the product promises. This thought brought me to a related concept that is a constant in this age of short attention spans, blogs and shiny gadgets - The Honeymoon Period.

I have, like most of you, been watching the whole health care reform drama unfold right in front of us.. Be it Sarah Palin's famous 'death panel' pronouncement or Paul Krugman's insistence that the public option will save us all, it has been entertaining and frightening at the same time. Entertaining for the passion displayed by both Democrats \GOP and frightening for the lack of direction even when confronted with one of the biggest challenges this country has ever faced.

I recently bought a GPS at Amazon.com and had a great experience shopping online, however found the whole payment process wanting on user experience and security. And to compound it there are at least 7 sites I have my card details saved in, which really makes me nervous.

I am sure many of you have tried to gaze into the technology crystal ball to find out what the next big thing is that's going to change our world. Just like the Internet did, social networking did, iPhone did. Some of these might not be even new products, websites or services, it could be a new way of using an existing technology for e.g. micropayment for news content.

I was really fascinated by the Dos Equis ads that has been on the national network recently. Reading more about the ad, I learned that this edition is the second installment of a very successful ad campaign launched in 2007.