FACEBOOK TRENDS THIS YEAR

Facebook's Year in Review: Obama, Sandy, Whitney

The world's largest social network compiled data on the top trends, memes, and events of the last year

A look at the top Facebook trends of 2012.

(Credit: Facebook)

Facebook has offered up the most popular trends across its service in 2012, as well as a new feature that lets users check out their last year.

Facebook's 2012 Trends, which the social network compiles by analyzing the most popular topics across its service this year, doesn't offer up many surprises. This year's top event on Facebook was the U.S. presidential election, followed by Super Bowl XLVI and Whitney Houston's death. Superstorm Sandy and the London Olympics rounded out the top five.

"We Are Young" by Fun was this year's top song, followed by "Somebody That I Used to Know" by Gotye and "Call Me Maybe" by Carly Rae Jepsen. The most-talked-about movies on Facebook were "The Hunger Games," "The Avengers," and "Magic Mike."

Facebook's 2012 Trends follows similar announcements from Google and Twitter. Not surprisingly given the popularity of the Election on Facebook, Twitter's top tweet of the yearwas President Obama's "Four more years" message to followers. Google announced today in its Zeitgeist 2012 that the death of Whitney Houston was its top search term for the year.With Facebook Places now in full swing, the social network also shared where most people told friends about their whereabouts. Not surprising to those who have been in the middle of thousands of people at one time, Times Square earned the most check-ins, followed by Disneyland and AT&T Park in California.

To add a bit more personalized fun for its users, Facebook has also launched a Year In Review feature for individual accounts. At the Year In Review page, Facebook users can see their personal 20 biggest events, "including life events, highlighted posts, and your most popular stories."

CLICK HERE

GOOGLE CHARGE MONEY FOR THEIR APPS

GOOGLE ENDS SMALL-BIZ FREE RIDE ON GOOGLE APPS

Google ends small-biz free ride on Google Apps

Google will start charging small businesses to use its Google Apps productivity suite as the company taps previously free services for new revenue streams.

Businesses with 10 or fewer employees will now be charged $50 a year -- the same rate paid by larger businesses -- to use the Web-based tools, which include e-mail, word processor, spreadsheet and presentation graphics tools.

The move will allow the Web giant to focus on the quality of the business user's experience, Google explained today in a company blog post.

"When we launched the premium business version we kept our free, basic version as well," Clay Bavor, director of product management for Google Apps, said in the post. "Both businesses and individuals signed up for this version, but time has shown that in practice, the experience isn't quite right for either group. Businesses quickly outgrow the basic version and want things like 24/7 customer support and larger inboxes. Similarly, consumers often have to wait to get new features while we make them business-ready."

The paid package includes round-the-clock telephone support, a 25GB inbox, and the company's uptime guarantee.

Subscriptions to Google Apps and its separate mapping service for businesses and governments contributed about $1 billion to Google's bottom line last year, according to The Wall Street Journal. More than 40 million people use the free and paid versions of the suite, Google has said.

Before 2011, only businesses with more than 50 employees were charged for the suite of services.

SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN

Apple, Google said to be pooling $500+ million for Kodak patents

Apple and Google are indeed teaming up to make a bigger offer to buy Kodak's digital imaging patents, according to sources speaking to Bloomberg. The companies reportedly joined their two independent consortiums—which had been competing against each other for the portfolio earlier this year—in order to collectively put together more than $500 million in order to win the ~1,100 patents.

Kodak filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in January of this year, putting up the digital imaging patents for sale in order to slim down the company. As noted by Bloomberg, Kodak already has $830 million in exit financing (that is, money it can use to get things going again once it emerges from bankruptcy), but the money is contingent upon the sale of the patent portfolio for at least $500 million. Apple and Google had been leading their own independent groups in attempting to buy the patents, but neither group was willing to break the $500 million barrier on their own.

But now, the two teams teamed up together so they can pool their money to buy the patents once and for all. The entire group goes beyond just Apple and Google—it reportedly includes other companies like Microsoft, Intellectual Ventures (the mysterious parent-seeming company of Lodsys, the firm suing independent app developers), another patent holding firm named RPX Corp., and "Asian makers of Google’s Android phones," according to the sources.

This rumor follows a similar one that popped up in August, which claimed that Apple, Google, Samsung, HTC, LG, and others had agreed to work together to buy Kodak's patents. As Chris Foresman wrote at that time, "[t]he interest here seems to be mutual benefit, as Kodak has aimed its digital imaging patents in lawsuits against Apple, RIM, HTC, Samsung, and other smartphone makers."

Google Gives $5M To Build Drones That Hunt Poachers

Google has provided the World Wildlife Fund with $5 million to fund a big data system and aerial drones to help catch gangs illegally hunting endangered species.As part of Google’s new Global Impact Awards, which provides funding for non-profit technology innovations, the search engine giant has provided a grant of $5 million to the World Wildlife Fund for aerial drones to help catch poachers who are hunting endangered species such as tigers, elephants and rhinos.

The goal of the Google grant is to allow the WWF to create an integrated smart system that includes aerial drones, DNA tracking and communications with law enforcement it easier to quickly identify and intercept criminal gangs that are in the process of hunting endangered animals.Increased demand for parts of endangered species, coupled with the low risks for poachers, have created a black market trade in poaching that may be worth as much as $10 billion, according to the WWF.

“We face an unprecedented poaching crisis,” said WWF President and CEO Carter Roberts in a statement. “The killings are way up. We need solutions that are as sophisticated as the threats we face. This pushes the envelope in the fight against wildlife crime.”

Other projects funded by Google’s award include sensors to ensure that clean water pipes are properly maintained, providing education opportunities for low-income students, and a grant to the Geena Davis Institute to take on gender bias in media.

Innovation Of The Year: Google Now

GOOOGLE  NOW.........!!!!!!!

It seems innocent at first: Fire up the search app on a new Android phone, and the interface asks if you’d like to activate Google Now. “Sure,” you think, “Google already has my calendar, location, and contacts; what’s one more thing?” Here’s what: Google Now draws a distinct technological line. On the side you’re on now, you tell your devices what you want to do. On the far side, the devices do the telling. Google Now is waiting for you over there. It’s the first virtual assistant that truly anticipates your needs. All you have to do is opt in.

Google Now runs in the background of the latest Android operating system (Jelly Bean 4.1) and quietly keeps track of searches, calendar events, locations, and travel patterns. It then synthesizes all that info and alerts you—either through notifications in the menu bar or cards on the search screen—of transit alerts for your commute, box scores for your favorite sports team, nearby watering holes, and more. You can assume it will someday suggest a lot more.

Voice interfaces like Siri seem outdated by comparison. With Google Now, you don’t pull the phone out when an idea occurs to you. You pull it out when an idea occurs to it.
—Jacob Ward

GOOGLE NOW

OS: Android 4.1
Available Info Cards: 10
Price: Free

MORE NEWS AT---POPSI

Apple’s Tim Cook on creativity and changing your mind

On Wednesday, Apple made headlines for its biggest stock drop in four years, as the company’s shares fell more than 6 percent amid fears about competition in the tablet market. On Thursday, the company was back in the news again, this time for two new interviews with CEO Tim Cook—one a lengthy interview with Bloomberg BusinessWeek editor Josh Tyrangiel and the other apparently his first televised sit-down with NBC’s Brian Williams—that revealed Apple would manufacture a line of Macs in the United States next year.

The manufacturing is big news, of course. Cook told Tyrangiel that “I do feel [CEOs] have a responsibility to create jobs,” just not necessarily jobs as Apple employees. And few business leaders can make that claim as well as Apple does, given the ecosystem of jobs the company has helped to spawn through suppliers, developers and accessory makers. While it’s not clear which line of products Apple will make in America, Cook said he intends to do more than just “assemble” the products here, and will invest $100 million in the effort.

But even if the biggest revelation out of the interviews is the manufacturing news, Cook also revealed a few telling new insights about how he leads Apple. Whether or not they help him navigate a tricky patch for the company’s share price, they do give us a better glimpse of the man running the world’s biggest company by market value.

First, he offers what is perhaps the best definition of “creativity” I have ever heard: “Creativity is not a process, right?” he tells Tyrangiel. “It’s people who care enough to keep thinking about something until they find the simplest way to do it.” In other words, he’s implying that a leader’s job is to establish a culture where people will care that much about their work, rather than to try to build some kind of innovation “process.” In fact, he has sharp words for anyone who tries to do the latter: “A lot of companies have innovation departments, and this is always a sign that something is wrong when you have a VP of innovation or something. You know, put a for-sale sign on the door.”

In addition, he says that he thinks “maybe the most important thing” to prevent, as CEO, is becoming insular. This is easy for the CEO of Apple to say, of course, given the hundreds if not thousands of direct emails he gets from customers, as well as the retail stores that give him an opportunity to interact with consumers directly. Not every business leader has that advantage, and Cook recognizes as much. But it’s a reminder that leaders have to find a way to get feedback in an unfiltered way, fostering relationships with customers, allowing for direct access to their inboxes, and spending plenty of time in the field interacting with employees or customers.

Finally, Cook shared with both Williams and Tyrangiel the wisdom he received from Jobs before his death, that he should never look up as CEO and ask what Steve would have done, but instead to “just do what’s right.” An admirable statement from a company founder, of course, and one that seems to already be having an impact as Cook charts his own path on certain decisions—from offering matching philanthropy donations to recently shaking up the company’s management staff.

But what he goes on to say about Jobs in the BusinessWeek Q&A is just as interesting. We like to think of great innovators and great leaders as steadfast and principled in their beliefs, the type of people who rarely waver on their views. Jobs was just the opposite, Cook said: “So many people, particularly, I think, CEOs and top executives, they get so planted in their old ideas, and they refuse or don’t have the courage to admit that they’re now wrong. Maybe the most underappreciated thing about Steve was that he had the courage to change his mind. It’s a talent.

REFERENCE-CLICK

IIT PLACEMENTS AND THIER SALARY DETAILS

IMPRESSIVE PLACEMENTS IN IIT,INDIA

IIT Bombay- Many as 35 companies made 160 offers on Sunday with Samsung leading the list in terms of number of offers. In terms of salary package, Sriram Bhagwat of IIT Bombay has been offered USD 1.5 lakh (Rs 80 lakh) per year by Samsung. 

IIT KANPUR-After hogging the limelight for one of its students bagging a mammoth Rs 72 lakh annual salary package last year during the campus placement drive, IIT-Kanpur is in the news again for the same reason. Rocket Fuel, a USA based company that came to the institute for the first time this year, has offered four students of IIT-Kanpur an annual CTC package of $1.30 lakh, which equals Rs 70 lakh in Indian currency.

IIT KHARAGPUR-Multinationals Citibank, Coca Cola and Amazon on Sunday entered the fray at the Indian Institutes of Technology, where both salaries and the number of offers have topped last year's figures in the first two days of the annual placements.Day 2 of the event saw offers of international postings and an average salary of 10 lakh at the Guwahati campus and 20 lakh at IIT Kharagpur. The line-up of companies wanting to tap Indian talent included eBay, PayPal, Accenture, Nomura, Flipkart and SISO (Samsung India Software Operations), American Express, Schlumberger, Qualcomm, Adobe, Walmart, Morgan Stanley, Oracle, Johnson Matthey, Epic and Directi. Microsoft, Google, Facebook and Samsung, with salaries ranging from $120,000 to $150,000 for positions based primarily out of the US and Korea.

IIT MADRAS-The placement season in IIT has started. What has come as a surprise is a top offer provided by South Korean multinational conglomerate Samsung to a computer science student in IIT Madras. The technology giant has offered a package of Rs 81.6 lakh.Google has occupied the next position in offering a PPO pre-placement offer) to a student IIT. He has been offered a package of Rs 73 lakh.The first day of placement saw big recruiters like Boston Consulting Group; Deutsche Bank Group; Goldman Sachs; ITC, Google, Sony (Japan), Facebook, Morgan Stanley, Microsoft amongst others. Average domestic salaries are in the mid-Rs 20 lakh range on the first day.

REFERENCE- TIMES OF INDIA,GOOGLE ALERTS,GOOGLE