Ashish V. Parikh | Interactive

http://www.digitalmediabuzz.com/2009/08/mobile-cloud-computing/

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While not busy being the destination of Westerners seeking spiritual growth and the birthplace of the beloved Bollywood song and dance flick, apparently India is home to some 1.2 billion people -- many of whom possess no proof of identification whatsoever. According to The Times (UK), less than seven per cent of the population are registered for income tax, and the voting lists are terribly inaccurate. Hoping to bring the nation's census data into the 21st century, India has created the Unique Identification Authority. Under the direction of Nandan Nilekani, one of the founders of Infosys, the plan is to outfit every one of the nation's citizens with a biometric ID card that contains personal data, fingerprint or iris scans, and possibly even criminal records and credit histories. Gathering the data is projected to cost at least $4.9 billion, a figure that's likely to soar once the ball gets rolling. While the Government expects that the first cards will be issued within 18 months, analysts say that project won't likely reach "critical mass" for at least four years.
 
 
http://www.engadget.com/2009/07/16/india-issuing-biometric-ids-to-all-1-2-billion-citizens/

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------ SMS Text ------
From:
Sent: Jul 16, 2009 2:03 PM
Subject: I am coming up new web site

 I am coming up new web site

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When the global financial powerhouse Morgan Stanley puts out research and analysis, everybody listens. But when the research is about Twitter's growth and written by a teenage intern, the media goes nuts. Today, a report by Matthew Robson, a 15 year old intern for the storied firm's European offices, has made headlines in Bloomberg, The Telegraph, and blogs all over. His conclusion: teens don't like Twitter. So do teenagers really abandon Twitter because it takes up texting credit and nobody's listening, as the report concludes? While it's easy to get sucked into the hype of such a young analysis providing such a stark conclusion, people need to start taking a step back and actually read the report. The three page analysis falls victim to a problem that permeates all levels of research: it does not rely on hard data to back up conclusions. Let's break down the report:

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 The Morgan Stanley Report: A Breakdown ---------------

 It's clear why Morgan decided to publish this report: it's very well written. Yes, I think it's great that a 15 year old could provide such a detailed assessment, so much so that Morgan Stanley went ahead and published it. Clearly the 15 year old Robson is thoughtful, insightful, and can communicate his points succinctly. However, because this is a published report, we cannot treat it any differently as we would a report from a 35 year old senior analyst. Otherwise, we aren't analyzing the conclusions objectively. So what are his conclusions? I have quoted some of his basic points below. Remember, this is from the UK office, so the report is based from a European perspective. - "Most teenagers nowadays are not regular listeners to radio." - "Most teenagers watch television, but usually there are points in the year where they watch more than average. This is due to programs coming on in seasons" - "Teenagers are also watching less television because of services such as BBC iPlayer, which allows them to watch shows when they want." - "No teenager that I know of regularly reads a newspaper" - "The most common console is the Wii, then the Xbox 360 followed by the PS3." - "On the other hand, teenagers do not use twitter. Most have signed up to the service, but then just leave it as they release that they are not going to update it (mostly because texting twitter uses up credit, and they would rather text friends with that credit)." - "In addition, they realise that no one is viewing their profile, so their ‘tweets’ are pointless." - "[Teenagers] are very reluctant to pay for it (most never having bought a CD) and a large majority (8/10) downloading it illegally from file sharing sites." - "Teenagers visit the cinema more often when they are in the lower end of teendom (13 and 14) but as they approach 15 they go to the cinema a lot less. This is due to the pricing; at 15 they have to pay the adult price, which is often double the child price." - "What is Hot? Mobile phones with large capacities for music." These are just a few quotes of his 3 page report, so I have embedded the full version at the end of his article so you can judge for yourself. But essentially, it's analysis of teenage use of traditional and social media. The report however has one serious flaw that makes this report simply a collection of observations rather than a real analysis: it's almost entirely built on anecdotal evidence. The tone of the quotes above indicate that this research was based on experiences, not on stats or objective numbers. ---------------

 Anecdotal vs. Hard Evidence ---------------

 Anecdotal evidence is evidence based on stories, conjecture, or experience. When you point out that Twitter's popular because "all of my friends use it," that's anecdotal evidence. When you point to data, numbers, and research that show that Twitter has been growing over 1000% year over year, that's hard evidence that can be analyzed, computed, and most of all, verified. Robson clearly provided conclusions that, in general, matches our real-world experience (I don't agree that Twitter's unpopular with teenagers, especially in the U.S., but that's another debate). However, Robson's report was clearly meant to spark debate, not to be taken as fact or hard research. It's mostly the anecdotes of one teenager's life experiences. While it's easy to get swept up in the fact that a 15 year old wrote such a thoughtful report, we cannot lose sight that this is one analysis, and it is one without hard facts to back it up. I'd be singing a different tune if data was collected, polls were conducted, or numbers were crunched. However, they were not, and that's alright, as long as you take the report with a grain of salt. So are teens turned off to Twitter? The real answer is that we don't know and until firms do hard analysis to provide conclusions one way or another, it will likely stay that way. Here's the report for you reading pleasure. We would love to hear your thoughts on it. And please, feel free to add your own anecdotes about Twitter in the comments: ---------------
Reviews: Twitter Tags: Morgan Stanley, twitter

 http://mashable.com/2009/07/13/twitter-teenager-morgan/

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When I was 8 years old, my father explained to me the secret to American prosperity. Immigrants come to the United States and take menial jobs so that their children have a chance at a better future, he told me. While the jobs they take are below their intrinsic capabilities, they're focused on giving their children a better life, not personal job satisfaction. Second-generation children, seeing how hard their parents work to give them an opportunity, in turn work hard at school, where, he noted, they often focus on mathematics and science in pursuit of the economic returns promised by careers in engineering and medicine. Third-generation kids figure the economic return on effort expended is better for business and legal professionals and pursue those professions instead of technical ones.  By the fourth generation, any immigration-related incentives to work hard are largely nonexistent. It was a gross generalization used to explain to a child the importance of immigration, but one that I have since found to be generally accurate. On this 233rd celebration of U.S. Independence Day, in the midst of the worst economic recession in at least a lifetime, there is a national debate taking place as to the direction of the country. And while I'm confident that we will preserve our democracy and capitalism, I'm concerned about the tone and tenure of the discussion around immigration. Smart immigration policies will do more for American innovation and productivity than better math and science education, more spending on basic research and additional venture capital combined. If we get strategic about immigration, I believe the U.S. can preserve its economic leadership position in the world far longer than anyone currently expects. Why immigration is more important to innovation than broad-based science education Shortly after President Obama was elected, The New York Times published an article by Ian Ayres in which he expressed support for appointing Larry Summers as Treasury Secretary. The article quotes Dr. Summers on his assumption that top physics researchers are 3-4 standard deviations above the mean in terms of I.Q. While I don't have evidence to support his assumption, my intuition is that he's right, including when he notes what a small group of people these great thinkers represent. Dr. Summers states: “If…one is talking about physicists at a top-25 research university, one is not talking about people who are two standard deviations above the mean. And perhaps it’s not even talking about somebody who is three standard deviations above the mean. But it’s talking about people who are three-and-a-half, [or] four standard deviations above the mean in the 1 in 5,000, [or] 1 in 10,000 class.” If we assume that talent is evenly distributed throughout the planet, that the U.S. population is around 300 million, that the global population is 6.7 billion, and that 1/5,000 people are the top candidates to push U.S. innovation forward, that gives us a pool of 60,000 people in the U.S. and 1.28 million outside of it. Innovation will not be spurred solely by giving those 60,000 Americans access to math or science education, but by providing the right incentives for them to enter the scientific and technical professions. More importantly, we could radically increase the number of innovation candidates through targeted immigration of the 1.28 million people that hail from elsewhere. The government cannot mandate desire If the first benefit of immigration is importing talent, the second is that of importing "hunger." Many countries lack a way to identify and reward their brightest citizens, while that has been the allure of the U.S. since our inception. So I would argue further that the "innovation probability" of a high I.Q. individual whose family has been in the U.S. for many generations is less than that of someone who's new to our nation and has a comparable intellect, but far more desire. The time for a strategic approach to immigration is now Broad-based mathematics education will strengthen our nation by improving our workforce, but that is not best path to innovation. Basic research may create jobs and openings at universities to lay the foundation for innovation in certain areas, but the ROI on such investments is uncertain and sometimes misplaced. And the pool of available venture capital is not the constraining factor in new startups lack of talent is. It's time for a more strategic and aggressive immigration policy, one that targets the best and brightest around the globe and makes it easy for them to become permanent residents. We should be recruiting the world's best talent the same way top companies recruit the best talent. Talk to anyone who's tried to become a resident here lately and you'll quickly realize the process is long and often highly random in other words, very discouraging. Strategic immigration, together with our strong democracy, capitalistic system and melting-pot culture, will deliver a better standard of living for many generations of Americans to come. I am grateful to all of the immigrants in the U.S. on this Fourth of July. To them, I say thank you for everything you do.
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OmMalik/~3/1oPzpiJTqz4/

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