Pic of the Day - 21st May

A thunderstorm cloud hangs in the sky near Edmond, Oklahoma on Wednesday afternoon, May 19, 2010. Many thunderstorms in central Oklahoma went super-cell and produced numerous tornadoes in the late afternoon and into the evening. (Photo: AP)

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Pic of the Day - 21st May

French national football team players jog during a training session on May 21, 2010 around Tignes' lake, in the French Alps, as part of their preparation for the upcoming World Cup 2010 in South Africa. France will play Uruguay in Capetown in its group A opener match next June 11. (Photo: AFP)

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Apple drops 'Get a Mac' for 'Why you'll love a Mac'

Justin Long, the actor behind the endearing-turned-belittling Mac character in Apple’s long-running “Get a Mac” ads, wasn’t kidding when he foretold the end of the campaign. Apple on Friday unveiled its new, less imperative marketing approach: Why you’ll love a Mac.

This time around, Apple has apparently ditched the humor, as there are no chuckle-worthy Web or TV video ads—at least not yet. Apple’s new campaign, which the old Get a Mac link now redirects to, is a testament to Apple’s emphasis on brevity and clarity. A series of straightforward, single-sentence pitches are organized in a grid, such as “it’s designed to be a better computer,” and “it comes with software you’ll love to use.” Mouse over each one and a concise blurb will appear, along with a link to expand on the topic if you want to know more.

Apple is still banging the same marketing drums, though. In addition to better design and lovable software, Apple boasts the Mac’s freedom from viruses, compatibility with “your stuff,” and ability to run Windows and Windows applications should that steady stream of new switchers need a lifeline.

We’ll have to wait and see if Apple’s new approach will translate to a similar attitude in video ads on the Web and TV. The “Get a Mac” bit got pretty long in the tooth, so consumers will almost surely welcome anything new (well, to the extent that one can “welcome” a refreshed ad campaign). Developers who were concerned that the Mac is getting left behind in favor of the iPad and iPhone might also find some relief in this rejuvenated attention from Apple.

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Megan Fox dropped from third 'Transformers'

LOS ANGELES – Megan Fox, who made her name as Shia LaBeouf's sultry love interest in the first two "Transformers" movies, has been dropped from the third.

Paramount Pictures said Wednesday that Fox's option was not picked up for part three in the blockbuster Michael Bay series. The studio, which released the first two movies about shape-shifting machines doing battle, declined to give further details or say who would replace the 24-year-old actress.

Fox's publicist, Dominique Appel, did not return a message left at her office seeking comment.

Fox, notorious for making attention-grabbing comments to the media, engaged in a public spat with director Bay around the release of part two last summer. But Bay later defended her and said he looked forward to working with her on part three.

In announcing "Transformers 3" in October on his blog, http://www.michaelbay.com, he wrote: "P.S. Megan Fox, welcome back. I promise no alien robots will harm you in any way during the production of this motion picture."

"Transformers" from 2007 and the 2009 sequel "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" have made more than $1.5 billion worldwide. Production is scheduled to begin this month on the third installment, with a release date set for July 1, 2011, Paramount said.

Fox also starred last year as the title character in "Jennifer's Body," playing a possessed cheerleader who preys on high school boys. The movie, written by Oscar-winning "Juno" writer Diablo Cody, made a disappointing $16.2 million domestically.

Next, Fox will star opposite Josh Brolin and John Malkovich in the supernatural Western "Jonah Hex," scheduled for release June 18.

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IT-BPO revenues from Germany, Switzerland, Austria may grow to $10 bn by 2020

Indian information technology (IT) and business process outsourcing (BPO) sectors may get almost $10 billion from Germany, Switzerland and Austria by 2020, up from the $2.6 billion they earn from this region across the IT, BPO and engineering services space, against the addressable market size of more than $53 billion.

Business from this region, which is the largest market in Europe, has the potential to grow so much, provided Indian companies take the strategic and tactical steps required to succeed in this market, according to the latest report by Nasscom and consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers.

The report called ‘Opportunities for Indian IT – BPO industry in Germanic countries’ pegged the BPO market to be around $4 billion and offshored engineering services around $3.4 billion. Germany and Austria each spend close to 2.5 per cent of the GDP on IT, whereas Switzerland leads the norm by spending over five per cent.

“There is a huge demand in the small and medium enterprise (SME) sector that has largely remained untapped, and verticals like automobile, manufacturing and logistics have emerged as quick-win opportunities for Indian companies,” said Sankar Ramamurthy, executive director, PreicewaterhouseCoopers.

The report revealed that there also lies a huge opportunity in the large mid-market segment in the Germanic region. It added that over 95 per cent of the enterprises in the Germanic countries operate in chemical, machine building, automotive and electrical sectors and belong to the small and medium size enterprise segment, which is expected to give the most business.

“Largely export-dependent, these economies suffered heavily during the recent financial meltdown but are recovering. Another challenge is of their shrinking working age group and the shrinking enrolments in universities in tech courses,” said Nasscom Vic-President Ameet Nivsarkar.

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MySpace to Cut Two-Thirds of Staff Outside U.S.

MySpace to Cut Two-Thirds of Staff Outside U.S.



PARIS — MySpace, the online music sharing and networking service owned by News Corp., said Tuesday that it planned to close at least four international offices and eliminate two-thirds of its staff outside the United States as it tries to adjust to slowing audience growth and falling advertising. The decision reflects the service’s difficulty in competing with Facebook, whose international audience dwarfs that of MySpace, as well as local players and newly popular services like Twitter, analysts say.

“Facebook seems to have been better at opening up its appeal to more age groups, in more markets,” said Karin Von Abrams, an analyst at eMarketer, a research firm. “Once the momentum begins to build for one site, there’s a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy to it.”

MySpace said that it intended to cut 300 of 450 jobs outside the United States. The announcement followed news this month of plans to cut about 400 jobs in the United States, about 30 percent of the total there.

“As we conducted our review of the company, it was clear that internationally, just as in the U.S., MySpace’s staffing had become too big and cumbersome to be sustainable in current market conditions,” said Owen Van Natta, chief executive of MySpace. Mr. Van Natta, a former Facebook executive, was named to the post in April, succeeding Chris DeWolfe, a co-founder of MySpace.

In May, MySpace had 125 million users ages 15 and older, nearly half of them in the United States, according to ComScore, an online audience measurement service. Facebook had 316 million users, nearly four-fifths of them outside the United States. Over the past year, Facebook’s user numbers have grown by 155 percent, according to ComScore, while MySpace’s ranks have grown by only 9 percent. Despite their popularity, social networks have been slow to attract paid advertising — in part, analysts say, because marketers can use these services more effectively by getting users themselves to spread the word about a music band or a brand.

MySpace, which News Corp. acquired for $580 million in 2005, still collects more advertising than any other social networking site, but sales are falling. EMarketer predicts that MySpace’s ad revenue this year will drop to $520 million from $605 million last year. And outside the United States, advertising has barely caught on; EMarketer expects it to total only $25 million this year.

Facebook does not report its advertising revenue, but EMarketer estimates that it will collect a world total of $300 million this year, up from $250 million in 2008, with non-U.S. markets expected to contribute $70 million of that, up from $40 million last year.

Under the reorganization, MySpace said it would put offices in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, France, India, Italy, Mexico, Russia, Sweden, and Spain “under review for possible restructure.” At least four of the offices will be closed, and offices in London, Berlin and Sydney will become regional hubs, MySpace said, adding that the plans were subject to consultation with employees in some of the countries.

Despite its far greater user numbers, Facebook has a significantly smaller international footprint than MySpace, with offices in Britain, Ireland and France. In some big markets, like Germany, both MySpace and Facebook have struggled to catch up to local players like StudiVZ and Wer-Kennt-Wen.

Meanwhile, the fastest-growing major social networking service worldwide has been Twitter, whose user numbers have grown more than tenfold over the past year, to 37 million in May, according to Comscore.

News Corp. said Tuesday that it had named Rebekah Wade, editor of the British tabloid The Sun, as chief executive of its British newspaper arm, starting Sept. 1, Reuters reported from London.

As head of News International, Ms. Wade would continue to report to James Murdoch, News Corp.’s chairman and chief executive Europe and Asia, who will also become executive chairman of News International from the same date, the company said.

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Nintendo, American heart group join to tackle obesity

The American Heart Association has teamed up with Japanese entertainment giant Nintendo to harness its Wii consoles and encourage Americans to exercise more to counter a soaring obesity problem.

Nintendo, whose Wii consoles with motion-controlling sensors took markets by storm in 2006, is working with the AHA in order to cut the risks of heart disease among Americans, their websites said.

According to the AHA nearly 70 percent of Americans do not get enough regular physical activity. Obesity, a major health problem in the US, is a determinant of cardiovascular disease, the number one killer in the country.

The association said that the average American spends more than eight hours a day sitting and recommends all adults to get at least 150 minutes of moderate physical activity per week and 60 minutes daily for children.

Nintendo will carry the AHA logo on its active-play video game products including the Wii, the Wii Fit Plus, and the Wii Sports Resort.

The US has seen a dramatic increase in obesity during the past 20 years with roughly one in three adults considered obese, according to government statistics.

Nintendo hopes to reignite the Wii's sales, which have declined since its launch, and is banking on software aimed at increased physical activity as competitors such as Sony prepare to launch their own motion-sensing equipment.

The Kyoto-based company said earlier this month that games such as "Wii Sports Resort" and "Wii Fit Plus" helped raise the console's total lifetime sales to 70.93 million units, a record in the firm's history.

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Facebook security flaw revealed

Facebook security flaw revealed




Social networking site Facebook temporarily disabled its chat system after a serious security flaw was revealed which allowed people to view chats and pending friend requests of their Facebook friends.

The security flaw, discovered Wednesday by technology website TechCrunch, related to a feature on Facebook that allows users to preview their own privacy settings, telegraph.co.uk reported.

"There is a major security flaw in the site that, with just a few mouse clicks, enables any user to view the live chats of their 'friends'. Using what sounds like a simple trick, a user can also access their friends' latest pending friend-requests and which friends they share in common. That's a lot of potentially sensitive information," the report quoted TechCrunch's Steve O'Hear as saying.

In a statement, Facebook said: "For a limited period of time, a bug permitted some users' chat messages and pending friend requests to be made visible to their friends. Our engineers promptly diagnosed it and temporarily disabled the chat function. We also pushed out a fix. Chat will be turned back on across the site shortly."

The report said recent changes to the way Facebook shares its users information with other users and third parties have drawn criticism from privacy watchdogs and US senators.

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