Microsoft purchases stake in Facebook

Microsoft Corp. will buy a 1.6 per cent stake (worth about $240 million US) in social-networking website Facebook Inc. and agreed to sell ads for the Internet company overseas, beating out a bid from Google Inc.
Microsoft is seeking to tap the surge of visitors and advertisers on social-networking sites. It has already an agreement to sell Facebook banner ads in the U.S. through 2011.
Spending by advertisers on social-networking sites as Facebook and its rival MySpace may almost triple to $3.63 billion globally by 2011. Almost 60 per cent of Facebook users are outside the U.S.
Google, outdoes Microsoft 7-to-1 in Internet ad revenue.
That made it more important for Microsoft to keep its relationship with Facebook, which had 73.5 million visitors in September, according to researcher ComScore Inc.
The deal is viewed by Kevin Johnston as a major advertising syndication win for Microsoft.
Two factors mitigate the exclusivity of the agreement.
Outside software developers who build applications that run on Facebook still retain the right to work with advertising software from Google and other Microsoft rivals.
The agreement also does not preclude Facebook from building its own advertising software.
Social-networking sites are ‘where young people are spending the bulk of their online time’, making Microsoft, Google and Yahoo! Inc rushing to make sure they aren’t left out of the market.
In August 2006, Google struck a deal to provide search and advertising features to MySpace.
With that, Google’s ad sales jumped 64 per cent to $13.3 billion in the fiscal year ended June 30 , 2007.

Google and Random House

Random House, the world’s biggest book publisher, is considering joining a book-search project run by Google.
It came as a surprise, or not?
Google has agreements with more than 10,000 publishers, large and small, to have their books scanned in full. Google then makes them partially available — according to agreements with each publisher — for online readers.
Meaning that, at least theoretically, Google should be the arch-enemy of the paper publishing industry.
Google has so far digitised the full texts of more than 1 million books. The total number of books in the world is unknown but global library collective WorldCat has more than 91 million bibliographic records in its database, the biggest of its kind.
Google now works with 27 libraries worldwide, up from seven a year ago, and its book search is available in 11 languages Oxford University’s Bodleian Library and Japan’s Keio University library.

The company, which does not charge or pay its publisher partners, gains depth and authority for its Internet search engine by making not only Web pages but also books searchable.

At the same time, Google has been thrown into legal dispute with U.S. publishers as Google also scans works from its U.S. library partners that are still in copyright without asking the publishers first.

The alleged venture has not been confirmed by Google.

Personally I like the feeling of a paper book, the convenience of reading it before going to bed. I would consider an ebook only if I have no other choice and probably I would try to print it out as soon as possible.

Rising Canadian dollar affecting marijuana smuggling

Who would have believed what part of the underground economy would be affected by the Canadian dollar parity with the U.S.one?
First time when I came across the piece of news, it cracked me up. I was joking that ‘marijuana stock market’ is going down the drain.
Today I was reading again about it: it’s serious ‘concern’.
Canada’s soaring loonie and increasing competition from the U.S. marijuana producers made the business no longer lucrative enough for smugglers to risk taking the pot across the border.
On top of that, the notorious ‘first grade BC pot’ encounters competition from Newfoundland.
Let’s talk numbers: in the past, a pound of pot cost $1,600 in Canada, sold for $3,500 in the US (worth the risk); now it costs $2,400 per pound, not lucrative enough (not worth the risk).
The collapsing of the housing bubble in the States brought in another competition to our pot: homeowners who may lose their homes due to the mortgage crisis, are setting up grow-ups to save their homes, bypassing the need for Canadian goody.
Alan Greenspan is to blame!!

BlackBerry catching on in China

I have a BlackBerry-8800 and I must admit that I like it very much. The problem with it? it’s addictive. Having a smartphone like BlackBerry, makes you work longer hours.
A study done recently, showed a typical increase of working hours from 40 to 70 a week.

Going back to BlackBerry in China: the rumor had it that it would be available for sale in China for $700 at the end of August 2007.It did not happen.

China Mobile, the Research in Motion’s partner for Chinese market, does not sell BlackBerry, just offers service packages for it. So people are told to buy one from Honk Kong or other foreign countries.Once in the possession of the precious toy, they can buy a service package offered by China Mobile for prices between $57 and $85, pretty expensive for an average income of $350 per month.

Although the RIM is not selling yet on Chinese market, somehow they are sold on Taobao, the Chinese-language equivalent of EBay. The suspicion is that some of them might be knockoffs; the selling price is between $75 and $800.

The problem is that without China Mobile, the devices will not send or receive e-mail, but they will work as a cool cellphone and can access Internet.
Interesting fact: there is a Chinese copycat of the BlackBerry: it’s called RedBerry.

American geneticist publishes own genome

About 10 years ago I took a course in Genetics, thinking that it would be a platform towards a career change. Having a degree in engineering, I did not have a problem understanding the introductory course.
At that time the Human Genome Project was in full development.
Considering that the human genome is composed of 24 distinct chromosomes (22 autosomal + X + Y) with a total of approximately 3 billion DNA base pairs containing an estimated 20,000–25,000 genes, the effort to map it has been significant.
Craig Venter is considered a ‘maverick’ geneticist.
Some people will say that publishing his own genome is nothing more than a proof of an inflated ego.
Others will say that he actually has done an unselfish service, providing a much-needed ‘reference genome’ that can be used for comparative purposes.
Individuals’ genomes are only 99.5 per cent the same. That works out to millions of variants between individuals.
To have a reference genome it’s nothing but a very helpful tool for geneticists.