After Google’s + and Infy’s Bubble its Microsoft’s Social Search Network ‘Tulalip’ at www.socl.com

Yes! You read it right. After Google+ and Infy Bubble its Tulalip – A Social Search-Network integrated with Bing by Microsoft Research.

You don’t believe me? Check out www.socl.com

Now, I know what most of you are thinking – ”Oh no! Not another Social Network!!”. Or may be even this – “Its Microsoft remember! Ctrl+C Ctrl+V!”. But did not people doubt when we had the Great Orkut and Facebook was just launched??Well, it was supposed to be a secret project but Microsoft unintentionally/intentionally brought it to limelight.

Microsoft Research’s Experimental Social Search Network Tulalip

 

Fusible first discovered the page sitting at www.socl.com, a domain that MS recently purchased. Known as Tulalip (also the name of a group of Native American tribes near Redmond). The platform also features sign-in buttons for Facebook and Twitter, the latter of which leads to an authorization page explaining that Tulalip is an "experimental app," and that it will be able to "update your profile" and "post tweets for you" (see the screenshot, after the break). It's too early, of course, to say whether or not the service will launch as a direct competitor to Social Search, or if it'll even get off the ground, though Microsoft insists that it didn't mean to tip its hand so early.

From the looks of it, this will likely be a venture into “social search” with Bing running the show. “With Tulalip you can Find what you need and Share what you know easier than ever,” reads the teaser tagline. Notice the capitalization of Find and Share? Yep, I’m pretty sure this will be where search meets share, which is kind of good news since you can’t do a Google search within Google+. Oddly enough, there are Facebook and Twitter log in fields on the teaser page, which leads us to believe that this will be a rather light foray into social networking rather than a heavy-duty Microsoft experience.

 

First Look at Microsoft’s Social Search Network Tulalip

The teaser page has since been pulled, while Microsoft swears it was an accident. It's too early, of course, to say whether or not the service will launch as a direct competitor to Social Search, or if it'll even get off the ground, though Microsoft insists that it didn't mean to tip its hand so early. The Socl.com welcome page now reads: "Socl.com is an internal design project from one of Microsoft's research teams which was mistakenly published to the web. We didn't mean to, honest."

Infosys comes with a Social Network ‘Infy Bubble’ for its employees!

Now that’s interesting! A social network specially for employees. And get what you can submit negative feedback for bosses and peers… obviously personal attacks are not allowed.

They call it ‘Infy Bubble’. Its based on the lines of Facebook. They can share photos and stuff and about their work.

I think its really a great way to strengthen the bonds between colleagues. Infosys had to come up with something as the rate of attrition has been a pressing concern for them.

I will be glad if other companies follow the suite! Personal communicators are not much fun anyway.

Google’s Google’+’ (plus) a ‘-’ (minus) like Wave and Buzz!

NOTE: If you are a hard-core Google Fan, I request you to go to other blogs in which you can find appreciation; in this particular blog-post all you’ll find is Google Bashing.

Google has never fared well in the Social Networks… honestly I am sceptic about its innovations in the area. Apart from the Google Search, there’s hardly any REAL Google product that can be called innovative.

You might think of me as a fool, but you must know that YouTube, Blogger, Google Docs etc were bought by Google! Many of the Gmail features have been bought by them. Honestly I have no problem if they buy and improve, after all I am a Pro-Blogger and I love blogger for its services.

However, their R&D innovations like Buzz and Wave have been trashed somewhere. Orkut is already dead!

They have tried to copy Facebook for long, creating plugins, +1 buttons, comment boxes etc., and now they created a Facebook look-alike. It really isn’t much different than any other basic social networking site. It really doesn’t excite me.

Dear Google, you are really good at creating hypes but you are also known for not being able to live up to your hypes. Please come up with some real innovation!

Hindi transliteration is not working in Blogger!

Google O Google!

I think Google has been too much busy with their Google+ Project these days and they have forgotten that they have other services that require moderation and maintenance.

A few months back they ACCIDENTLY deleted a few Gmail Accounts… and now they have messed up with Blogger’s Hindi Transliteration feature.

The symbol ‘अ’ has disappeared from the Editor and the option for transliteration in the ‘Baisc’ Settings is also not available.

If you go through the link, which is basically a Google Support page you can see that Google promised to solve this Global problem within a week from 7th July. I am still waiting for them to fix it!

Microsoft demands $15 per Android phone from Samsung!

“Android has a patent fee. It’s not like Android’s free. You do have to license patents. HTC’s signed a license with us and you’re going to see license fees clearly for Android as well as for Windows.” – Steve Ballmer, CEO, Microsoft.
 
Yes its true! Microsoft has asked Samsung to pay $15 per Android phone shipped. Confused? I know you are. You are probably wondering how can Microsoft demand money for a Google Product right? You have many questions like these and this blog-post will try to answer some of them.

What makes Microsoft eligible to charge for Android phones?

Microsoft can charge for Android because of the Intellectual Property Rights it has on the technology used in Google’s Mobile Operating System.

The software giant has a wide range of patents used in the mobile platform. And there are countless lines of proprietary code in Android, and any number of ways that code -- or, yes, possibly code from the Android Open Source Project itself -- could infringe on another company's patents.

What is Microsoft’s stand on the matter?

For the past year or so, Microsoft has been saying that it holds patents on technology used in the Android mobile operating system, and has been either suing or signing licensing agreements with phone and computer manufacturers that use Android. It signed a deal with HTC in April 2010, and has sued Motorola over its Droid line and Barnes & Noble over its Nook e-readers.

In October 2010, Microsoft essentially said companies using Android need to pay up or get sued.

Has Microsoft signed patent-licensing deals with other Android makers?

Microsoft has announced a flurry of patent-licensing deals with smaller Android makers, including General Dynamics Itronix, Velocity Micro, Onkyo and – on Tuesday – Wistron. Microsoft said the Wistron deal also includes coverage for devices running Google’s Chrome browser platform.

Is Microsoft going to stop pursuing these licensing agreements?

With so many customers on its Android books, it’s unlikely Microsoft is going to stop pursuing these licensing agreements. The next target is already in its sights, and this is no small fish. Microsoft is reportedly demanding Samsung pays $15 per Android smartphone it ships.

Why target Samsung?

Samsung is the top mobile-phone manufacturer in the United States, with an average market share of 24.8 percent from March to May, comScore said Tuesday

Analysts forecast Samsung, the world’s No.2 handset maker, to have sold about 19 million smartphones in the April-June quarter, with the dominant position running on Android. It is widely expected to emerge as the No.1 smartphone maker, replacing Nokia’s more than 10-year reign.

Samsung’s Galaxy S II, successor to its flagship Galaxy S smartphone, which runs on the Android platform, has sold more than 3 million units since its debut in late April.

Why is Microsoft going for the licensing-agreements?

Google Android’s average U.S. market share among operating systems was 38.1 percent over the same period, the research firm said, followed by Apple’s iOS at 26.6 percent, Research in Motion’s BlackBerry at 24.7 percent, Microsoft’s Windows Mobile and Windows Phone (combined) at 5.8 percent, and HP’s Palm at 2.4 percent.

The move comes as Android phones gain in popularity. Microsoft charges handset makers such as HTC and Samsung to use its Windows mobile software and has tied up with Nokia to challenge Google and Apple Inc in the smartphone market.

When Android started to get picked up by a number of major manufacturers to use in their phones and tablets, we all rightly thought Microsoft would be on its back foot. If it wasn’t for patents the company probably would be, but as it stands, Microsoft is increasingly making more money from the sale of Android devices.

What’s Samsung’s take on the matter?

Samsung hasn’t officially responded  or even agreed to comment on the demand, but it is expected that rather than fight it the company will try and do a deal to lower the price per phone.

What can Samsung do about it?

Samsung can’t really contest this because so many other companies operating in the same markets have signed up for a license. But Samsung does have the advantage of being a desirable hardware partner for Microsoft.

With that in mind we could see some new Windows Phone 7 and Windows 8 devices make it on to the Samsung product list in the near future. In exchange, expect that $15 to come down to $10, or even $5 to match what HTC are thought to pay.

What makes me Happy?


If Samsung really signs with Microsoft for more Windows Phone 7 or 8 devices, it’s quite possible that Samsung’s Software Engineering Lab, Noida will get some project. As of now only HQ covers Windows Phone projects. Since as a Microsoft Student Partner I have delivered sessions on Windows Mobile 6.5 and Windows Phone 7 and also submitted apps, it’ll be like a dream come true to finally work hard-core on Windows Phone!

Technical Awareness Series - Facebook’s new style tagging in post and comments. (part 2)

In the part 1 of this series we saw that Facebook now allows us to tag friends without using the ‘@’ symbol. When I was experimenting with this new feature, I came across another feature recently introduced by Facebook.

Earlier when you tagged your friends in any status and/or comments, the full name of the person as mentioned in his/her profile appeared. Now we all know that facebook has a limit of 420 characters per status. So we all know the importance of reducing characters.

Facebook now allows to tag friends and shorten their names by deleting parts of their names. You can delete either parts of the friends name. However atleast one part should be kept intact.

For example, if you want to tag Vishal Gupta you can delete either Vishal or Gupta leaving behind Gupta and Vishal respectively.

This feature helps to maintain casual and informal conversations. Full name tags seemed rather formal. Facebook’s team is really innovating!

The screen-shots of small experiments carried out by me are displayed below-

 

Don’t be a ‘dumb’ facebook user. Don’t either be ‘just’ a facebook user. Be an aware facebook user.

Technical Awareness Series - Facebook’s new style tagging in post and comments.

Facebook’s team is working hard and is constantly coming with the new & innovative ideas and strategies to provide rich user-interface.

On 10th September 2009 they announced status tagging and launched it on 14th September 2009.

Beginning 10th March 2011, Facebook provided the facility of tagging friends in comments. This was a good feature. Tagging in comments meant we could keep the conversation live and it was a good way to inform people about their involvement in the posts.

This time they have come up with a new way of tagging friends. You don’t need to use ‘@’ to tag a friend. You can directly tag them without using ‘@’.

However, there is a fundamental difference in using the two ways of tagging. When you tag with the ‘@’ tag, you can begin the name with small letters. Like if you have a friend name Himanshu, you can type @himanshu or @Himanshu. However, when you are tagging directly you need to use the exact letters Capital/Small. For example, if my friend’ name is Sujeet I have to start with ‘S’; if I start with ‘s’, it won’t work.

So take advantage of this feature, as it saves some time. Also you might want to be careful about accidently tagging your friends when you don’t want to!

Don’t be a ‘dumb’ facebook user. Don’t either be ‘just’ a facebook user. Be an aware facebook user.