It seems Google is serious about its new role of a gadget maker. At a developer conference in San Francisco, the search giant announced a tablet, Nexus 7, and some other hardware it had designed. This includes Nexus Q, a $299 media player, and futuristic eyewear called Google Glass, which adds a computer display to a spectacles-like device. Nexus 7 is its big bet. Priced at $199, it will be available from mid-July this year, and is expected to compete with veterans Apple iPad, Samsung Galaxy Tab, Amazon Fire and the new entrant, Microsoft Surface. Google plans to offer its online services through the tablet, which is built by Taiwan's Asus. Google recently enhanced its own hardware capabilities through a $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility. That said, given that the software firm's hardware entries have not been a big success, Google has to strive hard to make the cut.Phaseout DriveGeneral Motors India will stop making Aveo and Optra cars. It will replace them with new brands, said president and managing director Lowell Paddock. GM will launch Sail in both hatchback and sedan versions in the next few months. Sail will replace the Aveo U-VA hatchback and Aveo sedan. The company has similar plans for the sedan Optra. ON VIGIL: The RBI asks Kotak Mahindra Bank to slash its promoter stake. Stake RollbackThe Reserve Bank of India asked Kotak Mahindra Bank to more than halve its promoter holding to 20 per cent by FY 2017-18 end, and then to 10 per cent, from the current 45.21 per cent. Currently, the Uday Kotak family and associates account for the promoter holding in the bank. Kotak himself owns more than 41 per cent in the bank. The promoters held 63 per cent when the bank started operations in 2003. Gloomy ForecastIndia Inc's results for the first quarter of this fiscal are going to be negative, says Crisil Research. Except banks and oil firms, all other companies will touch new lows. India Inc's revenue growth is likely to fall to 14 per cent from 17.5 per cent a year ago — the lowest in the past six quarters.No ReliefThe Centre will not backtrack on the controversial General Anti-Avoidance Rules, or GAAR. But the government says it will try to resolve the contentious issues that have unnerved investors in the next two to three weeks. There were reports that the government could drop the draft rules to calm investors.Clearing AccountsGlobal banking giant HSBC sold its stake in two Indian banks for $425 million (about Rs 2,425 crore). It sold a 4.73 per cent stake in Axis Bank for $329 million and a 4.74 per cent stake in Yes Bank for around $96 million. NEWS FLASH: Splitting up Lankan LeagueIndian businesses bought all the seven franchises on offer in the Sri Lanka Premier League, even as India's cricket board BCCI deterred its players from participating in the Twenty20 league. The successful bidders include Wadhawan Holdings, India Cricket Dundee, Rudra Sports and Varun Beverages. The event will start on August 10. Divide And PlayScandal-hit media mogul Rupert Murdoch plans to split his empire. News Corp said it would pursue dividing the $60-billion media conglomerate into separate publicly traded publishing and entertainment companies. The 81-year-old Murdoch will be chairman of both companies and will be the chief executive of the entertainment business. Money MovesFino, a financial inclusion services provider in Mumbai, bought handset-maker Nokia's prepaid mobile payment services business in India for an undisclosed sum. The firm has been christened Alpha Payment Services India. (This story was published in Businessworld Issue Dated 09-07-2012)
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The first Project Glass products -- Google's network-enabled, computerized glasses -- are set to ship to a select group of enthusiasts early next year, co-founder Sergey Brin said on Thursday."This is not a consumer device," Brin told thousands in an enthusiastically cheering audience at the company's Google I/O show. "You have to want to be on the bleeding edge. That's what this is designed for." Google showed off its computerized glasses at a developers conference on Friday by having a bunch of people wearing them – and streaming video from them – jump out of a blimp and land on the roof of the conference center. The glasses will be available only to Google I/O attendees who are in the United States. The geographic restriction is for regulatory reasons, Brin said. (Different countries have different requirements for radio-frequency emissions.) Brin demonstrated Google Glass, a futuristic-looking eye-glass-computer that can live-stream events, record, and perform computing tasks. The device will be available to US-based developers early next year for $1,500.The glasses, as light as regular sunglasses, come with a touch panel on the side, a button on top to take photos and videos, and a transparent screen to show information. They perch just above a person's regular vision so they don't interfere with ordinary eye contact. Google believes they're better for capturing a first-person view of the world, such as spontaneous photographs people would miss if they had to take time to dig out a camera.The ambition is much bolder, though: in effect, an augmented brain. "Someday we would like to make this so fast that you don't feel like, if you have a question, you have to go seek the [answer]. We'd like it to be so fast that you just know it. We'd like to be able to empower people to know information very, very quickly," one of the project engineers said. And it unveiled the Nexus Q - a $300 device with a built-in amplifier that lets users stream content from Android devices onto their TVs.Nexus Takes On Apple, Amazon But it was the Nexus tablet hogged the spotlight. Sold initially only on the Google Play online store, its $199 price tag and 7-inch stature is aimed squarely at the Fire, but the Nexus has a front-facing camera while Amazon's tablet does not.The "Nexus 7" tablet, built by and co-branded with Taiwan's Asus, was one of several gadgets unveiled at its annual developers' conference on Wednesday, as the Internet search and advertising leader dips its toe into the intensively competitive consumer arena.The announcement of the new tablet comes a month after Google acquired its own hardware-making capabilities with the $12.5 billion acquisition of smartphone maker Motorola Mobility. But Motorola, which Google has said it will run as a separate business, was absent from most the new products and services showcased at the event.Google's maiden entry in the tablet market, which will also see the advent of Microsoft Corp's Surface this year, could also help accelerate development of tablet-specific applications for its Android operating software -- a key factor that has helped popularize Apple's iPad, analysts say.Analysts consider the Fire a window into Amazon.com's trove of online content rather than an iPad rival, given the $499 that Apple asks for a device with a "retina" display that far outstrips it in terms of resolution.Google can similarly use the Nexus 7 to connect to its own online offerings, which include YouTube and Google Play, the name of its online store where it sells digital music, movies and games. It will go after more cost-conscious users who might shun the pricier iPad."Nexus 7 is an ideal device for reading books. The form factor and weight are just right," said Chris Yerga, Google director of engineering for Android.Google said it will offer buyers of the Nexus 7 a $25 credit to spend at the Google Play store and it showed off several media-centric capabilities, such as a new magazine reading app."They all but called it a Kindle Fire killer. They're clearly gunning for that No. 2 spot behind Apple's iPad that is currently occupied by Kindle," said Altimeter Group analyst Chris Silva. "But the con is they do not yet have a footprint in people's minds and wallets as the go-to place to purchase and consume media."Jelly Beans Google has partnered with smartphone makers to develop Nexus-banded smartphones for several years, providing a showcase product that delivers Google's ideal vision for a device based on its Android software.Extending the Nexus concept to tablets should similarly establish a model that other hardware makers can emulate, resulting in a more a competitive and uniform line of Android tablets to market, say analysts.Shares in Google gained 0.8 percent to $569.37 in afternoon trade.The Nexus will feature the new 4.1 "Jelly Bean" version of Google's software, as well as a front-facing camera, a 1280x800 resolution screen, and an Nvidia Tegra 3 processor.Google's free Android software is the No. 1 operating system for smartphones, with about 1 million Android devices getting activated every day. But it has struggled to compete with Apple's iPad in the market for tablets, largely because it lags far behind Apple and Amazon in terms of available content and tablet-specific applications, such as games.Meanwhile, Apple has increasingly moved to reduce its dependency on Google services on its devices. Earlier this month it unveiled its own mapping software, which will replace Google maps as the default mapping service in the next version of its mobile operating system.And Amazon's Kindle Fire, while based on Google's open-source Android software, features a customized interface that does not use many Google services.Executives showcased the new 4.1 "Jelly Bean" version of Android operating system on Wednesday. The new software delivers faster performance, according to the company, and new features such as "voice search.""That range of services will be the secret to stitching together this rag-tag fleet of Android gadgets into a platform that can compete with Apple for minutes of users' attention rather than premium device dollars," said Forrester analyst James McQuivey.The tablet's limited availability - executives said they had no plans yet to expand distribution beyond Google's own site - may curtail initial sales growth.Google briefly sold a specially designed Android smartphone - the Nexus One - directly to consumers in 2010, but closed the online store after four months saying it had not lived up to expectations.But it's the lack of "native" applications - software designed with a larger tablet in mind, rather than ported from smartphones - that is the Nexus' biggest impediment for now."Unless you have a strong app offering, for a consumer it is a piece of glass that does what a phone does on a larger screen," Carolina Milanesi, analyst at Gartner Research.
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When you can't find the time to make it to the gym or go out for a long walk in this heat, grabbing a bit of exercise when you can is a good alternative. A good session of Pilates, a yoga routine, a round of calisthenics — any of these will keep you in good shape. But, exercising on your own steam has a few dangers.Listen To Your BodyOne problem with plugging into music or being otherwise distracted while exercising is that you may not be listening to your body enough. Always be instinctively aware of your movement and its effect and impact. If you have known vulnerabilities and weak points, keep a special eye out for those, but in either case, stay specially aware of your back (learn how to bend with flat-back moves), knees, neck, and hamstrings. Stretch if you feel soreness – and stop if you sense unusual pain. But don't miss the signs from lack of listening.Never Skip Warm-upNo matter what flavour of exercise you embark on, don't do yourself the disfavour of glossing over or outright omitting the warm-up. It's the easiest way to open yourself up to injury. You can make it more enjoyable by turning up some catchy music and walking in place, moving with light steps where you don't lift your feet too high and picking up the pace after two minutes. Add some arms to take the heart rate up a notch. Slow down again and do a few aerobics-style kicks. Ease into some basic stretches to prepare your hamstrings, back, and core to get the blood flowing.Breathe EasyDuring exertion and focus, one often tends to hold one's breath in without being aware of the fact. With yoga, a breathing pattern is part of the asanas. Time is set aside to learn diaphragm breathing and pranayamas. But breathing in tandem with movements is important with all exercises, though it differs from one type to another. The Internet can help you find which breathing pattern to use while working with your chosen style of exercise. Don't Get Into The Proving TrapWhether anyone's watching or not, everyone goes straight into proving mode as we try to see how far we can reach, how big a weight we can move, how fast we can go, and how long we can keep at it. If there has been a gap of no exercise, you're treading on dangerous ground. You may injure yourself and not even realise at that time, later wondering why it is you have that sharp pain in the back or what caused the nagging pain in your knee. You can reactivate old injuries as well. The key is easing into exercise, not barging into it with bravado. Graphic By Sajeev Kumarapuram Know When To Cool ItA cool-down is as important as a warm-up, and more tempting to skip, because by the end of an exercise session, you probably can't be bothered with it and just want to quit. It does depend on the kind of exercise you did, though. Yoga may not need a cool-down – unless you did several fast-paced rounds of sun salutation cycles – and usually involves routines that wind down to breathing exercises. To go from intensely active cardio-aerobic exercise like jogging or a game of tennis straight to collapse-on-couch is inadvisable. Slow the moves down, bring the heart rate back to normal, and end with some stretches. (This story was published in Businessworld Issue Dated 07-05-2012)
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Yoghurt is the best known summer food in our midst, going into cooling raitas, tempered and diluted to give us butter milk, that perfect 4 o'clock snack, and mixed with all manner of rice for a light meal. It helps, of course, that Ayurveda recognises its cooling property and that it is such an intrinsic part of our cuisines, but there are other superfoods to stock up on this season, to keep you hydrated and fit.The best ones to rely on are the seasonal and locally grown foods. There's little point in importing blueberries or cloudberries from the Arctic because however rich they may be in antioxidants and minerals, they lose freshness and benefits by the time they burn up all those carbon miles. Worse, if they are preserved.If you have to eat fruit, eat it fresh and whole — you get the fibre and save on sugar. And the calorie-saving fruit for this season is watermelon. More than just water, this luscious fruit has lycopene, which is an antioxidant, plus Vitamin A and C that help the immune system. So go ahead and gorge on those slices, with perhaps a little rock salt sprinkled on (sweating also makes you lose the vital salts). I came across this gorgeous salad recently that combined scoops of watermelon with more filling (and fattening) musk melon in a summery dressing of honey, lemon juice and freshly-crushed black pepper. All of this was presented in a watermelon shell. Serve this at your party.Mango is the other fruit of summer. More so, if you can afford to indulge in hapus or langda or dussehris. But raw mango is an infinitely lighter way to partake of those pleasures sans calories. Add it to chutneys, to dal and occasional veggie for Vitamin C benefits. Make panna by boiling it, adding sugar, salt, mint and roasted cumin powder to prevent dehydration. You can also eat it in a Thai-style salad (julienne the mango, add a dressing of sweet chilly sauce, perhaps Thai basil), topped with a few pieces of (batter-fried, if you like) fish.Or, blend the plethora of local mountain berries that you get — including strawberries—with yoghurt for a filling, non-creamy dessert. Of course, to ensure all its probiotic properties, the yoghurt must be set fresh at home.Summer veggies like zucchini (torai) and pumpkin are stars of Italian cuisine. So you don't have to wrinkle up your nose at them. They are light, low-cal and nutritious and can go into all manner of pasta. Indians are not into cold soups at all. Yet, these can be trendy and nutritious. I've seen beetroot soup (beet lowers blood pressure, and contains potassium and Vitamin A) served in shot glasses, cold, blended with lemon juice.It looks pretty too. Vichyssoise is the best known chilled potato and leek soup. But I love the cold Med gazpacho, with tomatoes, cucumber, peppers, cumin and coriander leaves and a dash of Tabasco.Else, lay your hands on a bottle of bel (wood apple) sherbet, good for the stomach, incorporating the pulp, rock salt, sugar and cumin powder. The last is a summer spice, to be used liberally, whether it is soaked in water and had first thing in the morning (a natural diuretic, it flushes the system and helps avoid water retention) or sprinkled on chaats and in yoghurt-based dips that you can have as part of a mezze. Enjoy!(This story was published in Businessworld Issue Dated 07-05-2012)
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Ajay Kumar, a senior executive with a leading infrastructure company in Delhi, has always been afraid of speaking in public. In his 15-year career, quite a few deals have fallen through because of his hesitation while making presentations. So when his organisation asked him to chair a meeting with a foreign delegation, he panicked. He needed a boost of confidence and his friends suggested everything from meditation to psychobabble.Having tried most remedies, Kumar was still nowhere close to feeling in control as he boarded the aircraft to Mumbai for the meeting. Fortunately for him, the gentleman seated next to him on the plane was a Bach flower therapist. They got talking and the practitioner gave him a small bottle and assured him the meeting would go smoothly. Just four drops from the bottle every two hours would do the trick. It was a mixture of the SOS cure called ‘Rescue Remedy' and Larch, for confidence. To Kumar's surprise, he overcame his anxiety and the meeting went rather well.Today, Kumar swears by Bach flower therapy — a medicine system that can change subtle emotional and psychological states of being. Terror, intolerance, depression, anxiety, lack of confidence, hatred... two drops thrice a day of the right remedy can uproot such deep-seated personality traits.Treatment for one's emotional and mental state, and not necessarily the physical state, is the essence of the remedy, named after Welsh bacteriologist, Dr Edward Bach who, in the 1930s, discovered 38 flowers that can treat emotional imbalances. For decades, flower therapy remained an obscure tributary of homeopathy till a recent rekindling of interest in it. Today, its popularity is growing the world over, with annual conferences, publication of books and a large number of practitioners who recommend the appropriate flower remedy after taking into account the personality, mood and emotional outlook of an individual.Flower therapy even treats conditions that may not necessarily be considered problems. Take, for instance, the case of 15-year-old Anshu Sharma who was afraid of the dark. While the boy's fear was real to him, most laughed it off or asked him to pray or better still, leave the lights on. It was while researching on the Internet for a project that he discovered that flowers can cure scotophobia, or the fear of the dark. He got in touch with Alka Raghbeer, a housewife in Delhi who has been practising Bach remedies for two decades now. She gave him the essence of Mimulus — meant to cure fear of known things.A few drops of the essence for a week and Anshu was a changed boy. "I can finally go off to sleep with all the lights off. It's such a liberating feeling," says the Class XI student.For Shreya Ahuja, who had been suffering from migraine for over three years, allopathic and homeo-pathic medicines did no good. A friend suggested Dheeraj Vishal Yadav, a Delhi-based naturopath, who treated her for three months with a combination of flower essences and cured the migraine. "I did not treat her for her physical ailment but for her mental and emotional state. She was finding it difficult to adjust to her in-laws' house and that was the root cause. By giving her a few doses of White Chestnut and Walnut along with Cherry Plum, she became more receptive to her new environment," says Yadav.Bach works on the principle that the body is only a medium of expression of our mental and emotional state. By curing the emotional imbalance, the body gets cured to a large extent. "Disharmony between your mental, physical and spiritual wellbeing leads to disease. Bach flower remedy cures you inside out," says Yadav.The flower remedies have no potency and can therefore work alongside any other medicine without any interference. Many allopaths, homeopaths, naturopaths and even therapists suggest flower therapy for a faster cure. Flower remedy works on the principle that the body is only a medium of expression of our emotional state Of course, the remedy has its share of critics. Most practitioners of allopathy don't believe in flower therapy's magical touch. Says V. K. Sehgal, a government doctor in Delhi, "Flower therapy cannot cure a person of physical ailments such as pain. If someone believes in it, they can try it out, but don't give up on actual medicines. It can at best complement a proper treatment, not substitute it." The 38 remedies are available at leading homeopath chemists in metros and are even being made locally. But the ones imported from England are more effective. "These were discovered in England, and everything from water to soil makes a difference to the potency of the flower essence," says Yadav.The next time you envy a colleague because he has a bigger car or house than you, don't beat yourself up, just take a few drops of Holly and cleanse those negative feelings!(This story was published in Businessworld Issue Dated 07-05-2012)
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You know that brand new Android phone you're holding? Well, it's obsolete. It was obsolete before you bought it and will go through several rounds of obsolescence by the time you pass it on to favourite uncle and buy yourself another phone. Google rolls out big updates or outright overhauls of its operating system for phones and tablets every few months but Android users can never be certain when they will get the upgrades on their devices or if they'll get them at all. In some cases, there's one thing they can be sure of and that's that they won't get the latest upgrade at all. Not only are upgrades frequent but there's a new Android device launched practically every week, rendering older devices to the annals of Android history before the shine rubs off the older devices. At any point of time, devices running the latest software are less than 5 per cent of all Android devices. At the current time, a mere 10 per cent of Android phones are on Android 4.0.3 or Ice Cream Sandwich and already the next version, Jelly Bean or 4.1, is out, arriving on Google's new Nexus 7 tablet.You would think that users have enough features to explore on their existing phones without worrying about what else is new. But any who are enthusiastic about technology and gadgets, get extremely miffed and are quite clear about wanting the features brought in by the most recent version of Android. Those who know how to, will "root" their devices and install "custom ROMs" to get the new operating system, often with disastrous results, but for most people, it's sour grapes. Or perhaps sweet grapes would be more appropriate a term given the names Android versions come with.But today, with the amount of buzz over new phones, many more users are aware of specs and software. They're actually beginning to ask about upgradeability before buying a phone. I had someone ask me whether he should consider the Galaxy S3 because it became available just before the Jelly Bean update to Android and now everyone was talking about new features that weren't on this coveted super-smartphone. When, he asked, would the S3 upgrade to Jelly Bean? No matter which device we're talking about, no one can do much more than guess about the likelihood of an OS upgrade. It isn't up to Google, and theoretically most recent devices will be able to take an upgrade, but the phone manufacturer may not believe the upgrade is a priority. Today, the Galaxy S2, still on Gingerbread, is selling quite well without any upgrades. Samsung will likely make their newer phones a prority instead of upgrading phones. Some new phones are actually still shipping with Gingerbread. Some companies, like Sony, have upgraded some of their phones, but still others are waiting and wondering. For phone makers, the phones they sold, all kitted out with their customised interfaces and skins (such as TouchWhiz on Samsung phones and Sense on HTC devices) are already optimised for the operating systems they went out with. Reworking to fit into an upgraded OS takes resources and time, which they may or may not see as worthwhile. Only Google's own Nexus devices can be upgraded readily, but these don't necessarily make their way to India – not officially, anyway.So what is the unsuspecting hapless user to do? Forget all about the upgrades? Unfortunately there may be no alternative. Not being able to upgrade to the newest version can cause problems with some apps, besides making a user feel left out in the cold where new and interesting features are concerned, but what choice is there? One has to be judicious about which apps to install and update. Rooting a phone is an option only for the extremely tech savvy who will know how to rescue their phones if they're in trouble. For the rest of us ordinary mortals, it's a waiting game. mala (at) pobox (dot) com, @malabhargava on Twitter
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Should I or should I not… pray?" "Is there God… or Godot?" And finally, "…what is the point…?" We are standing in the middle of the stunning Charles Bridge in Prague looking at the placid, dark waters below. The air is thick with contemplation. Dusk has fallen as we've traversed shadows, spires and tramps singing their little piece in return for a coin. We have sat by the city's incredible clock tower, looming, serious, the world's oldest astronomical clock chiming by the hour, dined picturesquely on a terrace full of rich tourists and wine waiters, and now the night in this beautiful literary city of castles and churches seems only slightly melancholy. But perhaps this is my overwrought imagination— existential dilemmas forced upon a wannabe writer in Kafka city.Alena, a young Russian student at the university here, our self-appointed guide tonight, is insistent: "Make a wish," she says, pointing to a spot in the middle of the bridge where you must stand, left foot on a particular spot, right hand touching a shrine, eyes looking through the grille to the distant horizon. "Wishes do come true, you know," she says wisely. And so I do. Wish. Will the evening turn out to be beyond compare — a night that you may encounter only in Prague, on a summer weekend? BONE IDENTITY The Sedlec Ossuary in Kutná Hora is decorated with human skeletons Gilded buildings, stunning architecture, castles and Kafka's home, beer and a vibrant nightlife: These are, of course, only some things that draw tourists to Prague. But there's more to the city than its cultural reputation and more to the Czech Republic than its seductive capital. So even as you make the most of your literary or romantic inclinations, wander through a couple of other towns in Moravia and Bohemia, dotted with castles, shrines and architecture ranging from the baroque to the gothic to Modern functional, and a countryside that may remind you of the dark The Lord of The Rings (never mind New Zealand or the Emerald Isles) terrain, not to mention Count Dracula's kingdom. What else are castles for, after all? (Here, there are more than 3,500 of them.)In Telc, southern Moravia, founded in the 13th century on the crossroads of a merchant route between Moravia, Bohemia, and Austria (this region was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire), a 17th century Renaissance-style chateau is the piece de resistance. It has an English garden with a fountain where schoolchildren have found refuge for the moment, but such distractions are unbecoming of serious students of architecture. My favourite feature in Telc, however, is the town square, where 17th century restored houses stand colourful, making for quite a picture postcard against the clear sky dusted with white clouds. It's the perfect place to break for a Czech lunch—hearty meat and potatoes with the distinctive Knedlíky (large dumpling, sliced up and served like thick pieces of bread).The country also has the highest per capita consumption of beer in the world, made since the early 12th century, when Brno, the second largest city, got the right to brew. The two cities most associated with Czech beer are Plzen and Ceske Budejovice (Pilsen and Budweis) with Pilsner Urquell (the world's first pale beer) and Budweiser Budvar the most recognisable brands from here. Whitbeer is obviously a big draw. But, in studenty Brno, at a local pub, I also discover a dark ‘ladies beer', slightly chocolatey, on tap. On the evening we visit, churches are open till midnight and there is free music. PHOTOGENIC Picturesque Telc makes for quite a perfect postcard The next morning, we stop by at the Tugendhat Villa. Designed by German architect Mies van der Rohe, this is the first instance of the Modern Movement applied to a residence. With its clean lines, functional surfaces and furniture and huge glass windows to let the outside inside, this is a remarkably contemporary building— a home in south Delhi may still follow the same principles.The Czech Republic has one of the highest concentrations of Unesco sites in the world. Of these, the Zámostí quarter in Trebíc is a special draw for anyone interested in European history and the Holocaust. But for all its sights and sounds, there's one that is bound to send shivers down your spine. At Kutná Hora, the ancient mining town, the main attraction is the Sedlec Ossuary — decorated with human bones. Everything from the chandelier to the wall décor is made from human bones.That's a memory that I do not want to dwell on as I stand at the Bombay Bar in Prague, impossibly crowded, with a glass of High Society in my hand. The cocktail is heady, the music faintly Indian, the bar apparently very popular. As the evening wears off, I escape to the relative quiet of the streets outside, take off my weary heels and walk the cold, dark pavements…. Anoothi is a Delhi-based food critic and travel writer (This story was published in Businessworld Issue Dated 16-07-2012)
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Dell tried it, and had to give up. Remember the Streak, the Android tablet from Dell? It was gone before you even noticed it. Similarly, HP had to abandon Pre, its version of the smartphone. The success of Apple's iPhone and Samsung in the smartphone business inspired Google (for the second time?) to take a crack at competing in that market; we will have to see how that pans out.There is a lot of buzz around the latest potential entrant: online retailer Amazon. It already has the Kindle and Kindle Fire, which can download books and music from the online store; the Kindle Fire currently uses a version of Android.Should Apple and Samsung be worried? Not really, say most experts. The smartphone market continues to grow by leaps and bounds, as do the sales of those companies. But Nokia and Research in Motion (RIM) the maker of BlackBerry may have reason to be. Both are losing marketshare. If Amazon does pull it off, it would be amazin'!(This story was published in Businessworld Issue Dated 16-07-2012)
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