Secrets of the Amazon

Trying to Get a Read on Amazon's Books - New York Times

Is World of Warcraft the New Golf? News Story From 1UP.com

Is World of Warcraft the New Golf? News Story From 1UP.com

The Fashion of the Populist

The Fashion of the Populist: "The new president of Bolivia's fashion sense is gaining attention along with his policies."

EETimes.com - Wise guy: tests confirm Einstein's formula correct

http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml

How to Start a Startup

Extremely well written primer on software entrepreneurship.

How to Start a Startup

Has Google Peaked?

Article by Robert X. Cringley in which he proposes that Apple, not Google is the clearest threat to Microsoft.

PBS | I, Cringely . August 25, 2005 - Has Google Peaked?

In this separate article, the author claims that Ajax Office will be a reality within the next year.

Ajax Office

My mobile reassures me I'm OK

Interesting article by BBC News on mobile medical devices. In my opinion this sector should be poised for explosive growth and has a lot of potential.

BBC NEWS | Health | 'My mobile reassures me I'm OK'

Nobody Knows You're a Bot

Interesting article in Wired on how the online poker scene is starting to get "contaminated" by poker-playing bots. Soon, it's not going to who plays the best poker but who codes the best poker playing bot!

Wired 13.09: On the Internet, Nobody Knows You're a Bot

Interesting Article on Business 2.0 - The $50 Million Giveaway

11 venture capitalists provide Business 2.0 with business ideas that they're dying to bankroll.

Personally, the one on "Home Patient Monitoring" from David Aslin and Paul Badawi excited me the most.
Business 2.0 - Magazine Article - Printable Version - The $50 Million Giveaway

Terabyte DVD Recorder Available Next Month

It doesn't come easy writes "Japan's Hitachi Ltd. on Wednesday unveiled the world's first hard disk drive/DVD recorder that can store one terabyte of data, or enough to record about 128 hours of high-definition digital broadcasting."

Slashdot8/25/2005 8:04:00 AM

8/22 - Start of Pre-term!

Review Sessions for "Data Models and Decisions", "Accounting" and "Economics" + Matriculation.

Apartment's a complete mess!

The New Shorthand?

I tried this piece of software briefly on my new IBM X41 Tablet PC. It definitely has potential but I need to try it longer to see if I can adopt it over the standard Microsoft input panel.

Is this the new shorthand of the geek world?

What Lies Beneath?

Have you ever had the experience where you call someone up and they don't seem to be paying attention to you?

Developed at the MIT Media Lab by Anmol Madan and his team, the Jerk-O-Meter (or JerkoMeter) is a real-time speech feature analysis application that runs on your VOIP phone or cellphone that remedies precisely that experience. It uses speech features for activity and stress (and soon empathy) to measure if you are 'being a jerk' on the phone. The phone displays messages in case you are, and can also be setup to inform the person on the other end of the line that you're extremely busy.

I wonder if the same technology could be extended to include Professor Paul Ekman's concept of microexpressions?

According to the professor of Psychology at the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine, micro-expressions represent "the most extreme expressions human beings can make in a very fast period of time" and usually involve the entire face. Subtle expressions are easily overlooked because they involve minor movement in parts of the face -- raised eyelids that might signal the beginnings of fear or surprise, or the angled upturn of the inner eyebrows that might signal the beginnings of sadness. Misreading facial expressions and the emotions underlying them results in a lot of misunderstandings and miscommunication. Often the failure comes from an inability to recognize these micro-expressions that flash across a face for less than a 15th of a second -- that reveal the true emotions a person may be uncomfortable expressing or is simply trying to conceal.

I can see applications in law enforcement such as augmenting a human interrogator in situations where an explicit lie-detector test is not possible.

My First Post

This is my first post to the MIT Journal.

 

Over the next 2 years I will be pursuing my MBA at the MIT Sloan School of Management. I'll be primarily focusing on a career in entrepreneurship with a goal of either starting a new company or joining one after finishing my MBA.

 

I will use this journal to record my experiences. Look out for interesting articles, random facts and occasionally, perhaps, a drop of wisdom.