GATES RETIREMENT

It’s been a whole year since Bill Gates retired from the day-to-day running of Microsoft. After an extensive six months farewell tour, he handed the reins of the company over to Steve Ballmer at a town hall meeting in Redmond on June 27, 2008. Although Gates is still the part-time non-executive chairman, Microsoft has essentially been going for a year without him in charge. So, how are things going?

The recession has bit heavily and deeply in the year since Gates’ departure. This has forced Microsoft’s hand somewhat in the way it has conducted business. There have been large employee laoffs, the canceling of non-essential staff perks, and the culling of several products. But Microsoft has also grown in some areas.

This year has seen the launch of bing, Microsoft’s new search/decision engine. Bing may not currently be a Google-beater but it’s without a doubt the best search product Microsoft has ever released. The Yahoo! deal may never have happened but Microsoft took it on the chin and went back to the drawing board.

Also on the way is Microsoft Security Essential's, the free security suite Microsoft should arguably have been offering for years already. Then there is the Zune HD, which could and should perform better than the original, and Project natal, the Xbox 360 add-on which, once released, will enable gamers to play using just hand gestures.

Lest we forget Windows 7, due for release on Oct. 22. When Gates left his long-held position, Windows 7 was still a long way from complete and yet to be tested on the public. In fact,VISTA FAILURE was still what most people were thinking when they heard the name of Microsoft spoken out loud. Now, after positive response from analysts and the public alike, the company can look forward rather than back.

Would all these things, both good and bad, happened if Gates has stayed in his job? Steve Ballmer is certainly a very different kind of leader, but like Gates seems to know his own mind and refuses to be LAPTOP HUNTER ADS swayed off course. He’s also sanctioned a direct attack on Apple in those , which he should be applauded for.

I would suggest Microsoft is in a better state now than it was a year ago. While I’m not suggesting Gates’ departure had much to do with that upturn in fortunes, his retirement certainly hasn’t hurt the company in the way some people predicted it would.

SWINE FLU IN INDIA

So it’s official that Swine Flu has reached India’s shore – what’s really sad to note is that Indian govt’s lack of initiative towards educating citizens on Swine flu symptoms/precautions etc.

Let me start off with a small observation about Swine Flu – and how its being tackled by the ever “respectable” authorities inside the country.

Here are some facts :
1) Search for “Swine Flu Govt of USA” on google search – the first result points to “http://www.pandemicflu.gov/”
2) Search for “Health Ministry Ireland Swine Flu” on google search – the first result points to “http://www.dhsspsni.gov.uk/”
3) Search for “Swine Flu Govt of India” – the first page fails to point to any page hosted by the Government of India (rather it takes you to all the news sites).

The information presented so far might make the readers believe that there is no such initiative being taken by the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare (MoHFW). Well, that’s not the case. You can find the specific page here – Swine Flu at MoHFW.

I will stop short of dissecting this page or even comparing it against the 2 other links provided above. The amount of crisp and forthcoming information being provided by the first 2 pages is what I am looking for.

Coming back to the context – is there a serious lack of resources available to the Government of India (to provide information about the disease?) ?

Are there not enough people who will create a perfect e-home for the Swine Flu pandemic in our country ? Or do we simply don’t care ? To come out with a very honest opinion – the government’s single point contact – National Informatics Center – for all such requirements isn’t simply geared up to be the “best”.

Okay, lets leave the government alone. It has just started coming to office and I would hope that Mr Ghulam Nabi Azad would hover around and see that the government is found behaving in the most astute manner over this matter.

I may not risk trying to counter the actual on-the-ground measures being taken – but have a look at the picture below of a doctor at Attari Railway Station assigned to the task of screening people coming into the country.
And then read about the importance of face masks.

Swine Flu in india: Doctor, where is the mask?

If you look at the best hospitals in Delhi (i.e. AIIMS, Apollo, Escorts / Fortis, Safdarjung), except for AIIMS, none of the websites has a mention of Swine Flu on the homepages of these institutions. And AIIMS has done the easiest thing that was there to do – link those words to the Swine Flu page at MoHFW.

At the cost of sounding the utmost critic of civic agencies, I will have to make a claim. At a time when the H1N1/Swine Flu virus is getting utmost attention all across the world, – can we afford to lack behind even at the “Information Propagation” stage. Is it really too much to ask – that I want to read all about Swine Flu / H1N1 sitting in the comfort of my home ?

I can already hear the standard argument that would be posted as a response to this “want”. The internet penetration in India is minuscule and the government has taken appropriate steps through other information mediums.

Being from Delhi, I can only provide facts about Delhi. However, there is little chance that those facts cannot be extrapolated to be found true all across the country. Tune into any of the radio stations like 91.1, 92.7, 93.5 or 98.3 FM – and keep yourself tuned for the next 24 hours. Tell me the number of times you hear a government solicited campaign trying to tell you about Swine Flu.
If these radio stations can provide some recording of dates like 1st and 2nd May 2009 – listen to them again for 24 hours. And count the number of times you hear a Congress or BJP poll campaign. Well, it is no surprise what number would win this game.

It’s high time that our civic agencies, the concerned ministries went overboard onto the information bandwagon. There is no single information medium that could possibly be overlooked in today’s times. And if the private players in the Health Care sector are not going to participate in such ventures, there is only a particular section of the “aam-junta” that’s going to feel “informed”.

Isn’t it morally binding upon the Apollo’s and Fortis to be forthcoming on what the H1N1 virus is all about ? What are the symptoms ? What are the precautions ? How does the virus spread.

There is never a dearth of information when it comes to the Healthcare sector. However, there is a real need to have the right propagation mechanism in place - for both the public and private players in this space. I hope the agencies do not let this be treated like a localized spread of some disease. Its a “Pandemic”. Lets treat it like one.

THE CORE 2 EXTREME QX9650----LATEST FROM INTEL

The newest high-end processor from Intel is the Core 2 Extreme QX9650. It is a quad-core chip running at 3 GHz produced on a 45 nanometer assembly line. It has a total of 12 megabytes of cache on the chip. Here is a complete review, including a summary of the 45 nm production process:

Penryn Arrives: Core 2 Extreme QX9650 Review
In this article they were able to boost the memory speed to 1600 MHz and overclock the chip to 3.6 GHz (a 20% increase) without any trouble, which bodes well for the speed of future chips.
Here are two other announcements:
- Intel’s 45nm Penryn/Yorkfield architecture packs serious punch
- Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650 – Penryn Ticks Ahead
The Anandtech article talks about the future: “The other important item to note on the roadmap going forward is that top line in the table – yep, the one that says Bloomfield. Bloomfield is none other than Nehalem, the 45nm successor to Penryn. It’s a brand new architecture complete with an on-die memory controller, SMT (Symmetric Multi-Threading – 2 threads per core) and 8MB of shared cache (probably L3 shared among all four cores). While it’s still a year away, it’s very nice to see it on an Intel roadmap this far in advance of its launch.” That chip will probably crack the billion transistor barrier.

SWINE FLU??

The swine influenza A (H1N1) virus that has infected humans in the U.S. and Mexico is a novel influenza A virus that has not previously been identified in North America. This virus is resistant to the antiviral medications amantadine (Symmetrel) and rimantadine (Flumadine), but is sensitive to oseltamivir (Tamiflu) and zanamivir (Relenza). Investigations of these cases suggest that on-going human-to-human swine influenza A (H1N1) virus is occurring.