Top 40 most important companies

Wired creates top companies list every year. They have certain criteria in finalizing the list. They explain this way:

"What makes a company wired? We start by looking for the basics: strategic vision, global reach, killer technology. But that’s not enough. To land a spot on our annual Wired 40 list, a business also needs the X-factor – a hunger for new ideas and an impatience to put them into practice"

Some interesting facts from the current wired40 list.

• Google replaced Apple in the numero uno spot
• Yahoo unmoved in its 5th place
• Infosys is at the 11th place, yes u read that correct. What more surprising to me was, it actually slipped 2 places from the last year's rating.
• And then comes the big brother Microsoft, at the 36th place.
• Some of the companies slid out of the 40 list are Nokia, Dell, Pixar and Vodafone

the complete list can be read on Wired

Cheerz
.shiva.

Ants have pedometer

...an interesting article [source: New scientist ]

Desert ants have an internal system - like a pedometer - that keeps track of how many steps they take, according to a new study. The insects seem to rely on this system to find their way back to the nest after foraging. Other insects may also possess this pedometer-like system. Some types of ant appear to use visual cues or leave scent trails to find their way home. But desert ants have a remarkable ability to retrace their steps from their nesting site even though they travel on flat terrain that is devoid of landmarks, and any odours quickly fade in the hot temperatures.

Previously, researchers have found evidence that ants use the position of the sun as a compass (see Nature, DOI: 10.1038/293731a0). But, as Harald Wolf at the university of Ulm, Germany, and his colleagues point out, for such a compass to be of use desert ants would need a way to track distance.

btw... don't go with the image, it doesn't have any connection with the article. its from one of my favorite movie "Antz".


Cheerz
.shiva.

Infy Trip

wow... thats the one word i can say about this trip. Its really fantastic to be with our best friends, that too after a very long time, on some special place and most importantly on a very special time. Yes, I visited Bangalore and Mysore Infy with Anandakumar on the last weekend. And that sunday happened to be Daffney's birthday.

As usual I've posted some photos here and the rest you can see on my flickr page.

and about the trip... its very very nice and unforgettable one. I met Shine Babu(Bangalore Infy) Vimal kumar(after a very long time) and Daffney(Mysore Infy, Birthday baby).

Bangalore... the IT capital of India, not impressed me very much by its infrastructure, TRAFFIC to be specific. OOOOh... it tore us apart, even though that was a saturday. But once after we arrive at Infy campus, thats a different ball game altogether. Its really great to be there. I was just taken aback to see the amount of care given on maintaining such environment. Its really awesome. I don't think there will be any other IT company's campus in India could match Infy's. Hats off to N.R. Narayana Murthy. We had a great time there for almost 2 hours roaming everywhere, having lots of fun. and in the evening we went to FORUM, the shopping mall. Comparing with Spencer's... of course its smaller but i should say i enjoyed the crowd( :-) ) most. Very much current on fashion. We purchased some shirts and I bought "The success Principles" by Jack canfield recommended by Satheesh to me. Actually I bought two copies. One for me. I yet to start reading that book( I will do satheesh...) and other for Daffney.

And in Mysore, we were bit tired, with the Bangalore trip, that reflected a bit on us. Daffney took us to Infy campus. And the same story continued there also. With Shine babu transformed as a cameraman with handy cam, we had a real nice time there for 3 hours. Mysore is much better than Bangalore, for IT I think. It's having a great weather, and peaceful environment. But we felt a bit hotter weather on sunday.

mmm... thats it. It was a great experience to be with Shine, Daffney and Vimal. Hope we all will meet again sooner.

The rest of the photos available at flickr gallery