Eideard

Nikita Sachdeva – from Delhi – now a student at University of Chicago

Moulshri Mohan was an excellent student at one of the top private high schools in New Delhi. When she applied to colleges, she received scholarship offers of $20,000 from Dartmouth and $15,000 from Smith. Her pile of acceptance letters would have made any ambitious teenager smile: Cornell, Bryn Mawr, Duke, Wesleyan, Barnard and the University of Virginia.

But because of her 93.5 percent cumulative score on her final high school examinations, which are the sole criteria for admission to most colleges here, Ms. Mohan was rejected by the top colleges at Delhi University, better known as D.U., her family’s first choice and one of India’s top schools…

Mohan, 18, is now one of a surging number of Indian students attending American colleges and universities, as competition in India has grown formidable, even for the best students. With about half of India’s 1.2 billion people under the age of 25, and with the ranks of the middle class swelling, the country’s handful of highly selective universities are overwhelmed…

“The problem is clear,” said Kapil Sibal, the government minister overseeing education in India, who studied law at Harvard. “There is a demand and supply issue. You don’t have enough quality institutions, and there are enough quality young people who want to go to only quality institutions.”

American universities and colleges have been more than happy to pick up the slack. Faced with shrinking returns from endowment funds, a decline in the number of high school graduates in the United States and growing economic hardship among American families, they have stepped up their efforts to woo Indian students thousands of miles away…

Indians are now the second-largest foreign student population in America, after the Chinese, with almost 105,000 students in the United States in the 2009-10 academic year, the last for which comprehensive figures were available. Student visa applications from India increased 20 percent in the past year, according to the American Embassy here.

RTFA. A multipliplex of incompetence, political foolishness, unwillingness to see beyond your nose.

Young people capable of learning, acquiring skills and knowledge, of contributing to the betterment of society lose the opportunity. The barriers in either nation may differ. The result is the same.

Apple has expanded its efforts to curtail the unchecked expansion of shovelware and scamware in the iOS App Store, focusing on keeping the store’s library attractive rather than simply aiming to maintain the biggest store in terms of raw numbers.

The company’s latest effort at curation has banned the practice of “incentivized app installs,” a gimmick used by some game makers to induce players to install specific other apps in order to continue playing. The practice is similar to “offer walls” promoted by free web games that ask players to participate in offers (such as buying a product or signing up for a trial service subscription) in order to obtain in-game currency required to continue game play.

Apple has banned the practice to prevent companies from artificially distorting the popularity of apps that are only being downloaded because of the incentives…With incentivized installs, one developer pays another an install fee (usually through a middleman pay-per-install network) to induce its users to download other apps. This is used to rapidly promote a new title into iTunes’ App Store rankings, a coveted position that results in exceptional visibility and exponentially higher sales…

While Apple initially advertised downloads and library size milestones for the App Store to note how fast it was growing and how far it was ahead of competing app markets, the company has already begun talking about other competitive metrics, particularly the billions of dollars it has paid out to developers…

Actual performance figures of mobile software stores demonstrate that the revenues earned by developers are not necessarily tied to the overall quantity of the devices running a platform (the installed base or market share), nor the raw number of downloads or library size…

Not only does this make sound business sense – it fits in well with Apple’s overall marketing style. If I was selling apps, it’s the way I would approach consumers. Short-term and in the long run.

Lots of normal people would pay $23 for a book. But $23.7 million (plus $3.99 shipping) for a scientific book about flies!?

This unthinkable sticker price for “The Making of a Fly” on Amazon.com was spotted on April 18 by Michael Eisen, an evolutionary biologist and blogger.

The market-blind book listing was not the result of uncontrollable demand for Peter Lawrence’s “classic work in developmental biology,” Eisen writes. Instead, it appears it was sparked by a robot price war…

Eisen watched the robot price war from April 8 to 18 and calculated that two booksellers were automatically adjusting their prices against each other.

One equation kept setting the price of the first book at 1.27059 times the price of the second book, according to Eisen’s analysis, which is posted in detail on his blog.

The other equation automatically set its price at 0.9983 times the price of the other book. So the prices of the two books escalated in tandem into the millions, with the second book always selling for slightly less than the first.

The incident highlights a little-known fact about e-commerce sites such as Amazon: Often, people don’t create and update prices; computer algorithms do.

Individual booksellers on Amazon and other sites pay third-party companies for algorithm services that automatically update prices. Some of these computer programs purportedly work very well, getting sellers up to 60% more sales because they underbid the competition automatically and repeatedly…

“It’s pretty much like the stock exchange. What you see there is the prices changing all the time — but they never change drastically. Sometimes it’s a dollar here a dollar there — maybe $10. For a book, it probably would be pennies.”

Often producing as much useless “value” as many of the computer trades made for hedge funds and mutual funds. All you can hope for as a retail investor is to focus on what you calculate is the real value of equity over time – and let the rest of the market spin wheels in artificial endless loops.

Our stock markets will not do anything about it. I doubt Amazon will do anything about the same absurdity in their own mosh pit.

There have always been two Androids. Lazy journalists – including myself – have called Google’s smartphone OS free and open source, but that’s never been the whole story. Google’s apparent decision last week to strictly control access to its Honeycomb tablet software puts a quiet division front and center, and it throws down a gauntlet that I would love to see open-source advocates finally meet.

Let’s get this “open Android” thing out of the way first. There are really two Androids. The first – let’s call it Android-O – is an open-source project that Google contributes a lot to. The second – Android-G – is a proprietary Google project that happens to frequently ingest and excrete open-source code.

At any given moment, the latest, hottest Android phones and devices are running the closed Android-G, not the open Android-O. That’s always been the case. Every new version of Android is introduced with Android-G devices, and eventually, once Google’s mind has moved on to other things, that code gets dumped out into the Android-O repository…

Google’s become unusually strict with Honeycomb, though, and that’s because the tablet market is very different from the phone market. The phone market has a shifting cast of minority players with different strengths. The tablet market, on the other hand, is dominated by one big gorilla: Apple.

The world is littered with the corpses of open-source mobile projects. Nokia’s Maemo, Intel and Nokia’s MeeGo, LiMo, OpenMoko, and TuxPhone have all failed in the market so far. Back in 2009, I said that “open source phones still fail” because wireless carriers don’t like the unexpected, dynamic nature of open-source projects.

But this time, I think the problem is different. Going up against Apple, the tablet leader, Google realized it needs an industry-leading UI and a consistent brand experience for Android on tablets.

And open-source projects, as is well known, have serious problems creating industry leading UIs. For one thing, open-source projects tend to attract hard-core programmers who love adding features, not visual visionaries. But possibly more importantly, a great end-user experience is often about editing – about making things fit to a consistent vision, which is much easier when there’s one consistent vision driving the project…

Read the rest of this entry »

China could overtake the United States as the world’s dominant publisher of scientific research by 2013, according to an analysis of global trends in science by the Royal Society. The report highlighted the increasing challenge to the traditional superpowers of science from the world’s emerging economies and also identified emerging talent in countries not traditionally associated with a strong science base, including Iran, Tunisia and Turkey…

“The scientific world is changing and new players are fast appearing. Beyond the emergence of China, we see the rise of South-East Asian, Middle Eastern, North African and other nations,” said Chris Llewellyn Smith, director of energy research at Oxford University and chair of the Royal Society’s study.

“The increase in scientific research and collaboration, which can help us to find solutions to the global challenges we now face, is very welcome. However, no historically dominant nation can afford to rest on its laurels if it wants to retain the competitive economic advantage that being a scientific leader brings…”

Projecting beyond 2011, the Royal Society said that the landscape would change “dramatically”. “China has already overtaken the UK as the second leading producer of research publications, but some time before 2020 it is expected to surpass the US.” It said this could happen as soon as 2013.

China’s rise is the most impressive, but Brazil, India and South Korea are following fast behind and are set to surpass the output of France and Japan by the start of the next decade.

The quality of research is harder to measure, so the Royal Society used the number of times a research paper had been cited by other scientists in the years after publication as a proxy. By this yardstick, the US again stayed in the lead between the two periods 1999-2003 and 2004-2008, with 36% and 30% of citations respectively. The UK stayed in second place with 9% and 8% in the same periods. China’s citation count went from virtually nil to a 4% share.

The overall spread of scientific subjects under investigation has remained the same. “We had expected to see a shift to bio from engineering and physics [but] overall, the balance has remained remarkably stable,” said Llewellyn Smith. “In China, [the rise] seems to be in engineering subjects whereas, in Brazil, they’re getting into bio and agriculture…”

Llewellyn Smith welcomed the internationalisation of science. “Global issues, such as climate change, potential pandemics, bio-diversity, and food, water and energy security, need global approaches. These challenges are interdependent and interrelated, with complicated dynamics that are often overlooked by policies and programmes put in place to address them,” he said.

Of course, another significant difference in the rate of growth in science around the world will be how the home nation, people and politicians, accept the science as a national treasure – and allot a portion of direction and leadership to the scientific community.

The processes we witnessed in the growth of the Age of Reason in the UK and Europe will very likely serve as models parallel to this new age. Except in the United States.

Cheryl Eckard, center – N.Y.TIMES photo by Gunther

A former quality control manager at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has received £61million, believed to be the largest ever reward for a whistleblower, after exposing a series of contamination problems at a drugs factory in Puerto Rico, and a subsequent cover-up by company bosses.

Cheryl Eckard, 51, will pocket the $96m share of a $750m criminal and civil settlement between US regulators and the British pharmaceuticals group. The case showed that the company repeatedly ignored serious failings, including allegations that staff were “skimming” drugs to sell them on the Latin American black market and that its factory had mixed drug types and doses in the same bottle.

Eckard first warned of the numerous violations after being sent by GSK to investigate problems in the group’s huge factory in Cidra, Puerto Rico, in July 2002, following a warning letter to the company from US health officials.

Over the next 10 months, she repeatedly alerted a string of GSK executives to a catalogue of breaches, only to be blocked and eventually sacked in 2003. In July of that year, Eckard phoned JP Garnier, the then chief executive, who declined to take the call to speak to her about the findings and the cover-up. Eckard, who is from North Carolina and is married with children, now works as a freelance consultant for the pharmaceutical industry…

Court documents show how Eckard was gradually sidelined, despite increasing complaints to a growing number of senior bosses.

I’m hard-pressed to comprehend companies that display this kind of pigheadedness. I’ve been peripherally involved with a few similar cases in major American firms – one of which resulted in an arrest – and time and again the fault lies with management that [a] refuses to believe that one of their peers could possibly be stupid, criminal or incompetent; and [b] they can’t believe that an ordinary mortal down in the bowels of the firm has turned up this foolishness – even with evidence staring them in the face.

I’m pleased as Punch to see a whistleblower rewarded. Especially after being harassed and fired for her efforts.

McNeil Consumer Healthcare has announced a recall of several popular over-the-counter remedies formulated for children and infants.

They include Tylenol, Motrin, Benadryl and Zyrtec, the company said. The recall applies only to liquid formulations designed for babies and children.

Uh, that’s scary enough.

McNeil said the voluntary recall is being done in conjunction with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration because of quality problems at a plant in the Dominican Republic. Some of the products may have too much of their active ingredients, some may have inactive ingredients that do not meet standards and some may contain tiny particles…

Consumers who have bought them are advised to stop using them.

No kidding!

Consumers with questions should call 1-888-222-6036 or visit the Web site www.mcneilproductrecall.com.

To sell a car in the 1980s, dealers had to do little more than open their doors, and loyal buyers would show up to trade in their Chevrolet for a new Chevrolet, or their Toyota for another Toyota.

Nearly four in five Americans were repeat buyers back then, staunchly faithful to brands that they knew, trusted and were part of their self-image. The allegiance often continued through generations of families, like party affiliations in politics.

Now, partly as a result of increasingly fickle consumer tastes and the industry turmoil in Detroit, that hard-won loyalty is largely gone.

So far this year, only about 20 percent of car shoppers stayed with the same brand when they purchased a new vehicle, according to a study by the Oregon-based firm CNW Marketing Research.

As a result, the industry is seeing the kind of churn it hasn’t witnessed since Japanese manufacturers began making inroads in the American market more than 30 years ago…

Just five years ago, Chevrolet and Ford sat comfortably atop the United States market, each with more than a 16 percent share. Chrysler had three brands — Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep — in the top 10.

Today, the Toyota brand leads the pack with slightly more than 14 percent, followed by Ford, Chevrolet, and the Honda and Nissan brands. The Chrysler brand and G.M.’s soon-to-be-discontinued Pontiac brand have fallen out of the Top 10 — replaced by two South Korean brands, Hyundai and Kia.

“Today, people are very focused on value,” said Jeremy Anwyl, president of the car-research Web site Edmunds.com…

That change in the marketplace goes back to the arrival of the Japanese. Now, other Asian manufacturers – soon to be followed by more – arrive with the same ethic.

There still are fools who prate about cheap Chinese this-or-that as they did about flimsy Japanese this-or-that. But, anyone who buys a brand-name TV set or computer has already made a decision that took them beyond politically-satisfying myths.

Google has unveiled a new version of its search engine which it says will be faster and more accurate than ever before.

The upgrade, which insiders have dubbed “caffeine”, was announced on Monday after the company opened up access to web developers. It is intended to replace the technology giant’s main search engine after tests have been completed.

Although little about the surface appearance of the new version has changed, engineers promised that radical changes behind the scenes would vast improvements for ordinary users…

The company claims that significant changes to the way the system works will improve the experience for users – although it will also send shockwaves through the community of marketers who try and optimise their results to appear higher up in Google’s index…

Caffeine allows Google to index the web at a higher pace – gathering more information and doing it faster – but the company’s search quality specialist, Matt Cutts, rejected claims that it was developed in response to the actions of rivals.

“I love competition in search and want lots of it, but this change has been in the works for months,” he wrote on his blog. I think the best way for Google to do well in search is to continue what we’ve done for the last decade or so: focus relentlessly on pushing our search quality forward.”

Whether the upgrade will have a significant impact on Google’s business has yet to emerge, but Martin McNulty, director of search marketing specialist Trafficbroker, said that it could give it a significant boost.

“Google’s Caffeine is undoubtedly faster, almost twice as fast at times. It’s like a Google Gti,” he said.

Rock on, Google!

Quality always supersedes speed on my own desktop. Add new speed as an additional quality and a winner becomes harder to catch.

SAAB Turbo-Hybrid E85 concept

General Motors has reached a tentative agreement to sell Saab to the Swedish sports car manufacturer Koenigsegg.

GM said that as part of the deal there would be $600m (£367m) of funding from the European Investment Bank (EIB), guaranteed by the Swedish government.

It is the latest part of GM’s reorganisation, which is also set to see the Opel and Vauxhall brands going to Canada’s Magna…

Koenigsegg produces 18 cars a year and employs 45 people, and there has been some doubt as to whether it has the expertise to run Saab, which sold 93,000 cars in 2008.

Saab employs about 3,400 people in Sweden and about 12,000 other jobs in the country are dependent on Saab and its suppliers.

But GM Europe’s president Carl-Peter Forster said: “Koenigsegg Group’s unique combination of innovation, entrepreneurial spirit and financial strength… made it the right choice for Saab as well as for General Motors”.

The Swedish government has been keen to avoid bailing out its carmakers as long as they are owned by US parent companies.

That’s no surprise is it?

Personally, I’d love to see the other half of the original dangerous duo from Sweden back on the streets and highways. SAAB has the world of experience, tradition of building solid, safe motor vehicles – often advanced because of their aerospace roots.