Supernova/TechCrunch 2007 Picks- connected innovators

Wize, Zing, Adapt-tv, Spock, Soda-head, Jangl, Critical Metrics, Cast TV, Adaptive Blue, Aggregate Knowledge, Pando Networks, ZenZui, ZapMeals are the 12, oops, yes there are 13, can you spot the fake?

From TechCrunch

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: They are fresh from college but not desperate for a job!

Eight engineering graduates from this state, known better for its thriving tourism industry, are looking to give jobs to people in their IT startup that is already being valued at around USD seven million.

This team of graduates, which actually shaped its destiny by setting up 'Torque' to provide IT solutions across verticals, now dreams of turning Kerala into the 'Silicon Coast' of India.

"I come from a middle class family. I don't have a big family tag to my name. The state has given me a good education. And, now I think, I have to pay (it) back," Torque CEO Sanjay Vijayakumar told media on asked about the inspiration behind the venture created a year before they left campus.

Obviously, the team also drew inspiration from Stanford University graduates, who helped the Silicon Valley in the US to become the metonymy for world hightech ventures.

Their brainchild Torque has in a short time grown into a pioneering technology business incubated company being currently valued at $5-7 million based in Technopark here.

"Our initial cash investment was Rs eight lakh raised by eight of us while we were in college some 18 months back," Vijayakumar said.
Read on: Young turks dream of a Kerala Silicon Coast

CNN Money -the 50 who matter most in biz, trends, and ideas.

Wet (and dedicated) Geeks at Hack Day London

Only in London does a programming conference get interrupted by a downpour of rain -- indoors.

Hundreds of geeks gathered for Hack Day London at the huge Alexandra Palace broke out umbrellas Saturday to stop laptops from getting soaked when rain poured in through the roof. A lightning strike had shorted circuits and opened the building's electronically controlled skylights.

From Wired, read more...

Real-Time Collaboration for the Web

Thinkature

IBM and Adobe?

Excerpted from Seeking Alpha Blog

IBM buying Adobe? The the rumor millers are getting creative these days. At present, ADBE has a market value of just under $26 bln vs. the market cap of IBM at $153 bln. Big Blue also has around $10 bln in cash on its balance sheet. So it is conceivable that IBM could engineer such a deal, but I find it hard to believe that ADBE management would sell out and find it harder to imagine how ADBE culture would mesh with IBM culture since I know IBMers here in the Hudson Valley and what's going on at Big Blue these days.

Incidentally, ADBE will post earnings Thursday evening. While press reports say the rise in ADBE today was due to optimism about earnings, the IBM rumor did indeed hit a number of trading desks that I'm in touch with. There's no doubt that ADBE will also post strong results tomorrow night. 36c is the Reuters consensus estimate for the bottom line, 730.1 mln is the top line estimate.

The better bet with ADBE is likely to go with the earnings story, and avoid speculating on the outlandish IBM for ADBE rumor.

From O'Reilly's Radar
Adobe had several major announcements today. They released the Beta of Apollo (now renamed AIR). Adobe also confirmed that AIR will be using SQLite as a local database (just like Google Gears). They began the process of opensourcing Flex and they pre-releases of Flex3 and FlexBuilder are available today.

I had the opportunity to speak with the Product manager of FlexBuilder, Steven Heintz. We discussed the announcements, Google Gears, and some of their new IDE extensions. Steven also pointed me to a Gears SQLAdmin tool that is built in Flex.

Here are some links about today’s announcements:

* Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR)
* Flex 3

Motley Fool forecasts strong Adobe
If you've ever done anything creative on a computer -- except perhaps writing fiction -- you've seen the content creation tools Adobe (Nasdaq: ADBE) makes a living out of. The company releases second-quarter earnings Thursday night, so we're checking up on this mighty, mighty software creator for you.

What analysts say:

• Buy, sell, or waffle? Thirty-one analyst firms follow Adobe. There are 21 buy ratings, 10 holds, and no sell recommendations. Our Motley Fool CAPS players have issued over 600 ratings on the stock, giving it a solid four-star rating.
• Revenues. Management guidance points to a $700 million to $740 million range, and the average Wall Street forecast says $728 million. That's 14% above the year-ago $635 million.
• Earnings. The official guidance zone ranges from $0.34 to $0.36 per share, and the analyst consensus falls exactly between the endpoints at $0.35 per share. That's up from $0.31 last year.

What management says:
In the last earnings report, CEO Bruce Chizen prepared us for what he called the biggest product launch in Adobe's history. More on that below. Chizen also said that he was "excited about our opportunities and bullish about our prospects for another year of strong performance."

What management does:
The slipping gross margins are hardly ideal, but they're acceptable in the light of tasty revenue growth. A similar bottom-line downtrend in margins was just reversed, but trailing dollar earnings have actually declined lately.

Read more

from Techcrunch

Adobe moved its new Apollo Platform forward this evening by releasing the beta version (the href="http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/03/18/adobe-apollo-launches-so-go-build-something/">previous Apollo release was a developer preview). They’ve also renamed the platform to Adobe Integrated Runtime. They’re referring to it as “Adobe AIR” (meaning Adobe is in the name twice, but who’s counting).

The new version fully supports HTML and Ajax, meaning Apollo applications can be created without using any Flash at all. They are also releasing an extension to Dreamweaver web development software.

Adobe is also now saying that AIR will be fully launched by end of year.

Akamai
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Previously, only Akamai and our customers had access to this information. Now we're opening that window into the online universe.

Place your votes

clipped from www.webware.com

Over 30 Indian Americans Named Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Finalists

clipped from www.indiawest.com Dipak Jain, dean of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., is among those named regional finalists in "Ernst & Young's Entrepreneur of the Year" awards for 2007. Most of the regions will have their awards dinners during the month of June to select regional award honorees - eligible for Ernst & Young's national awards. The state of New Jersey has the strongest representation of Indian American finalists - seven - with awards to be given June 21. Ranjani Posddar, president of Artech Information Systems in Morristown; Imran Shah of Princeton Junction, N.J.-based IBB Consulting Group; and Karmit S. Sidhu, vice president of business development at American Sensor Technologies in Mt. Olive, N.J.

Great business cards designs
From Creative Bits

For all Mac lovers/users
Fifty greast desktop widgets

India's richest man to build 60 story home

Clipped fromCore77 Blog

More details at Mumbai Mirror

Innovative Biz Card

Check out this lovely design for a business card that sprouts a miniature garden when you dip it in water:

The result was a business card that worked like a miniature house-plant, growing alfalfa or cress when dipped in water - a business card for 'another bloomin' designer'.

The logo was also cut into a 'seed stencil' that allowed the logo to be grown on either earth or lawn; on uncut grass, the message would remain hidden until the area was mown.

Clipped from Boingboing

Good news for Apple Admirers

Apple Outlet

Clipped from Core77 Blog.

Smugmug - The Ultimate in Photo Sharing

Adobe in India

Adobe for anti-piracy watchdog in India
Adobe Systems, the $2.6 billion San Jose (US) based desktop publishing software company, wants the Union government to create an anti-piracy regulatory body for a faster redressal system with a country-wide campaign to spread awareness among the people.

Sandeep Mehrotra, the country sales manager of Adobe, who was in Kolkata to announce the company's plans for the eastern region, said for every Adobe product, there are 8 to 9 pirated copies in India. Adobe plans to introduce its latest offering Adobe Creative Suite 3 product line in the eastern region.

"In the last one year, piracy in India has come down by one percentage point, which is not at all satisfactory. To make things more effective, we need a separate government body," Mehrotra said.

He said Adobe is bullish about the eastern region as there is growth in demand for books, magazines and newspapers. "We see more demand of our software products in the publishing industry," Mehrotra said.

Adobe has decided to tie up with educational institutes both at the school and college levels to provide tools and software to the institutes.

Ze Micro-Blog

In France, they call 'twitter'ing microblogging, making a twitter a microblog.

Lifehacker

Ten million hits a month- need I say more?

clipped from lifehacker.com Computers make us more productive. Yeah, right. Lifehacker recommends the software downloads and web sites that actually save time. Don't live to geek; geek to live.