So then, Sachin Tendulkar returns home stuck on 99 international hundreds! Laid low by an inflamed big toe on his right leg, the veteran of 22 summers of international cricket was forced to prematurely end what can be termed an eminently forgettable English sojourn.
The paeans and tributes can remain in cold storage until he returns to action, possibly against England again at home, to renew his quest for the elusive mark.
Tendulkar’s fortunes on this cursed tour ran parallel to India’s abject surrender in the Tests. Stung by defeat after defeat and hurt by one injury after another, the Indians lost more than they gained from this high-stakes series. Coming on the back of some of the most consistent cricket they have ever displayed in the last two years or so, the number one-ranked Test team was dethroned in the most comprehensive manner possible by the hungry hosts. Their first whitewash in over a decade not only saw Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s unbeaten streak as captain in a Test series end, but also pushed his team to third spot in the rankings table.
In perhaps India’s worst collective batting show in recent memory, Tendulkar’s form was a reflection of India’s unending woes with the bat. Having skipped the West Indies tour to rest his tired limbs, the 38-year-old spent the later part of his break training in London. To begin with, there was as much hype about the four-Test series as about his much-awaited 100th century. Already the owner of many batting records, this was going to be the most significant of all his feats, the crowning glory so to say.
With each passing day and innings, however, the milestone remained as distant as an Indian win. Scores of 34, 12, 16, 56, 1, 40, 27 and a scratchy 91 in the final innings at The Oval rounded off one of his most wretched trips. In the past too, the right-hander has endured personal failures and was even booed at his beloved Mumbai, but his poor run this time was exacerbated by the team’s humiliation. Mostly, there was genuine affection and love when the audience gave Tendulkar a standing ovation each time he came in to bat and returned to the pavilion, but there was also an inevitable smirk at some corner or the other every time he returned without fulfilling what he set out to do.
Just as how India were denied a potential first win in the Chester-le-Street one-dayer, maybe it was destiny’s way of telling the little master that his 100th ton wasn’t meant to be on this tour.
There is no doubt that sooner rather than later, Tendulkar will get there and may rediscover himself in a new avatar, like he has done previously in his career whenever he has been written off. Anil Kumble, in his retirement speech, famously said: “Throughout his career, Tendulkar had to prove people right, and I had prove people wrong.”
Since his debut as a chubby 16-year-old in 1989, Tendulkar has more often than not lived up to the expectations of millions of his supporters. Irrespective of a snide remark here and a cynical view there, he will continue to remain the most loved cricketer.
A young British-Indian who had come to watch the second one-dayer best illustrated what Tendulkar means to cricket. After news filtered through that Tendulkar was out of the series, the disappointed kid told his parents, “... But what’s the point (of going to the match) if Sachin is not playing?!”
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Campus placements begin, IT cos to hire 2.5 lakh
Tech titans have kick-started their campus recruitment process. On plans are to recruit nearly 2.5 lakh engineering graduates from across the country's campuses this year. Last year, offers were made to nearly 2 lakh students.
Campus recruitment, which usually happens in the last semester, has been advanced to the seventh semester this year. Consequently, tech companies have started visiting campuses in the past few days and have started issuing offer letters.
TCS has issued offer letters to 702 students of Thiagarajar College of Engineering in Madurai, 515 students of Velammal Group of institutions, 500 of Sairam Group of Colleges and 645 of RMK Group of Instuitutions, all in Tamil Nadu. Cognizant has offered jobs to 807 students of Anna University's Guindy campus, Chennai, and 703 to students from PSG College in Coimbatore.
Cognizant also offered jobs to 500 students of Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra, Ranchi. Accenture has signed offer letters for 417 candidates from Sona College in Salem. Wipro has offered job letters to nearly 700 students of Amity.
"When we saw the situation created by the US debt deal we thought it would impact placements. But it has not reflected in the placements in our college. It has been better than last year, with 642 students being recruited this year while TCS absorbed 477 of our students in 2010," said Sivagnana Prabhu, head of training and corporate affairs, RMK Group of Institutions. "The students are usually asked to join around July or August. Our students have not faced delays in previous years, so we don't expect them to happen this year either," he said.
Andhra Pradesh leads the supply side of students with nearly 2 lakh a year, followed by Tamil Nadu with a 1.8 lakh students. Karnataka and Maharashtra supply about 80,000 students a year to the job pool. Most of the companies were not willing to confirm the offer letters or their recruitment plans citing confidentiality.
"This year the industry will ensure good recruitment numbers as we started the process in the seventh semester itself. This will result in good input for the industry. We are also witnessing interest from a lot of emerging companies to recruit from campus," K Purushothaman, regional director, Tamil Nadu, Nasscom said. Smaller and niche IT companies like Thoughtworks, muSigma, Robert Bosch have also joined the campus rush this year.
Pay packages offered by companies will, however, remain at last year level of Rs 3 lakh to Rs 3.25 lakh a year for these engineers. "We are not revising that this year," an industry official said.
"Cognizant has kick-started its hiring across campuses in India. Being the fastest growing consulting and IT services company, Cognizant continues to aggressively hire fresh graduate talent from premier institutions.
It's widely acknowledged that faster the company growth, faster the career progression of an individual. Cognizant demonstrated this in the previous promotion cycle where we promoted over 30% of our global workforce. This performance and promise has helped Cognizant get slot 1 in pretty much all the premier campuses we recruit from, helping us attract the choicest from among the best," said Shankar Srinivasan, chief people officer, Cognizant.
Campus recruitment, which usually happens in the last semester, has been advanced to the seventh semester this year. Consequently, tech companies have started visiting campuses in the past few days and have started issuing offer letters.
TCS has issued offer letters to 702 students of Thiagarajar College of Engineering in Madurai, 515 students of Velammal Group of institutions, 500 of Sairam Group of Colleges and 645 of RMK Group of Instuitutions, all in Tamil Nadu. Cognizant has offered jobs to 807 students of Anna University's Guindy campus, Chennai, and 703 to students from PSG College in Coimbatore.
Cognizant also offered jobs to 500 students of Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra, Ranchi. Accenture has signed offer letters for 417 candidates from Sona College in Salem. Wipro has offered job letters to nearly 700 students of Amity.
"When we saw the situation created by the US debt deal we thought it would impact placements. But it has not reflected in the placements in our college. It has been better than last year, with 642 students being recruited this year while TCS absorbed 477 of our students in 2010," said Sivagnana Prabhu, head of training and corporate affairs, RMK Group of Institutions. "The students are usually asked to join around July or August. Our students have not faced delays in previous years, so we don't expect them to happen this year either," he said.
Andhra Pradesh leads the supply side of students with nearly 2 lakh a year, followed by Tamil Nadu with a 1.8 lakh students. Karnataka and Maharashtra supply about 80,000 students a year to the job pool. Most of the companies were not willing to confirm the offer letters or their recruitment plans citing confidentiality.
"This year the industry will ensure good recruitment numbers as we started the process in the seventh semester itself. This will result in good input for the industry. We are also witnessing interest from a lot of emerging companies to recruit from campus," K Purushothaman, regional director, Tamil Nadu, Nasscom said. Smaller and niche IT companies like Thoughtworks, muSigma, Robert Bosch have also joined the campus rush this year.
Pay packages offered by companies will, however, remain at last year level of Rs 3 lakh to Rs 3.25 lakh a year for these engineers. "We are not revising that this year," an industry official said.
"Cognizant has kick-started its hiring across campuses in India. Being the fastest growing consulting and IT services company, Cognizant continues to aggressively hire fresh graduate talent from premier institutions.
It's widely acknowledged that faster the company growth, faster the career progression of an individual. Cognizant demonstrated this in the previous promotion cycle where we promoted over 30% of our global workforce. This performance and promise has helped Cognizant get slot 1 in pretty much all the premier campuses we recruit from, helping us attract the choicest from among the best," said Shankar Srinivasan, chief people officer, Cognizant.
6 reasons hackers are in great demand
One way to defeat the enemy is to win it over. Big tech firms are tackling the menace of hacking by hiring some of their peskiest hackers. Here's the proof:
* Facebook hired Sony PlayStation hacker George Hotz
* Apple hired jailbreak app developer Peter Hajas
* Google grabbed Nintendo Wiimote hacker Johnny Chung Lee
* US government hired old-school hacker Jeff Moss
* Facebook took on board Facebook worm creator Chris Putnam
* Facebook hired Sony PlayStation hacker George Hotz
* Apple hired jailbreak app developer Peter Hajas
* Google grabbed Nintendo Wiimote hacker Johnny Chung Lee
* US government hired old-school hacker Jeff Moss
* Facebook took on board Facebook worm creator Chris Putnam
Cloud computing: Doubts persist
Eran Feigenbaum knows a thing or two about risk. He moonlights as the TV and stage magician "Eran Raven," known for stunts involving snakes, scorpions, and razor blades. He once played Russian roulette with nail guns on the NBC show Phenomenon, and in August he did a five-day run at Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas.
That pedigree serves him well in his day job as director of security for Google's business applications, where he's responsible for convincing corporate risk managers of the safety of cloud computing.
Working in computer security requires "a hyperawareness" of risk, he says, "the same as when you're on stage performing with nail guns." Cloud computing has become one of tech's biggest buzzwords. These services, offered by Google, Microsoft, Amazon.com, and dozens of others, offer computing power over the Internet as an alternative for companies that have traditionally bought their own fleets of giant server computers.
The approach has won fans among corporate software developers and rank and file employees who like having access to documents and programmes from any device at any time. Corporate policy makers, though, have yet to fully embrace the cloud, fearing that the services may compromise proprietary data.
A survey by researcher IDC found that fewer than a third of IT executives feel the benefits of cloud computing outweigh its risks. Nearly a quarter of the 500 executives surveyed said they don't fully understand the regulatory and compliance issues in cloud computing, and 47% say cloud services present a security threat.
Companies that don't understand the risks "just shouldn't use cloud computing," says IDC analyst Phil Hochmuth. "The potential for asecurity breach or a compliance violation can be high." David Bodnick is seeing the change first hand. "The risks of the cloud have been particularly salient for a few of our clients," says Bodnick, president of WebIntensive Software, a New York company that develops online applications for dozens of customers such as LexisNexis, the United Nations, and Columbia University.
One WebIntensive client, a search engine called Startpage, didn't want to use a cloud service because it feared its data might remain on remote servers, and Startpage promises customers that it won't store their Web-search history.
A health-care information company let WebIntensive incorporate cloud storage into its application, but only if patient information were encrypted, which boosted the cost by 15%.
That pedigree serves him well in his day job as director of security for Google's business applications, where he's responsible for convincing corporate risk managers of the safety of cloud computing.
Working in computer security requires "a hyperawareness" of risk, he says, "the same as when you're on stage performing with nail guns." Cloud computing has become one of tech's biggest buzzwords. These services, offered by Google, Microsoft, Amazon.com, and dozens of others, offer computing power over the Internet as an alternative for companies that have traditionally bought their own fleets of giant server computers.
The approach has won fans among corporate software developers and rank and file employees who like having access to documents and programmes from any device at any time. Corporate policy makers, though, have yet to fully embrace the cloud, fearing that the services may compromise proprietary data.
A survey by researcher IDC found that fewer than a third of IT executives feel the benefits of cloud computing outweigh its risks. Nearly a quarter of the 500 executives surveyed said they don't fully understand the regulatory and compliance issues in cloud computing, and 47% say cloud services present a security threat.
Companies that don't understand the risks "just shouldn't use cloud computing," says IDC analyst Phil Hochmuth. "The potential for asecurity breach or a compliance violation can be high." David Bodnick is seeing the change first hand. "The risks of the cloud have been particularly salient for a few of our clients," says Bodnick, president of WebIntensive Software, a New York company that develops online applications for dozens of customers such as LexisNexis, the United Nations, and Columbia University.
One WebIntensive client, a search engine called Startpage, didn't want to use a cloud service because it feared its data might remain on remote servers, and Startpage promises customers that it won't store their Web-search history.
A health-care information company let WebIntensive incorporate cloud storage into its application, but only if patient information were encrypted, which boosted the cost by 15%.
Sunday, September 4, 2011
Apple puts older Final Cut Pro back on sale
Apple has put an older version of its Final Cut video editing software on sale, after complaints that its replacement was not good enough for professional work.
Final Cut Studio, which includes Final Cut Pro 7 is available for £834 through the company's telephone sales line.
Its recently introduced Final Cut Pro X received mixed reviews, with editors criticising the removal of key features
Apple has said it is simply clearing stock of the old software.
However, many in the editing world have taken it as a sign that the company is finally responding to the criticism.
"It's really good news all round. I don't know what people would have done over the next year otherwise," said Ben Franklin, head of post production at London-based Spectrecom.
"Final Cut Pro X just doesn't seem to fit within the way we work, so we have to make the decision, do we stick with it or do we look elsewhere like Avid or Adobe Premiere Pro."
It is understood that major production houses and some broadcasters have also lobbied Apple directly about the current version.
Unprofessional?
Among the criticisms levelled at Final Cut Pro X were its inability to communicate with some professional edit suite equipment, and incompatibility with certain file formats from older versions of the software.
On the Mac app store, the product received almost as many one star reviews as five star.
"Can't conform frame rates. Can't confirm/set pixel aspect ratio. We make TV ads, and this is unusable for our workflow," wrote Jonathan Flek.
Reviews of Final Cut Pro X on the Apple App store were mixed
"So many essential functions missing for production, it is staggering," added Dermot Faloon.
But a user called Severedfingers said: "Far from dumbing down... in my opinion the software is now significantly more advanced in the way it handles the timeline."
The £199 download has consistently proved to be one of the best selling items on the App store, suggesting that Apple was expanding Final Cut's audience to include some consumer and so-called "prosumer" customers.
In a statement, an Apple spokesperson told BBC News: "As we've done before with many end-of-life software products, we have a limited quantity of Final Cut Studio still available through Apple telesales to customers who need them for ongoing projects."
Spectrecom's Ben Franklin was not convinced by that explanation.
"I don't know, prior to this if they have ever gone back on anything," he said.
When BBC News contacted Apple's telesales department, it was told that the end date of Final Cut Studio availability was unknown.
Google's Eric Schmidt rates Apple's Jobs as 'best' CEO
Steve Jobs was "probably the best" company boss in 50 or 100 years, said Google chairman Eric Schmidt.
Mr Schmidt, a former Apple board member, handed down the praise in an interview at a technology conference.
He said Mr Jobs deserved the praise because he built Apple into a powerful corporation not once, but twice.
The assessment puts Mr Jobs ahead of other American industry giants such as oil magnate John D Rockefeller and car maker Henry Ford.
Ongoing health problems forced Steve Jobs to resign as Apple chief executive on 24 August. He continues to serve as the company's chairman.
Steve Jobs has been ranked alongside great business leaders including Henry Ford
The resignation ended a 15-year stint at the head of Apple which saw Mr Jobs turn it into the most valuable company in the US by stock market valuation, ahead of oil giant Exxon.
Mr Jobs' first term as head of Apple lasted from the late 1970s when the company was founded until 1985. During that time he drove Apple to become a significant force in the home computer industry.
He resigned after losing a boardroom battle over the future of the company.
Since then he has introduced the iPod, iPad and iPhone, all of which have redefined their respective markets, as well as making huge amounts of money for Apple.
Mr Schmidt made his comments during an on-stage interview at Salesforce.com's Dreamforce conference.
Apple defends itself after pollution allegations
Apple has defended its environmental record after allegations that some of its suppliers are polluting in China.
The technology giant said that it was committed to the highest standard of social responsibility.
The comments come after a report by Chinese environmental groups claimed a number of Apple manufacturers were discharging harmful pollutants.
Chinese companies have often been criticised for focusing on output rather than environmental issues.
The report by the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs (IPE) and other non-governmental environment groups also said that one factory in the city of Taiyuan emitted irritating gases and residents had reported difficulty opening their windows.
In response, Apple told the BBC's Michael Bristow that the company had a tough code of conduct for all its supply firms and it audited many of them.
But a company report released earlier this year found dozens of suppliers across the world were mishandling dangerous chemicals.
More than 100 workers were contaminated at one Chinese plant.
Environmental groups say China does not have sufficient rules in place to protect the environment and Apple is taking advantage of that.
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