New age of learning

Technology is redefining the scope of learning . Just in time learning is become more common place. The human society is moving in a lighting speed to a zone where learning would become as pervasive as it can. In future we could have robotic angels who would deliver us whatever we want to learn at any point of time.

Until we reach there, there is WiZiQ, an educational auction service from Educomp, which helps teachers to offer there services to the students. Its free . Earlier there was dimdim which had also the integrated conference framework which was also free, compare to WebEx .I have used WebEx , I have used DimDim and also WiZiQ . I could only say the things are really getting better and better, in the syncrhonous elearning space .

Lately , there was also concept of Semantic learning and Mobile learning . I published a research proposal on semantic learning 2 years back , when people where not talking about semantics so much as it is now . The paper was published by idealist.

http://www.ideal-ist.net/Countries/IN/PS-IN-406/?searchterm=PS-%20IN-406

At, that point , I conceived about the same angel, who would, deliver us whatever we want to learn at any point of time, through the semantic web reskiller.

Australia and Newzealand experiences currency rebound

The Australian and New zealand dollars rallied against the U.S. and Japanese currencies after the U.S. government agreed to take over American International Group Inc. to save it from collapse.

The South Pacific currencies, favorites of so-called carry trades, rose as the government agreed to lend as much as $85 billion to the country's biggest insurer and Barclays Plc, the U.K.'s third-biggest bank, agreed to acquire the North American investment-banking unit of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.

With the AIG news this morning and the Barclays news make the International market,a better risk environment,which led to the recovery Aussie and kiwi currencies.

The Australian dollar rose 1.2 percent to 80.04 U.S. cents at 5:05 p.m. in Sydney from 79.08 cents late in Asia yesterday. It climbed 2.8 percent to 84.70 yen from 82.38 yen yesterday.

The New Zealand dollar gained 1.9 percent to 66.43 U.S. cents from 65.21 cents late in Asia yesterday. It bought 70.29 yen from 67.91.

The currencies rose amid reports that the AIG agreement will avert a failure that could have threatened more financial companies and added to chaos in world markets.

The New Zealand dollar yesterday dropped to the weakest in more than four years against the yen and Australia's slid to a 2 1/2-year low as a global stocks rout curbed demand for the nations' higher-yielding assets.

The New Zealand dollar rebounded off its lows in line with the recovery in U.S. equity markets amid hopes that government authorities will take action to prevent a systemic failure of the banking system.

The Australian currency has fallen 19 percent against the dollar since reaching a 25-year high on July 16 and 17 percent versus the yen.

Global growth expectations are being revised down a bit and so are expectations for many commodity prices, and our currency is usually affected by changes in sentiment there'.

Interest rates are 7 percent in Australia and 7.5 percent in New Zealand, making them favorites with investors seeking higher returns.

Still the Bond market seems to be failing in Both Australia and NewZealand.

In carry trades, investors get funds in a country with low borrowing costs and invest in another with higher interest rates, earning the spread between the two. The risk is that currency market moves can erase those profits.

Australian government bonds fell. The yield on the 10-year note rose 12 basis points, or 0.12 percentage point, to 5.57 percent. The price of the 5.25 percent security maturing in March 2019 fell 0.942, or A$9.42 per A$1,000 face amount, to 97.485. Bond yields move inversely to prices.

New Zealand's two-year swap rate, a fixed payment made to receive floating rates, rose to 6.89 percent, from 6.8 percent yesterday.

The Trend of Mass customisation in Apparel Industry

The Apparel industry is going through a new phase of mass customization by using web technologies . The user can design his own apparel and t-shirts and whatever he wants to wear. The new trend is to switch from mass production to custom-fit (personal) production.

Using this method, manufacturers can rapidly produce models with the customer's body measurements. Internet based models are used to help customers and manufacturers for custom-fit production. Customers can generate different models using reusable components that are provided from related apparel manufacturer via the Internet. Customers can also easily take their body measurements with this tool.

The idea is to prepare user-friendly software for having customer's own designs with proper body measurements in their houses via personal computers and other communication appliances. To create a cost-effective solution in custom-fit (personal) production, Internet infrastructure is proving itself the best choice.

Market Research ; The Building block of a Business Plan

Last year in Octobor, I was into a TiE Networking meet in kolkata. I met a fellow gentleman who raised financed few days back ,at that point of time . He made a very interesting remark about why some business plan are funded and some are not .

He mentioned that normally a business plan made by an entreprenuer is inside-out, which articulates an entreprenuer passion, over the vision of his business. So, it talks about his aspiration to start a business, and which oppurtunity he can handle comfortably. However , in general, the plans which are funded are opposite way . The funded plan talks about a market oppurtunity first, and then elaborates it, and justifies that how the said business could comfortably, handle the market oppurtunity.

I cannot agree with him more . This is the reason , I think Market Research, is the building block of any business plan . Infact , it is orginal research ( known as primary research) which creates orginal data, can show the reliabile justification to the investor, that how the business could make a difference with his money, and give him 5x-10x return.

Doing Business in India

Recent World Bank Study on "Doing Business 2009" has ranked India 122 on the ease of doing business . The rank of India has increased by 2 points, from the earlier rank of 120 in 2008.The report mentions that India significantly reformed on the trade between borders and usage of information technology on providing citizen services.

More regulatory reforms were recorded worldwide between June 2007 and June 2008 than in any previous year, according to Doing Business 2009. For the fifth year in a row, Eastern Europe and Central Asia led the world in Doing Business reforms. Once again, Singapore tops the rankings, followed by New Zealand, the United States, and Hong Kong, China.

This year's top reformer is Azerbaijan.It improved on 7 out of 10 of the indicators tracked by DB and moved up 64 slots in the overall rankings.