Saturday, April 17, 2010

Chinese Language

In Singapore, long gone are the days where it is actually cool to speak in mandarin. Despite the government's effort to advocate the importance of the Chinese language in today's economy, people are still adamant about it.


Let me tell you guys what happened. At my work place for instance, people start to speak in English and then somehow, they would always go back to the topic on how their Chinese suck big time!


They will pronounce some Chinese words in an awkward fashion and laugh away later at themselves for being not able to speak proper Chinese. Then they will go about showing off how they did not speak their language for 2-3 years. Honestly, I don't think it's something worth bragging at all.


The most exaggerating one thus far is when this guy was telling us about how his mother told him that it is time to eat rice in Chinese. He said he could not even comprehend what his mother was saying for a few minutes, until he really sit down and figure it out, then could he break the arcane language.


Is it the degradation culture adapted from the West or is it our naivety that has gotten the better of us?


Why are we so embarassed of the language? And worst still, why are we so proud that we can't speak Chinese properly? Is it really necessary to go around bragging about how your Chinese sucks so badly that you can't even understand what the adults are talking about?


Sorry if you are one of them but I have you say this. It is not just shameless, it is humuliating.


Being not able to speak Chinese is appaling to me as a Chinese. Why must we be subservient to the Western culture and criticize our own? The essence of Asia is lost if you can't even speak in Chinese.


Yes, no doubt the China people are picking up the English language but do you realise that these people are professionals when it comes to the Chinese language?


One day when they are so adroit in the English language, they are going to trash us flat. It is then important for us to keep the lead by brushing up on our Chinese. In fact, it is of paramount importance for us to speak Chinese fluently and I'm not even exaggerating here.


Look at China now, they are great at almost everything from Mergers and Acquisitions to investments to being the biggest exporter in the world. They control the corporate world today and even the United States has to take a back seat on this one. By not being able to speak proper Chinese, you are just going to be taunted by the Chinese and they will definitely lose their respect for you!


I have a friend who is going to read Law in Oxford. His Chinese sucks real bad and he can't even speak properly but that's not the main point. The point is, he is actually taking up Chinese lessons and he is also planning to take an official Chinese exam in China later this year.


Looking at how determined he is to brush up his Chinese, I am definitely impressed.


If an Oxford lawyer is making the effort to master Chinese, then I don't understand why these people out there are degrading the Chinese language incessantly.


Or could it be the fact that they lack the foresight and intelligence?


No offence.

Friday, April 16, 2010

Neuromarketers

The days where those cliche old advertisements are no longer working. They no entice customers as they used to because now they aren't fooled so easily by visual effects anymore. They are more concerned about the value and the practicality of the product.


You have to satisfy their psychological needs on top of that as well.


But now, the marketers are changing their approach. They have moved into a field called the neuromarketing, which is known as a process that measures the consumers brain activity to help develop ads and products.'


The fearsome part is that they might know what the buyers want before the buyers themselve know what they want.




The tactic is making headlines for big business. Frito-Lay studied women's brains to help develop an ad campaign, and Campbell Soup (CPB, Fortune 500) just unveiled a packaging redesign based on consumers' "neurological and bodily responses" to different mockups.


But as many of you might have already forseen this. Yes you are right, this technology's cost is exorbitant and thus only firms with an advertising budget of more than 30 million can afford to play this game.


However, even though most of the research results are proprietary, it is not the case for some. For instance, academic institutions actually spend the money and offer the public the results they obtain from their research, it is also known as a form of peer review. Definitely a great opportunity to exploit since its free of charge anyway!


Not all the results are common sense just in case you guys are wondering if this technology is a waste of money.


For example, an appliance maker considering adding a new feature to one of its products conducted a focus group to ask women if they liked the new feature. Most of the focus group participants said they liked it, but by studying the participants' faces in detail, the company learned that almost 4/5 of the test subjects actually disliked the feature.



I'm sure most of you experienced this yourself too right? When you are told about something, the first facial expression you give is usually that similar of a disbelief and maybe disgusted look but once you calm yourself down, you realised that hey this is actually not a bad idea, in fact I don't mind at all!


Right? Try recalling some incidents where you regret saying no in the first place when deep inside, you really wanted it!


Remember, every little things count. The little additional information you get about the customers is in fact sacrosanct. It will make or break you and I'm not even exaggerating.


The age of information and taste and uniqueness has finally arrived and those that are unable to catch up will definitely be pulverized for sure in this fast-paced economy.


No Mercy!

Credits -cnn, -kasrl

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Lady Gaga's Telephone

Did you pick up Lady Gaga's telephone?


Ring ring, stop calling stop calling... that's what i usually tell the MLMs (Multi level marketing)





This is actually a continuation from Lady Gaga's Paparazzi video.


Without a shadow of a doubt, this has been yet another victory for Lady Gaga. Despite the many criticisms against her, saying that the video is controversial and that it depicts a wrong image of the prison, the juxtaposition of Lady Gaga and Beyonce is definitely unstoppable.





It has reined in media attention from all over the world and is on a row right now. This is possibly accredited to Beyonce and Lady Gaga's incessant fame throughout the past few months.


The 2 largest pop star of the century has collaborated to produce an incandescent music video that has rocked the Pop world once again!




A while back, there were rumours that MTV might ban the video. It has even placed in an awkward timeslot from 3am-9am.


Weird isn't it? Usually at this time, all the rock stars are asleep. But then again, it has garnered millions of hits as usual and that it is on its way to creating remixes already.




You have to love these 2 people because if you don't, you will be isolated and quarantined by their fans. It's huge and when i say huge, I mean GARGANTUAN !!!


Their fans are all over the world because they can relate to their fans and vice versa. They tell stories that are so close to every individual out there. The pain, the suffering, the humuliation, the discrimination, the taunting, the beaten up, the saddened, the emotional and of course the joy everyone is experiencing.


It has highlighted the nuances in life and the many troubles everyone is fraught with!




They are the epitome of stardom.


Enjoy the video below.







Credits -youtube

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Intel plans $3.5 billion investment fund

As mentioned above, Intel plans on a $3.5 billion investment on our posterity.



On prima facie, you might be wondering, why not invest in R&D or something?


Well, this comes down to the fact that human are our best form of resources and assets in business. Without the instrumental human talent, the company's development will be moribund and outdate.


They need an incessant influx of ideas to stay on top of the game, particularly in the technology industry
which is so fast-paced.


Firms including Advanced Technology Ventures, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Walden International have committed to "steer investments into technologies that will drive economic growth and job creation in the United States," Otellini said.


As you can see, they are moving into technology that drives job creation like I mentioned above and to stimulate economic growth.



Intel is renowned for the development of chips and processors. By investing more funds in the development of their niche, Intel will emerge as a fierce competitor to all the other players in the industry.


Right now, the economy is still recovering, in its covalescence stage so to speak. Nonetheless, companies are already looking into the possible options of expanding their operations. In turn, they need to retrofit their systems in order to compete more effectively with their competitors.


This is where Intel plays a salient role. That is to provide these companies with the high-performance systems that they need in the new era after this notorious economic crisis. Everyone is picking themselves up and are ready to move on.


In case you did not realise, a lot of companies have been conducting clandestine trainings vigorously during the past year. They did not just sit there and watch how the financial crisis tore their profits apart. Instead, they worked and trained and now, they are stronger than ever before.



All they need now is the apposite technology to support their plans to bring their companies to a whole new position in the field.


And Intel and other IT corporations are just doing that, to help them find the right technology they need by investing in the necessary fields of technology.




Credits -cnn, -robertson, -clabedan, -mystein

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Intel and AMD

As cloud computing and virtualization are gaining more recognition in this market.


Cloud computing lets companies to access computing power through a network instead of in-house data centers, while virtualization allows businesses to tap disparate computer systems on their premises or in hosted data centers as one network and tap into that computing capacity.


People are looking and scrutinizing the operations of processors and servers giants. This includes Intel and Advanced Micro Devices.



Intel has come up with a latest version of the Xeon processor that is both more secure and energy efficient. On the other hand, AMD has come up with a more powerful version of its Opteron server.


As you all know, the financial crisis is becoming obsolete, right now businesses are bucking up and ready to rock and roll. But the problem they have currently is that their systems are a little too old to function and to compete with the giant corporations out there.


Hence, the solution is of course to retrofit their systems and bring in new servers and processors.



Other than retrofitting their systems, a majority of the companies are looking into the long-term view. They are developing a strategy that will aid them in the long run and of course the systems they buy must complement their strategies.


Most of the companies are trying to cut down on the processors and energy consumed in order to construct a leaner system that will help lower the cost of production and naturally increase the amount of net profits made every year in order to be able to distribute more dividents to their shareholders, thus boosting their interest level.



So, the main point here is to hunt for systems that will be more energy efficient and at the same time, able to encapsulate all the data of the company in their own intranet systems, which should not be a problem at all for both Intel and AMD.


Storage spaces can easily be manipulated by them and it can be easily be increased by a few folds at one go.


The question then is to save as much energy as possible. We are now living in a green environment where we emphasised on corporate responsibility which is to say that we have to look out for the welfare of the people and environment around us.


By doing that, it is believed that money will naturally be a by-product of this process. People will trust the company and thus invest in it which in turn increase the cash flow of the company. That way, the company will be able to restructure more often and then it will be able to develope quicker and better.



All in all, Intel and AMD has managed to come out with more energy efficient systems just when the businesses out there are almost ready to change their systems.


Kudos to them and I wish them all the best and hopefully they will continue to innovate!

Credits -marketwatch, -apcmag, -redkernel, a-hec, -clipartof

Monday, April 12, 2010

China bonds

China's GDP growth for 2010 first quarter was 11%


In my opinion, the growth has been pretty stable and miraculously now that they are selling bonds (which they had not been doing since 2008), it just goes to show that they are actually gathering funds.


Why should they gather funds you might ask. China is already so rich!





Well there are 2 more prominent reasons, the first is to pay off the matured bonds coming this year and the second is to cushion the trade deficit that they will definitely experience. This is mainly because once they raise the interest rate, their currency strength will increase and their imports will surge while their exports will plummet!



Also their housing property asset bubble is going to burst soon and thus they need to assuage the damage by collating some funds to act as cushion to the forthcoming explosion.

 
In addition, the resource and financial shares have rose in Hong Kong partly due to the force exerted by China, it's apparently lifting the whole of the entire Asia market as it is the biggest export market for alot of Asian countries, i.e. Japan and Korea.
 
 
China is like a high tide and the rest of the countries are like surfers riding on the tide.
 
 
 
Right now, I believe that China is synonymous to a galvanising force that can obliterate anything that stands in its way. But how long can it dominate, that's the question.
 
 
When will it fall? That is the bigger question.
 
 
Let's stay tune and wait and see.
 
 
I guess the raising of interest rates is inevitable after all. At the end of the day, China has no choice but to capitulate as the world is scrutinizing her right now.
 
 
Credits -marketwatch, -alibaba, -betterphoto

 

Voyage de la Vie

The resident show Voyage de la Vie, which will debut on June 17, is a 90—minute made-in-Singapore production, combining gymnastic feats with original music.




The man behind the show has a portfolio of Rolling Stones concerts and Cirque du Soleil’s "KA", and he has crafted a production that celebrates Singapore’s unique East—meets—West personality.


Wow, Cirque du Soleil. How huge is that man! To have the man behind that show directing this production, it is like a dream come true.



You can actually watch his production from $48 to $188. Definitely a steal for such a touted show. Furthermore it will be premiered in Resort World Sentosa which is probably going to be a global icon soon.


The fame and glory will hit Sentosa in no time!



Voyage de la Vie tells the story of a young man’s quest to discover his destiny.



Many of us do not know what we really want in life. We merely follow the acerbic education path set out for us and eventually end up with an office job for the rest of our lives without having any purpose at all.


We lead a vacuous way of life, almost like a zombie.


So perhaps, by watching this production, you may be able to gain some precious insights on what you really want in life and how you, as an individual can make a huge difference and impinge upon your own life. At the end of the day, it is your life and you make the decisions.


Other than the amazing director, we have the amazing crew as well!



The show boasts of an international cast and crew, with more than 130 people from 16 nationalities. The producers of Voyage de la Vie said a Singaporean has been chosen to play the show’s lead.


How cool is that? Having a Singaporean playing the show's lead. It is definitely something to be proud of. He is acknowledge by the entire crew of 130 people. I believe that he must have received much accolades in his past performances to be able to snatch up such a pivotal role in this play.


Hence, we, Singaporeans should give our utmost support to them by getting ourselves tickets to the show.


To be honest, this is somewhat the kind of life I want to lead in the future.


Attending concerts, plays, films, meeting portentous people from all around the world. Exchanging experiences and experiencing their cultures. Leading the high life, prancing from countries to countries, enjoying good food and great fun at casinoes, theme parks, carnivals.


Hopefully my dream will come true. In the mean time, I will just have to work as hard as brain can bring me.





Credits -yahoo, -rwsentosa, -leannesheridan

Sunday, April 11, 2010

Taiwanese Lin Yu Chun

Yet another phenomenol youtube star


Enjoy





Credits -youtube

Hewlett-Packard Polycom

Under the agreement, H-P will offer Polycom's video conferencing and telepresence technology through the Palo Alto, Calif. giant's "unified communications and collaboration services" portfolio.




The two companies also agreed to joint efforts to make Polycom's technology inter-operate with HP's Halo telepresence technology.


With Polycom under the tutelage of HP's operational management style, it will definitely prosper in the future. HP is famous for its "HP Way" and it is the reason why it has managed to expand its operations so vastly within a short period of time throughout these years.


On top of that, HP has also been expanding its operations in other fields such as networking solutions. HP acquired 3Com for that very sole purpose of expanding its market share in China. Also, it is experienced when it comes to competition. It has fought IBM and Dell before naturally HP has the upperhand as compared to Cisco.



Nonetheless, Cisco is definitely a force to be reckoned with. Its vast operations in servers is powerful and its routers are impeccable. With these 2 major forces in place, they are guranteed a safe spot in the market and thus will not be easily eliminated for sure.


"This is in reaction to Cisco and Tandberg," Kaufman Bros. analyst Shaw Wu said of the H-P and Polycom announcement. "It looks like H-P is opting to partner instead of acquire."



"Any type of video collaboration is critical at this point in the market," Skoba said in a phone interview. "There's a clear benefit to launching this technology."
 
 
 
With the expansion of business worldwide, video conferencing is omnipresent now.
 
 
You see all the business people holding video conferencing every where. Even in movies, you see the military using video conferencing to communicate with one another. Remember the scene in 2010 where the global leaders held a united conference to think of a solution to counter the demise of the world?
 
 
It is only until today that it has been made so prominent, that everyone is actually taking note of it.
 
 
The world is changing. Information technology is taking over.
 
 
Credits -marketwatch, -ecsrd, -liquidmatrix, -techfresh

Justin Bieber One more time

Here's Justin Bieber again


Another top hit, One more time.


A great singer, no wonder so many accolades and encomiums have been showered upon him.


He deserve nothing nice.


Great voice




Credits -youtube