Time and again Google has been questioned for improper and unethical hosting of the sponsored ads in search query. This time around it has been questioned for hosting advertisement for prenatal sex determination in India. According to Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act (PNDT) of India, any entity indulging in sex determination advertisement is liable for imprisonment and fine. There was lot of hue and cry over this matter in the upper house of Indian Parliament. So much so that one of the Indian politician Brinda Karat has demanded the  arrest of Google India chief and ban on Google search in India. WTF? Also, in 2008, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo had been sued by Indian Supreme Court for showing ads on sex selection. Here what Google has to say about the latest allegations

In India, we do not allow ads for the promotion of prenatal gender determination or preconception sex selection. We take applicable legal requirements extremely seriously and take prompt and effective action in case a violation is reported to us.

This is not the first time Google is in the line of fire for advertising related issues. I just thought of putting together top five breakdown of Google Ads i.e a failure of Dynamic keyword insertion. Disclaimer: I am not about to say that Google is evil but I am stressing on the fact that they need to fix their algorithm. I know this is very tough as different countries have different laws and rules but Google is a global company now and they have certain responsibility to show. Here is my list (mind it its hilarious)

Jack Dorsey, the man behind the idea of Twitter has unveiled his new start-up Square which can transform physical credit card payment system. He launched the company by posting a tweet (Obviously).

What is Square?

The basic idea of Square is that it will let anyone with a web-connected mobile phone (iPhone)  accept credit payments on the fly. Basically, it will help individuals to pay each other (without hard cash or checks).  Square is a device or dongle with magnetic card reader (acts as a credit card machine) which plugs into mobile headphone jack. Also the mobile phone must have the app of Square installed in it. When a credit card is swiped  through the device, it reads the data and sends it to the Square application on the phone. From there the data is send to the back-end servers for further processing and authentication of the user. The profile of the Square owner is attached to the bank much like the system of Paypal. The payer will sign the screen with a finger and also receives the receipt in their email inbox (Saves Paper). It also has an extra layer of security which involves authenticating the photo of the payer.

Michael Arrington has just now reveled on TechCrunch that CrunchPad is dead. It’s tragic end to the dreams of Michael Arrington, as the tablet computer Crunchpad is in the Deadpool now. Crunchpad died before its arrival. The device was scheduled to be launched on 20th November at Real-Time Crunchup Event and there were already 1000 devices on the pre-sales.

By the way what was CrunchPad? It was an internet consumption gadget (much like a Apple’s Upcoming Tablet). The device was supposed to boot directly into the browser (Firefox).  CrunchPad project was started in July 2008 with the aim to build a simple web tablet for just $200. But, by the end of the July there were rumors that CrunchPad would cost around $400.

The  unfortunate end to CrunchPad is not due to some technical issues or financial problems but the end is a result of greed, jealousy and miscommunication as told by Arrington. Crux of the story- Partner company Fusion Garage no longer wanted to go along with TechCrunch and wanted to sell CrunchPad on their own, under their own banner. Arringoton says that both TechCrunch and Fusion Garage hold the intellectual property of CrunchPad and TechCrunch solely holds the CrunchPad trademark. So, TechCrunch plans to file multiple lawsuits against Fusion Garage and its stake holders. (Read the full melodramatic story here in detail by Arrington). The nature of the law suites is yet to be made public.

We will continue the Windows 7 Vs Mac OS X series. According to Net Applications (a web measurement firm) Windows 7 now holds a market share of 5.07%, which is little higher than the total market share of all versions of Mac OS X (combined). Mac OS X stands at 5%. The statistics are for the last week i.e. Nov 15-21. Due to the launch of Windows 7, the total market share of Windows (all versions) has now increased by 0.12% i.e. from 92.52% in October to 92.64% last week. I don’t know whether this is a good or not so good news for Microsoft.

Why good news? As Windows 7 has surpassed its nearest rival Apple in a matter of just one month.

Why not so good news? When you look at the market share of all versions of Windows for the month of October it stands at 92.52%. Out of massive market share of 92.52%, only 5% of users have actually upgraded their Windows machine in a month (that also include new buyers of Windows 7 machine). This is despite the fact that about 70 % of users are still running the age old Windows XP. Why aren’t XP users shifting to latest version of Windows – Windows 7? If you want to take out an inference out of these stats then well… Windows 7 is moving forward (no doubt about that) but not so fast.

What comes to your mind when you think of a geek? Specs, badly dressed, beard, messy hair…in short not so cool and attractive. But the Nude London Tech Calendar is going to brainwash your notion. The Nude London Tech Calendar is an initiative which brings together top 24 (geek guys and chicks) Internet entrepreneurs from UK to pose (strip) for a charity in India. The photos are being captured strategically making use of laptops and wires to cover up some areas. You can get more about their sponsors from their Ning Group. Milo Yiannopoulos, the brainchild behind the calendar has to say this

I wanted to dispel the notion of Internet entrepreneurs as being “unattractive geeks”, as well as raise money for charity.

Hermione Way age 24 (photo below) who runs techfluff.tv who stripped for this calendar has something to say

I have no regrets – the pictures are great. It was loads of fun for a good cause and I hope we raise lots of money.

Apple has found way to make you watch compulsory ads, which you can’t skip even if you want to. In a recent patent filled by Apple in the United States reveals of a technology that will give out commercials, which will freeze the system and force the consumer to watch or listen to the ad (View Patent here). This is not all, there is more to it. The technology will also require users to prove that they have in fact watched the ad by answering questions related to adverts or by pressing certain combination of buttons in order to resume what they were doing before. Imagine a situation when you are listening to your favorite Nirvana number on iPod or iPhone while traveling, suddenly the visual ad pops up and start playing around and you have no option but to listen to the ad. Why Apple is doing this? This technology will help in reducing the cost of Apple products by sizable amount and thereby increasing their market share in all their product-line. Who will not buy iPhone at a cost of Nokia N97?

Apple Fan boys- you can’t get bigger than this. Microsoft’s Partner Group Manager Simon Aldous has said on record in an interview with PCR that Windows 7 is inspired by its arch-rival Apple’s Mac. It was not new to us as Microsoft always tries to follow the footsteps of Apple but saying it openly is suicidal.  I want to produce a snippet of what he really said

What we’ve tried to do with Windows 7 – whether it’s traditional format or in a touch format – is create a Mac look and feel in terms of graphics. We’ve significantly improved the graphical user interface, but it’s built on that very stable core Vista technology, which is far more stable than the current Mac platform, for instance.

Was it a slip of tongue from Simon or is he planning to move into Apple? We all know that some of the features of Mac OS X have been taken by Windows 7 for instance Windows 7 taskbar and Mac OS Dock are alike (this is just one of them).

Microsoft has taken almost no time in disowning Simon and clearing the air. In the blog post titled how we really designed the look and feel of Windows 7 Microsoft says

An inaccurate quote has been floating internet the Internet today about the design origins of Windows 7 and whether its look and feel was “borrowed” from Mac OS X.  Unfortunately this came from a Microsoft employee who was not involved in any aspect of designing Windows 7.

Last week we reported about one of the vulnerabilities of Facebook being pointed out by a developer and there is one more coming this week but this time it is being highlighted in a subtle way. A group calling themselves as Control Your Info have hacked or taken over (as explained by the group itself) around 300 Facebook Groups by taking advantage of one of the major design flaw of Facebook. After hacking the Facebook group they are changing the name of the group to Control Your Info (and not any vulgar names). They have posted everything on their website about the way and their intention of doing this.

First of all what’s the flaw all about? Any Facebook user can create Facebook group and the person who created it becomes the admin of the group. If by any chance admin has left the group, anybody can take-over as the admin of the group and do whatever he/she wants to do with that group. Facebook doesn’t have the any sort of mechanism to automatically elect new admin from within the group. Take for example the most active member of the group can be made the new admin (my way of choosing admin). I am little bit skeptical on the capabilities of Facebook testers as this is the basic functionality or may be this is how Facebook intended to have this feature.

It is just a matter of one blog post that is changing the whole ecosystem around Social Networks and can go a long way in removing the scams presents in these social networks. It’s a fight of a blogger against the companies who scam on Social Networks like Facebook and Myspace and create a bad user experience. It’s a story of how a blogger may have instigated the process of replacing a CEO from her place. Bloggers are often  criticized that they write things out of their limits and create controversy just to gain some traffic. I am not at all disagreeing with this point because there are always some bad elements in any setup but the whole community can’t be blamed for this. People some times over look that journalism is there to regulate things and act as a watch dog. It is there to help people differentiate between a good guy and a not so good guy.