Life at Googleplex!

It's hard to figure out, for first time visitors to Googleplex located at 1600, Amphitheatre Parkway, Mount View California, if the campus they are in is a hi-tech hotbed or a play school.

Googleplex is the headquarters of the Internet economy titan, Google. There are red, green, yellow, purple and orange coloured soft toys scattered around on a red couch placed on a distractingly multi-coloured carpet.

A two-seater plane is suspended mid air and a toy T-Rex close by seems to be hunting a toy flamingo. It’s almost unimaginable that the cutting edge technological innovation half the world seems to fear can be born in an atmosphere of such puerility. But then, Google is hard to figure out.

Over the last few years Google has consistently topped several ‘best employer’ surveys globally to the extent that its number one billing is now taken for granted.

The company’s carefully assembled university campus like environment -- lava lamps, massage chairs, free gourmet food courts -- has been the subject of saturation media coverage.

But despite its much-lionised and benign corporate credo ‘Do No Evil’, and a self-projected work culture that would appear to border on bohemian anarchism, Google gives media and technology giants from Redmond to New York to Minato sleepless nights. For the conspiracy theorists, Google’s takeover of the world is imminent.

James Monroe, Paris Hilton, Obama, Ciroc, Sura Zuri Mccants, and Lift Magic are names that randomly scroll across a giant LCD screen in the lobby of Google’s California headquarters.

A shiny piano stands alongside. “These are most popular searches happening around the world at this moment," the Google visitor’s guide informs.

Googleplex, as one discovers, is a labyrinth of LCDs. A little ahead, more giant screens display some of the most cutting-edge work that’s currently transpiring inside the company’s laboratories.

An innovation by the name of Gmail would’ve run across this very LCD back in 2004, one of the many outcomes of Google’s HR initiative -- ‘The 20 per cent time’, which requires Googleites to spend a 20 per cent of their time on projects that interest them, unrelated to their day jobs.

One of the LCD screens shows a trend-analyser which plots a nation’s GDP against its average life expectancy. Another LCD screen displays what is considered Google’s coolest recent invention.

Colourful little dots emerge out in streams from a rotating digital earth. The dots, representing real time searches, rise from the earth’s surface towards outer space. The colours of the dots -- red, blue and green -- denote the languages in which Google searches are happening at this very instant.

There are two land masses from where no colour dots emerge -- no prizes for guessing that those are Antartica and the Artic Circle where there is still no PC penetration.

The third screen shows a haze of circles -- floating randomly and cris-crossing each other. “This are what patterns in a computer’s mind will look like if it starts -- well, dreaming like humans,” we are told.

“So what is it like working for Google?” we ask an employee, who’s busy posting personal photographs on an office notice board. Google’s notice boards, and even its glass doors, are a free-for-all; Amitabh Bachchan, Rajnikanth and Chiranjeevi peer down at you from various soft boards in the office. “It’s great fun”, says Tan Chade Meng, a software engineer at Google.

Well said, but push employees for a more detailed response and most times the answer would revolve around food. The food culture at Google is institutionalised and everything from M&Ms to fresh fruit juices, colas and pretzels are free. If vending machines are too prosaic, there are specialised foodstations “Charlie’s Grill” , “Back to Albuquerque” , “East Meets West” and “Vegheads”.

The only foodies that have a hard time at Google are the chocaholics; vending machines charge you by the number of calories a bar of chocolates contains.

But if the calories come gratis so do the workouts. Strewn in the hallways are all-terrain bicycles and exercise balls. There’s a workout room with weights and a rowing machine, and foosball, whirlpool and roller hockey matches happen twice a week at the parking lot.

Googlers can shoot pool while taking a break in one of several employee lounges. Also, employees can take an afternoon volley ball break.

How many 'brains' your PC has?

SAN FRANCISCO: Just how many "brains" does your personal computer need, anyway? Not that buying a PC was ever as easy as, say, buying a toaster or an electric toothbrush, but the companies that make the electronic brains, or microprocessors, for PCs today have managed to make it even more complicated.

It used to be that Intel Corp, the biggest maker of chips that are the central computing engines of PCs, and rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc would sell to PC makers versions of the same chip that run at faster speeds.

As far as consumers were concerned, Intel made Pentium chips and AMD made Athlon chips. Yet that hasn't been the case for a while now, and in the last few years, the choices facing consumers when they go to buy a PC have mushroomed.

With computer games becoming more mainstream and more people making and editing digital pictures and home movies, PCs can now boast microprocessors with two brains, four brains, and soon, even more.

But does the average Joe really need such souped-up chips?

"It's an interesting question," said Tim Bajarin, a long-time technology analyst and consultant with Creative Strategies. "If the basic issue is productivity like Web browsing, word processing and e-mail, you don't need all that much. A dual-core processor is good enough."

f I only had two brains
Dual-core processors have two brains instead of one. Intel sells dual-core Pentium and Core processors, as well as quad-core chips for more demanding PC uses such as editing high-definition video of a family vacation or intensive games.

"When you actually break it down, the base processors like 1.3 to 1.6 gigahertz are more than enough," Bajarin said, noting the basics are fine if you're watching a YouTube video or a network TV show online, though the video quality won't be anything like a regular TV, let alone high-definition TV.

AMD's website invites visitors to compare its different microprocessor offerings: The AMD Phenom, Athlon and Turion chips. All of those come in varying clockspeeds, or how fast a chip will perform the instructions or tasks it's given.

On Intel's website, once you navigate past seemingly simple introductory pages, you find 11 different basic products from which to choose, including the Core 2 Extreme, Core 2 with Viiv technology, Core 2 Quad, Core 2 Duo, Pentium dual-core and Celeron processor. And those are just the desktop versions.

"The reason we got into a multi-core world was not because we needed more and more cores to do the computing work, but because Intel and AMD had run out of room to increase the frequency on the processor," said Endpoint Technologies analyst Roger Kay.

Before Intel and AMD started selling chips with two or more cores, they had simply cranked up how quickly the transistors -- the tiny switches that make up semiconductors -- could turn on and off to process computing tasks.

But as chips ran at higher and higher frequencies, the processors began using too much power and generating too much heat inside cramped desktop and notebook PCs.

So now consumers choose from different dual- and quad-core offerings (AMD even sells a processor that has three brains). And prices for PCs from brand name companies now range from $300 to $4,000 and more for a high-end extreme gaming PC.

With that sort of variety, PC makers like Dell Inc and Hewlett-Packard Co and the processor makers have responded by placing all the different types and speeds of PCs into three basic categories that you can think of as every day computing, some performance and lots and lots of performance.

"What you've got is basically good, better and best, but the PC makers don't like you to call it that," Kay said. For those who want to surf the Web, watch online videos, store music and photos, watch movies, do word processing and e-mail and keep a home budget, a PC with a dual-core processor from either AMD or Intel should do the trick, analysts said.

But consider spending more for a quad-core system if you plan to edit HD video you've taken with your HD camcorder, have a budding musician in the family who likes to mix digital music tracks, or are into the latest hard-core video games that are especially taxing on processors and video graphics chips.

"This particular question goes back almost to the beginning of computing: You basically try to buy the most computing power you can afford, with the understanding that you can expect applications will continue to get better," Bajarin said.

UPA, Left afraid of elections: BJP

NEW DELHI: The hard political reality is that the ruling United Progressive Alliance and its supporting Left parties are afraid of elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party said here on Friday, while describing the “political theatre of the absurd” that has been played out in public over the last couple of weeks.

Party spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad said the recent political manoeuvrings by the Samajwadi Party smacked of political opportunism. “The UPA began as an anti-BJP platform and it had now degenerated into the worst kind of opportunistic alliance that was also trying its best to ward off the spectre of an early Lok Sabha election,” he added. Neither the UPA partners nor the Left wanted to face immediate elections, he commented.

The party scoffed at the Left for wanting to work out modalities of withdrawal of support when everyone knows what the modalities were. “It has become clear that the supporting Left parties are now looking for a date for withdrawal of support. As soon as they do that the Manmohan Singh government will be in a minority. Political morality demands that the Prime Minister should seek a trust vote at the earliest.”

Mr. Prasad commented on the “absurdity” of the Samajwadi Party apologising to Congress president Sonia Gandhi nine years after it had declined to give her the support she needed to replace the then Vajpayee government.

He lashed out at the SP for declaring that the BJP was its political enemy number one. He said such a stance was “anti-democratic … We have ruled at the Centre for 6 years and the BJP is in power, with or without allies, in 12 States. We have reached this milestone because of the support of the people. They [the SP] will not succeed in halting the BJP’s march forward.”

Mr. Prasad noted that the adverse effects of the political uncertainty, generated by the UPA-Left stand-off, on governance were being felt by the people. “The government is paralysed. Important decisions that need to be taken are not being taken. Foreign policy has become hostage to communal politics and in coming days inflation will rise to 13 to 14 per cent,” he said. The government in fact had run out of ideas on how to control inflation, which had now reached 11.62 per cent. The BJP hoped the people would give a drubbing to the UPA whenever elections were held.

Left sets July 7 deadline

NEW DELHI: Political activity on the India-United States nuclear deal continued to be on high pitch on Friday with four Left parties setting a July 7 deadline for the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government to clarify if it will be seeking the approval of the safeguards agreement by the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

The deadline coincides with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s departure to Japan for the G-8 summit.

Letter to Pranab

The Left sought the clarification in a letter to the External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, who is the convener of the UPA-Left committee on the nuclear deal. The Left parties took the decision at a meeting that lasted more than an hour.

The letter was signed by the general secretaries of the four parties – Prakash Karat of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), A. B. Bardhan of the Communist Party of India, Debabrata Biswas (Forward Bloc) and T. J. Chandrachoodan (Revolutionary Socialist Party).

Reading out the letter at a press conference at the CPI(M) headquarters, Mr. Karat said:

“Various pronouncements are being made by leaders of the ruling coalition and some Union Ministers that the government is going ahead with the nuclear deal.

“We wish to know definitely whether the government is proceeding to seek the approval of the safeguards agreement by the Board of Governors of the IAEA. Please let us know the position by July 7, 2008.”

All-India campaign

Mr. Karat said they decided to launch an all-India campaign from July 14 to explain to people their opposition to the nuclear deal, disapproval of the government’s refusal to take appropriate measures to tackle high inflation and price rise.

“The Left parties will staunchly expose and oppose the efforts of the BJP and its allies to whip up communal polarisation with a view to gaining political and electoral support. The Left parties appeal to all other secular forces to join us in this endeavour,” a joint statement issued after the meeting said.

Later, CPI national secretary and MP D. Raja told reporters that the Left had been “reasonable.”

Congress reaction

PTI reports:

Reacting to the Left deadline, Congress spokesman Abhishek Singhvi said sovereign governments or political parties could not be subjected to deadlines.

“We are working towards triple objectives – to do a nuclear deal in the national interest, to carry along our allies with us for that purpose and to go to elections as per the constitutional schedule,” he said.

Sarath Babu, a mealion dollar baby

Humble beginnings seldom pay. But E Sarath Babu will not buy that. For this 28-year-old, rags-to-riches is not just another adage. It’s his very foundation of success. From a slum in Chennai to the top echelons of academia with an enrolment in chemical engineering at BITS Pilani and IIM-A, and now as the steward of his Food King Catering business, Sarath has come a long way. His humility perhaps made him reject several high-brow offers from MNCs after his MBA. That, in a way, was the genesis of Food King Catering—with a paltry Rs 2,000 seed money.

Today, his food business spans six locations with a Rs 9-crore turnover to boot and set to clock Rs 20 crore by year-end. For Sarath, his mother, who once sold idlis on the pavements of Chennai and worked as an ayah, is a pillar of strength. “Her sacrifice eggs me on,” says Sarath. Apart from bringing up four children, Sarath’s mother worked as a cook for the mid-day meal scheme for 11 years and got paid just a rupee each day.

Having completed SSLC, she moved on to teach under the same scheme for five years. Even then, her salary was insufficient. So Sarath’s mom sought refuge in the food business to supplement her meager income. As she rolled dough in the form of idlis, dosas, bhajjis and appams, it was Sarath’s job to sell them in the neighbourhood. “For kids living in a slum, idlis for breakfast is something very special,” says Sarath even to this day.

A natural entrant to the food business with acquired acumen in childhood, Sarath has trained his sight higher. From the current 250 people, he’s aiming to recruit 2,000 people by next year, “and probably, 5,000 in the next two years”.

Initially, his catering business, with two units in Ahmedabad, was Rs 2,000-per -day in the red. “But I burnt the midnight oil literally to get a solution,” Sarath says. It’s worth a mention here that Sarath spent most of his childhood in the dark, without electricity. He focused on volumes rather than spartan servings, and started taking contracts from institutions and companies.

To bag an order, Sarath even slept on the platform of Mumbai’s railway station. “That’s one of my finest nights I’ve ever had,” Sarath reminisces. Today, Food King is targeting 100 clients, including 50 top institutions and 50 corporates for the snacks business — South Indian, North Indian and Chinese food.

Food business is not just about selling but also taking care of quality and the people associated with it, Sarath points out. He now envisions FoodKing’s Palace (food malls) across cities where all kinds of Indian food would be served at “economical rates”. And how does he manage his team? “I ask them to write their dreams on a piece of paper and advise them to think of developing themselves,” says Sarath.

Is he really worried about inflation or price-rise in food products? When most of the restaurants have increased their prices, Sarath sees an opportunity to serve at a cheaper price. “Sourcing from one place makes a lot of difference. I will tap this opportunity,” says Sarath. Today, he drives a Chevrolet to take his mother for a ride to oversee his business units in Chennai. “Next, I want to build a house for my mother,” says Sarath.

No summer jobs available for Indian students in America

WASHINGTON: Indian grad students studying in the US are finding the summer hard.

Those who chose not to go back to India for the summer break, hoping to get summer jobs, are finding that for the first time there are no jobs...not even in grocery stores and fast food eateries.

Employers cut 62,000 jobs in the month of June as soaring fuel prices and a slowing economy forced companies to reduce costs.

The US Department of Labour reported that the economy has lost about 438,000 jobs since the beginning of the year. The unemployment rate was at 5.5 per cent.

Amar, a sophomore student at George Washington University, realized that he could not stay in DC this summer and went home to Karachi.

He eatery he was working in the downtown area shut down when the owner was unable to make his lease payment.
"The collapse of the housing bubble is slowly sinking more and more sectors of the economy," said Dean Baker, co-director of the Centre for Economic and Policy Research.

The Labour department report states that 5.4 million Americans, about 3 per cent of the workforce were working part time either because their hours had been cut, or because they could not find full time employment.

Charles Page, a real estate agent in Centerville, Virginia once sold 5-6 million dollar homes. In barely a year, he has gone bust and now works for a realty company, that too part time.

The political criticism of the economy has been bipartisan.

Senator Obama said yesterday " The American people are paying the price for the failed economic policies of the past eight years, and we can't afford four more years of the same."

Not to be outdone by the Democratic candidate, Senator John McCain said: "We must enact a jobs-first economic plan that supports job creation, provides immediate tax relief for families, enact a plan to help those facing foreclosure, lower health care costs...."

Across the political spectrum, there is concern growing into a near panic that the there is need for a more aggressive action by the federal government to prod economic growth.