KACHARAGADLA

Competition in the smartphone market is getting hotter as major manufacturers are moving up the ladders of innovation and introducing path-breaking features. We told you in a previous report today that the  Galaxy S8 will get a 4K BioBlue display , which alone shows how innovative Samsung is. Meanwhile, Apple is preparing the iPhone 7, and recent leaks and rumors indicate that the phone may not be as unexciting as we were supposing it to be. But amidst all this humdrum, Microsoft seems to have disappeared from the scene completely, and the Microsoft Surface Phone is still nowhere to be seen. Thankfully, we have spotted some really exciting news about the smartphone today, and the information leaked is really amazing. The Chinese microblogging site Weibo, which is a regular source of major leaks and rumors, is full of new information about the Surface Phone today. According to the new details, the Surface Phone will come with the next-gen Snapdragon 830 processor, which is e

If someone quits the firm in Silicon Valley to start a company that ultimately crashes, it’s more than OK to go back to the old firm. Supervisors will celebrate the attempt as an educational rite of passage even if it failed. Why do Americans, especially in the Silicon Valley, tolerate failure in  startups  while Asians don’t and what makes some hardy people in Asia take the risk anyway? Answers matter because Asian millennials have launched sharing economy apps, a  solar energy firm  and even  venture capital  firms. But Asian startups lag the West in terms of valuations. That’s partly because the startup trend formed here relatively late in 2007 and began notably spiraling just a couple years ago. But “fail” is a four-letter F-word in Asia, discouraging aggressive pursuit of original, high-stakes new companies. Once a startup fails, their founders usually disappear in shame rather than lionizing the experience and trying again, Asia business hands say. That trend will ultimately

Young workforce in the State a major attraction, says official :  The State government plans to organise a road show in Japan in August-September to attract Japanese investments, according to Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu. He was addressing the second day of the Collectors’ conference here on Thursday. Though schedule has not been finalised for the road show, the government is planning to organise 3 to 4 days event to show case the investment opportunities in the State. The Chief Minister would interact with Japan Prime Minister Shinzô Abe, officials and industry captains. Mr. Naidu got an invitation from Yosuke Takagi, State Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry of Japan, who visited the Capital region recently. The Japanese delegation led by him visited the Capital city recently. They were “satisfied and convinced” with the development and opportunities here. The average age of workforce is about 55 in Japan compared with 28 in India. The manufacturing i

Seldom in industrial evolution do momentous changes occur rapidly, especially in industries like electricity that have been stable for decades. In electricity, we are at the brink of just such an inflection point. For students of industrial mutation, this is ‘whoopee’ time. Curiously, business schools and the economics profession appear to ignore the tectonic shifts. Creative Construction Joseph Schumpeter, in his classic  The Theory of Economic Development  (1934), noted that at the beginning of a new industry curve, there occur “a cluster of innovations.” New entrepreneurial businesses are formed based on them. Naturally, not all innovations take root; some startups flourish, others are abandoned, and yet others combine with complementary startups to give coherence to the emerging industry. Beyond the early phase of somewhat slow growth — the so-called latent market stage — at a critical point the industry growth rate accelerates, represented by an inflection point in the eme

Job growth in renewable energies is bucking the trends across the global energy sector, Adnan Amin, director-general for the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), said on May 25. According to a new report released by IRENA —  Renewable Energy and Jobs — Annual Review 2016  —  more than 8.1 million people worldwide are now employed by the renewable energy industry — a five percent increase from last year. “The continued job growth in the renewable energy sector is significant because it stands in contrast to trends across the energy sector,” Amin said in a statement. “This increase is being driven by declining renewable energy technology costs and enabling policy frameworks. We expect this trend to continue as the business case for renewables strengthens and as countries move to achieve their climate targets agreed in Paris.” The total number of renewable energy jobs worldwide rose in 2015, while jobs in the broader energy sector fell, the report said. In the U.S.,

The History of Domesticated Animals   was a course my really good friend took while attending Columbia University. Her tuition was $40,000 per year. She’s been out of college for almost 10 years, and still paying off the debt. She works at an accounting firm. Needless to say, that aforementioned course surprisingly hasn’t added any value to her current position, or any position she’s ever had in her professional career. Our education system is broken. There are countless entrepreneurs attempting to refine, disrupt and improve the broken model with online education, skill-based bootcamps and skill-based courses (including one of my projects,  Intangibly ). I recently spoke to two very impressive young entrepreneurs who are in my  Facebook group . Mind you, they’re also brother and sister, and on their second business. Brendan and Ashley Eapen are the founders of  In/Spree . After speaking to them, I told them that I was writing this column, and asked them to give their insights

User-generated content is the riskiest of all marketing strategies because of the obvious potential for negative comments. But if done right, it will pay off more than any other type of content marketing. A tech-savvy and social-media-focused audience appreciates the realism, the contributions of their peers, and the opportunity to be part of the conversation. Even with the inevitable (but hopefully infrequent) user rant, organic user reviews, commentary and conversation are the foundation of the most successful campaigns.  1.  Give your customers a voice. It’s naturally tempting to try to maintain absolute control over every piece of content that mentions your brand, but consumers know the difference between SEO article spam and meaningful content. Increasingly, consumers are more interested in seeing what other consumers have to say than they are in reading your own self-promotional puff pieces. Consumers no longer want to be told what to think -- they want to be part of the