Facebook’s Biggest By-Product – Envy

Bangalore: With the abundance of information on the social media, we can find out where the hottest girl in the college spends her weekends and who the coolest hunk in the campus is dating. But a recent study conducted in Germany shows that such information comes at a price. When we see pictures of people who are beyond our friend circle, partying in a beach or dancing at a happening club in the city we often feel that their lives are much more entertaining or better than ours.

The study “Envy on Facebook: A Hidden Threat to Users’ Life Satisfaction?” by Humboldt-University Berlin, Germany, shows that such an open forum with access to a whole plethora of information leads to “social comparison and envy on an unprecedented scale.” Most of us would notice our friends who are very active on the social media forum saying, ‘I got 100 likes on my status today and people posted such nice comments.’ While you smile and say to yourself, ‘I’ve got a big hammer at home I’d like to smash your head with, I got only two likes and my sister is the only one who commented on my profile picture!’

We are getting lost in this field filled with likes, shares, and comments. The most popular guy in college is no longer in the college basketball team, he is the one with the best pictures on Facebook, no matter how bad he is in sports or academics. Most of us put so much of our time in updating and maintaining our social profile for a handful of people that we neglect the other portion of our life – reality. Ever heard your friend saying, ‘I’m feeling damn good today, the cute girl from my class liked my picture,’ or ‘such a horrible day man, got only five comments today and that ugly ramu got 50 likes!’ our lives are governed by the satisfaction we receive from the positive reaction of our peers on social media platform and the comparisons we make in order to feel worthy.

Former Microsoft exec says CEO Ballmer culls internal rivals to retain power

(Reuters) - Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) Chief Executive Steve Ballmer is not the right leader for the world's largest software company but holds his grip on it by systematically forcing out any rising manager who challenges his authority, claims a former senior executive who has written a book about his time at the company.

"For Microsoft to really get back in the game seriously, you need a big change in management," said Joachim Kempin, who worked at Microsoft between 1983 and 2002, overseeing the sales of Windows software to computer makers for part of that time. "As much as I respect Steve Ballmer, he may be part of that in the end."

As a senior vice president in charge of a crucial part of the company's business with direct access to co-founder Bill Gates, Kempin is the most senior former Microsoft executive to write a book critical of the company, which is famous for the loyalty of its ex-employees.

His criticism echoes that of investor David Einhorn of Greenlight Capital, who called for Ballmer to step down in 2011.

Kempin left Microsoft under a cloud in 2002 as some of the aggressive contracts he crafted with PC makers were seen as fodder for the U.S. government's antitrust prosecution of the company, which started in 1998 and was largely resolved by 2002.

His book, titled 'Resolve and Fortitude: Microsoft's "secret power broker" breaks his silence', is scheduled to be published on Tuesday. He talked with Reuters by phone on Monday.

DEFEND THE THRONE

Kempin charges Ballmer with purposefully ousting any executives with potential to wrest him from the CEO seat, which he has occupied since 2000.

He said he saw the process first with Richard Belluzzo, a former Hewlett-Packard (HPQ.N) executive credited with launching the Xbox game console who rose to chief operating officer at Microsoft but left after only 14 months in the post, in the same year Kempin left.

"He (Belluzzo) had no room to breathe on the top. When you work that directly with Ballmer and Ballmer believes 'maybe this guy could someday take over from me', my God, you will have less air to breathe, that's what it comes down to."

Microsoft representatives declined comment. Attempts to reach Belluzzo were not successful.

Several leading executives, touted by outsiders at one time or another as potential successors to Ballmer, have left the company in the last few years, most recently Windows unit chief Steven Sinofsky, who departed in November.

Before Sinofsky, Windows and online head Kevin Johnson went to run Juniper Networks Inc (JNPR.N), Office chief Stephen Elop went to lead phone maker Nokia Oyj (NOK1V.HE), while Ray Ozzie, the software guru Gates designated as Microsoft's big-picture thinker, left to start his own project.

"Ozzie is a great software guy, he knew what he was doing. But when you see Steve (Ballmer) and him on stage where he (Ozzie) opposed Steve, it was Steve's way or the highway," said Kempin.

Kempin said he spoke to Ballmer around two years ago and expressed his concerns about his management style and direction of the company, but has seen no changes since. He said he sent Ballmer and Gates copies of his new book but has yet to get a reply.

"Steve is a very good business guy, but make him a chief operating officer, not a CEO, and your business is going to go gangbusters," said Kempin. "I respect that guy (Ballmer), but there are some limitations in what he can and can't do and maybe he hasn't realized them himself."

MISSED OPPORTUNITIES
In his book, Kempin writes about how Microsoft foresaw the major moves in technology in the last decade, but bungled its entry into tablets, phones and social media, ceding leadership in the technology world to Apple Inc (AAPL.O) and others.

"They missed all the opportunities they were talking about when I was still in the company. Tablets, phones...we had a tablet going, we had tablet software when Windows XP came out, it was never followed up properly," said Kempin.

He also claims the decline of PCs is partly due to Microsoft's mismanagement of hardware makers, an area that Kempin oversaw at Microsoft.

"Just think about the insult of Microsoft coming out with a tablet themselves, trying to mimic Apple, and now they are going to come out with a notebook on top of it," said Kempin, referring to Microsoft's Surface RT tablet and soon-to-be-released Surface running Windows Pro.

Several PC makers went public with their unease about Microsoft's decision to make its own computers last year.

Kempin reserves his most pointed criticism for Ballmer.

"Is he a great CEO? I don't think so. Microsoft's board is a lame duck board, has been forever. They hire people to help them administer the company, but not to lead the company. That's the problem," said Kempin.

"They need somebody maybe 35-40 years old, a younger person who understands the Facebook Inc (FB.O) generation and this mobile community. They don't need this guy on stage with this fierce, aggressive look, announcing the next version of Windows and thinking he can score with that."

Google explores password alternatives, plans smart rings or USB-based cards

With Internet deepening its roots in our lives, the dependency on stronger and more complicated passwords has grown more than ever. However, most of us have multiple e-mail IDs, social networking accounts and for other online activities. Remembering long and different passwords for all IDs is quite painstaking. Search engine Google has now decided to resolve the problem by introducing a smart ring or a USB-based cards that can confirm users identity online.

In a paper that is going to be published in IEEE Security & Privacy Magazine this month, Google's VP of Security Eric Grosse and Mayank Upadhyay will be revealing the alternatives users may have for passwords in the near future.

The duo has also provided Wired a preview of their paper, which illustrates the option to use a cryptographic card from Yubico to log into Google services such as Chrome, Drive and Gmail. Wired in its report pointed out the Google engineers had to modify Chrome in order to get the cards working. But after the modification, no other installation was required. This means users can register with one click.

"We're focused on making authentication more secure, and yet easier to manage," says a Google spokesman in a statement. "We believe experiments like these can help make login systems better."

It's notable industries that handle secure information have been using authentication tokens to log into work accounts. But service providers such as Google have been using 'password' approach.

The paper also talks about the other options such as a “smart ring” or a device that would authorize a new PC with one tap. These devices will ultimately ease up burden of remembering passwords.

"Others have tried similar approaches but achieved little success in the consumer world," say Google officials. “Although we recognize that our initiative will likewise remain speculative until we've proven large scale acceptance, we're eager to test it with other websites."

“The future may not exactly be password-free, but it will at be least free of those complex, hard-to-remember passwords”, says Grosse. “We’ll have to have some form of screen unlock, maybe passwords but maybe something else, “but the primary authenticator will be a token like this or some equivalent piece of hardware.”

Canada may have to review future RIM handset unit sale

(Reuters) - The Canadian government might have to review any sale of BlackBerry maker Research in Motion Ltd's (RIM.TO)(RIMM.O) handset business to a foreign buyer, Industry Minister Christian Paradis told Reuters on Tuesday.
Asked if he would allow such a sale to a foreign company, Paradis said: "It's speculation and each decision on each case is based on its own merit, so it would premature for me to speculate on any of these kinds of cases.

"So if something was going to occur, then we would have to determine if it was reviewable or not, depending on the threshold (of the value of the transaction), and then we go with the net-benefit test."

He was referring to a provision in the Investment Canada Act that requires the government to determine whether certain foreign investments in Canada are of net benefit to the country.

The markets have gained renewed excitement over RIM because of its new BlackBerry 10 operating system and because Chief Executive Thorsten Heins said its strategic review could potentially lead to the sale of its handset business.

"We hope to see RIM remain a global leader and player, and make sure it can grow organically," Paradis said by phone from Germany, where he is meeting with industrial leaders to promote Canada as a place to invest and to learn how they innovate.

Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper told Reuters last February that he wanted to see RIM grow "as a Canadian company." He singled out hostile takeovers and bids for what he described as "critical technology" companies as ones that Ottawa might block.

On a separate topic, Paradis said the government did not intend at present to lift foreign ownership restrictions on Canada's large telephone companies.

In March it eliminated foreign ownership restrictions on telecommunications carriers with a market share of 10 percent or less. But the rules remained for large companies including BCE Inc (BCE.TO), Rogers Communications Inc (RCIb.TO), Telus Corp (T.TO) and Shaw Communications Inc (SJRb.TO).

For such companies, foreign ownership is limited to 20 percent of voting shares and indirect control to 46.7 percent.

He said if Canada were to change rules for the large telecom carriers, it would get tangled up with separate rules on broadcasting companies, which are required to have a minimum of Canadian broadcasting content.

"This is not in the cards of our government to go further down this road as we speak," he said.

(Reporting by Randall Palmer; Editing by W Simon and Jeffrey Benkoe)

Corporate, income tax rates to stay

Companies and individuals fearing higher tax rates in view of a high fiscal deficit may rest easy as the forthcoming budget is unlikely to give them taxing times.

With government deficits hovering around record levels and inflation nearing double-digits at home, and most countries
in the world feeling the slowdown pinch, investments are drying up. To improve sentiments, the government is unlikely to tamper with corporate and individual tax rates in the budget, government sources said.

Finance minister P Chidambaram has already underlined the need to follow a tax-friendly regime and a non-adversarial tax administration to raise the tax-to-GDP (gross domestic product) ratio in the country, which is currently around 10% .

A number of think-tanks and policy advisors have proposed that the rich should be taxed more, but the government is not keen on this approach.

"The finance ministry at this point is not going to try new structures especially in taxes as the focus would be to draw investment, even though there have been several proposals suggesting that certain tax rates need to be revised upward in order to boost revenues," an official source told HT on  condition of anonymity.

The government has set a target of reducing fiscal deficit to 4.8% of GDP by 2014. The current year's target is 5.3%. According to the roadmap, fiscal deficit would be brought down to 3% by 2016-17.

The government is looking at several ways to bring down expenditure while boosting revenues. The finance ministry is also likely to set a higher disinvestment target of over Rs. 40,000 crore for 2013-14 against Rs. 30,000 crore set for the fiscal year 2012-13.

Global credit rating agency Moody's has maintained its sovereign rating for India at Baa3-— the lowest investment-grade rating — with a stable outlook.

Slowdown may hit salary hikes

With the economic slowdown hitting business plans, those engaged in the financial services sector that includes commercial and investment banks are set to get about 6-9% pay hikes for the next fiscal  year compared to about 10-15% given in the previous year.

“The quantum of hike in almost all cases will be in single digits, though the process of appraising employees has just started,” a senior executive working in the human resource (HR) department of an MNC bank said.

The going has been tough for several companies including high profile banks due to the global slowdown led by uncertainty in the US and European markets. Many have also announced job cuts to reduce operational costs.

“We are expecting meagre hikes, there is huge stress on costs and sentiments are still low,” said a mid-level executive at HSBC who did not wish to be identified.

Industry insiders said that the days of hefty hikes which went up to as high as 20-25%  for commercial and investment bankers during 2000 to 2007 could well be a thing of the past.

“Firms today are getting realistic about salary hikes and in most cases, the organisations want to bring it down to a sustainable level,” Dev Bharat, director, Executive Access India, a HR firm said.

202 mn people worldwide likely to be jobless in 2013: ILO

Five years after the global financial crisis hit, unemployment numbers continue to soar, with a record 202 million people worldwide expected to be officially jobless this year, the International Labour Organization said on Tuesday.
  
Last year saw a clear resurgence of the
crisis, the UN's labour body said in its annual report on global employment trends, pointing out that jobless numbers rose by four million to 197 million in 2012.
  
"This figure means that today there are 28 millions more unemployed people around the world than they were in 2007," before the crisis, ILO chief Guy Ryder told reporters in Geneva Monday.
  
Last year's unemployment number inched up towards the all-time record of 199 million reached at the epicentre of the crisis in 2009, but "we will beat that record in 2013", an ILO expert told AFP.
  
In fact, another 5.1 million people are expected to join the jobless ranks this year, bringing the total number to more than 202 million.
  
That number is expected to rise by another three million in 2014 and should hit 210.6 million by 2017, ILO said, adding that the global unemployment rate was expected to stay steady at 6.0% until then.
  
"The trends are very much (going) in the wrong direction," Ryder said, lamenting a "noticable worsening of the unemployment situation around the world".
  
The impact of the economic crises on the global labour market had in many cases been worsened by incoherence between monetary and fiscal policies and "a piecemeal approach" to the problems, especially in the eurozone, the report said.
  
"Weakened by faltering aggregate demand, the labour market has been further hit by fiscal austerity programmes in a number of countries, which often involved direct cutbacks in employment and wages," it said.
  
At the same time, "labour force participation has fallen dramatically ... masking the true extent of the jobs crisis," ILO said, pointing out that 39 million people dropped out of the labour market altogether last year as job prospects became increasingly gloomy.
  
Young people have been especially hard-hit by the expanding jobless trend, the UN agency said, pointing out that there are currently some 73.8 million youths, aged 15 to 24, without work worldwide.
  
"And the slowdown in economic activity is likely to push another half million into unemployment by 2014," the report cautioned.
  
Last year, the global youth unemployment rate stood at 12.6%, and it was expected to rise to 12.9% by 2017, according to ILO.
  
"The crisis has dramatically diminished the labour market prospects for young people, as many experience long-term unemployment right from the start of their labour market entry," the UN agency said, adding that it had never seen anything similar during previous downturns.
  
Today, around 35% of all young people on the dole in advanced economies have been out of work for six months or longer, up from just 28.5% in 2007, the report showed.