Viswanathan K's Thoughts

All companies want to hire the best talent. But how does a company even know if you are looking for a job? What, if like most, you didn’t even apply to a particular company because you felt you weren’t good enough? Even worse, for both you and that company, what if you were wrong in assuming you weren’t good enough? Max Rosett described Google’s solution to this problem. He stumbled upon it as he was learning computer science via an online program and still lacking the confidence to apply for a full-time software job: “One morning, while working on a project, I Googled “python lambda function list comprehension.” The familiar blue links appeared, and I started to look for the most relevant one. But then something unusual happened. The search results split and folded back to reveal a box that said “You’re speaking our language. Up for a challenge?” Rosett took the challenge and went on to get the job. Google had identified and hired someone based on his queries! John ...

“For centuries, reading has largely been a solitary and private act, an intimate exchange between the reader and the words on the page.” -          WSJ article e-Book readers like the Kindle and other reader apps on the iPad and Android can and do track how you read. Whether you read the acknowledgments or skip it. Do you read the book at one sitting or multiple sittings? Did you finish reading the book or did you drop off in the middle? And if you dropped off, was it after the first few pages or half-way into it? All this data is then shared with publishers who assess which styles hold the reader’s attention. They help identify which points make a book boring and cause drop offs. The publishers in turn pass that feedback on to authors. Another feature of e-book readers is that they allow readers to highlight passages they like. Or to add their own comments. Amazon even lists the most highlighted parts of books on their site. This is a far bet...