Only 6 months after he left Microsoft Bill Gates is starting a new company – bgC3.

Nobody knows for sure what the company is supposed to do but new offices, computers and furniture are already acquired. It’s located within a short distance from Gates private “palace” just outside Seattle.

What’s on the agenda?

Some believe the company is attached to Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation – the charity organization run together with his wife. Others believe it could be related to a new form of nuclear reactor which he’s developing with his friend Nathan Myhrvold.

Holding company?

Some has even suggested that it’s a pure holding company offering financial help to new start-up companies.

According to insiders the “bg” in the company name stands for “Bill Gates”, the “C” for «catalyst» and the number 3 refers to Gates third company separated from Microsoft and the charity foundation.

Gates has previously said that he wishes to help younger people following in his footsteps when it comes to revolutionize the global technology. So the main question now is where do we apply for start-up funds

Source: Techflash

According to The Inquirer Google is ready to buy the creators of Half-Life.

Could this be true?

Does it sound insane? Well, maybe a little. But then again Google breathes mainly on adverts and Valve’s netdistro application Steam would be a fantastic way of delivering just that. Not to mention ads in games!

The Inquirer claim to have the news from reliable sources, but have no evidence besides this.

Valve denies – Google wont comment

Valve claims this is not true. However, when there’s a leakage this is normally the standard response from the companies involved. What does Google say? “We do not make comments on rumours and speculations”. So in other words, they’re not denying it, which somewhat strengthens the theory.

Google owns game ad technology

There’s been speculations earlier about Google entering the game market. As previously mentioned there could be a lot of money in game ads. Forbes article last Tuesday speculated about this exact topic.

Also, Google’s recent acquisition, Adscape Media, completes the picture. Adscape is a company that creates applications that enables the possibility for ads in games.

So will all games be free?

If the advertisers paid for the game development, will we get the games for free? Probably not! And would you play a game if you were constantly annoyed by ads?? Feel free to share your thoughts on this one in the comments.

Sources: The Inquirer, Gizmodo, Shacknews and Mcvuk

Plaxo recently announced (14th May) they’ve signed an agreement to be acquired by Comcast. At the moment they are not releasing financial details of the transaction. The acquisition is subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals, and is expected to close in the near future.

Plaxo will remain an independent operation in Silicon Valley, reporting into Comcast Interactive Media, which is a division of Comcast that develops and operates Internet businesses focused on entertainment, information and communication. All the 50 employees will continue to innovate on and grow both the networked address book service and the next-generation social network, Pulse.

More information is found in the press release.

A simple test to find out where to recruit the right person for the job…

Put about 100 bricks in some Particular order in a closed Room with an Open window.

Then send 2 or 3 candidates in the room and close the door. Leave them alone and come back after 6 hours and then analyze the situation.

If they are counting the bricks. Put them in the accounts Department.

If they are recounting them… Put them in auditing .

If they have messed up the whole place with the bricks. Put them in engineering.

If they are arranging the bricks in some strange order. Put them in planning.

If they are throwing the bricks at each other. Put them in operations.

If they are sleeping. Put them in security.

If they have broken the bricks Into pieces. Put them in information Technology.

If they are sitting idle. Put them in human resources.

If they say they have tried different combinations, yet not a brick has been moved. Put them in sales.

If they have already left for the day. Put them in marketing.

If they are staring out of the window. Put them on strategic Planning.

And then last but not least…

If they are talking to each other and not a single brick has been moved. Congratulate them and put them in top management.

Lately I’ve seen the “Apple Software update” window on my screen rather frequently. It appears that if you’ve installed either Safari, iTunes or Quicktime Apple is trying to push the ones you don’t have installed as well. For those of us happy with other browsers and media players this is starting to get quite annoying.

I know Microsoft’s been doing this for years (try installing Live Messenger and see what happens), but I really don’t like the way things are turning. Imagine downloading Adobe Reader and then get an update option to download all the other products Adobe has to offer (both free and paid).

I assume this is all part of Apple’s marketing strategy. They know a lot of people are using iTunes which is a nice software to sync your iPod. However, this seams to have opened a new door for Apple to force people to download and (hopefully) use their other products, which in the end perhaps would lead to more people converting to a Mac.

To be honest I hate it when the auto-updater gives you options not related to the product you’re using. It’s like Firefox would dump Thunderbird in the same update as Firefox 3. So Apple, please stick with advertising and “normal” marketing, don’t just throw things at people!

What’s your take on this?