Today in Tech: Google Vs Apple; Parallel Entrepreneurs & A Smart Phone...

Google Vs AppleThe battle between Google and Apple is getting bigger and more direct. Bloomberg reports,  Google’s Motorola Mobility unit has sued Apple for infringing on its patents on features such as location reminders, e-mail notification and phone/video players. The tension between the two companies is not new. They 'have been fated to collide since at least the summer of 2005', as Technology Review pointed out last week. (That was when Apple started working on iPhone and Google bought Android). Now, Apple has developed its own maps application in place of Google's, and said its products would no longer have Youtube in their home screens. There’s an ongoing feud between Apple and Samsung (which uses Google's OS). The recent court proceedings have not only given a peek into the inner workings of Apple, but also some entertainment. With more direct attacks, it will only get more interesting. Parallel entrepreneursIn AJ Cronin’s short story Two Gentlemen of Verona, Nicola and Jacopo, two enterprising brothers do a range of work to earn some money to pay for their sister’s healthcare. They had no choice. In deed, the poor, in general, need to have multiple sources of income to make the two ends meet and to diversify risks. That’s what many do, as a study of the financial diaries of the poor has shown. There’s a cool name for that: Parallel entrepreneurship. Sometime back, Economist had a story on how some entrepreneurs in Africa run multiple businesses at the same time for  various reasons: to tap new opportunities, to sidestep the lack of resources to build a single big business and to diversify risk. ET today gives a few examples from silicon valley:

• Rajesh Setty, who runs nine companies including iCharts, Jiffle, Thinkaha, Foresight Plus.
• TM Ravi, co-founder of The Hive, an incubator, has three start-ups, all focussing on data analytics.
• Naveen Jain, who is a part of Singularity University and XPrize Foundation, runs Moon Express and Intellius.
• Sridhar Vembu, best known for Zoho, is also involved in two more – one into healthcare and another into semi-conductor.

 An app for diabetesNew York Times has a story on medically prescribed apps. Given the number of diabetics in India, one of the apps the story mentions might be of interest to readers here. It’s from a company called WellDoc. An app that it has developed collects information on diet, blood sugar levels and medication of diabetic patients, analyses them and makes suggestions. "It also uses an algorithm to analyze the medical data and send clinical recommendations to the doctor”. Clinical trials have shown it to be effective, it says. Might be of interest to Indian readers, but not to their wallets. Its priced at over $100 a month. Also of interest:

• An Empire Strikes Back: Intel Moves Into the Mobile Market: Wired
• Mars rover photographs first target - a rock: Reuters (Video)
• Self-Driving Cars Available by 2019, Report Says: Time
• Marissa Mayer’s First 30 Days: TechCrunch