China's Web users top U.S. at 253 million

China's booming Internet population has surpassed the United States to become the world's biggest, with 253 million people online despite government controls on Web use, according to government data reported Friday. MSNBC
At the same time Google revealed that its index has reached ONE TRILLION unique URLs.
"The first Google index in 1998 already had 26 million pages, and by 2000 the Google index reached the one billion mark. Over the last eight years, we've seen a lot of big numbers about how much content is really out there. To keep up with this volume of information, our systems have come a long way since the first set of web data Google processed to answer queries. Back then, we did everything in batches: one workstation could compute the PageRank graph on 26 million pages in a couple of hours, and that set of pages would be used as Google's index for a fixed period of time. Today, Google downloads the web continuously, collecting updated page information and re-processing the entire web-link graph several times per day." Check here...
Wowww!!! The growth of the internet is unbelievable, the era is just about to start...

1 Million iPhones Sold in First 3 Days

Apple is continuing to prove that it is THE organization to respect and admire. They sold 1 million iPhones in only 3 days after the new release of the iPhone 3G. This is almost 4 times more than what they sold when they released the first iPhone.
This proves two things; first, is that the global presence really matters; they are selling iPhone in 21 countries this time compared only to the US last year. Secondly, is that they have this ability to drastically improve their products in a way that makes people queue for each release of a product.

Gulf & Oil

According to a report, GCC states will increase by 75% in 2008 to reach $636 billion dollars! The report also projects that GCC's aggregate oil revenue for 2008 and 2009 to close $1.3 trillion dollars.
Good Money:)

Re-examined!!!

A few months ago EADS (European Group) were awarded a $35bn contract ti supply the US Air Force with refuelling tankers, where Boeing (American) lost the contract. However, it was reported today that the contract was reopened and Boieng will be allowed to bid again. BBC...
This happened after Boeing and few senators campaigned to reopen the contract.
This kind-of remind of what happened with Dubai Ports World controversy back on 2006. It shows how Americans are getting more sensitive with awarding contracts to foreign companies.

Power of the internet (2)

"The campaign’s new-media strategy, inspired by popular social networks like MySpace and Facebook, has revolutionized the use of the Web as a political tool, helping the candidate raise more than two million donations of less than $200 each and swiftly mobilize hundreds of thousands of supporters before various primaries."
“One of my fundamental beliefs from my days as a community organizer is that real change comes from the bottom up,” Mr. Obama said in a statement. “And there’s no more powerful tool for grass-roots organizing than the Internet.”
More...

Minimum Standard of living

While checking the news tonight i came across this report.
"A single person in Britain needs to earn at least £13,400 a year for a minimum standard of living, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) has claimed" BBC...
£13,400!!! That's around $26,700!
Comparing this with Egypt just blew my mind.
Around 25% of the Egyptian Population (that around 20 million people) lives on less than $1 a day ($365 a year), Labor union has been fighting (with no success yet) to raise the minimum worker wage to a $100/month ($1200 a year).
God Bless Egypt...