வணக்கம் தோழா / नमस्ते दोस्त / Hello Buddy!

लोकाः समस्ताः सुखिनो भवन्तु

Lokāḥ Samastāḥ Sukhino Bhavantu
May all beings find happiness and freedom. May my actions help bring joy and liberation to everyone.

I am Balakumar Muthu, an International Award-winning Entrepreneur, TEDx fellow, and Technologist, who received the Top 50 Asia Innovation Award from SingTel in Singapore, Top 100 Startups Award from NASSCOM, Java Master Award & Duke's Choice Award from Sun Microsystems and BenQ Siemens Germany, and Red Herring Asia Award for technology innovation.

With over 17+ years of experience in IT/Software Consulting, with a particular focus on Japanese companies and strong expertise in Design & Product Engineering, UI/UX Web Design and Development for various B2B / B2C startups, SMEs, Enterprises, and several Fortune 500 companies. I specialize in architecting, designing, and building web applications to address both technology and business challenges across various domains, such as Software as a Service (SaaS), E-commerce, Online Marketplaces, Social Networking Services (SNS), Blogging platforms (CMS / Wiki), Usability/Branding, Cloud Computing, Enterprise Apps in Ed Tech, Retail Tech, Prop Tech, Med Tech, and Logistics Tech.

As an entrepreneur, my journey began in 2007 when I founded LoveLogger, the world's first private social blogging platform for pairs, which received a massive response from Hong Kong, Japan, China, and South Korea, accumulating over half a million users before its exit. It was featured in many prestigious internet magazines, including Yahoo! Japan, MSN Japan, Infoseek, Japan.Internet.com, Livedoor.com, Sina.com and various other popular Asian publishers. I have also launched a couple of other successful startups, sold a few, and had a few fail.

An avid Travel & Culture Photographer, documenting my journeys at CasualWalker.com, which is ranked as one of the Top 75 Travel Blogs in India. Additionally, I am a Travel & Culture Media Reporter and have been selected as the Official Honorary Reporter for the Korean Culture and Information Service of the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism.

I enjoy meeting new folks and replying to all emails, so feel free to drop me a line and say hello to balakumar.muthu@gmail.com

Awards & Recognitions, I have received


Selected at Google India - Interview as one of the Top 5 Finalists out of 16,000 + people applied. Created Google Kids – a search engine for kids prototype for demonstrating during my Google India Interview.

My Startup was selected as one of the "Top 100 Startups" to get showcased at NASSCOM Product Conclave (NCP), Asia's largest platform for Product and Startup Companies to connect with Software Product leaders.

First Prize Winner of "Java Master Award " contest, conducted by Sun Microsystems and BenQ Siemens Germany.

Received Sun Microsystems Duke's Choice Awards - 10 Year Celebration of Java Technology and Sun Microsystems appreciation for my contribution to the early versions of Java Platform.

My Previous Startup LoveLogger, the world's first Collaborative Blogging & Private Network for Pairs, which received a great response from Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, and China. LoveLogger was awarded the “Asia's Top 50 Apps 2011 Award” (winner lists) from SingTel, Singapore and the Winner of "Red Herring Asia Award" for Technology Innovation. It was also featured in many popular magazines & portals from Japan, Korea, and China. This product was launched even before the current popular pair apps like Pairy, Between, Hey, Cupple.

TEDx Fellow and Mentor for NurtureTalent Startup Boot Camp at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras.

Selected as the Official Honorary Reporter for the Korean Culture and Information Service of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism.

I started tech blogging in 2002 during my early college days and listed as the 'Top 10 Tech blogger' by 'Blog Street India' and rated as the 'Top 50 Tech Blogger' by 'Blogs Top List'. My Tech blog is also listed as Favorite Blog lists at their Official Sun Microsystems Web Blog. My Tech blog posts have also been featured at Google Blogoscoped.com, Netscape.com, Java.net, Webpronews, Planet Mozilla, Linux Toy and few other popular blogs. Made my own blogging site at Yahoo! Geocities as geocities.com/i5bala (screenshots) in early 2002.

Early contributed member of World Wide Web Consortium (W3.org), W3C HTML 5 Working Group and Internet Society (ISOC) India Chapter.

Wikipedian contributed to more than 100's of Wikipedia pages in various topics in the Computer/Internet Technology category. Contributing writer of DeveloperIQ Magazine on the latest Web Technologies.

Curator of Casual Walker a Travel & Culture - Photography journal and guide, focuses on a wide range of visual stories - connecting Travel, Traditions, Indian Temples, Art Galleries, Culture, Events, Museums, Yoga & Vedas, Foods & Eats, Indian Dances, Wild Life, Hotels & Stays, and Nature and Living. It is ranked as the Top 75 Travel Blogs in India.

Co-organizer of Mozilla Firefox Party India, for the most early release of Firefox 2 and the IdeaCamp Pune. Regular to Tech meetups from BarCamp, BlogCamp, WikiCamp Unconferences to Sun TechDays, BEA Dev2Dev Days, Oracle Developer Forum, Google Developer Days and many other tech conferences. Attended Sessions with David Axmark, CoFounder & VP of MySQL and with Richard Stallman [RMS], GNU Founder Lectures.

Designer of DevCamp India Unconference Official event brand and WikiCamp conference India event brand, participated by Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales.

Being a big supporter of Linux - Ubuntu & Open source movement, organized the "Ubuntu Dapper Drake T-Shirts Contest" to create more awareness and interest for the early versions of Ubuntu Linux.

My Expertise & specializations


I specialize in most aspects of Web business, including strategy, creativity, design, development, and its growth. My strong expertise and experience include front-end development, UI/UX web design and usability, branding, content management systems (CMS), e-commerce, software as a service (SaaS), cloud computing, social networking services (SNS), Amazon Web Services (AWS), enterprise apps in Ed Tech, Retail Tech, Prop Tech, Med Tech, Logistics Tech, and Food Tech, web security, firewall, user onboarding, typography, product prototyping, SEO, and Linux & open-source technologies.

My Personal Interests


I enjoy travel & photography, rock climbing, simple things — nature, reading. I love philosophy, art, culture, highly interested and passionate about the Indian, Korean & Japanese traditions, trying different flavors of tea, Wabi-sabi, Zen philosophy, making mistakes & learning from them, DIY hacks, and Western movies and Comics.

My Works featured at press / media


My works have been featured & covered by ZDNet Asia, Economic Times, British Council India, Times of India (TOI), Citizen Matters, Yahoo! Japan, MSN Japan, Infoseek, Japan.Internet.com, Livedoor.com, Google Blogoscoped, Netscape.com, Java.net, Webpronews, Planet Mozilla, Linux Toy, DeveloperIQ, Sina.com and many other popular Asian publishers. Java.net published my Java Duke Holiday Pictures from 1000's of submission.

My Travel & Culture Photography


Contact & Reach me


Want to work together, grabbing a coffee, or say hello? Good! personally, I have zero presence on Facebook or Twitter. You can ping and text me:

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Self - made man
the statue I greatly admire & the principle I strongly believe

“... left to his own devices, man will use his god-given talents to be creative, productive, & prosperous. Using free will, he will better his own situation and that of those around him, thereby influencing in a positive way his own destiny...”

CubeBrowser : Six Display Cube Browser


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The CubeBrowser is a six display cube with high-res screens that makes it possible to browse online databases like Flickr.com. It is an exploration of image databases using gestural input to navigate through tag clouds. The control of navigation is exclusively realised by performing manual actions on the cube, which creates a playful way of discovering networked image collections using keywords. >>

WIRED Magazine's How To Wiki

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WIRED Magazine just launched the 'How To Wiki,' a collaborative site dedicated to the burgeoning DIY culture. Here we'll find all kinds of projects, hacks, tricks and tips on how to live, work and play better. Anyone can contribute new items or edit an existing item. >>

Domain Names Selling: The New Real Estate

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The Domain Names markets are in boom times estimated $2 billion industry that involves the buying and selling of domain names. When people type the generic names into their browser's address field, sites that generate pay-per-click ads appear. Such "direct navigation" bypasses search engines. Some believe the industry's market value could reach $4 billion by 2010 as people continue to purchase approximately 90,000 names a day and the number of domain registrars swells. At the end of first quarter 2007, at least 128 million domain names had been registered worldwide, a 31 percent increase over the previous year, according to VeriSign Inc., which runs some of the core domain name directories for the Internet. >>

Hand Gestures Replace Buttons Clicks

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Researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology wants to do away with the keyboard altogether. They’ve designed a wristwatch that recognizes hand gestures and uses them for touch-free control of electronic devices such as MP3 players, cell phones, and home appliances. The technology could also be used by a doctor to control a medical device during an operation. Such a watch could help keep operating rooms sterile and make diminutive evices less silly. >>

Apple co-founder Wozniak on his Early Days

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Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak talks about the early days of the company, speculates on artificial intelligence and future inventions, and reveals his unfulfilled dream. He isn't perhaps as well known as his Apple Inc. cofounder Steve Jobs, but "Woz" invented the Apple I in 1976 and the Apple II in 1977, which was one of the best-selling PCs of that time. In this interview, Wozniak, who turns 57 on Aug. 11, talks about how he met Jobs, his most cherished inventions and why he believes thinking robots and artificial intelligence will never happen. >>

Search Engines Watching You !

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What if there were a database containing what you've searched for, even embarrassing info? There is. The fact is, search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft Live Search all record and retain in their vast data banks any term that you query in addition to the date and time your query was processed, the IP address of your computer, and a cookie-based unique ID that unless you delete it enables the search engine to continue to know if requests are coming from that particular computer, even if the connection changes. Microsoft Live Search also records the type of search you conducted [image, Web, local, etc.], while Google additionally stores your browser type and language. And when you click on a link displayed on Google, that may also be recorded and associated with your computer's IP address. >>

Deja Vu Browser Emulator : View Websites in Old Browsers

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Deja Vu Browser Emulator allows us to view our current websites in old browsers to see the kind of web experience we had in our old version of browsers like the IE, HotJava, Netscape Navigator, Lynx. We can go to a current website, and see just how much we were missing in those days. >>

Top Desktop Mini Vacations !

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You work hard, you sit in meetings, you scramble and juggle, bob and weave all day long. On top of that, you read more every day in your e-mail account than our great-grandparents read in their lifetimes. You brain gets tired. Your eyes get tired. You deserve a break, every now and then, even at work. Maybe especially at work. Here's the harmless Web sites that can give you a mini-vacation during the workday. >>

WinTabber : Windows Application Tab

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Frustrated to find the right window on your desktop, or with alt-tab but they all look the same? WinTabber may be the answer, It can add tabs to many windows. A tabbed browser ,tabbed putty , tabbed terminal or tabbed shell, tabbed anything. Multi tab your windows in seconds. Having multiple windows as tabs will give a better overview of your windows than before. Also having multiple ssh sessions by the click of a tab works faster and efficiently. >>

Logitech MX Air Mouse

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Logitech's has introduced the new MX air mouse which doesn't need to sit on desk to work, so we can wave it around just like the Ninetendo Wii controller. The flying mouse, which arrives in August, will let users point it anywhere and then move the onscreen cursor with movements in any direction. It will work in any direction, even if we point it at the ground. Instead of a scroll wheel, it has a touch-sensitive control strip between the buttons. >>

Creator of Web on Future of Web

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Tim Berners-Lee, the man who invented the World Wide Web in 1989 at CERN, the European Particle Physics Laboratory in Geneva, has used the term semantic to christen the Internet of the future. The Semantic Web is a set of technologies he's developing right now as director of the World Wide Web Consortium. In an exclusive interview, he explains his vision of the future Semantic Web, which he says will be much more powerful than anything we have seen before. >>

Hack to Get Free Internet !

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Lot of places offer high speed internet. Though, they come at a price, a hefty price. If you travel a lot for and need internet access, always paying for access can put quite a nice dent in your wallet. Checkout how you can get the internet access for free by this hack. >>

25 Sites We Can't Live Without

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TIME Magazine lists out the top 25 sites we can't live without. The list contains the sites from news to social networking spaces. >>

Get Rewards for Finding Flaws in Software

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Wabisabilabi [WSLabi], a Swiss security firm has created an online auction house called 'WabiSabiLabi' to bring together people who can find loopholes in the software used by companies and can find a solution. Security researchers who find holes in such software can sell their findings to the highest bidder in this new online platform. WabiSabiLabi aims to give software experts a legitimate marketplace where they can trade the loopholes they find in a software. This will stop the use of these loopholes or vulnerabilities by underground elements. Once a vulnerability is reported, WSLabi will confirm it is real and can be exploited. Then, it will be placed on the auction site where it can be sold to the highest bidder or to just one firm. >>

BotVoice.A : New Talking Trojan Program

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BotVoice.A an talking trojan program, which when downloaded by an victim, sets to work trying to delete everything from the victim's hard drive, while at the same time endlessly repeating an audible message, apparently designed to taunt the victim. "You have been infected; I repeat, you have been infected and your system files have been deleted. Sorry. Have a nice day and bye bye," the Trojan says. It prevents users from working with the computer properly, as it does not allow the files with certain extensions from being run: BAT, COM, EXE and MP3 files, among others. >>

Star Wars Mini Droid

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Star Wars Mini Droid a tiny droid, which we can drive across our desktop, controlled by the included Lightsaber remote. We can make them go forward, or turn reverse in a circle with realistic sounds, turning Head and Red LED eye powered by infrared control technology. It's made from Japan, just simply flip the switches on the back of the robot and the remote to get things going. >>

Internet Threat Protection Guide !

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Internet attacks have become a business. Online crooks are constantly switching tactics in an attempt to invade our PC. Be on guard for these latest sneaky tricks. A slick legit ad campaign might sway us into buying a gadget we don't really need, these social engineering techniques try to trick us into infecting our computer with malware we surely don't want. Read through these screen shots of some of the latest tricks from malware pushers and phishers so that we can stay away safe from them. >>

Web 3.0: No humans required

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In semantic Web, online information needs to be made readable by machines. Services like Google do a great job of sifting through all those webpages, but it's up to people to recognize the things they want when they see them in the results. The Web just isn't very smart yet, one webpage is the same as any other. The semantic Web in the Berners-Lee vision acts more like a series of connected databases, where all information resides in a structured form. Within that structure is a layer of description that adds meaning that the computer can understand. People on the semantic Web have unambiguous connections to the places they work, the people they're related to, their friends, their calendars, and the things they're interested in. Being able to connect those properties in seen and unseen ways is what gives the semantic Web its power. >>

Evolution of Apple Technologies

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Designer Edwin Tofslie has clearly listed out the history and evolution of Apple, in various time lines from 1976 to the present 2007. It's so amazing to look how the product design has evolving at different period. >>

iPhone's Untapped Potential !

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Apple is known for its innovative gadget design, and with the release of the iPhone today, it continues to live up to its hype. But while people are fawning over features like the smart, multitouch screen and the advanced Web browser, there is important technology under the hood that will likely go underappreciated. The iPhone has tiny, powerful sensors an accelerometer, an ambient light sensor, and an infrared sensor that are able to pick up cues from the environment and adjust the phone's functions accordingly. Apple has decided to use these sensors for detecting when to convert the screen view from portrait to landscape, for adjusting the brightness of the screen based on the brightness of the environment, and for disabling the touch screen when a person holds the phone to our ear. >>

Top 20 Worst Windows Features of All Time

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PCWorld Magazine listed down the top 20 worst Windows features of all time. From Windows 95 Active Desktop to Vista's UAC, a loving tribute to the tools, technologies, and applets that drive it's user absolutely bonkers. It includes several kinds of worsts just plain bad ideas, good ideas gone awry, and a few ideas that started out terrible but eventually became surprisingly decent. >>


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