World''s tallest Burj Dubai opening : 4th JAN

The 160-storey Burj Dubai, the world''s tallest structure built at a whopping cost of USD 1.5 billion will open its door to thousands of eager clients, as the UAE grapples to overcome the financial crisis that dented its global image as a safe destination for investment. Though the final height of the the needle-shaped steel and glass tower, described as a "vertical city" super-scrapper is not known yet, the Burj is at least 2,683 ft from its base to the tip of its spire-equivalent of three-and-a-half Canary Wharf towers or two Empire State Buildings stacked up.

The final height of the iconic tower will be revealed during the lavish opening ceremony. The UAE ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum will formally inaugurate the tower, which architects say could break the 2,700-ft mark.

The tower is more than 1,000ft higher than its nearest inhabited rival, Taiwan''s 1,671-ft Taipei 101. A combination of 10,000 fireworks, light beams, choreographed water displays, and sound & music effects will mark the opening of the tower built by Emaar Properties.

It has the highest swimming pool in the world, on the 76th floor, and the most elevated place of worship with plans for a mosque on the 158th floor. However, after the economic downturn ripped through Dubai, critics are already dismissing the tower as a gaudy memorial to a lost decade of uncontrolled speculation.

Internet Startup Valuation : The ‘Desi Touch’

Arriving at the valuation of an internet startup is considered as an art, which is perhaps the best mask for the cluelessness of an entrepreneur and the generalization done by investors. This labyrinth is a byproduct of varied subjectivity with a large focus on the qualitative rather than quantitative valuation methods like P/E comparable or discounted cash flow methods. The limited data available on comparable companies and industry benchmarks has only contributed towards the complexity. There also exists a significant amount of survivorship bias, which effectively ignores the results of Internet start-ups, which get shutdown.
This problem gets further accentuated given the nascency of venture capital (VC) in India.

The off-shoot of this valuation mismatch  has been the limited number of investments in seed stage and early stage ventures. Attributing the lack of pathbreaking products like Google, YouTube and Twitter from Indian
entrepreneurs due to lack of creativity, would be a huge misnomer. The product development support for such ideas is missing from the Angel and VC fraternity of India. Thus, the divide that has been created, is because the risks of - venture capitalists not aligned with the valuation and capital expectations, of Indian entrepreneurs, who use their silicon valley counterparts as a benchmark.

The Year Of M-Power: 2010

India, Jan. 1 -- 

Why will 2010 be better than 2009? That's easy. It has to be better. It can't get any worse. Ditto the new decade. How forgettable was the old one? Well, even when it's over, no one knows its name. We had the '80s, the '90s... and then what?

Shashi 'Oops' Tharoor tweets his vote for '00s', or the oh-ohs. "Bye-bye, oh-ohs." Maybe that's being unfair to a busy decade. The whole decade wasn't all bad: just the beginning (the dot-com bust), the end (the mamma of all recessions) and most of the middle.

Tech saw a few bright patches, though memory begins to fail me about what they were. As for 2009's own bright sparks, I draw a blank. Oh wait, now I remember: Windows 7 happened, and what a surprise after Vista: it worked! And then, the iPod saw a stream of new models with earth-shaking features such as a camera - never seen before in a mobile product by the wild creatures of sub-Saharan Africa.

So there's little that we in the tech world will remember 2009 for. In NDTV's new year edition of Gadget Guru, when asked for the tech highlight of the year, I had to struggle. I couldn't admit to not remembering a single one (I finally picked India's mobility explosion, and the global app-stores - the online stores for mobile-phone software).

But then I realised with mounting horror that I hadn't bought a single new gadget in 2009, barring an LCD TV, sound bar and a small Bose system. I don't recall another year when that has last happened.

I was happy to note that the other tech expert on the show hadn't bought a single gadget last year either.

2010: New & Improved

This year's different. For a start, we enter the new decade on a mobile-user base of over 500 million.

Few use data, but that's changing. A million data-enabled smartphones are added each month. Data plans are cheaper, BlackBerry handsets are ubiquitous, GPS is visible, and mobile users are sampling all the free and cheap phone software on the app-stores: online stores for iPhone, BlackBerry, Nokia and Android handsets.

We'll still have lousy service quality and call drops, but there are two bright sparks on the horizon: MNP and 3G.

Mobile number portability should have happened by now, but hasn't. MNP will allow you to switch mobile operators but retain your number, for Rs 19. Older operators like BSNL, Airtel and Reliance are threatened by this - and by the newer, nimbler players like MTS, Tata DoCoMo and Uninor, who have fewer customers and less crowding.

Airtel and co were hoping for 3G to come along so they could ease the crowding. Now that 3G is so badly delayed, they have no reason to want MNP in a hurry so they can lose customers quicker... MNP should be in place by March end, and 3G by year-end, if the 3G spectrum auction finally happens this month as promised.

Just 11 years after the birth of 3G. At least India won't be accused of being over-eager, or maverick, or wantonly ahead of the curve. Slow and steady... 19 years to a judgment... that's us. And so here's a snapshot of five things to look out for in this connected, M-powered year:

Mobile Data: 

With 50 million data-enabled smartphones, we'll see mobile-apps taking off on phones - along with a half million connected netbooks. By year-end, 3G will be speeding up our data.

Broadband: 

Abysmally low base of 10 million users. Will get a boost from mobile data - but not before year-end, when both 3G and Wi-Max offerings settle down.

M2M: 

Machine-to-machine connectivity - insignificant today - will take off this year. That's machines with built-in mobiles and SIM cards.

Electric meters remotely read, cars remotely tracked (and locked by SMS), elevators that report faults, school buses that report route and speed deviations...

Multimedia:

 It's usually a toss-off: choose a phone with either good music, or a good camera, or applications support. The highest common factor will go up in 2010, so that most phones at the Rs 10k level will sport a usable camera, good stereo audio, and expandable memory - backed by an app-store.