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We love power. It is the key to world’s luck, we are fascinated by powerful people.

Last Wednesday evening, the New York-based magazine Forbes, one of the most popular American business periodicals, published its annual list “The World’s Most Powerful People” The Forbes list represents 68 personalities in politics, economics and religion, but also celebrities from the media, and some outlaws. The selection criteria for the famous Forbes list include qualities such as leadership, personal political influence and financial power. The surprise was the ranking of Chinese President Hu Jintao at the top of the list.

Hu Jintao, 67 years old, and General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, so his correct title, is ahead of U.S. President Barack Obama, who was dropped to No 2 and so is no longer the most powerful person in the world. The American President fell from favor with the Forbes editors after the last congressional elections, when the republicans succeeded in reclaiming more seats in the Senate.

Now the Chinese President, not only leader of more than 1.3 billion people but also the head of the world’s largest army. Under his leadership the dynamic Chinese business did overtake Japan’s and became the world second-largest economy. Very enthusiastic the Forbes description of Hu Jintao as an all-rounder in his job.

Besides Hu the list also includes famous people like Angela Merkel, Sonia Gandhi, Pope Benedict XVI and Bill Gates, but also figures like Osama Bin Laden and the Mexican drug baron Joaquin Guzman Loera.

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Not little time after Apple announced its revamped Apple TV box, Google jumps on the bandwagon to announce and introduce its own set of software and hardware enabled vision of consumer television for the next century: the GoogleTV.

Obviously the search engine company is trying to keep up with its big rivals, especially Apple. It makes sense after all, as they have introduced the Android platform for mobile phones as an ‘open source’ environment and counter-weight to Apples overwhelming success with the Iphone OS.

But now it seems that it is time to go one step further with the GoogleTV and to step out from the software world on to the hardware stage:

The GoogleTV enabled hardware will come from Sony and Logitech, two well known suppliers of computer hardware. According to a blog post and video advertisment the GoogleTV will have some expected functions: among online video services such as watching movies and TV shows from Netflix or Amazon’s video-on-demand service, you will be able to enjoy short video films from Youtube.com. You will be also able to enjoy audio services and other services: webradio from Pandora, photo browsing from Yahoo’s Flickr, and much more.

It can be expected from this search engine company who connects every pieces of the web and all of its software so far together to mingle the Android Mobile platform together with the GoogleTV and its established web services in some kind of way. The only thing you won’t be able to do with the GoogleTV: watch iTunes movies. I guess the big G and Apple can’t be friends any more.

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Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is busy trying to create an improved public image of himself. He has appeared in a recent episode of the long running TV show “The Simpsons” in a short cameo.
As part of what appears to be a large campaign to create an improved public opinion about himself, Mark Zuckerberg has also been in the focus of the recently released film “The Social Network”. The drama directed by David Fincher had a spectacular opening weekend and appears to be ruling the box office. Mark Zuckerberg also announced his $100 million donation to the public school district of Newark New Jersey last week.

In his recent cameo appearance, Zuckerberg is joking about dropping out of Harvard. Although he could not earn a degree in the regular way, he will receive it eventually as an honorary degree. The drama “The Social Network”, which deals with the founding of Facebook, portrays Mark Zuckerberg as an awkward and selfish character, for whom success is more important than friendship. The film has been received with critical acclaim. For Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook, it is surely a gigantic PR nightmare as the film reveals much of the personal drama which accompanied the founding of Facebook from its very beginning. Although the film represents Zuckerberg is as egotistical and antisocial, he is also coming across as a merely a young man who loses many of his closest friends as a result of his great success.

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