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Industry study - The browser wars
By Kiron Kasbekar | 17 Jan 2024
Do you remember what the Internet was like, before the 1990s? Lines and lines of monochrome text, wading through which was a chore because it also loaded very slowly. The systems ran on the DOS system and you had to remember cryptic commands like DIR, DISKCOPY, FDISK, PROMPT.
Company story – Cunard Line
By Kiron Kasbekar | 12 Jan 2024
The Cunard Line started its life in Glasgow in 1839 as the British and North American Royal Mail Steam-Packet Company when Samuel Cunard was awarded the first British transatlantic steamship mail contract.
A brief history of ship propulsion
By Kiron Kasbekar | 09 Jan 2024
The evolution of ship propulsion systems from oars to nuclear power Ships have played a crucial role in the development of human civilization, enabling exploration, trade, warfare, and the transportation of goods and people across the world's oceans, rivers, and seas and, sadly, warfare too.
The magic of aerogels
By Kiron Kasbekar | 05 Jan 2024
Aerogels, first developed during the 1930s, are some of the lightest known solid materials ever created. They were commercialized during the 1940s. That was a long time ago, but they are still not a widely known substance.
Aerogels – amazing new materials
By Kiron Kasbekar | 05 Jan 2024
One day I was trying to get background on one of the topics I cover for my articles and YouTube videos, and I went off at a tangent, as I sometimes do, and began looking at some entirely different subject. It was a subject I had never read or heard about. It’s a material called aerogel.
Underwood Typewriter Company – an icon of the past
By Kiron Kasbekar | 21 Dec 2023
You’ve probably never heard of Underwood typewriters. For the company folded up in 1963 – 60 years ago. You may not even have seen and handled a typewriter, unless someone in your family owned one.
The rise and fall of Chrysler
By Kiron Kasbekar | 16 Dec 2023
A century ago, the American automobile industry was more crowded than a vegetable market on a Sunday morning, with such a wide variety of stuff on sale that buyers were spoilt for choice. Buyers could pick and choose, bargain, pay up and drive out with the newly purchased vehicle.
Blockbuster Video: How not to run your business
By Aniket Gupta | 14 Dec 2023
If you were born after the year 2000, then maybe you wouldn’t even know about, or remember, this iconic business that used to stand tall, renting out movies to people and making their lives happier. The business I am talking about is Blockbuster Video.
TRW – the tide turned
By Kiron Kasbekar | 13 Dec 2023
There used to be an American company called Thompson Ramo Wooldridge Inc. This company, which was a global supplier of automotive systems, modules, and components to car and truck manufacturers, started small, as most companies do. Then, as the automotive industry grew bigger, so did TRW.
The rise and fall of Nokia
By Aniket Gupta | 07 Dec 2023
My interest is stories about dominant companies that failed all of a sudden. These companies were once etched into people’s minds but have since become a symbol of nostalgia. One such company, which was the biggest in its industry before it failed catastrophically, is Nokia.
Yahoo!: The first king of the internet
By Aniket Gupta | 01 Dec 2023
The year is 1994. You go to the internet to search for a particular website, but there is no Google that could be used to search your desired website. What do you do? The answer is that you use Yahoo.
The Bata vision
By Kiron Kasbekar | 22 Nov 2023
I find it strange that some big companies keep themselves shut off from public view. Not their products, of course, for the products are on sale worldwide. But their financial data.
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The Sahara scam
By Aniket Gupta | 21 Nov 2023
Yes, that Sahara group, once branded as one of the biggest conglomerates in India, has since fallen into a web of controversies and legal battles with the Indian government.
The birth of Ashok Leyland
By Kiron Kasbekar | 20 Nov 2023
The company was first called Ashok Motors. The name came from the founder Raghunandan Saran’s son Ashok.
Segway: A transportation revolution that lost its way
By Aniket Gupta | 09 Nov 2023
The Segway is a motorized personal vehicle featuring a pair of wheels arranged in parallel on either side of a very short platform on which the rider stands, gripping handlebars for control.
Charm of the trams: Mumbai's historic transport revisited
By Kiron Kasbekar | 27 Oct 2023
On 9 May 1874, Bombay (as Mumbai was called then) witnessed a groundbreaking moment in its transportation history - the inauguration of the first horse tram.
History of recycling
By Aniket Gupta | 01 Oct 2023
To say that our world has problems would be an understatement. We seem to have no end of problems, some of them leading to crises of sorts.
Kingfisher Airlines Part 2 - the flight of fancy
By Aniket Gupta | 18 Sep 2023
Kingfisher Airlines was launched with a great deal of enthusiasm and fanfare. Founded in 2003 by the Bengaluru-based United Breweries Group
A ballpoint for outer space
By Kiron Kasbekar | 18 Sep 2023
The alarm went off, shattering the peace inside the spaceship. Everyone dropped their electric blankets and rose up, wondering what had happened. Had a meteor hit the spaceship?
Kingfisher Airlines Part 1 - the backdrop
By Aniket Gupta | 15 Sep 2023
Formerly one of the most prominent airlines, of the initial airline liberalization days, Kingfisher Airlines has plunged into a bottomless abyss.
Tinplate vs. plastic containers: which is more environmentally friendly? - Part 3
By Aniket Gupta | 14 Aug 2023
The environmental impact of tinplate and plastic containers extends beyond their production and disposal phases.
Tinplate vs. plastic containers: which is more environmentally friendly? - Part 2
By Aniket Gupta | 14 Aug 2023
The history of plastic containers is a journey of innovation, versatility, and widespread adoption that has shaped the modern packaging landscape.
Tinplate vs. plastic containers: which is more environmentally friendly? - Part 1
By Aniket Gupta | 14 Aug 2023
As people become increasingly conscious of the environmental impact of our consumption habits, we are pushed to make choices between what we are habituated to doing and what we should be doing.
Bengaluru suffers staggering Rs.20,000 crore annual loss due to traffic congestion
By Aniket Gupta | 08 Aug 2023
Traffic congestion in Bengaluru has resulted in an enormous economic loss of nearly Rs 20,000 crore for the city.
$40-50 billion target for Indian technical textiles
By Cygnus | 28 Jul 2023
The technical textile segment in India has experienced robust growth, in domestic sales and in exports, and the government is predicting a doubling of the market in the next five years.
Featured
Typewriters, the office machines that preceded computers
By Kiron Kasbekar | 10 Apr 2025
You see office tables today equipped with desktop computers or laptops. But think of the 1970s, and what would you have been seeing?
Wishful thinking about cars
By Kiron Kasbekar | 05 Apr 2025
Donald Trump may be many things, but a good economist he is not. Accustomed to dictating terms to people he has worked with,
The history of safety glass
By Kiron Kasbekar | 26 Mar 2025
You probably already knew that the world’s VIPs move around in cars with bullet-proof glass windscreen and windows. But did you know that ‘bulletproof glass’ is not really bulletproof?
German silver: used in cutlery, music, electricals - but it’s not silver
By Kiron Kasbekar | 20 Mar 2025
This material, which was first developed in China, not Germany, and is an alloy of copper, nickel and zinc, has lost its sheen in home uses, but finds favor in electrical engineering.
Pioneers – the Wrights and Glenn Curtiss launched the aircraft industry
By Kiron Kasbekar | 17 Mar 2025
First Orville and Wilbur Wright flew their plane, the ‘Wright Flyer’, from near a small town called Kitty Hawk. Then Glenn Curtiss built planes with a very different system of controls, which has lasted until now.
What do aircraft have in common with bicycles and motorcycles?
By Kiron Kasbekar | 17 Mar 2025
From chains and sprockets to direct drives—If someone asked you what aircraft have in common with bicycles and motorcycles, how would you respond?
Radar’s ancestors: From sound mirrors to modern detection technology
By Kiron Kasbekar | 11 Mar 2025
Radar has become a well-settled technology today, especially in the field of navigation.
Nokia Bell Labs: innovations in communication, computing, technology
By Omar Almeida | 08 Mar 2025
Bell Laboratories, or Bell labs, which has now become Nokia Bell Labs, is one of the most renowned research and development organizations in the history of science and technology.
Company story – Quaker Oats
By Kiron Kasbekar | 08 Mar 2024
Quaker Oats is a company whose products I remember from my childhood days. Years before a foreign exchange crisis caused the Indian government to impose curbs on consumer product imports, we used to see a host of foreign brands in the Indian market. Including Quaker Oats, which I remember eating when I was a child, and which has been available for the past two decades or more.
Videos you must see
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Flying boats history | Seapl...
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