Adolf Dassler lived in Herzogenaurach, a small town in Germany. After returning from World War I, he and his brother, Rudolph Dassler started making their own sports shoes. Their business came to be known as Gebrüder Dassler Schuhfabrik (Dassler Brothers Shoe Factory). The two brothers started manufacturing shoes at their mother’s laundry. Because of unreliable electricity supply, they often restored to pedal power from a stationary bicycle to run their equipments.

Though there is a general belief that Adidas is the acronym for ‘Athletes Die Ignoble Deaths After Steroids’ its authenticity is often questioned.

Reebok is a subsidiary of Adidas, the giant manufacturer of athletic footware, apparels and accessories. Reebok derives its name from rhebok. Rhebok is a type of African antelope or gazelle. Having discovered the name in a South African dictionary, Mercury Sports (founded by Joe and Jeff Foster in 1960) renamed it as Reebok. The word ‘Reebok’ means roebuck, The Afrikaan word for roe male deer.

Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard, the joint founders of Hewlett Packard tossed a coin to decide whether their company would be called Hewlett-Packard or Packard-Hewlett. Commonly known as HP, it is an American multinational company, founded in 1939.

The company originated in a garage in Palo Alto, California during a fellowship both of them had with a part professor, Frederick Terman at Stanford. Terman was considered a mentor to them in forming the company. Packard and Hewlett established Hewlett-Packard in Packard's garage with an initial capital investment of US $538.

Unlike the Japanese companies that are often named after their founders, Akio Morita, the founder of Sony decided to give customer friendly name – a name that would sound familiar to the American consumers. Thus he derived a name from the Latin word, Sonus (meaning sound) and thus the name Sony.

Tokyo Teletech was another possible name that Morita thought of, but he later learned that there was already an American company using Teletech as a brand name.

In the 1950s the word ‘sonny boy’ was used for smart, presentable young men, which Morita considered himself to be. Thus he was happy to name his company, Sony.

Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the founders of Google wanted to come up with a billion dollar name. They decided to name their after an enormously big number called Googol – which is the number followed by hundred zeros. With a great product and a pretty smart name, they went out in search of investors. One of the first investor they met loved the product and the name so much that he decided to write a check on the spot. However, he misspelled it. Instead of Googol, he penned down the name Google.

It is said that Steve Jobs was late in filing for the name and trademark. There are many versions of the story behind the name Apple. However, the best known version says that during the summer vacations, Steve Jobs used to work at an apple farm in California. He was very fond of the red round fruit. Thus, in the last minute rush, he couldn’t think of anything better than Apple.

Stanford graduates Jeery Yang and David Filo decided to name their company Yahoo! In 1994, they picked the word from a dictionary. According to Yang it is an acronym for ‘Yet Another Hierarical Officious Oracle Exclamation.’

The dangers on the internet do not stop here. Let’s take a look at some of the dangers lurking over the internet.

The social networking sites such as Facebook and Orkut is the in thing among the young adults. Children of ten years to adults of 30 years – all are addicted to online networking. With help of personal details available on these sites, the user’s profiles are faked by criminals with a cheap level of mind.

Most of the adult users are aware about the possible dangers and act accordingly. Some choose not to upload their personal pictures on public profiles; others make use of the available security options.

However, kids are unaware of the threats of the online world. Thus it the duty of every parent and grown up to safeguard them against all odds.

 What should a parent do?

• Keep a check on the sites your kids are visiting.

• If they use any social networking sites, make sure that all privacy settings are enabled.

• Do not encourage them to upload their pictures.

• Frequently check the history of the computer. If you feel there is any site that your child should not visit, be frank and tell them.

• There is nothing to hide. Talk to them and tell them about the potential dangers of using the net.

• Getting into a chat room is a strict no.

• Install security software like Net Nanny to prevent access to adult sites.

Many new tools have been launched that can make life much simpler for parents. Norton has launched a service called OnlineFamily.Norton to enable parents to monitor their child’s online activities. With the help of this software, the user’s activities like search keywords, websites visited and details about social networking are all registered into a web account.

Thus parents would aware of everything that their children do on the net, even while at work. They can also get email alerts and take necessary actions to adjust he settings from any web browser. In today’s age and times, it is important to keep an eye on what our children do – not to interfere in their privacy but to keep them safe from all potential dangers that they may be unaware of!

Launching a new symbol would make the presence of the Indian currency felt in the international economy. Though the symbol will not be printed or embossed on currency notes and coins, it would be included in the 'Unicode Standard' so that it can be easily displayed and printed in the electronic and print media.

Unicode is an international standard that allows text data to be interchanged globally without conflict. After incorporation in the global and Indian codes, the symbol would be used by all individuals and entities within and outside the country.

The symbol will be adopted in a span of six months in the country and within two months globally.

How to type the new symbol?

Though the government had announced that it would take more than a year for the symbol to become commercially available, many companies already started using it.

Mangalore based Foradian Technologies Pvt Ltd has created a new font called Rupee_Foradian that can be downloaded from their blog - http://blog.foradian.com. This font can be used to type the new symbol by hitting (`) symbol. This symbol is just above the tab key of the keyboard.

The Indian currency has come a long way, indeed!

Saina Nehwal made history on 21 June, 2009 by becoming the first Indian to win a Super Series tournament (which stands equivalent to a Grand Slam in tennis) by winning the Indonesia Open with a stunning victory over Wang Lin in Jakarta.

Saina won the second career Super Series title by winning the Singapore Open title on 20 June, 2010. She made a hat trick in the same year by winning the Indonesian Open on 27 June, 2010.

Saina has been previously coached by S. M. Arif, a Dronacharya Award winner. Her present coach is the Indonesian badminton legend, Atik Jauhari. He has been coaching her since August 2008.

Important milestones in her career:

• Saina is the reigning under-19 national champion.

• She is the first Indian woman to win a 4-star tournament – the Philippines Open.

• She is the first Indian to win the World Junior Badminton Championship by defeating Sayaka Sato 21-9 and 21-18.

• Saina became the first Indian woman to reach the quarter finals at the Olympics Games.

• She also became the first Indian woman to reach the semi-finals of the All England and Asian championships.

• Saina became the first Indian to win a BWF Super Series title, the most prominent badminton series of the world by winning the    Indonesia Open.

• She was rewarded with Arjuna Award in August, 2009 and her coach Gopichand was also rewarded with Dronacharya Award at    the same time.

• Saina has been signed up by Olympic Gold Quest. It’s her dream to win the Olympic gold medal.

• Saina has been awarded with Padma Shri award in January 2010.

In addition to her stellar achievements, she has been signed as the brand ambassador of Deccan Chargers and Indian Premier League team. Her name has also been proposed for the upcoming Commonwealth Games.

BIBLIOGRAPHY OR WORKS CITED

There is no one specific reference for these set of articles. Multiple sources were looked at, but content has been written by the Writer himself.