Match Report: Arsenal Vs Crystal Palace

It was Arsenal who were paying a visit to Crystal Palace in the latest round of Premier League fixture. The opening minutes of the match were poised with attacking football as Arsenal wanted to open their points bag after a disappointing start to the season against West Ham United while Palace looked to win their first two matches in the league for the first time ever. Sublime one touch football by Arsenal provided them with at least 3 chances to score with Olivier Giroud and Alexis Sanchez having the better chances, Mesut Ozil as usual was creating chances from just behind the defense. Palace looked to be threatening but but were a bit rusty and made errors and capitalizing on one such error Ozil put a cross in just above the penalty spot and Giroud put the ball in across the the keeper into the back of the net to get the first goal for Arsenal on the 16th minute.

Giroud Puts the ball in with a superb volley.

Hector Bellerin looked sharp and solid in the defense. Chances kept coming for both sides in the first 20 minutes but Arsenal were the ones who appeared to be the ones who could capitalize on them as Palace lacked a connection between the midfield and the attack. Yohan Cabaye was controlling the mid for Palace but had to drop down a little to match Arsenal`s fierce attack. But Palace came back on the 28th minute with Ward the right back putting the ball in from outside the box with an exquisite grounded shot.

Ward equalizes with an amazing shot from outside the box.

Palace nearly got another minutes but Cech cleared the ball with a punch as Zaha went to ground in a simulated manner. Shots came frequently from the likes of Cazorla and Sanchez as Arsenal pushed to take the lead but Palace were putting men behind the ball in the defense. On the 38th minute Ramsey found himself at the end of a long ball only to waste it with a weak attempt while Palace on the other hand won a free kick which they could not capitalize on. Francis Coquelin earned himself a yellow card 41 minutes in, McArthur did the same just on the half-time whistle.

HALF-TIME : Arsenal 1-1 Crystal Palace

First Half Summary : Arsenal go into half-time with 14 attempts on goal while Palace with only 4, Arsenal would feel like being the better side but their taste would definitely be ruined by that great finish by Ward.

Going into the second half Arsenal looked hungry for more and they kept putting the ball into the box with their one touch football that has come to define their style of play with Ozil playing a central role in almost all the chances. On the 55th minute its Alexis Sanchez header that finds its way into the oppositions net off of Delaney and Arsenal now lead with a goal`s margin. 

It could be an own goal by Delaney

Palace look for an equalizer as Puncheon and Zaha see their shots saved by Cech. Alex Oxalade Chamberlain comes on for Coquelin and his first shot is saved. Conor Wickham finds himself in the opposition box and twists but his shot goes wide. Mikel Arteta comes on for Sanchez as it seems that Arsenal are going to try and defend this lead. Lee comes on for Zaha and misses a crucial chance. Both team played an open match in which chances came on both sides with attacking football giving a sensational match. Palace made several more attempts but Cech was there to save the day. Gibbs came on for Ozil in the dying moments of the match as Arsenal held on for their first win of the campaign. 

FULL TIME : Arsenal 2-1 Crystal Palace

OUR MAN OF THE MATCH : Mesut Ozil (Assist + 98% pass accuracy curated the attacking with vision.)

Match Stats:

        Arsenal VS Crystal Palace

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The Alphabet Salad: Google is Reorganizing

Earlier this week on a late Monday night Google announced that it is reorganizing itself under a new name Alphabet Inc. That does not mean that Google is now Alphabet rather it means that Google is now a part of a larger corporation called Alphabet, Google will continue to be Google and day to day business will go just like normal for most people it practically means that nothing has changed at all. In the financial market all of Google`s stock has been converted into Alphabet stock and they maintain the same value as before.
So why do such a thing when it is evidently close to doing absolutely nothing? Well firstly it allows Google`s founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin to pursue their wild ideas in a more hands on way they will now serve as the CEO and President of Alphabet respectively. Previously they did not have as much freedom to to do wacky off the chart stuff at Google because Google was their main brand and they had to maintain it even if they were doing strange stuff they could not tell anyone outside until they were sure it would be well received. But now they have separated themselves from the Google brand which is now headed by Sundar Pichai (yet another Indian heading a large tech firm in the US), this separation from Google now allows them to pursue wild new ideas in a creative new way while Google does its day to day business as usual providing the same search services, android products and all other stuff associated with it/them. The reorganized positions are shown in the below image.

Now we have to wait and see what the co-founders of Google will cook up next.

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Arsene Wenger's drought aganist Jose Mourinho finally comes to an end.

Both the managers during the community shield match at the sidelines.

On the 14 attempt Arsene Wenger has finally defeated his arch rival Jose Mourinho's side  thanks to a blistering shoot by Alex Oxlade chamberlain in the first half of the match.

Alex Oxlade Chamberlain celebrates after scoring the goal against Chelsea.

Arsenal and Chelsea met at the Wembly Staduim  for the Community Shield match on sunday.

With both the club being from the same city, London the tension was high as Arsene Wenger's side had to play against the Jose Mourinho's side which was the English league champion. 

This time the tide was on Arsene Wenger's side as Petr Cech; Ex Chelsea goalkeeper was between the sticks for Arsenal, with his exceptional goalkeepring and disciplined defence Arsenal managed to keep a clean sheet.

While the score line would have been different had not Thibaut courtious been there between the sticks for Chelsea.His one on one saves against Santi Cazorla and later in the dying minutes of the game stopped one on one Gibbs from putting the game to it's end.

Like old times Arsene Wenger didn't shook hands with Jose Mourinho showing the signs that their long running fued will not come to an end any time soon.

“I believe in a job where you have to respect people and respect everybody,” said Wenger, who shoved the Blues boss in last season’s Barclays Premier League clash at Stamford Bridge.

Arsene Wenger shoves Jose Mourinho on the chest at
Stramford bridge.

“I shook a few hands after the game, but there’s nothing special there.”

Mourinho said: “You see the images, you see where I am. (I was) there for the winners, to wait for them in a point where you only miss me if you want to miss me.

“Every Arsenal player came in my direction, which was the easiest thing to do.

“If other people didn’t come in my direction, that’s not a problem, that’s not a story, that’s not the end of the world.”

Mourinho felt the better team lost, but was pointed in his praise of Wenger’s approach, saying Arsenal were “a team that leaves their philosophy in the dressing room”.

Mourinho, who threw his runners-up medal to an Arsenal fan in the crowd, insisted he did not have a psychological hold on Wenger’s teams, but described his 13-game unbeaten streak as an “eternity”.

The Frenchman, who disagreed that he compromised on his approach, felt the prior record against Mourinho played on his players’ minds and contributed to their display.

“We abandon nothing,” Wenger said. “Personally I must honestly say it didn’t play on my mind at all.

“But as long as I get it served every time in press conferences it can have an impact on the team.

“The way my team behaved during some periods of the game it helped. It was important for them to get that hurdle out of the way.”

Arsenal had Petr Cech in goal after his 11 trophy-laden years at Stamford Bridge.

Wenger said: “He did well and maybe he had an influence on the Chelsea players as well.

“They feel to score against him they have to score the perfect goal.”

Team Photo of Arsenal after winning the shield.

So Arsene Wenger had the last say at today's game. Lets see how will Chelsea respond to this in the league, will they shrug away this defeat and defend their BPL title or will they let this defeat mount up. Time will tell but one thing is for sure Jose Mourinho's side will come back with all it's got and will aim for a defeat less BPL season.

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Snapchat`s Huge Call

In late 2013 Facebook reportedly offered to buy Snapchat for 3 billion Dollars and Evan Speigal and his company turned it down, the news spread like a virus feeding on curiosity and most would have and did say that the people over at Snapchat are simply crazy!!, "Who on earth would turn down 3 billion?" was the question asked again and again and the simple answer is Snapchat would and did.Looking back at it over a year and a half later Snapchat would say that they made the right choice and that the decision payed off and the people asking the questions do not ask them anymore. Over the recent year Snapchat has made itself very known, it has progressed and developed its social app to great extent by providing features that are both appealing and not plain dumb, the ability to make "photostories" is one of those features and is one which has taken off in the social app`s own atmosphere, the app is simple yet elegant and is quite intuitive, even a person who has never used a smartphone in his entire life would understand it and master it in a day. Snapchat biggest asset is probably the fact that its majority users are teenagers making its community one the most dedicated and active one`s there is, perhaps more active than dedicated but still it is a good target for advertisement agencies which still have not broken into Snapchat ecosystem.Almost 50% of Snapchat users are below the age of 18.

So it is a social environment that is nurturing and still growing, its growth has been phenomenal and recent rounds of funding have valued the company at over 15 billion dollars, yes that is right over 15 billion dollars, looking back the 3 billion they turned down seems to be worth turning down.

Looks like that graph is no mood to come down and it should not at least for some time as their active users have been going up and there seems to be no way down for them. Snapchat`s ability to keep attracting more and more users is largely because it is a photo/video sharing app, it transmits human emotion in its absolute rawness and purity.

 

Snapchat has over a 100 million monthly active users, there are over 700 million photo Snaps per day and 70% users are women. And all this with absolutely no profit and it only started generating revenue in January 2015, seems like that Facebook missed out big time and Snapchat "cashed-out"  big time. And to be fair the people who made the app and are constantly making it better have put a lot into it, they took a neat idea and refined it and worked on it and made it simple and effective and developed it into something very big, so big that its already among the biggest social networks of the world. Snapchat stories covering various cities, events, festivals and religious activities and their popularity among the masses is the solid proof of its existence on a global scale.In the end turning down that whooping 3 billion which looks substantially small for them now was all worth it. As Steve Jobs said, "You can only connect the dots looking backwards".

Tech

El Clasico; As It Happened

Messi hatrick sealed the game for Barcelona; nightmare for Real Madrid

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                                   Messi celebrating his goal

Both teams went in to the match to strengthen their position in La liga, Real Madrid which were top of the league with a win would have easily made the gap between them and Barcelona to 9 points, while a win for Barcelona would have the gap to only 1 point.

Andres Iniesta fired Barcelona into the lead after seven minutes with a thunderous left-footed finish from Messi's pass.

Then a Bright response from the Madristas set them up for 2 goals and took them to lead by Karim Benzema.The first from a header which Barca goalkeeper Victor Valdes got a glove onto, and the second after neatly controlling and volleying in from close range.

However just before halftime messi scored a sublime equaliser to get the score level to 2-2.

Madrid went into lead after halftime with a controversial penalty give by the Refree where the initial touch was from outside the box. Just like the penalty awarded to barcelona against Manchester City.....Karma?

Sergio Ramos Being sent off

Sergio Ramos was sent off after appearing to pull back Neymar. Seem to be soft penalty nevertheless now Real madrid were to 10 men and a penalty was awarded to Barcelona , which resulted in Messi bringing Barca level from the penalty 3-3

Iniesta was upended in the box by Xabi alonso after he nutmeg Dani Carvajal.

Messi made no mistake converted a second penalty to complete his hat-trick six minutes from time,
To give Barcelona the lead 3-4

Messi clebrating his hattrick

After the match the team Ace  Christiano Ronaldo expressed his frustation at the Refree which according to him killed the game of such high intensity ;

"There were a lot of mistakes for just one game. A match between Real and Barca ought to have a high level of referee," said Ronaldo.

"You can't make correct decisions when you are nervous. It makes me think that it is not just on the field that you win games, a little help from outside helps too.

"My penalty might have been just outside the area, but there are many things that went on. It is difficult when many people didn't want us to win today."

Ronaldo's coach Carlo Ancelotti was more level-headed about Mallenco's decisions, but did agree that Ramos' red card swung the game in Barca's favour.

"I haven't seen it again and it is difficult for me to comment on the decisions of the referee because there were many."However, it was the key moment. We were winning 3-2 and controlling the game well, but it is much more difficult to control the game with a player less."

This Defeat leaves Real Madrid to 2nd place in La liga with Atlético Madrid at the peak with goal difference.

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Microsoft says it snooped on Hotmail to track leak

LOS ANGELES: Microsoft Corporation which has skewered rival Google Inc. for going through customer emails to deliver ads, acknowledged it had searched emails in a blogger's Hotmail account to track down who was leaking company secrets.

John Frank, deputy general counsel for Microsoft, which owns Hotmail, said in a statement Thursday that the software company ''took extraordinary actions in this case.''

In the future, he said, Microsoft would consult an outside attorney who is a former judge to determine if a court order would have allowed such a search.

The case involves former employee Alex Kibkalo, a Russian native who worked for Microsoft as a software architect in Lebanon.

According to an FBI complaint alleging theft of trade secrets, Microsoft found Kibkalo in September 2012 after examining the Hotmail account of the blogger with whom Kibkalo allegedly shared proprietary Microsoft code.

The complaint filed Monday in federal court in Seattle did not identify the blogger. ''After confirmation that the data was Microsoft's proprietary trade secret, on September 7, 2012, Microsoft's Office of Legal Compliance (OLC) approved content pulls of the blogger's Hotmail account,'' says the complaint by FBI agent Armando Ramirez.

The search of the email account occurred months before Microsoft provided Ramirez with the results of its internal investigation in July 2013.

The email search uncovered messages from Kibkalo to the blogger containing fixes for the Windows 8 RT operating system before they were released publicly. The complaint alleges Kibkalo also shared a software development kit that could be used by hackers to understand more about how Microsoft uses product keys to activate software.

Besides the email search, Microsoft also combed through instant messages the two exchanged that September. Microsoft also examined files in Kibkalo's cloud storage account, which until last month was called SkyDrive.

Kibkalo is accused of using SkyDrive to share files with the blogger.

Kibkalo has since relocated to Russia, the FBI complaint says.

Frank said in his statement that no court order was needed to conduct the searches.

''Courts do not issue orders authorizing someone to search themselves,'' he said.

''Even when we have probable cause, it's not feasible to ask a court to order us to search ourselves.''

Hotmail's terms of service includes a section that says, ''We may access or disclose information about you, including the content of your communications, in order to ... protect the rights or property of Microsoft or our customers.''

Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft has taken a defiant stand against intrusions of customer privacy, in the wake of National Security Agency systems analyst Edward Snowden's revelations of government snooping into online activities.

General counsel Brad Smith said in a blog post in December that Microsoft was ''especially alarmed'' at news reports of widespread government cyber-spying.

Microsoft also has a long-running negative ad campaign called ''Scroogled,'' in which it slams Google for scanning ''every word in every email'' to sell ads, saying that ''Google crosses the line.''

Tech

China sending more ships to plane search area: Xinhua

BEIJING: At least seven Chinese ships were to head for the southern Indian Ocean on Friday, where possible debris from a missing Malaysia Airlines plane has been sighted, state media reported.

The official Xinhua news agency said that rescue ships Haixun 01 and 31 and Nanhaijiu 101 and 115 were to depart for the search area.

Three other navy ships were already on their way, it added.

Xinhua also said the Antarctic research icebreaker Xuelong, or Snow Dragon, would head for the area “as soon as possible”.

The Xuelong was anchored in the western Australian port of Fremantle. In January, it took part in the rescue of personnel from a Russian ship stranded in Antarctica.

Australia said on Thursday that satellites had captured images of objects in the southern Indian Ocean, with the largest estimated at 24 metres (79 feet) across.

The announcement raised hopes of a breakthrough in the mysterious disappearance of the MH370, but officials cautioned that the apparent sighting needed to be confirmed.

Of the 239 people aboard the Boeing 777, which went missing on March 8 during an overnight flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, 153 are from China.

Rihanna, Eminem team up for summer 'Monster' tour

LOS ANGELES: R&B superstar Rihanna and hip hop chart-topper Eminem are hitting the road together this summer for a string of joint stadium concerts, promoter Live Nation announced Wednesday.

The pair will kick off their Monster Tour at the Rose Bowl in Los Angeles on August 7, before proceeding to New York on August 16 and Eminem's hometown Detroit on August 22.

Tickets go on sale March 28 to the general public, with pre-sales beginning on Thursday, Live Nation said in a statement that did not specify whether additional dates are in the pipeline.

“At this time, those are the only confirmed dates,” Live Nation spokesman Victor Trevino told AFP by email.

Eminem and Rihanna have collaborated four times in the recording studio in the course of their musical careers, most recently on “The Monster” off the rapper's latest album, “The Marshall Mathers LP 2.

”Eminem hasn't performed in concert in the United States since a Lollapalooza gig in Chicago three years ago. Rihanna meanwhile is starting work on her eighth album on the heels of her 2013 Diamonds World Tour.

Last year, Justin Timberlake and Jay-Z premiered their Legends of the Summer Stadium Tour in London before going on to perform together before sell-out crowds in 14 US and Canadian cities.

This year has seen rock legends Sting and Paul Simon on tour together, while Kiss and Def Leppard announced Monday they'll be sharing the bill for the first time on a 42-city North American tour that starts June 23 in Utah.