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The Tata Nano was thought to be a groundbreaking product, able to revolutionize carmaking both in the developing and in the developed world. Pity that nothing of the sort happened. Customer choice still remains difficult to foresee and - in this case - the product simply was not attractive to any customer segment

Palm, once clear market leader in the "palmtop" segment clearly has lost ground in the shift to smartphones. Now it is attempting a revival, based on its web-oriented operating system. Will this be enough to fend off competing solutions from Apple, Microsoft, Nokia/Symbian and Google/Android? The answer depends on whether there something specific in Palm's business model, acting as differentiator and potentially as a source of competitive advantage.

What is the perfect "personal device"? In the quest for a dominant design, now Motoral is looking for a TV tablet. Will it find acceptance in the market? This is probably a matter of market segmentation: "older" TV addicts having more money to spend will probably find it interesting. But younger people, raised on youtube and facebook might find it useless...

Since decades, diffusion of operating systems depends on the avilability of the complementary asset called "applications", and allowing independent developers to work on them can help a lot. Now Samsung is realizing they are late to the game and are going to open up their OS. However, they might still have a chance because they are competing on the still uncrowded low-end segment.

In India, where two-wheelers represent the most common transportation means, Tata Motors saw the need to come up with a safer kind of transportation. In addition to this safety issue, personal transport is also problematic because of the rare availability of public transportation . Therefore, Tata Motors introduced the People's Car, called the Nano. This disruptive product innovation will surely have significant effects on the small-car segment.

It's rush hour, and you're headed due West on your evening commute -- the sun burning holes in your eyes. You could flip down a window visor, trading your field of view for visibility. Or, with a prototype shown off at Intel's 2010 International Science and Engineering Fair, you could simply let the windshield darken on its own. Two San Diego students (both accustomed to copious amounts of sunshine) rigged a Toyota Prius to do just that by stringing up electrochromic panels, which dim when voltage is applied. The trick is figuring out when and where to apply it, because when the sun is shining the panels themselves all receive the same amount of light. So instead of gauging it at the glass, Aaron Schild and Rafael Cosman found that an ultrasonic range finder could track the driver's position while a VGA webcam measured the light coming through, and darken the sections liable to cause the most eyestrain. We saw a prototype in person, and it most certainly works... albeit slowly. If you're rearing to roll your own, it seems raw materials are reasonably affordable -- Schild told us electrochromic segments cost $0.25 per square inch -- but you may not need to DIY. Having won $4,000 in prize money at the Fair, the teens say they intend to commercialize the technology, and envision it natively embedded in window glass in the not-too-distant future. Here's hoping GM gives them a call. See pics of the Prius below, or check out a video demo of their prototype right after the break.