End of Google?

Marc Fawzi in evolving Trends written an interesting article about, what could be the biggest ever breakthrough in organizing world's information.

"Once machines can understand and use information, using a standard ontology language, the world will never be the same. It will be possible to have an info agent (or many info agents) among your virtual AI-enhanced workforce each having access to different domain specific comprehension space and all communicating with each other to build a collective consciousness."

"Wikipedia has the volunteer resources to produce the needed Semantic Web ontologies for the domains of knowledge that it currently covers, while Google does not have those volunteer resources, which will make it reliant on Wikipedia."

"In just a few years Google’s search engine technology, which provides almost all of their revenue, could be made obsolete… That is unless they have a deal with Ontoworld where they will tap into their database of ontologies and add an inference engine capability to Google search."

Read the full article at : Wikipedia 3.0 - End of Google

.shiva.

Master... back with a BIG bang

form is temporary class is permanent.
Sachin proved it once again. He made, the so called cricket gurus, who criticized his batting ability, especially for the past two years, mute.



Welcome back Sachin. Delighted to see you back in your own great form.

cheers!!!
.shiva.

Worldspace ad video featuring A. R. Rahman

Once, somebody asked me to define music
I didn't really have an answer
Or, lets say, had more than one
For me , music is like an unspoken language
Its the sound of nature
If you listen carefully, there is music in everything
There is only one way to understand and enjoy music
You just have to keep listening
And, you can, with WorldSpace
There is so much to hear
A.R. Rahman.

Rahman all set to repeat the Airtel magic!!!
.shiva.

holding hands

I was sitting on a beach one summer day, watching two children, a boy and a girl, playing in the sand.


They were hard at work building an elaborate sandcastle by the water's edge with gates and towers and moats and internal passages. Just when they had nearly finished their project.
A big wave came along and knocked it down, reducing it to a heap of wet sand.

I expected the children to burst into tears, devastated by what had happened to all their hard work.

But they surprised me. Instead, they ran up the shore away from the water, laughing and holding hands, and sat down to build another castle.

I realized that they had taught me an important lesson. All the things in our lives, all the complicated structures we spend so much time and energy creating, are built on sand. Only our relationships to other people endure. Sooner or later , the wave will come along and knock down what we have worked so hard to build up.


When that happens, only the person who has somebody's hand to hold will be able to laugh.

Top 40 most important companies

Wired creates top companies list every year. They have certain criteria in finalizing the list. They explain this way:

"What makes a company wired? We start by looking for the basics: strategic vision, global reach, killer technology. But that’s not enough. To land a spot on our annual Wired 40 list, a business also needs the X-factor – a hunger for new ideas and an impatience to put them into practice"

Some interesting facts from the current wired40 list.

• Google replaced Apple in the numero uno spot
• Yahoo unmoved in its 5th place
• Infosys is at the 11th place, yes u read that correct. What more surprising to me was, it actually slipped 2 places from the last year's rating.
• And then comes the big brother Microsoft, at the 36th place.
• Some of the companies slid out of the 40 list are Nokia, Dell, Pixar and Vodafone

the complete list can be read on Wired

Cheerz
.shiva.

Ants have pedometer

...an interesting article [source: New scientist ]

Desert ants have an internal system - like a pedometer - that keeps track of how many steps they take, according to a new study. The insects seem to rely on this system to find their way back to the nest after foraging. Other insects may also possess this pedometer-like system. Some types of ant appear to use visual cues or leave scent trails to find their way home. But desert ants have a remarkable ability to retrace their steps from their nesting site even though they travel on flat terrain that is devoid of landmarks, and any odours quickly fade in the hot temperatures.

Previously, researchers have found evidence that ants use the position of the sun as a compass (see Nature, DOI: 10.1038/293731a0). But, as Harald Wolf at the university of Ulm, Germany, and his colleagues point out, for such a compass to be of use desert ants would need a way to track distance.

btw... don't go with the image, it doesn't have any connection with the article. its from one of my favorite movie "Antz".


Cheerz
.shiva.

Infy Trip

wow... thats the one word i can say about this trip. Its really fantastic to be with our best friends, that too after a very long time, on some special place and most importantly on a very special time. Yes, I visited Bangalore and Mysore Infy with Anandakumar on the last weekend. And that sunday happened to be Daffney's birthday.

As usual I've posted some photos here and the rest you can see on my flickr page.

and about the trip... its very very nice and unforgettable one. I met Shine Babu(Bangalore Infy) Vimal kumar(after a very long time) and Daffney(Mysore Infy, Birthday baby).

Bangalore... the IT capital of India, not impressed me very much by its infrastructure, TRAFFIC to be specific. OOOOh... it tore us apart, even though that was a saturday. But once after we arrive at Infy campus, thats a different ball game altogether. Its really great to be there. I was just taken aback to see the amount of care given on maintaining such environment. Its really awesome. I don't think there will be any other IT company's campus in India could match Infy's. Hats off to N.R. Narayana Murthy. We had a great time there for almost 2 hours roaming everywhere, having lots of fun. and in the evening we went to FORUM, the shopping mall. Comparing with Spencer's... of course its smaller but i should say i enjoyed the crowd( :-) ) most. Very much current on fashion. We purchased some shirts and I bought "The success Principles" by Jack canfield recommended by Satheesh to me. Actually I bought two copies. One for me. I yet to start reading that book( I will do satheesh...) and other for Daffney.

And in Mysore, we were bit tired, with the Bangalore trip, that reflected a bit on us. Daffney took us to Infy campus. And the same story continued there also. With Shine babu transformed as a cameraman with handy cam, we had a real nice time there for 3 hours. Mysore is much better than Bangalore, for IT I think. It's having a great weather, and peaceful environment. But we felt a bit hotter weather on sunday.

mmm... thats it. It was a great experience to be with Shine, Daffney and Vimal. Hope we all will meet again sooner.

The rest of the photos available at flickr gallery

Sivaji rajni in Shooting spot latest photos

for more photos visit gallery

.shiva.

A trip around my native

Its been a long time since i roam around my native place, Nagercoil. Its turned as a special trip as i accompanied by my sister's cute kids.

The first two pictures taken in Kaalkesam. There is a superb place called ulakkai falls. But I didn't go there as its too risky to climb up with kids. kaalikesam is a very great place, as it is not crowded by tourists.




...and the next two photos are taken in Thirparappu falls. Its more commercialized by the name of Tourism Development. More People there to chill out the scorching summer's heat.




...and the last photo taken at Mattur bridge.



.shiva.

Want to teach a lesson to politicians? 'O' podu...

This is for the people who think not to stain their own finger, by voting for stained politicians.


“O Podu” is a social awareness movement.

“O PODU’ means “cast the vote”. Voting is both the right and duty of the people. Another objective of our movement is to make people aware of their constitutional right to cast their vote under section 49 ‘O’.

On an average, in every election, nearly 45 percent of the eligible voters don’t vote at all. Therefore even if a winning candidate bags 30 percent of the polled votes, it amounts to getting the support of only about 16 percent of the total electorate. If more and more non voters begin to exercise their vote, the result of many elections would drastically change.

Why are many people not voting at all? One of the usual reasons cited is that they are unable to accept any candidate and don’t want to vote for anyone of the available candidates.

It is a unique feature of our Indian constitution that it has provided the legal right to the voter to reject all the candidates. Section 49 ‘O’ of the Election rules 1961, has empowered the voter with this right. This section has conferred the right to the voter to inform the booth officer, after the indelible ink mark has been marked, that the voter does not want to vote for any of the candidates. The section requires the booth officer to record the voter’s choice of 49 ‘O’.

“O PODU” movement will campaign for the following demands:

1. Every voter should cast the vote. Failure to cast the vote only prevents enhancement of the standards of politics.
2. If the voter feels all the candidates are unworthy, the best way to communicate this view to the political parties is not through abstinence. The best method is to record this view through 49 ‘O’.
3. Secrecy of ballot is a right conferred on the voter by the Constitution. But the election commission’s procedure of not keeping 49 ‘O’ voting as secretive, amounts to a violation of this right. Therefore the Election commission should rectify this anomaly by introducing a separate button for 49 ‘O’ in the electronic voting machines, for the forthcoming Tamilnadu elections.
4. It is the duty of the Election commission to educate the booth officers about the availability of 49 ‘O while conducting classes to them on polling procedures. The present practice of booth officers expressing ignorance about 49 ‘O’ and refusing a vote to record under 49 ‘O’ should be totally eliminated.’
   

“O PODU” movement will campaign among voters, particularly the youth, seeking support for the above demands, by use of posters, pamphlets, meetings, T shirt messages, e mails and SMS.
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original source: Oh podu

O podu...
.shiva.