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.

Nebnab2004 gettogether videos

Poor video quality since shot by mobile.
.shiva.

More reasons to vote

Lok paritran, the party started by ex-IITians, filed 7 candidates in Tamil Nadu assembly elections.

1. Santhanagopalan Vasudev(age 28) Mylapore, (Masters in Economics at New York University)
2. Elanthirumaran P.(age 38) Chepauk (systems programmer at L&T)
3. Ishrayel Maheshwar(age 31)Thousand Lights
4. Aravind Seshagiri(age 32)Theagaraya Nagar (Research Consultant at a Global Growth Consulting company)
5. Rajamany(age 56)Anna Nagar (33 years of experience specializing in Maintenance and Planning in Fertilizer)
6. Prema Kannan(age 56) Villivakkam (an experienced social worker)
7. Vanchinarayanan(age 27) Mudukulathur (runs an organization called Success Oriented Right Revolution of Youth and Public)

Wishing the best
.shiva.

Young guns lifting India

I read an interesting and exciting statistics about our cricket team[ source courtesy: Johnson]. Its really fantastic that in the absence of the Biggie players(Sachin, Saurav and out of form Sehwag) our young guns have done a wonderful job to put us on the top of the world cricket. Our team did a great all-round performance.
These statistics are for the current cricket season.

• We have Yuvraj Singh, Rahul dravid and Dhoni in 1st, 3rd and 4th spot of the highest run getters.
• Irfan Pathan, Ajit Agarkar and Harbhajan Sigh at 1st, 3rd and 5th position in the list of highest wicket takers.
• India is on the first place in win percentage, with the staggering 67.65%. Australians are at the second place with 62.5%.
  

Great going for India.
Cheers!!!
.shiva.

Gettogether

We celebrated our gettogether on 15th of April, 2 years after finishing the college. Its really a great occassion. Even though we've been in touch, meeting all of the friends in one place was a very special one. It's really an unforgettable day. Full credits goes to our Deepa ma'am who initiated this event. Hope we'll celebrate the next gettogether with more friends.
The photos are uploaded in flickr.
.shiva.

SACHIN.... Sachin!!!

Happy birthday!!!
Many more happy centuries Sachin....

luv
.shiva.

Google Earth, crossing boundaries...?

It's really shocking to hear that Google just rejected India's concerns over publishing high quality satellite images of sensitive areas, like Rashtrapati bhavan.

The high-resolution satellite images include those of airfields in Chandigarh, Ambala, Amritsar, Avantipura (J&K), Srinagar and Leh. In several of the images, various types of aircraft can be clearly seen parked in the airfields.What could probably be more alarming to the defence forces - particularly the Indian Air Force - is the fact that while the website carries images of Pakistani air bases in Sargodha and Lahore too, these are grainy in comparison to the crystal clarity of the Indian images.

Last week the Deputy National Security Advisor Vijay Nambiar expressed concern about the pictures.

In October 2005, our president A. P. J. Abdul kalam expressed concerns over the security threat posed by the Google Earth.

"You will realise that some of the developing countries, which are already in danger of terrorist attacks, have been singularly chosen to provide such high resolutions", Mr. Kalam told a meeting of top police officials.

But Google responds with exposing more and more sensitive areas in its latest releases. We have to wait for our Governments reaction on Google Earth.

Related news:

• India army boss slams Google Earth - CNN
• Google rejects India’s concerns - NDTV
• 'Google Earth a threat for India' - India Times
• India slams Google Earth - News24

.shiva.

Fingerprints Can Reveal Your Addictions

Fingerprints could give clues about the lifestyle of a person, and that may help forensic investigations.

"Researchers in the UK are uncovering the ways fingerprints are changed by age, smoking, drug use and even some personal grooming products.

There are a lot of lipids in fingerprints and there are a lot of possibilities for that.Drug users typically excrete the metabolised products of the chemical they use. For instance, smokers are known to secrete cotinine, a chemical produced when the human body breaks down nicotine."

Fingerprint-based systems are likely to be extensively used in the future for authentication. Can you imagine a Google site where you can logon with your fingerprint? Google will know not just who you are, what you've searched, what do you like, but also what's your medical condition, if you smoke or take drugs. Google could personalize the results and promote the sites that offer medical advice relevant to your condition.
Source: BBC News.

Google's new results interface

Heard news about Google is testing it's new result pages, here and there. And here it is, the new Google results page, with a side panel on the left. This panel, shows the strength of your search query in different categories, and also it allows Google to get more space to add its services list. An interesting layout, though not mindblowing .

Tidbit:
If you want to view this result page, do this

• Goto Google.com page or whatever google servers, like google.co.in
• paste the following string in the address bar in a single line and press enter, and ignore the meaningless messagebox.

javascript:alert (document.cookie="PREF=ID=fb7740f107311e46:TM=1142683332:LM=1142683332:
S=fNSw6ljXTzvL3dWu;path=/;domain=.google.com")

Note: the sting must be a continuous, single-line entry. Additionally, the portion "domain=.google.com" should be modified to whatever Google search server you are using (e.g., google.co.in).

• Here you go, try your search and you are viewing the new results page.

luvingly,

.shiva.

On a BIGGER Stage, A. R. Rahman in LOTR

The man who has been mesmerising each and every music lover starting from his his very first film music "Roja", is now on the world's most expensive(more than US$23 million) musical stage show, Stage adaptation of Lord of The Rings. It started with positive reviews on 23rd of this month. Its advance bookings already having generated staggering $16m.

The show will run only in Toronto until at least 2007; the next production would be in London.



With superb hits recently in bollywood(Rang de basanti) and kollywood(Godfather) the year 2006 looks very promissing from A. R. Rahman, with long list of upcoming albums,

• Jil endru Oru kadhal, Sivaji, Dhasavadharam -Tamil
• Guru(Mani ratnam), Jodha-Akbar(Ashuthosh Gowarikar)- Hindi
• Provoked(Aishwarya rai), Film on Mozart - International

tidbit:
The current Hollywood Blockbuster "INSIDE MAN" starring Denzel Washington, is the #1 movie currently. The opening and closing moments of this movie have the unforgettable ARR hit "Chaiyya chaiyya" and also in the credits!!
and its worth mentioning that the recent hollywood flick "Lord of Wars" also had the Rahman's Bombay theme music.

Great going for ARR and very good news for all music lovers.

rahmanically,
.shiva.

Rajni in Sivaji latest ... stunning photos

I just taken aback to see these photos this morning...
photos courtesy by our Natraj.... thank you nat.





Hats off to shankar...

Mahabalipuram Visit

Hi dudes..
I've uploaded the photos we took during the Mahabalipuram visit last sunday, in my googlepages home page

Hands on...Google pages

At last, Google released it's much rumored service, 'Google Pages'. Now you can create your home page on the fly with a simple online page creator from Google. To have a home page on Google pages, all you need is a GMail account. Sign-in, choose the template and layout. And you are ready with your home page at .googlepages.com.

As every other service of Google, its so simple to use and has very nice features. In my opinion, this is the easiest and effective online web editing tool available. Templates are very nice, with provision for 1/2/3 columns, with sidebar on left or right. We can create addtional pages also, and of course with a storage limit of 100 MB. It has page-manager to edit/create/delete pages. You can upload images with simple resizing facilities. Adding links in the page are very simple. It would be more interesting, if they allowed direct HTML editing also.
I tried my hands on the Google pages mmm... and see the result by yourself.

:) Bush Collection...

:) Three Brazillian Soldiers

Donald Rumsfeld is giving the president his daily briefing. He concludes by saying: "Yesterday, 3 Brazilian soldiers were killed."
"OH NO!" the President exclaims. "That's terrible!"
His staff sits stunned at this display of emotion, nervously watching as the President sits, head in hands.
Finally, the President looks up and asks, "How many is a brazillion?"

Privacy.... don't be funny... you are using Google

Google Desktop 3 contains a feature called "Search Across Computers" that, according to the search giant, enables users to search their documents and view Web pages across all of their computers.

While previous versions of the desktop search application indexed files stored on a person's computer(is it? who knows?), the beta version of Desktop 3 copies files to Google's computers. This permits the data indexed on one computer to be searched by a second system.

Users can limit the automatic transfers by changing the settings in the application's preferences.

Although Google said it stores the personal information for only 30 days and deletes the files if unused(believe them...), privacy experts are up in arms over the potential for abuse.

"It's shocking Google expects it will be allowed to store consumers' files on its servers," Kevin Bankston, staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told internetnews.com.

The new feature is "one-stop shopping for hackers if they get hold of your password," he added.

“If you use the Search Across Computers feature and don’t configure Google Desktop very carefully—and most people won’t—Google will have copies of your tax returns, love letters, business records, financial and medical files, and whatever other text-based documents the Desktop software can index. The government could then demand these personal files with only a subpoena rather than the search warrant it would need to seize the same things from your home or business, and in many cases you wouldn’t even be notified in time to challenge it.

We already have examples of Government asking privacy information from search engines.
"Google was asked for information on the types of query submitted over a week, and the websites included in its index". Yahoo! already submitted everything the government asked for. And this dispute is not over yet.

Bird Flu...PANIC.... no way...

The government’s message to the Indian citizen, as articulated by health minister Anbumani Ramadoss is: “Eat chicken, no need to panic.” The minister repeated the assurance in Parliament on 20th Feb.
Hours later, as he ate his lunch at the Parliament canteen, the bird stayed off his plate though it was on the day’s menu.

Parliament, the army and both the national carriers have banished chicken from their kitchens.
source: The Telegraph
Be proud to have these kind of brave politicians...

Happy valentine's day

"perfect love is not receiving, it is giving and forgiving.
perfect love is not red roses on valentine's day, it is the rest of the 365 days of knowing each other.
perfect love is not phone calls and stolen kisses, it's the silent smiles in memory of ur sweetheart.
perfect love is not a grand wedding, but spending a lifetime together.
perfect love is not a fight-n-kiss, its loving the one who annoys the hell out of u."
have you found your perfect love...?

"The purpose of a relationship is not to have another who might complete you, but to have another with whom you might share your completeness! "
wish you all a very happy valentine's day...

p.s: for your kind info, I'm in a green shirt today.

A Generation Awakens

...Don't mistake it.. Its not another review of "Rang De Basanti" , something else, something important. But I will write about this movie later for sure.

"a generation awakens" it's the caption used by the latest bollywood flick, "Rang de Bsanti". A wonderful movie, which focuses on today's youth, and their perspective on our country and why they are not taking up the responsibility of improving our motherland, as the youth of late 1940's did during the course of independence struggle. And the movie goes on to tell, how the youngsters get motivated to contribute to this country. Basanti means Yellow, the color of sacrifice. Sacrifice for the motherland.

Every person amongst us having a dream to change our country's fate and saving our country from this corrupted system, stepping up the growth rate, eliminating poverty and more. But who will start all these things. We are all waiting for something, which is not going to happen, if we are not ready to start. Whenever we or our beloved ones affected by this system, our inner mechanisms were boiled to certain level and they are getting diluted over certain period of time. We keep on saying it's fate of this country, no one can save this. YES it's true. No one can save our country, if we are not ready.

Now I can see a glimpse of hope here and there. More youngsters are getting ready to dedicate their life in serving our motherland. I don't know, how long they can sustain, amidst political "Shakuni"s. But I don't want them to go alone. I would like to follow them and give my whole-hearted support rather than following the existing corrupted politicians. We have to support them. The wait is over. If you are not ready to take up any responsibilities, better try to extend some support to the youngsters, who are prepared to do that. A political party named "Paritrana" formed by five ex-IITians. You should have read about that party. The following is their ideology mentioned in their website, which is still under construction.

"Responsibility is proportional to abilities.
Those with superior abilities naturally bear more responsibility and should come forward to change the pitiful condition that the nation is facing. Everyone must do what one should."

what will we do now...?

Fate of blogs...

source: www.perseus.com
“Here are some statistics on the percentage of total bloggers for the years 2003 and 2005, broken down by age group. The youngest segment, which comprised the largest number of bloggers from the beginning, increased its share; bloggers under 19 now account for almost 60% of the total. The only other group to increase its numbers was the 40-49 range, with a nigh-insignificant .1% gain. The 20-29, 30-39, and 50+ age groups all lost some of their share, with this loss increasing in relative magnitude as the ages increased. Relative positioning of the age groups remained constant, with a sharp dropoff after 30.”
and more on abandoned blogs..

“The most dramatic finding was that 66.0% of surveyed blogs had not been updated in two months, representing 2.72 million blogs that have been either permanently or temporarily abandoned. Apparently the blog-hosting services have made it so easy to create a blog that many tire-kickers feel no commitment to continuing the blog they initiate. In fact, 1.09 million blogs were one-day wonders, with no postings on subsequent days. The average duration of the remaining 1.63 million abandoned blogs was 126 days (almost four months). A surprising 132,000 blogs were abandoned after being maintained a year or more
Males were more likely than females to abandon blogs, with 46.4% of abandoned blogs created by males, as compared to 40.7% of active blogs being created by males. Abandonment rates did not vary based on age. Those who abandoned blogs tended to write posts that were only 58% as long as the posts of those who still maintained blogs, which simply indicates that those who enjoy writing stick with blogs longer.”

Tiruttani trip collage

luv
.shiva.