Archit Tantia

Although I don’t have any opinions about the product itself, I do think that Microsoft has finally learnt how to make commercials that touch the hearts of the people, instead of launching an attack at one of their competitors. Don’t believe me? Watch this.

I remember those days – Pogs, Hungry Hungry Hippos and Internet Explorer with 56K modems that sounded like scratching blackboards with cats! And now I see my younger cousins with iPads, Laptops and “smart” phones. How times change.

P.S. Although I like this commercial, it doesn’t convince me to shift back to IE anyhow.

Had a good laugh watching this video? For keegs – images cannot be enhanced more than their original size. It is one of the biggest myths Hollywood wants you to believe.

Wired: Steve Jobs felt competitive enough to claim that he was willing to “go to thermonuclear war” on Android.

Page: How well is that working?

From the man himself.

With Android’s market share reaching 75% in smartphones, Steve Jobs’s big “thermonuclear war” seems to have backfired in every way. Apple is the one that has become distracted due to its legal swashbuckling, while Google keeps chugging away.

One thing that really amazes me is how people simply swear by using just a single brand’s products. “Apple is the best and I only use their products” or “Samsung’s Android phones are the only phones I would ever buy”.

Stop thinking like “Apple is so much better than Microsoft” and ask yourself a simple question “Which product would work best for me?” If you simply stick to one company (as always!), without even taking a look at the other options, you’ll be missing out on a lot.

If you’re one of them, try being a bit more unbiased towards the products other companies make and you will be delighted to see how many more options you will have in front of you.

In Q&A session on Slashdot the other day, Steve Wozniak took the time to remind folks that bickering over rubbish like the phone fanboy wars is just stupid:

It’s better to think constructively about what can be done with our mobile platforms to improve our lives more, rather than trying to throw darts and insults.

Woz is famous for using everything, from Windows to OS X, Android to iOS (and even Windows Phone).

Not a single company out there is perfect. All of them have their own advantages and disadvantages, their own strengths and weaknesses. Try not to be a fanboy. Try to think outside the box. You’ll start seeing a completely different world.

So true for those who live inside Apple’s reality distortion field.

P.S. I did not use the term “fanboys” in this post.

One of the twin space probes launched 35 years ago has traveled more than 11 billion miles from Earth. The Voyager probes were originally slated just to examine Jupiter and Saturn during a five-year trip.

“So we’re getting anywhere from five to eight hours of data every day from each of these spacecraft, and it’s quite remarkable,” says Ness.

Of the two, Voyager 1 is the farthest away from Earth. Don Gurnett of the University of Iowa, who has worked on the mission since the mid-1970s, says Voyager 1’s radio signals now take more than 16 hours to reach us.

Voyager 1 can keep talking to Earth for about another decade. That’s how long the plutonium that powers it should last.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation doled out a total of $400,000 grants to reinvent the toilet. The first prize ($100,000) went to Caltech’s solar-powered bathroom.

Oh, and they had 50 gallons of fake poop for testing the toilets.

The Internet, when it first came, it was a breath of fresh air. It was so free. Nobody owned the Internet space.Countries didn’t own it; they didn’t control it. It was worldwide. It was people to people. It was like we little people of the world all of a sudden had this incredible resource and we didn’t have to go through other people selling it to us and delivering it to us.

– Steve Wozniak

Under the new setup, RIM has said it would not even remotely monitor its Mumbai facility anymore, and has agreed to ‘disconnect the remote maintenance system monitoring which it normally provides to ensure high service level’.

Morale of the story: If you want security, do the encryption yourself.

Well, Shin, I have something to talk to you about” He said, “You can do this as an aside of your job and enjoy – I want you to enjoy doing this. But if Sony were to make an iPhone, what would it be like? Would you make it for me?”

These are renderings that I created based on my own thoughts or my understanding of Sony-like designs – Sony’s design, based on the request by Jonathan Ive.