Archit Tantia

Virgle – The Adventure of Many Lifetimes – Yet another hotshot Aprils Fools’ Day prank by Google! I knew they were up to fooling people the moment I started reading the pages but believe me, someone who doesn’t know about Google’s April Fools’ Day pranks would definitely fall into the prank.

They even made an Application Form for people who are interested in the project (Dhuh!) and this is what it shows when you click on the Submit button after filling up the form:

Okay, let’s just get this over with quickly, like ripping off a medical adhesive: you did not do well on this test. You are not, by all available evidence, well suited to be a Virgle Pioneer, or any sort space explorer, really, or for that matter, any profession which requires leaving behind your creature comforts, your nice warm bed, your lovely wardrobe, your gourmet meals, your high-end home theater, your friends and family — oh man, what have we gotten ourselves into here? We’re kind of freaking out ourselves, actually. Help! We changed our minds! We don’t want to go! [Clicks heels.] There’s no place like home! There’s no place like home! There’s no place like — [ Long silence. ] Hello. Still there? We’re sorry about that unpleasantness with our previous reviewer. We can assure you, you tested just fine and would make a fine Pioneer; all you have to do is submit your video here.

LOL! You should take a look at how Richard Branson, Larry Page and Sergey Brin talk so nicely and seriously about “Project Virgle” in the video.

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• Google’s April Fools Day Joke, Gmail Custom Time?

OK my exams’ finally over! Gotta get back to blogging now. 🙂

I had posted my views on the Microhoo! deal a few days ago. Now finally the long awaited comment from Google has arrived at their official blog. The post has been done by David Drummond, Senior Vice President, Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer at Google and is somewhat a bit rude relating to Google’s posting habits.

I think this is the first time Google has openly questioned one of its rivals like this and this attitude doesn’t rightly portray its “Don’t be Evil” motto.

Whatever the attitude of the post, I think he gave a very powerful view about Microsoft’s doing;

Could Microsoft now attempt to exert the same sort of inappropriate and illegal influence over the Internet that it did with the PC? While the Internet rewards competitive innovation, Microsoft has frequently sought to establish proprietary monopolies — and then leverage its dominance into new, adjacent markets.

So what’s your view on the official Google post about the hot in the market deal?

Is the $44.6 billion bid for Yahoo! Inc. by Microsoft Corp good or bad for us and Google? I say it just won’t matter. For the users it would be the same old less-relevant search results by both the “Google fed-up” companies. And for Google – Sergey and Larry are going to have no problems sleeping.

Google’s search market share was 58.4 percent in December, while Yahoo and Microsoft combined for almost 33 percent of the market. Yahoo holds 22.9 percent and Microsoft 9.8 percent. So even if the deal is successful Microsoft still wouldn’t be able to capture more market share than Google.

Google will get a 12 month time to boost its services and customer base if the companies merge. Microhoo! (Microsoft – Yahoo) will be in a big mess coordinating with each other’s headquarters loosing customers due to poor synchronization. Microsoft doesn’t have the experience to fix and combine Yahoo.

Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer himself told analysts in July 2006 that buying Yahoo wouldn’t help Microsoft improve its search business, because only Google has a better quality product than Microsoft but seems he isn’t a word keeper.

Microsoft is a registered trademark of the Microsoft Corporation; Yahoo! is a registered trademark of Yahoo, Inc.; Google is a registered trademark of Google, Inc. Microhoo logo courtesy joemanna.com

I found a hidden treasure in my Nokia N95 handset today. I didn’t know that the N95 had an Accelerometer in it. I was wondering how the camera would automatically differentiate landscape and portrait shots all by itself. This was done with the help of the accelerometer feature in it which Nokia had been hiding from us for some unknown reason.

I downloaded a few applications for testing these features and it turned out to be an interesting thing. A few of them are listed below.

Nokia Activity Monitor
This plug-in displays charts and statistics, in real-time, about your movements while walking or running. It counts the number of steps, and determines the distance covered and the energy expenditure. Summaries are stored in a diary so that you can compare your activity level on different days, and over longer periods of time. A nice application specially for runners and joggers.

Download Nokia Activity Monitor | An improved version of the Activity Monitor – Nokia Step Counter – is available below.

Nokia Step Counter ^New
Ever wanted to know how much you walk or run as you go about your daily life? The Nokia Step Counter not only counts your steps, it also determines the distance you have covered and your energy expenditure. You can even compare your activity levels on different days by looking up the summaries stored in a handy diary.

Download Nokia Step Counter

rotateMe
This plug-in allows you to switch your phone screen from portrait to landscape and vice versa automatically when you rotate your phone. It enable the handset to behaves just like the iPhone.

Download rotateMe | Demo Video

MovingBall
This is a small app where you can play around with a ball moving inside the screen.

Download MovingBall

One of my friends was telling me that there was an application for switching menu tabs in this handset by moving the phone using the accelerometer feature. I couldn’t find an application like that though till now. If anyone of you know about it please let me know.

Who needs an iPhone now? ;P

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Ruth Kedar of KedarDesigns.com designed the Google logo in the version that became famous around the world (the original tries at designing the logo were by Google co-founder Sergey Brin, reportedly, using the Gimp software). On being asked how the Google logo design came about originally, here’s her reply.

read more | digg story

Scrap metal thieves in Russia managed to steal a 200 tonne steel bridge without anyone noticing. They took away the entire structure and vanished overnight. It was part of the only road leading to a heating plant. According to the management of the company, the cost of replacing the bridge would be ten times the value of the scrap metal that had been stolen. Wonder how they got to work without the bridge.

read more | digg story

Bah! Thought of going online on Orkut after so many days and guess what? As soon as I logged in and clicked on my Scrapbook, they went down for maintenance: “Oops! You caught us in the midst of temporary site maintenance. Please check back shortly. Sorry for the inconvenience.”

Looks like Orkut is again falling for the downtime thingy which it’s competitors never have.

I was surfing through YouTube and came across this Cadbury Dairy Milk Commercial Video. You should look at the way the gorilla beats the drums! It’s really funny though I can’t figure out how is this video related to chocolates???

Note: If you have subscribed to this blog’s newsletter you may not be able to see the video in your email issue or feed syndicate. Please visit this page to view the video.

This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered at Stanford University on June 12, 2005. I think you all should read the full text. A speech with an emotional touch on how a drop-out became one of the world’s most successful man. Believe me guys, this is no joke, you can realize the importance of my words only after you read this.

A few paragraphs from the full text and then the video of the event:

…After six months, I couldn’t see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn’t interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

 

…None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

 

…I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

 

…When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

 

…No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. – Steve Jobs

Here is the video of the event: