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3/18/2007
3/15/2007
Collaborative search
Collaborative search is the latest buzz word going around in the technology space after Jimmy Wales the founder of Wikipedia has announced his plans to build a search engine.
At a conference in Tokyo this week, Wales declared that Wikipedia’s commercial counterpart, Wikia, plans to grab around 5 percent of the lucrative Internet search market.
Using the term ‘black boxes’ to describe commercial search giants as they never disclose their ranking algorithms, Wales said that collaborative search technology can indeed change the way people search over the Internet.
In the collaborative search users can actually work together to improve search engines, and that constant improvement would make search technology foolproof. This is exactly the way Wikipedia works and by going by it’s example we will have a very powerful search engine in the making which will be improved faster than any commercial product.
At a conference in Tokyo this week, Wales declared that Wikipedia’s commercial counterpart, Wikia, plans to grab around 5 percent of the lucrative Internet search market.
Using the term ‘black boxes’ to describe commercial search giants as they never disclose their ranking algorithms, Wales said that collaborative search technology can indeed change the way people search over the Internet.
In the collaborative search users can actually work together to improve search engines, and that constant improvement would make search technology foolproof. This is exactly the way Wikipedia works and by going by it’s example we will have a very powerful search engine in the making which will be improved faster than any commercial product.
Down the memory lane
Three years is a long time, specially in the field of technology. I attended my first technical interview three years back and even now i remember the questions i was asked. I couldn’t forget those just because it was my first interview and more importantly i think its because i couldn’t get through it.
Now after three years, when me and two of my friends were discussing about interviews in general, the question i was asked in my first interview came to my mind. You might see me as a dumb person not to answer that but i am pretty sure many won’t be able answer it either . It was ” What does Hypertext and Markup mean in HTML ?”. All these years i don’t know why i didn’t bother to find out and after neither of my friends could convince me i googled for the answer and finally got it. Hypertext is text which contains links to other texts and markup is the process of taking ordinary text and adding extra symbols that tells a browser how to display the text.
I am afraid how many years the question i was asked about an year back in the oracle’s final round of interview will haunt me. I was asked to design the database for cricinfo.com website. I couldn’t manage it without errors and bang came the reply “You can leave”. I know i was just not good enough on that day.
Now all i can say is it gives me immense pleasure in doing things people say you cannot do. I have experienced it twice and that keeps me going.
Now after three years, when me and two of my friends were discussing about interviews in general, the question i was asked in my first interview came to my mind. You might see me as a dumb person not to answer that but i am pretty sure many won’t be able answer it either . It was ” What does Hypertext and Markup mean in HTML ?”. All these years i don’t know why i didn’t bother to find out and after neither of my friends could convince me i googled for the answer and finally got it. Hypertext is text which contains links to other texts and markup is the process of taking ordinary text and adding extra symbols that tells a browser how to display the text.
I am afraid how many years the question i was asked about an year back in the oracle’s final round of interview will haunt me. I was asked to design the database for cricinfo.com website. I couldn’t manage it without errors and bang came the reply “You can leave”. I know i was just not good enough on that day.
Now all i can say is it gives me immense pleasure in doing things people say you cannot do. I have experienced it twice and that keeps me going.
Its time to Fly
Barely few weeks after the ‘India poised’ campaign by the Times of India our entrepreneurs proved that the campaign was not all hype. With the Tatas and Birlas aggressively acquiring companies and Vodafone’s desparate bid for Hutchison to enter the worlds fastest growing telecommunications market the economy of India has only way to go, that is up.
With Google investing in Seedfund the venture capitalist firm and other venture capitalist firms like Motorola Venture, Silicon Valley Bank and Mayfield Fund setting up shops in India the young entrepreneur of India will have a lot of backing and exposure to compete in the global marketplace.
I personally feel all the right elements are falling into place and that could back true innovation in India.
With Google investing in Seedfund the venture capitalist firm and other venture capitalist firms like Motorola Venture, Silicon Valley Bank and Mayfield Fund setting up shops in India the young entrepreneur of India will have a lot of backing and exposure to compete in the global marketplace.
I personally feel all the right elements are falling into place and that could back true innovation in India.
Wiki Camp
Are you interested in wikis and want to know more about them? or are you thinking what this wiki is all about ? Don’t worry India’s first Wiki Camp will answer your queries.
Wikicamp is all about harnessing and understanding the power of Wikis. It is a one day event aimed to bring together the best minds from the Wiki/Internet space to talk about issues, opportunities and what the future and evolution of this valuable tool looks like.
The event will feature workshops, debates and keynotes on the present state and evolution of the wiki. Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia and President of Wikimedia Foundation will be attending the event.
The event is scheduled for the 25th of February, and the venue is at Tidel Park, Chennai. For more information check the wiki for the event.
Exciting Times ahead
After attending the Town-hall meeting with Nick Donofrio the Executive Vice President Innovation and Technology of IBM i felt i am lucky to be in the evolution period of many great technologies and ideas.
Nick spoke about many technologies and ideas and i think the most important one is the 3D-Internet. I feel it has the potential to take the centre stage. Just think about this, instead of the present shopping sites imagine walking around the shop and trying things you are looking to buy virtually sitting infront of your computer. IBM helped one of its client to open its shop in 3D-Internet and is investing a huge sum in this technology and i feel it has the potential to just push aside the current form of Internet. You can have a taste of the 3D-Internet here.
Among a lot of amazing ideas Nick spoke about for me the most catchy, crazy, awesome and ambitious idea is connecting the water bodies of the earth. As we know there are lot of water bodies on this earth but on wrong places. Nick said IBM is sponsoring a project which links all the water bodies on this globe.
One of the latest problems i came to know is about handling data which is being generated daily around the globe. Nick said research in this field is important as lot of data being generated and there is need to find a way so that we will be able to organize and search for the information easily. At that moment i felt the problem is nearly solved by the major search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc.I could understand the problem only after he mentioned that daily 15 peta bytes of data is generated. That is huge because as far i know yahoo’s storage capacity is around 6 peta bytes and rest of them wont be too far way from it. The problem of search is far from being solved and it is now exponentially growing.
Thanks to nick i left the hall feeling pretty much excited to be around in such fascinating times.
Nick spoke about many technologies and ideas and i think the most important one is the 3D-Internet. I feel it has the potential to take the centre stage. Just think about this, instead of the present shopping sites imagine walking around the shop and trying things you are looking to buy virtually sitting infront of your computer. IBM helped one of its client to open its shop in 3D-Internet and is investing a huge sum in this technology and i feel it has the potential to just push aside the current form of Internet. You can have a taste of the 3D-Internet here.
Among a lot of amazing ideas Nick spoke about for me the most catchy, crazy, awesome and ambitious idea is connecting the water bodies of the earth. As we know there are lot of water bodies on this earth but on wrong places. Nick said IBM is sponsoring a project which links all the water bodies on this globe.
One of the latest problems i came to know is about handling data which is being generated daily around the globe. Nick said research in this field is important as lot of data being generated and there is need to find a way so that we will be able to organize and search for the information easily. At that moment i felt the problem is nearly solved by the major search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc.I could understand the problem only after he mentioned that daily 15 peta bytes of data is generated. That is huge because as far i know yahoo’s storage capacity is around 6 peta bytes and rest of them wont be too far way from it. The problem of search is far from being solved and it is now exponentially growing.
Thanks to nick i left the hall feeling pretty much excited to be around in such fascinating times.
The secretive search engine
Powerset, a San Francisco search engine company, has won exclusive rights to significant search engine technology it says may help propel it past Google.
The technology, developed at Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) in Silicon Valley, seeks to understand the meanings between words, akin to the way humans understand language — and is thus called “natural language.” It has been thirty years in the works.
The move is significant because Google’s own technology, based on “page rank,” has been virtually replicated by other search engines like Yahoo and MSN, and so isn’t as difficult to emulate as it was a few years ago.
If VentureBeat is to be believed then Google has a to do a lot of catching up with Powerset when it comes to technology.Powerset let VentureBeat see a limited demo of the Powerset technology.
According to VentureBeat if we searched for “Who acquired IBM?” Google will give you lots of results about companies that IBM acquired, even though that’s not what we asked. Powerset, on the other hand, will give results of the companies that acquired IBM units, including Lenovo, and AT&T. Moreover VentureBeat said Powerset showed it can answer more complex questions.
Finally we might get to see a competition in Search. Hope there would be competition in OS development aswell
The technology, developed at Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) in Silicon Valley, seeks to understand the meanings between words, akin to the way humans understand language — and is thus called “natural language.” It has been thirty years in the works.
The move is significant because Google’s own technology, based on “page rank,” has been virtually replicated by other search engines like Yahoo and MSN, and so isn’t as difficult to emulate as it was a few years ago.
If VentureBeat is to be believed then Google has a to do a lot of catching up with Powerset when it comes to technology.Powerset let VentureBeat see a limited demo of the Powerset technology.
According to VentureBeat if we searched for “Who acquired IBM?” Google will give you lots of results about companies that IBM acquired, even though that’s not what we asked. Powerset, on the other hand, will give results of the companies that acquired IBM units, including Lenovo, and AT&T. Moreover VentureBeat said Powerset showed it can answer more complex questions.
Finally we might get to see a competition in Search. Hope there would be competition in OS development aswell
Dojo the next Mojo
The Dojo toolkit is a modular open source JavaScript toolkit (or library), designed to ease the rapid development of JavaScript- or Ajax-based applications and web sites.
Features:
Widgets
Dojo widgets are prepackaged components of JavaScript code, HTML markup and CSS style declarations that can be used to enrich websites with various interactive features that work across browsers.
Asynchronous communication
One important feature of Ajax applications is asynchronous communication of the browser with the server: information is exchanged and the page’s presentation is updated without a need for reloading the whole page. Traditionally, this is being done with the JavaScript command XMLHttpRequest. Dojo provides an abstracted wrapper (dojo.io.bind) around various web browsers’ implementations of XMLHttpRequest, which can also use other transports (such as hidden IFrames) and a variety of data formats. Using this approach, it is easy to have the data a user enters into a form sent to the server “behind the scenes”; the server can then reply with some JavaScript code that updates the presentation of the page.JavaScript programming
Client-side data storageIn addition to providing support functions for reading and writing cookies, Dojo also provides a local, client-side storage abstraction named Dojo Storage. Dojo Storage allows web applications to store data on the client-side, persistently and securely and with a user’s permission.
Visit Dojo Home Page for more information.
Features:
Widgets
Dojo widgets are prepackaged components of JavaScript code, HTML markup and CSS style declarations that can be used to enrich websites with various interactive features that work across browsers.
Asynchronous communication
One important feature of Ajax applications is asynchronous communication of the browser with the server: information is exchanged and the page’s presentation is updated without a need for reloading the whole page. Traditionally, this is being done with the JavaScript command XMLHttpRequest. Dojo provides an abstracted wrapper (dojo.io.bind) around various web browsers’ implementations of XMLHttpRequest, which can also use other transports (such as hidden IFrames) and a variety of data formats. Using this approach, it is easy to have the data a user enters into a form sent to the server “behind the scenes”; the server can then reply with some JavaScript code that updates the presentation of the page.JavaScript programming
Client-side data storageIn addition to providing support functions for reading and writing cookies, Dojo also provides a local, client-side storage abstraction named Dojo Storage. Dojo Storage allows web applications to store data on the client-side, persistently and securely and with a user’s permission.
Visit Dojo Home Page for more information.
Interesting ventures
As usual i was roaming around in the digital world and i came across two very interesting ventures. One of them is Joost and other is Pageflakes.
Joost was started by people who were behind skype. Their Faq says Joost is a new way of watching TV on the Internet which allows searching for channels and programmes and includes features like chat. It uses a secure peer to peer technology to stream programmes. I think it has got a funky interface (that is what i felt after viewing their screenshots). I have applied for their beta-test program and waiting for the access. If any one of you out there have a spare invite do send it to me .
Now coming to the other one PageFlakes, it is all about bringing together all the popular websites and displaying on one single page. Each website or feed form little modules on a page which can be moved around thanks to their pretty ajax interface.
PageFlakes is all on one page that you can access from anywhere and we can also share this page with people we invite or make the page public. We can add more pages if one is filled up. It has many cool features including but not limited to adding an email account with pop3 access as a flake or starting a blog.
Can joost create a revolution like skype ? Can PageFlakes become the access point for all the popular websites ? Only time can answer. So lets wait and see.
Joost was started by people who were behind skype. Their Faq says Joost is a new way of watching TV on the Internet which allows searching for channels and programmes and includes features like chat. It uses a secure peer to peer technology to stream programmes. I think it has got a funky interface (that is what i felt after viewing their screenshots). I have applied for their beta-test program and waiting for the access. If any one of you out there have a spare invite do send it to me .
Now coming to the other one PageFlakes, it is all about bringing together all the popular websites and displaying on one single page. Each website or feed form little modules on a page which can be moved around thanks to their pretty ajax interface.
PageFlakes is all on one page that you can access from anywhere and we can also share this page with people we invite or make the page public. We can add more pages if one is filled up. It has many cool features including but not limited to adding an email account with pop3 access as a flake or starting a blog.
Can joost create a revolution like skype ? Can PageFlakes become the access point for all the popular websites ? Only time can answer. So lets wait and see.
My first LUG meet
I have been using Linux since last one year in a start stop manner as part of few courses that i have taken as it was mandatory. Even though i was fascinated by Linux I don’t know why i never gave it a thought of becoming a power user may be it has to do with the effort required to perform basic operations and more importantly our LAN games which we used to play.
Now a days after entering the corporate world i have been thinking to become a Linux professional and as part of it yesterday ( 24-02-2007) i have attended my first Linux Users Group (LUG) meet here in hyderabad.
There was 1.5 hrs session about shell scripting and a BOF (Birds of Feather) session about philosophy of Open Source, India contributing to the Open Source community and many more topics.
There was a right blend in the crowd that attended the meet. It had students from HCU, NIT warangal and experienced users from Virtusa, CA, Satyam and newbies like me. Above all the moderator for this group is a google system administrator.
The yahoo groups page is here.
Now a days after entering the corporate world i have been thinking to become a Linux professional and as part of it yesterday ( 24-02-2007) i have attended my first Linux Users Group (LUG) meet here in hyderabad.
There was 1.5 hrs session about shell scripting and a BOF (Birds of Feather) session about philosophy of Open Source, India contributing to the Open Source community and many more topics.
There was a right blend in the crowd that attended the meet. It had students from HCU, NIT warangal and experienced users from Virtusa, CA, Satyam and newbies like me. Above all the moderator for this group is a google system administrator.
The yahoo groups page is here.
How-to guides for Business
I stumbled upon this great site while browsing. It has guides about almost everything you need to run a business starting from choosing a name for your business and writing a business plan to handling the legal issues of a running a business.
Moreover all the guides are free to use which is the best thing.
Moreover all the guides are free to use which is the best thing.
Google Speaker Series
As part of the Google Speaker Series’s inaugural talk, Vinton cerf visited Hyderabad today(on Feb 23 2007). Along with him came the Google India head who said there would more talks, one in each quarter of the year.
Coming to the Vinton’s talk it was pretty good, considering the opinion with which i went to hear it(with no offence to Vinton). I have read a blog regarding his talk in Bangalore and it said it was highly technical, so i went to the talk expecting Greek and Latin and was pleasantly surprised to hear plain English.
He talked about the requirements which he and his colleagues had to meet while designing the IP which are design independent of both the application as well as the infrastructure. He also talked about the VPN, QoS, future of the Internet.
One of the on going project he talked about is the interplanetary networks which are being in use by the Nasa to communicate with the rover on the Mars.
Overall it was a great talk by the father of the Internet and i eagerly look forward for rest of the google speaker series
Coming to the Vinton’s talk it was pretty good, considering the opinion with which i went to hear it(with no offence to Vinton). I have read a blog regarding his talk in Bangalore and it said it was highly technical, so i went to the talk expecting Greek and Latin and was pleasantly surprised to hear plain English.
He talked about the requirements which he and his colleagues had to meet while designing the IP which are design independent of both the application as well as the infrastructure. He also talked about the VPN, QoS, future of the Internet.
One of the on going project he talked about is the interplanetary networks which are being in use by the Nasa to communicate with the rover on the Mars.
Overall it was a great talk by the father of the Internet and i eagerly look forward for rest of the google speaker series
Yahoo! IM Inside E-mail
(Extracted from Reuters, February 12, 2007) Yahoo! Inc., the world’s largest consumer e-mail provider, on Monday said it has embedded instant messaging features inside its e-mail program, bridging a generational divide that has confused many users. Heavy Internet users, especially younger, Web-savvy users of social networking sites or office workers, have long toggled between e-mail and instant messaging services. But for more occasional users of consumer e-mail services, the allure of instant messaging has remained far from obvious. Consumers can now run the two programs in one Web browser. There is no need to download Yahoo! Messenger software, a complication for users who are not technically inclined. Each instant messaging dialogue will take place in a new conversation window within Yahoo Mail, allowing people to chat with multiple friends simultaneously, without leaving e-mail. John Kremer, vice president of Yahoo! Mail, said in a phone interview embedding instant messaging makes e-mail “an even more social experience” — by transforming how one communicates from a letter-writing experience into a back-and-forth chat.
This was the feature I was waiting for a long time.
This was the feature I was waiting for a long time.
Vinton Cerf in Hyderabad
Vinton Cerf who is one of the founding fathers of the Internet would give a talk as part of the Google Speaker Series on 23rd Feb. Vinton is the Vice President and chief Internet Evangelist at Google and leads the development of next generation of Internet Applications.
I have got an invitation from Google to attend the talk.
Try your luck as Google says there are limited seats.
To meet Vinton in Bangalore on 21st Feb 2007 send your request to vcbangalore@google.com
To meet Vinton in hyderabad on 23st Feb 2007 send your request to vchyderabad@google.com
I have got an invitation from Google to attend the talk.
Try your luck as Google says there are limited seats.
To meet Vinton in Bangalore on 21st Feb 2007 send your request to vcbangalore@google.com
To meet Vinton in hyderabad on 23st Feb 2007 send your request to vchyderabad@google.com
Vista asking too much
Microsoft Windows Vista…. is the latest buzz word in the Technology world. For the past few years it always been in the news be it, for its funky user interfaces or comments about copying Tiger OS or its hyped file system and Powershell.
Personally Vista has been a disappointment for me. Look below for minimum requirements and you will figure out that your old PC cannot support it.
Personally Vista has been a disappointment for me. Look below for minimum requirements and you will figure out that your old PC cannot support it.
- 1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
- 1 GB of system memory
- 40 GB hard drive with at least 15 GB of available space
- Support for DirectX 9 graphics with:
WDDM Driver
128 MB of graphics memory (minimum)
Pixel Shader 2.0 in hardware
32 bits per pixel - DVD-ROM drive
- Audio Output
- Internet access.
Vista is asking too much and for that jazzy user interface i would be better off installing a free Tiger OS theme rather than shelling out 30000 odd bucks for a new pc and vista.
Office Live
Office Live.. When i first heard this i thought this is just a reactive product released to counter Google’s on-line productivity tools. Yesterday when i tried to sign up i came to know that its not yet released for India. Imagine getting a domain name and 500 mb hosting space for FREE!!!. Hard to believe but you have to.
Office Live gives us
Office Live gives us
- Free domain name and Web hosting
- Easy-to-use Web site design tools
- 500 MB of Web site storage space
- 25 company-branded e-mail accounts
- Web site reports
- Search engine advertising tool.
I am eagerly waiting for its launch in India. Who would turn down an offer like that ???
The Ideal Company
We spend over eight hours working in our company daily we must be happy working there to be creative and productive. An ideal company is one where people just love to come to office. What i need in my ideal company:
- It should give me a good salary of course I would not be honest if I do not tell this.
- I have to be able to voice my opinion and be listened.
- I should be able to increase my knowledge with the field i am with.
- Should give me challenging problems.
- Should give me Stock options.
- Should have enough eves around ;).
- NO DRESS CODES.
The world is not big enough for Indian ambition
Indians appear to be becoming less risk-averse. Indians are becoming more adventurous-from the size of their home and car loans, to their choice of jobs, to the way they live their lives.
Thanks to a inspiring six-week long ‘India Poised’ campaign by the Times of India and its awesome anthem for the India Poised Campaign , Indians feel “Its Time to Fly”
Thanks to a inspiring six-week long ‘India Poised’ campaign by the Times of India and its awesome anthem for the India Poised Campaign , Indians feel “Its Time to Fly”
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