Name: Utsav
Posts by Banti:
First Browser with an Indian Origin – Epic
July 18th, 2010First Browser with an Indian Origin – Epic
Bangalore based startup Hidden Reflex has announced the launch of its browser “Epic”, which aims at making Indians all over the world proud.
Epic, which also happens to be the first entirely Indian made web browser, is based on the Mozilla platform and comes with quite a bunch of India centric features. We did take it for a short spin and we came out quite happy with it. Before we look at the details, let’s look at details about Hidden Reflex, the company behind the browser.
The company was founded by the then U.S. based Engineer Alok Bhardwaj in 2007. However, the company is currently based in Bangalore. They initially had a team of three members and have now grown to quite a bunch of people who are working on two separate products. The first one, Epic, has already been launched. The other one is still in the making.
Let’s get back to the Epic browser now. After you install it, the first thing you notice is the bright colours of the browser. Epic is highly customizable and initially comes with a “Peacock” background that isn’t too easy on the eyes. Of course you can change your background with any of the zillion ones provided by the browser or choose one of your own. Even at the launch, there are over 1,500 themes available and compatible with Epic. The browser has a host of applications on its sidebar from where you can launch them. These include Twitter, Facebook, and other similar services. Clicking on any of these icons will launch a widget like window on the side of the browser. The bad thing about this is that you can only open one such widget per window.
Epic also comes with anti-virus protection built-in – a first for any browser. It also supports a long list of Indian languages (currently 12) and an India content sidebar that aggregates news headlines, TV to live cricket commentary and other things that matters to us Indians. It also features a bunch of productivity applications that include a free word processor, video sidebar and my Computer Browser.
The Epic browser is now available for download from here.
World Cup search trends: the final countdown
July 11th, 2010World Cup search trends: the final countdown
In the past two weeks of World Cup action, 16 teams have been narrowed down to just two—Spain and the Netherlands—who will face off in the World Cup final tomorrow. For both countries, there are high stakes: not only are the two sides contending for the title of best football team in the world, but this will be the first-ever Cup win for either team and Spain is in the finals for the first time. We took another look at the search data to see what people have been interested in during the round of 16, quarterfinals and semifinals.
Some matches, of course, were more interesting to people than others—whether they were eagerly anticipated or just more nail-biting during play. Brazil, chosen as the champion in many an office pool, lost to the Netherlands in a quarterfinal upset. Perhaps it’s indicative of people’s disappointment in that match that Felipe Melo, who gave up an own goal and then was shown a red card in the 73rd minute with his country down 2-1, was more searched-forthan Robinho, who made Brazil’s one goal in the match. Another favored South American team, Argentina, also lost in the quarterfinals, to Germany. It’s interesting to note that searches for that team’s two biggest names, Lionel Messi and coach Diego Maradona, have spiked in popularity with each match—and the player was usually more interesting to people than the coach. But over time—and after Messi’s skills failed to carry his team to the semis—Maradona overtook Messi in search volume. Clearly, his fate as Argentina coach in the future is more up for debate than Messi’s career (after all, the latter has a comfy year-round spot on FC Barcelona).
Controversy continued to be a major driver of search traffic. On June 27, Argentina’s first goal in their victorious match against Mexico, a Carlos Tévez header, was widely considered offsides (and therefore should have been disallowed). That same day, Germany beat England 4-1, although many say it should have been 4-2 thanks to a Frank Lampard goal that just barely made it into the net but wasn’t counted. Both of these calls brought the issue of instant replay to the forefront in an already controversial tournament.
Perhaps the most surprisingly exciting game was the quarterfinal match between Uruguay and Ghana. Ghana had several shots on goal in the last minutes of extra time, with the game tied 1-1. Uruguay’s Luis Suárez saved his team from a near-certain loss with a handball that earned him a red card (and increased search traffic). Uruguay went on to win in penalty kicks, and became the only South American country to make the semifinals. Searches for [penalty kick] were at their highest on the day of this game—they had also spiked on June 26, when USA’s Landon Donovan scored on a penalty kick against Ghana, and on June 29, the day of another quarterfinal match (between Japan and Paraguay) that also ended in penalty kicks.
Many fans, eager for semifinal predictions, turned to an unlikely source: a “psychic” octopus in a German zoo. Paul the octopus had successfully predicted the winner of each of his home country’s matches by selecting a tasty mussel from either side of a box marked by both teams’ flags. The day before Germany faced Spain in the semifinals, he chose the Spanish mussel—and searches for [octopus] skyrocketed. (Incidentally, he has picked Spain to winagainst the Netherlands on Sunday.) Searches were also high for Carles Puyol, the Spanish defender whose header won the match against Germany. Historically, he’s been one of theleast searched-for Spaniards—and he continues to be behind stars like David Villa andFernando Torres—but search volume for him in July is already more than five times as high as in June.
Villa still dominates search traffic amongst the Spanish players, and no wonder: he’s scored five of his team’s seven goals in the tournament and is a contender for the Golden Boot. Searches for Dutch players are a bit more distributed than for Spanish ones. Arjen Robben, who started the tournament in the spotlight in part due to injury, still has the most search volume overall, but Wesley Sneijder has caught up as the tournament’s gone on. Searches for him were higher than for Robben on June 19, when he scored his first goal in the tournament against Japan, and on July 2, when he scored both goals in the match against favored Brazil. Now Sneijder, like Villa, has five goals in six matches and is a front-runner for the Golden Boot. Clearly he’s been a surprise factor in this World Cup for many, including searchers!
For me—well, I’ve got cava in my fridge and my fingers are crossed for Paul’s prediction to come true. But whomever you’re rooting for, have fun watching La Furia Roja and the Oranjefight for the Cup on Sunday!
Google’s Open Spot Makes Parking A Breeze, Assuming Everyone Turns Into A Good Samaritan
July 11th, 2010Google’s Open Spot Makes Parking A Breeze, Assuming Everyone Turns Into A Good Samaritan
Sick of circling the city streets in your car, looking for a spot — any spot — that you can squeeze into? Google may have the answer, or at least the very beginnings of one -
Sick of circling the city streets in your car, looking for a spot — any spot — that you can squeeze into? Google may have the answer, or at least the very beginnings of one, though it’s going to heavily rely on the good deeds of your peers to be a success. Meet Google Open Spot, the latest addition to Google Labs, which has just released a new application for Android phones.
The service is really straightforward: fire up the Android application (it doesn’t look like there’s a web-based version yet), and you’ll see a map with nearby open parking spots marked with colored dots. These spots were placed by other users, who are supposed to hit the app’s ‘Mark a Spot’ button when they leave a crowded parking lot or happen to see an open spot as they walk by.
The color of each available spot is tied to how long ago it was marked by another user — a spot that’s 10-20 minutes old will look yellow, while a spot marked within the last five minutes will be bright red. After 20 minutes spots are removed from the map. You’re able to see parking spots within a .9 mile radius of your current location.
That’s all well and good, but there isn’t a major incentive to actually mark spots yet. Google is employing a basic karma system to reward users when they share an available spot, but karma doesn’t actually award any bonuses in terms of making it easier to find parking — it’s just there to make you feel good. That said, if Google gets creative with the system (perhaps by adding a leader board), then that might provide sufficient incentive to get people using this. I’m not particularly optimistic, but here’s to hoping it works. Of course, even if a ton of people really do start marking their spots, it won’t necessarily be much help — in crowded cities, many spots are only available for a few seconds.
In case you were thinking of making parking even more of a hassle than it already is by adding fake spots, don’t bother (please). While parking submissions are anonymous, the Open Spot FAQ says that Google has ways to monitor for so-called ‘griefers’ and can make sure they aren’t leaving multiple fake parking spots.
China Renews Google License To Operate In China
July 10th, 2010China Renews Google License To Operate In China
Google updated their blog post on China saying the Chinese government has renewed their licenses to operate in China. Google said they “are very pleased that the government has renewed our ICP license and we look forward to continuing to provide web search and local products to our users in China.”
When Google stopped censoring their search results, they were afraid the Chinese regulators would not be happy. Google took the approach of redirecting users automatically to Google Hong Kong, which does not need to be censored. Chinese authorities told Google they cannot do that, so Google set up an arguably deceptive manual redirect instead and that seemed to do the trick. Chinese authorities have renewed their license, which was first acquired in June 2007.The Wall Street Journal has some additional insight into this news.
Facebook To Close Its Virtual Giftshop August 1st
July 10th, 2010
Facebook To Close Its Virtual Gift shop August 1st
For more please read – Facebook To Close Its Virtual Giftshop August 1st.
on Kincaid on Jul 8, 2010
Those goofy ninja drawings, multicolored troll things, and birthday cakes adorning your Facebook wall are about to become collector’s items. Facebook has just announced that it is closing Facebook Gifts — a feature that launched back in early 2007 as the result of a Hackathon project and went on to seed the creation of Facebook Credits (it marked the first time Facebook users could actually pay for something). You’ll still be able to purchase gifts up through August 1st, and all the gifts you’ve received will remain on your profile and Facebook Wall after that point, but you won’t be able to buy new ones.
The explanation Facebook gives for the change is a little odd — Facebook employee Jared Morgenstern writes that it will help Facebook focus on improving other products:
Closing the Gift Shop may disappoint many of the people who have given millions of gifts, but we made the decision after careful thought about where we need to focus our product development efforts. We’ll be able to focus more on improving and enhancing products and features that people use every day, such as Photos, News Feed, Inbox, games, comments, the “Like” button and the Wall.
It makes sense for Facebook to trim away products that are adding clutter to the site, but these are pure profit and it’s hard to imagine they were draining too many resources. That said, Facebook has continued to evolve the feature since it launched, with the addition of celebrity gifts and the ability to gift Lala songs last year (the Lala feature was disabled after the music company was acquired by Apple).
This also can’t be good news for RealGifts and the various eCard vendors that Facebook offered as part of its Gifts selection.
If you still need your gift-giving fix, Facebook suggests third-party applications like Birthday Cards, Hallmark, Pieces of Flair, and someecards.
Twitter’s Lastest Promoted Tweet Directs You To Facebook
July 10th, 2010
Twitter’s Latest Promoted Tweet Directs You To Facebook
for more please read - Twitter’s Lastest Promoted Tweet Directs You To… Facebook
When I first saw the latest Promoted Trending Topic this morning on Twitter I thought it was a bit odd: “Predators.” Given the times we live in, when I see that term now I tend to think of something more alarming than some kind of an animal or the like. But fear not, the topic is being promoted here simply to showcase the latest movie in the Predator series, called, yes, Predators. But there’s something else weird about this Promoted Trending Topic — it’s linking to Facebook.
As you can see when you click on the Promoted Topic, the top tweet is from the PredatorsMovie Twitter account. This promoted tweet reads, “They can hear you, smell you, and see you.#Predators in theaters Friday – http://bit.ly/amt8XE” — that bit.ly link takes you to a Facebook page where the trailer is located. So yes, Twitter is effectively promoting their rival Facebook thanks to this latest ad buy.
I’ve reached out to Facebook to make sure they’re cool with that. After all, Facebook wasn’t so kind to Twitter last month when Twitter tried to roll out a new friend connection feature with the massive social network — and it was promptly blocked. Both Twitter and Facebook said at the time that they were looking into the issue — but it still isn’t working.
As an interesting side note, you may notice now that “LeBron James” is currently the top Trending Topic on Twitter. That’s interesting because just this past weekend, the NBA paid to have his name be a Promoted Trending Topic. As I said at the time, that was likely a smart idea because of the massive amount of interesting (and undoubtedly Twitter searches) around James. The fact that his name has organically risen to the top proves that.
Update: Twitter takes the high road. “We’re totally fine with that (and btw, it’s not the first time and won’t be the last time),” a Twitter representative tells us.
Update 2: Interestingly enough, the promoted tweet has switched to one that instead links the actual Predators movie website.
“Advertisers can change the tweet and links as often as they’d like,” is what Twitter had to say on the matter.
Life in a Day by Google
July 7th, 2010
Life in a Day by Google
Every day, 6.7 billion people view the world through their own unique lens. Imagine if there was a way to collect all of these perspectives, to aggregate and mold them into the cohesive story of a single day on earth.
Today, we’re excited to announce the launch of “Life in a Day,” a historic cinematic experiment that will attempt to do just that: document one day, as seen through the eyes of people around the world. On July 24, you have 24 hours to capture a snapshot of your life on camera. You can film the ordinary — a sunrise, the commute to work, a neighborhood soccer match, or the extraordinary — a baby’s first steps, your reaction to the passing of a loved one, or even a marriage.
Kevin Macdonald, the Oscar-winning director of films such as The Last King of Scotland, Touching the Void and One Day in September, will then edit the most compelling footage into a feature documentary film, to be executive-produced by Ridley Scott, the director behind films like Gladiator, Black Hawk Down, Thelma & Louise, Blade Runner and Robin Hood. LG Electronics is supporting “Life in a Day” as a key part of its long-standing “Life’s Good” campaign and to support the creation of quality online content that can be shared and enjoyed by all.
The film will premiere at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival and if your footage makes it into the final cut, you’ll be credited as a co-director and may be one of 20 contributors selected to attend the premiere.
Want to take part? Here’s what to do.
1. Visit the “Life in a Day” channel and learn more about the project. Be sure to read through the steps you need to take to participate and the guidelines for creating your video(s). Also check out some of the sample videos for inspirational ideas.
2. On July 24, capture your day on camera.
3. Upload your footage to the “Life in a Day” channel any time before July 31.
Regardless of whether your footage makes it into the final film, your video(s) will live on on the “Life in a Day” channel as a time capsule that will tell future generations what it was like to be alive on July 24, 2010.
Follow Team HTC-Columbia on Google Maps
July 7th, 2010Follow Team HTC-Columbia on Google Maps
As a former professional cyclist, nothing beats the thrill of being in the peloton and racing towards the finish line. Although I’ve traded in my cycling career for life as a Googler, I’m still a fan and enjoy watching my former teammates and friends battle in races like the Tour de France, which started on Saturday. While the cyclists were preparing to tackle the pave of Arrenberg and the Cols in the Alps, I got to thinking about ways that we can bring that experience to the hundreds of millions of fans who will be following the Tour de France over the next few weeks. Google is home to many other cycling enthusiasts, so we got together to work on ways to build a My Tracks-based gadget that will allow all the other fans to follow the action like never before.
The My Tracks application for Android phones lets you record and share your own outdoor activities, and now Team HTC-Columbia will use a special version of the app with SRM to transmit their telemetry and location in real-time as they make their way through the 3,642 kilometers of the Tour de France. The nine riders (sadly, now eight, as Adam Hanson was injured on Sunday) on Team HTC-Columbia are carrying HTC Legend phones with ANT+ that use My Tracks to capture their location along with their power, heart rate, cadence and speed. On www.google.com/mytrackstour, you’ll see a Google Map showing the team members’ location on the course and a detailed telemetry report. You can observe how Michael Rogers’ heart rate spikes as he attacks the climbs in the Alps on Stage 9, see how many watts Mark Cavendish puts out in the sprint on the famous sprinters’ stage into Bordeaux, and see just how fast riders climb the famous Col du Tourmalet.
From the image above, you can see how Maxime Monfort took the lead during Stage 2 between Bruxelles and Spa yesterday. Right now, the riders are racing in Stage 3, which takes them across the border into France and you can follow all the latest action on our website or directly on your own iGoogle page.
The team also built a map gadget that is available for you to embed on your own website or blog. We’re also publishing an API that any web developer or broadcaster can use to build their own custom application or use to enhance the live television coverage. I’m excited about the potential for web developers and broadcasters to make use of the API and data in creative ways to help all the Tour de France followers (myself included!) get even closer to the action.
This project was the work of many Googlers in their 20% time, and as cycling fans ourselves, we’re happy to be able to share it with the world. We hope you enjoy this unique way of following Team HTC-Columbia over the next few weeks.
