Here I would be discussing about the computer requirements of the hoi polloi (and not the ones who require special computing power to earn their money) of India.
Seeing the recent development like Waves, Docs and Skydrive , with previous advancements of streaming music and videos and blogging , the research has rightly been directed to the direction of future needs ( and which I think a person spending 12 hours daily in front of the computer would have realized himself.)
The news of a computer coming with an OS sans everything but an internet interface might seem to be quite a bold step , but vivisecting my daily routine , I could not agree more.
The browser seems to be the only process which runs on my system ( and we all know how pathetic we feel to get our PCs slowed down by the background processes of the anti virus and the updates , even the names of which are so difficult to decrypt.)
Seeing the IO presentation of the Google Waves , I see the new protocols transforming not only the internet business but in particular the OS business.
Anti virus companies now should move on from launching stale products for the PCs to server firewalls which are intelligent enough not to require any PC anti virus.
The only reason why Acrobat seemed convincing to me was for its markup and comment tools. With the incorporation of the same in Google Reader, I guess my need for it is satiated there itself.
For mp3s and videos , Youtube seems to be a great resource. I don't mind seeing a video in the flv format , Indian standards for entertainment , to the dissapointment for the makers of Blu-Ray , are not quite high ( which conforms to the rampart piracy in this part of the world.)
Internet and the browser is a necessity for the orkutters and the facebookers and the tweeters , which itself takes a large chunk of our time ( and still we do not see the community cult blooming in India).
For the office products for which Microsoft drains some $700 out of the pocket , Google Docs is a ready replacement.
Thus , in the future , we might see some hardware company( and a complany for profit) making computers which have only an internet interface , nothing more , selling laptops for less than a $100 , which still is a dream.
The requirement thus is to have the storage capacity for the huge digital footprint , which is growing like a monster everyday. Put your money into NetApps and EMC dear investors.
On the social front , production of the above kinds of laptops would mean a low power consuming device, which inturn would mean lesser of environmental sins commited.
What is required is higher, denser,faster connectivity of regions. With the telecom sector having already spread its coverage , not much of infrastructure would be required for bandwidth requirements.
I wish to see the days in near future of India where internet would be as cheap as that in the US.
Wednesday, June 10
Friday, June 5
Why Atlas Shrugged
Reading the communist manifesto today a week after finishing Atlas Shrugged makes me realize the antagonism that is present between the two philosophies. It seems that Ms. Rand has put in her literature ( which I find highly repetitive after reading atlas shrugged , fountain head and a couple of her essay compilations) what a free thinker should be like. While the bourgeoisie are looked with contempt in communism , it is the same class of people which are celebrated in objectivism.
The romanticism in this novel gives a sense of belonging to the reader where , seeing the fate of communism in the world , is what seems to be the righteous path.
The strong style of writing transforms the reader to the world of the 20s and the 30s where communism was in the rise the world over.
In her reply to Marx and Engels , Ms Rand in the same tone , evangelizes pragmatism and a society which provides for the American pursuit of happiness.
She argues the rectitudinous in selfishness and greed ( which I would like to refer to as the basic instinct of man) , which in the today's competitive world more so, seems to be a morality in itself , much too different from the times when collectivism was considered to be righteous , which might be understood to be , in those times , in the words of Marx , Reactionism by the proletarians against the naked oppression and exploitation by the bourgeious.
It might be hard to grasp people rejoicing smoking a ciggerate , but nonetheless the syllogism, of it supporting Man as the greatest of the minds , through which it has been able to control the once dreaded fire , behind the above argument , as has been thoroughly argued by Ms Rand in her literature should be understood.
The advent of the internet and globalization has created a society , the same as the city of the Atlantis of the Atlas shrugged. The newer generation holds firm Ms Rand's oath of " I shall not live for someone else as they shall not for me" and " Give me liberty or give me death".
In today's scenario , the role of the government should only be restricted to , in addition to the one of providing liberty , monitoring of the human rights of the people , where the greed and selfishness , not understood in terms of objectivism , by the lowest of the animals roaming this earth ,would lead to a revolution of communism , leaving the society in utter anarchy , as the times which are so horrifically and abundantly described in this epic novel.
For the rest , the greed and selfishness will lead Man to the place like Atlantis.
The romanticism in this novel gives a sense of belonging to the reader where , seeing the fate of communism in the world , is what seems to be the righteous path.
The strong style of writing transforms the reader to the world of the 20s and the 30s where communism was in the rise the world over.
In her reply to Marx and Engels , Ms Rand in the same tone , evangelizes pragmatism and a society which provides for the American pursuit of happiness.
She argues the rectitudinous in selfishness and greed ( which I would like to refer to as the basic instinct of man) , which in the today's competitive world more so, seems to be a morality in itself , much too different from the times when collectivism was considered to be righteous , which might be understood to be , in those times , in the words of Marx , Reactionism by the proletarians against the naked oppression and exploitation by the bourgeious.
It might be hard to grasp people rejoicing smoking a ciggerate , but nonetheless the syllogism, of it supporting Man as the greatest of the minds , through which it has been able to control the once dreaded fire , behind the above argument , as has been thoroughly argued by Ms Rand in her literature should be understood.
The advent of the internet and globalization has created a society , the same as the city of the Atlantis of the Atlas shrugged. The newer generation holds firm Ms Rand's oath of " I shall not live for someone else as they shall not for me" and " Give me liberty or give me death".
In today's scenario , the role of the government should only be restricted to , in addition to the one of providing liberty , monitoring of the human rights of the people , where the greed and selfishness , not understood in terms of objectivism , by the lowest of the animals roaming this earth ,would lead to a revolution of communism , leaving the society in utter anarchy , as the times which are so horrifically and abundantly described in this epic novel.
For the rest , the greed and selfishness will lead Man to the place like Atlantis.
Monday, June 1
Bing Bang in India
Microsoft has unveiled its new search engine BING , 2 days before the scheduled date.
A quick overview of the Bing gives a feel that at last Microsoft has come up with a search engine which can be a competitor to the near monopolist Google search.
The loading time of both the sites is nearly a blink.
The search results for the queries ( like shopping malls in Noida or natural language processing) , essentially are the same. MS no longer refrains from using Wikipedia as its top source of search query results , which I found was not there in the Live Search.
Bing let me down with multiple results hyper linking essentially to the same website( in the case of NLP to Wikipedia ) which does not make a lot of sense as , if I can go to a website which is textual enough for me to read , I would be intelligent enough to go to the links myself.
Where Bing scores is the added functionality given other than the basic returning of web pages , which makes it an intelligent search engine ( though not as per the capabilities of the industry like the one shown in WolframAlpha.)
The summary of the web page which can be accessed through the red dot at the side is a very novel idea , though the summary of certain web pages were disappointing. A better summarizer would make it a great feature for future search business.
Another great part of the engine is the customized search results presented. For example , shopping malls in Noida return a few places ( though personally I feel they can be among the worst search results that can be returned.)
I find the yahoo search engine to score in search query results in this domain over Bing or Google.
A feature which appeals though in Bing is the incorporation of the Live Map showing the landmarks of these places.
The related search queries at the left hand side of the window though gives better results.
The videos results have the same feature as the Ubuntu where hovering the mouse over a video plays it.
The search result for Noida in videos returns as the top result an MMS scandal of some B school , which reflects the quality of the search results returned.
Maps returns the Live map which is non-elaborative in comparison to Google maps.
People have been worried over Bing being a search engine which is able to decide for itself as to what kind of search results should be returned in comparison to Google giving all the search results possible. When seeing the current power of this engine to take decisions , it seems a non-decision approach would be a better idea for places such as India where data related to a particular city is not ample to take the decisions.But the potential is immense in having a search engine which is capable of taking intelligent search engines , like the Wolfram Alpha search engine.
Microsoft should , as opposed to limited spending proposed by Steve Balmer , invest more into Bing , to increase its market share from 2-3% presently , to something respectable to become a true competitor of Google in the search business.
A quick overview of the Bing gives a feel that at last Microsoft has come up with a search engine which can be a competitor to the near monopolist Google search.
The loading time of both the sites is nearly a blink.
The search results for the queries ( like shopping malls in Noida or natural language processing) , essentially are the same. MS no longer refrains from using Wikipedia as its top source of search query results , which I found was not there in the Live Search.
Bing let me down with multiple results hyper linking essentially to the same website( in the case of NLP to Wikipedia ) which does not make a lot of sense as , if I can go to a website which is textual enough for me to read , I would be intelligent enough to go to the links myself.
Where Bing scores is the added functionality given other than the basic returning of web pages , which makes it an intelligent search engine ( though not as per the capabilities of the industry like the one shown in WolframAlpha.)
The summary of the web page which can be accessed through the red dot at the side is a very novel idea , though the summary of certain web pages were disappointing. A better summarizer would make it a great feature for future search business.
Another great part of the engine is the customized search results presented. For example , shopping malls in Noida return a few places ( though personally I feel they can be among the worst search results that can be returned.)
I find the yahoo search engine to score in search query results in this domain over Bing or Google.
A feature which appeals though in Bing is the incorporation of the Live Map showing the landmarks of these places.
The related search queries at the left hand side of the window though gives better results.
The videos results have the same feature as the Ubuntu where hovering the mouse over a video plays it.
The search result for Noida in videos returns as the top result an MMS scandal of some B school , which reflects the quality of the search results returned.
Maps returns the Live map which is non-elaborative in comparison to Google maps.
People have been worried over Bing being a search engine which is able to decide for itself as to what kind of search results should be returned in comparison to Google giving all the search results possible. When seeing the current power of this engine to take decisions , it seems a non-decision approach would be a better idea for places such as India where data related to a particular city is not ample to take the decisions.But the potential is immense in having a search engine which is capable of taking intelligent search engines , like the Wolfram Alpha search engine.
Microsoft should , as opposed to limited spending proposed by Steve Balmer , invest more into Bing , to increase its market share from 2-3% presently , to something respectable to become a true competitor of Google in the search business.
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