World on fire

Came across this interesting video by Grammy award winning Sarah McLachlan. It shows how 150,000$ can be used to enrich lives.

http://www.worldonfire.ca/

 

LIFE photo archive on Google

One of the most magnificent photo archives of the past century is now available on Google. The LIFE photo archive contains images stretching from the 1750s to today. Most of the photos in this archive were never published and are now available for the first time. Below is a picture of the earth taken from Apollo 10 space ship.

 

Photo Gallery:PIXCETERA

AOL’s Pixcetera is a site featuring top-quality professional photography. The site features professional images from across the AOL Network and the images are marvelous.

 

Another dimension to Microsoft surface!

Microsoft Research recently demonstrated a new Surface prototype Secondlight. This allows for a different image (from that on the Surface screen) to be projected onto a translucent material that is held above the Surface screen. In this really cool demo, you have a satellite image of a town on the table, and have the street names projected on to a piece of paper that the user holds above the map.

 

Bus tracking, Bangalore

You can call the BMTC control room at: 2295 2522 / 2295 2422
They can give you the Starting point attendant’s mobile number who will provide you the exact position of the bus.

There is another interesting service to track the BMTC Volvo buses in Bangalore.

Supposing you are in Koramangala, and wish to go to Electronics City. The VOLVO bus route no V356C, connecting Kempe Gowda Bus Station and Electronic City (refer ‘route info’ above), touches Koramangala at Big Bazaar, St John’s hospital, Water tank Jn, Kripanidhi College, Madivala PS.

To know the current location of the buses along the route, send an SMS message to 99456 34666 reading ‘Yi V356C U’, where

	· Yi stands for ‘Yelli Iddira?’,
	· ‘V356c’ is the route number,
	· ‘U’ stands for ‘up’ (buses heading out of the ’starting station’ are
	designated to as ‘up’, and buses heading towards the ’starting
	station’ are designated as ‘down’).

And, within a minute, you will receive a reply stating, for example, “Singasandra; Bangalore Dairy; Maharani’s College”, meaning there are three buses on this route currently, each of them approaching the stops listed, after having left the previous stops. The bus approaching Singasandra is of no use to you now, and, depending on the time at your disposal, you may choose to catch either of the other two buses reaching up to one of the stops in / near Koramangala.

 

Life tips from Michael Jordan

Michael Jordan has been a long time hero to me. Some interesting quotes from him:

• “I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
• “I’ve always believed that if you put in the work, the results will come. I don’t do things half-heartedly. Because I know if I do, then I can expect half-hearted results.”
• “If you accept the expectations of others, especially negative ones, then you never will change the outcome.
• “Even when I’m old and grey, I won’t be able to play it, but I’ll still love the game.”
• “If you’re trying to achieve, there will be roadblocks. I’ve had them; everybody has had them. But obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.”
• “Some people want it to happen, some wish it would happen, others make it happen.”

 

Creative Capitalism

Bill Gates recently spoke about using capitalism to help the billions of underpriviledged citizens of this planet. His idea is to effectively spread the benefits of capitalism and the huge improvements in quality of life it can provide to people who have been left out. He cites C. K. Prahalad’s The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid. As an incentive to companies to look at markets outside the developed west, it is mentioned that poorest two-thirds of the world’s population has about $5 trillion in purchasing power.

Some innovative uses of cell phones in poor countries are cited. Customers are charged by the second instead of by the minute to keep costs low. Money transfer through mobile phones is also quite common. Then ofcourse, the importance of information flow is highlighted. Farmers use cell phones to find the best prices of their commodities in nearby markets. I have written about this in an earlier post as well.

Bill Gates also mentions product red. Red Branded products from a company have the same features as the standard product, but the companies donate a percentage of their profits from these products to fight AIDS. This creates added brand value for customers, who might choose such a product over a competitors standard product because of the charitable cause associated with a red-branded product.

Some interesting innovations that have come out of Microsoft Research are highlighted. Visual interfaces that enable the illiterate people to use a PC instantly, with minimal training is one. Another interesting project is one that lets an entire classroom full of students use a single computer using software that lets each student use his/her own mouse to control a specially colored cursor so that as many as 50 kids can use one computer at the same time. These projects not only help in educating the poor, it also serves in creating new markets for Microsoft.

I strongly believe that creative captilism has a lot of potential, not just for social upliftment but for companies to exploit untapped markets. Such projects, along with efforts like microcredit will definitely go a long way in helping to improve the lives of the poor.

 

Gotham is Springfield!!

A friend, Manik, came up with an interesting hypothesis. And I agree, it appears that Batman does have a Simpson connection.  A striking resemblance indeed!

 

CVPR 2008 papers

A nice compilation of the CVPR 2008 papers available online.

 

There is a time when panic is the appropriate response!!

Came across an obituary of Eugene Kleiner while browsing. He is the K in the famous VC KPCB. Eugene Kleiner was a part of the “traitorous eight”, who left their jobs at Shockley Labs and co-founded Fairchild Semiconductors. Eugene played a major role in attracting initial venture into the project. After the success of Fairchild Semiconductors, Eugene turned into a venture capitalist himself. What really inspires me about Eugene is the fact that he played all three parts necessary in a successful technology company, viz. the inventor, the entrepreneur and later on the venture capitalist.

He laid out certain rules for VCs, which are commonly referred to as Kleiner’s laws:

• Make sure the dog wants to eat the dog food. No matter how ground-breaking a new technology, how large a potential market, make certain customers actually want it.
• Build one business at a time. Most business plans are overly ambitious. Concentrate on being successful in one endeavor first.
• Risk up front, out early.
• The time to take the tarts is when they’re being passed.
• The problem with most companies is they don’t know what business they’re in.
• Even turkeys can fly in a high wind. In times of strong economies, even bad companies can look good.
• It’s easier to get a piece of an existing market than to create a new one.
• It’s difficult to see the picture when you’re inside the frame.
• After learning some of the tricks of the trade, some people think they know the trade. This reflected some of Eugene’s own humility; he recognized that many venture capitalists thought they were experts when they had just a bit of knowledge.
• Venture capitalists will stop at nothing to copy success.
• Invest in people, not just products. Eugene always respected founding entrepreneurs. He wanted to build companies with them not just with their ideas.