Sania Mirza does India proud!

Sania Mirza does India proud!

As I write this, I am watching Sania Mirza battle Serena Williams in the 2005 Australian Open. Sania got a wildcard and made it to the third round so far. And the kiddo is putting on quite a fight. The first set was rather timid to begin with, but understandable given she is on one of the biggest stages in her career. She bounced back towards the end of the first set. In fact at the moment she is leading Serena in the second set. And on a triple break point! :) Feels really great to have her out there representing India. Mera Bharat Mahan! Sare Jahan se Acha!!

Kudos to the tough girl. Oh and she is very pretty too! :)

Score at the moment: Serena-Sania :: 6-1; 2-3 (Our girl leads the second set!!)
Commentary on ESPN now: Sania is the toughest competitor Serena has faced this far in the competition!



Update: Sania lost :( But she still won our hearts with her confident fight to the finish. Final scores: 6-1; 6-4.

Image to Text

Image to Text

When you search on Toogle for an image, it runs the query on Google Image Search, pulls the first image that is returned by Google and then converts the image to text! Cool, eh?!?

Google Suggest - Demystified

Google Suggest - Demystified

Google honoured me on my b'day with Google Suggest :) Spent sometime talking to Manu about its implementation today and found some interesting links.

Details on how it works here and here (very detailed walkthru). Here is a dictionary enhancement and its details. Even Firefox has a Google Suggest Extension.

While you are at this, in the Google Suggest search box, type "Google Su". One would think "Google Suggest" would top the list of suggested keywords. I don't think Google will be very happy with the results! :) At least, it indicates that the suggested keywords are not "yet" doctored or earning revenue for Google.

Related link: Sergey and Larry's Anatomy of a Search Engine paper submitted at Stanford.

To say No, shake your head...errr your phone

To say No, shake your head...errr your phone

Samsung plans to unveil a new mobile phone that can detect motion. They claim the SCH-S310 can dial a number by writing the number in air(!!!) and can delete spam by shaking the phone!!! Also includes a 1.3 Meg Camera and a music player. Whats next? Compatibility sensors? 2 phones with compatible profiles that start beeping when they pass each other! :)

Very creative New Year greeting

Very creative New Year greeting
(via Antrix)

Happy New Year folks!

Life is Random

Life is Random

Apple's punchline and product is going to wipe out the competition in the flash world too. Recording is still not available; but at this price, the iPod Shuffle is a steal! More pictures. And finally unpacking the player.

I can't help repeating myself. I don't blame Apple for being so good; but it doesn't augur too well for the rest of the MP3 player manufacturers.

And heres where the title for this post came from.

Racism on the air

Racism on the air

Free speech is good as is humour. But racism in the guise of humor is not funny. Here are a couple lines from Philadelphia-based Power 99 RJed by Star and Buc Wild.

Star (to customer support rep in India): Listen to me, you dirty rat eater. I'll come out there and choke the eff out of you (laughter).

Star: You're a filthy rat eater. I'm calling about my American six-year-old white girl. How dare you outsource my call? Get off the line, bitch (laughter, applause, end of call).

Heres a news article on this. The sound clip is available here. Other blog posts here and here.

After the death of the R&B singer Aaliyah in 2001, their show attempted to make light of the tragedy by playing the sound effect of a plane crashing, along with the sound of a woman screaming. That incident got them fired.

Star, whose real name is Troi Torain, was upset with J Lo when she used racist words in her song. But on his show, he sings a different tune.

Update (Jan 12): Star and Buc Wild were suspended by the station for making the offensive call to the call-center after it received more protest calls and emails than it had for any past incident.

Nimble Fingers

Nimble Fingers
(via Vasti)

Here is a heart-wrenching short story by Anuradha Muralidharan. She was one of the winners of the "Highly Commended" prize in the 2004 Commonwealth Short Story competition. A must-read.

iPod Monopolizing the market?

iPod Monopolizing the market?

iPod is probably the best designed hard-drive based MP3 player. But from a feature standpoint, it falls behind the iRiver H140 that has built-in in-line recording, FM radio, etc and is almost just as compact as the iPod is. iPod on the other hand relies on other products such as the iTalk to extend its feature set. With dedicated products such as the iTalk and iTrip, it is unlikely that Apple will build these features into the iPod. One would think this is a short-coming for the iPod. But its effective marketing and popularity has gotten it 90% of the market. And with car companies such as BMW and audio companies such as Pioneer and Alpine building adapters to the iPod, the rest of the pack will soon not prove to be any competition to the iPod at all. UNLESS, the industry defines a standard interface to the players. That way, when adapters are built, they are built to the standard interface and not to a specific brand. This will ensure there is fair competition in the market. Some regulation is required real soon. For now, I have to make do with using my FM transmitter to get my Nomad Zen Xtra to communicate with my Car music system.

Resources to iPod your car here and here.