Google Homepage : A Class Act

Check the new google homepage out : http://www.google.com/ig/

And click on personalize your homepage.

A panel slides out from the left and Google has it all here. It acts as an RSS Reader. You can add your own RSS Feeds. Just drag and drop feeds anywhere you want on the screen. You dont need to download an Aggregator anymore.

You have your mail, news, weather any other feeds that you want - all in one page.
And they've done it in style.

Cost of Microsoft Monopoly : $10 Billion

A recent whitepaper calculates the cost of Microsofts Monopoly to the industry as $10 Billion.

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/07/26/1434243&from=rss/

Microsofts Response to Google Earth

Checkout http://virtualearth.msn.com/ ..

This is to go live on the 25th of July...

Eureka!!!

This could be the reason why normally creative people produce movies like "War of the Worlds". (Im still on the copyright issue!! .. read the blog below)

Ages after movies like "Alien", "Predator" and "Independance Day", all that we get from one of the most Creative Directors in Hollywood is a rehash of the same thing.

The movie had nothing new to offer. Nothing exceptional in terms of thought or technology. Its just another "Alien" movie after all.

Its probably one of the reason why we have so much trash thrown at us and also probably why this trash is consumed silently.

I happened to see quite a few movies released recently that i wouldnt want to waste anymore time writing about, than i already have watching them.

If you are reading this, maybe you should ask yourself, is it because everything else is protected and not available for public consumption and you have nothing better to read.

“If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." – Issac Newton

Newton did not come up with ideas from a complete void. He and many others have been inspired and have drawn on ideas from many other great works before their time.

For Innovation and new ideas to thrive, previous innovations and ideas should be freely available and shared. In a world where Copyright and intellectual property laws are becoming more stringent, we seem to be moving in the exact opposite direction.

I would presume Copyright laws originally intended to maintain the sanctity of information. Constitutions and courts have repeatedly interpreted Copyright as a means of encouraging the production of creative works for public benefit.

What are we achieving by restricting the audience to a piece of information?

Yes, there are associated monetary benefits to which the owner does have a right. But unlike olden days when copyright was owned by individuals who took it with them to their graves, and had little or no benefit in extending the copyright, today most copyrights are owned by organizations which are formed on the presumption that they will exist forever. The idea of continuing to reap the monetary benefits of an asset for as long as possible is indeed a tempting proposition.

Even Walt Disney classics like “Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs”, which are protected by copyright have been derived from previous great works whose copyright had expired.

Are we gradually moving towards a void in innovation?

The Proverbial Haircut

It was every Desi’s nightmare I was told, when I landed here. But somehow I seemed to have sidestepped it. Rather, I had been amply warned to be able to avoid it. So my decent Indian haircut, albeit ancient prevailed for a few months/haircuts.

But last Monday was a day of mood swings. Monday morning, I decided I was sick and hence decided to stay at home. Was a wonderful day. Got up late. Read a book for a while. Watched some TV. Cooked. Slept. And then, it happened.

At around 4 I decided to go out for a walk. The idea was to go the the City Library. There was some talk on some obscure topic that seemed interesting at that point in time. Anyways, the fact is I never got to the library that day.

On my way there it started drizzling. And all of a sudden, I felt I had a little too much hair on my head. I guess that was when I decided it was time to visit the Barber.

I should have realized the minute I got there that things weren’t going the way they were supposed to. The sweet chick in the shop, had been replaced by some guy. I am pretty much certain that that was when I lost interest in the haircut altogether. Or may be it was the temptation to go for a haircut I wouldn’t want to have back home.

My usually lengthy explanation of the type of haircut I wanted was replaced by a just a number. I was given a choice of 1 to 4. 1 being the shortest and 4 being the longest.

I chose 4. Whats left on my head now is the remnants of my battle with number 4. :)