Inovation in India/IITs

I read this interesting article by Bernard on State of Inovation in India. I agree with him that lot have changed (improved) but still we have yet to see Google/Microsoft from here(IITs). As he mentioned one of the main reason is playing things safe.

The fundamental issue in India is the risk/reward equation. It is simply too easy for a young developer in India to get paid a lot by an outsourcing firm; then enjoy being headhunted every year for more money.

One more issue is difference between IITs and Stanford providing inovation to world. Important difference in giving good startups is because lack of implementation of ideas here in IITs. In IITs atleast some good projects (Mtech & Btech projects) are worth transforming into good business opportunities but they die as you pass out from there or after its being graded. I will agreed with comment made by Amit that

There are many socio economic reasons why young people in India hesitate to implement an innovative idea. Current trend of high paying jobs in MNCs will make entrepreneurship ever lesser attractive... especially in software.

Career in Computer Science.

A funky futuristic video, exploring the possibilities in a career in Computer Science.

Video: Career in Computer Science - MS Research

Microsoft Research has put together a promotional video - Career in Computer Science. It features mediocre skateboarding, but a cute all-purpose personal robot.

Source :Career in computer science - javascript robots

GPRS on Mobile

Yesterday I activated GPRS on my mobile (nokia 6030) ...its quite cheap( 10paise/10kb)
So I tried different pages which works for mobile

• Yahoo Searh
• Flickr : http://m.flickr.com
• W3schools.com: http://w3scholls.com/wap.wml
• Google Mpas: http://www.google.com/gmm

Some more websites which works on mobile can be found here : Mobile Compatibe Wesites

So I thougth i should have a mobile webpage too.. so i searched for it and found this great tutorial on w3schools: WAP/WML tutorial. It has also got a demo page which works with explorer only but it contains simple and good examples explaining basic features of wml along with preview on how it looks on mobile.

The WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) protocol is the leading standard for information services on wireless terminals like digital mobile phones. WML stands for Wireless Markup Language. It is a mark-up language inherited from HTML, but WML is based on XML, so it is much stricter than HTML.

Tutorial was pretty easy..so i create my own pae which works on mobile. You can access it at:
http://www.aburad.com/m.wml, though it contain my pic, blog address and some content only(I will add some more content). WML supports wbmp(which is black & white) image format,( you can convert image to wbmp using http://www.online-utility.org/. It als o supports jpg format. One more thing while designing your pages for mobile, you can opera to see how it looks as it supports wml files. Or check it at online wap emulator: WapTiger
Some more links : Wap Tutorials(haven't tried yet).

Related Post :Things You Never Knew Your Cell Phone Could Do

Creative Commons, India launched on 26th Jan at IIT Bombay

The project celebrated its official launch today at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Bombay. The launch is part of Asia’s largest technology festival held in Mumbai – Techfest. Now in its tenth year, the two day festival offers a smattering of workshops, exhibitions and lectures to students to explore advances and opportunities in modern science and technology.

Speakers at the launch event:

Mr. Joichi Ito [Chairman, Creative Commons]
Dr. Catharina Maracke [Creative Commons, Global Coordinator]
Mr. Nandu Pradhan [President and Managing Director, Red Hat, India]
Mr. Shuddhabrata Sengupta [Sarai-CSDS]
Prof. Deepak Phatak [KReSIT, IIT Bombay]

Mr. Ito will speak about the importance of Creative Commons for a growing global digital culture in light of the launch of the Indian creative commons jurisdiction on January 26th. The intimate interaction between technology, law and culture in digital products is creating new challenges for enterprises, individuals and other organizations. How is the digital landscape getting altered with the emergence of licenses such as creative commons?

For more information about this project and its launch, visit CC-India’s website. To learn more about this year’s Techfest, click here.
Read More :
CC Licenses Launch Today in India
Creative Commons Launch
Creative Commons India
Creative Commons @ techfest
Joi Ito's Web: India[Chairman, Creative Commons]

Google : The Literacy Project

A resource for teachers, literacy organisations and anyone interested in reading and education, created in collaboration with LitCam, Google, and UNESCO's Institute for Lifelong Learning. Some of the resources available on the site include:
Books, Video, Blogs, Academic texts, Groups, Maps.

Links : Google Blog
Google Launches Literacy Project

Living with web-based software

Lifehacker explains how new web-based aplications are becoming more part of day-to-day life..

More and more web applications offer the features and functionality of desktop software every day. Over the past several months, I've been moving my work to Web-based software applications as much as possible. My favorites include Google Calendar, Writely, Bloglines, Blinksale, Delicious, Ta-Da Lists and Flickr. While many users may balk at leaving their familiar world of desktop software, the benefits of secure storage, sharing files and accessibility make managing your data with hosted web apps a smart move for a lot of people.

read more >>

Taking Free Software to the Farmers and Fields of India

FLOSS is behind an Indian Web site that brings together farmers and agricultural experts to exchange ideas and information.

Thanks to work done by the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology (IIT-Bombay) and its partners, IT-savvy and knowledge-hungry people across rural India now can find relevant, demand-driven farming knowledge on the aAqua.org Web site. So far, the site has been a great way to bring together people such as Prasad Kaledhonkar, who has a clue about what the white patterns emerging on tomato plant leaves are; farmer's daughter Niyatee Nilesh, who wants advice on buying agricultural land; and Shirish, from rural Maharashtra, who wants to learn about using waste water from the school kitchen to irrigate gardens and crops. Read More>>

Multimedia Databases

As I am doing a literature survey on multimedia-databases for my seminar under Prof N. L. Sarda. I have set up blog : http://multimediadb.blogspot.com
As i explore this field i'll be posting on this blog.