Sometimes cricket means more than just a match

Sometimes a sporting event is more than just a game. Sometimes the arena for competition is emblematic and symbolic of a greater reality, in which the twists and turns of a match carry a wider significance. And so it was for the titanic clash between India and Pakistan in the semifinal of the cricket World Cup; a tie that needed no artificially created hype. Giants of the sport going head-to-head for a place in the final as two nations, both equally obsessed with the game, saw millions become engrossed with the drama unfolding on a circle of grass in Mohali. 

And the celebratory spirit of the event was remarkable given the backdrop of recent relations between to the two Asian rivals. The uneasy neighbors have fought three wars since the blood-soaked partition of the subcontinent in 1947, and recent peace talks were shattered in November 2008 when ten gunmen attacked Mumbai, killing 164 people and wounding hundreds more.

India blamed Pakistan for harboring terrorists as political relationships disintegrated. And all seemed bleak until a game of cricket intervened. Earlier this week India's prime minister used the semifinal showdown as a vehicle for diplomacy, inviting his Pakistani counterpart to watch the first match between the countries since "26/11" – which is how Indians refer to that deadly day.

Seemingly only cricket, often referred to as a "religion" or being "like God" in the parts of Mumbai I have visited, was enough to focus collective minds on what unites rather than divides. And if cricket is a religion, it is easy to identify its gods. Local hero Sachin Tendulkar cleared the streets of his home city Mumbai as he closed in on a century in Mohali. When he was out before reaching three figures, you could hear a low rumble as a nation collectively groaned.

Joy and excitement enriched all over the country when the second last bowl of the last over was bowled by Zaheer taking the last pak wicket to end up this battle and pushing India into final for the third time.

Android : Wndows of mobile platform

By late 2011, Android is going to capture the mobile market offering the most popular smartphone platform. Android is growing at lightening speed in all the countries taking lead in smartphone market worldwide.

This rise in popularity makes people compare it to Windows. Is Android acting the same role in the mobile world that Windows does in the computer world? No doubt, there are a number of similarities. Like Windows, the Android operating system is available for use on multiple devices by multiple manufacturers. This means that Android users have broad choices in device form factors, capabilities, quality, manufacturers and wireless carriers. You can buy android based device from various companies just like you can buy a Windows computer from almost any manufacturer except Apple, and there's an immense selection of devices, features and prices.

Leaving Android for the moment, the two next most popular smartphone platforms in the United States -- Apple's iOS and RIM's BlackBerry OS -- offer users a far smaller range of choices, from just two manufacturers. This takes away the flexibility of telecom usage from the user making them move towards Android where consumers can purchase Android phones that range from about $50 to $500 or more; choose from almost any wireless carrier; and choose from a wide array of contract, no-contract, and prepaid plans. The BlackBerry is very competitive in terms of price, carriers, and plans but not in terms of manufacturers and features.

Over-viewing various aspects from customer point of view, we can easily observe that Android not only gives flexibility but also offers competitive price and outstanding features. That's the reason why Android seems to emerge like Windows of Mobile platform.

A city which changed its name to Google

Topeka's capital Kansas changed its name to Google, Kansas for a month last year to woo a Google high speed internet project. Though the Mayor of Topeka was embarrassed at that moment as the city which is home of soybean fields, animal research and likes changed its name to that of a giant corporation to court its favor. May be he feels like he'll lose business to Kansas City, which, by 2012, is expected to have Google-installed internet connections that are 100 times faster than the national average. Kansas city which changed its name to Google is just 60 miles from Topeka city.

Probably the mayor Bill Bunten is a technophobe or somewhere alike as for him internet is just used to read mails that too rarely as he still prefers telephone. He also said how does it matter if one takes 10 sec rather than 1 sec to access an information. With this step, of course the city has drawn the attention of search giant and it has won the contest of Google to get the fastest internet connection in the city kicking out several other cities in the race.

It all happened April 2010, when the city got its new name to get Google's attention and as per Bunten it was a move too good for PR as the ciry websites which used to get 4000 hits per week got 20000 hits in one day. Just be renaming the city to Google, the city has got a lot of attention both from the world and Google.

The first close up look at Mercury

On 29th March, Tuesday NASA received the first close look at the hottest planet Mercury from the Messenger spacecraft, which entered orbit around Mercury on March 17. It has captured the areas around the planet's southern pole that have never been seen before and that could host water in the form of ice. It was soon followed by 363 more images over the next six hours.

Though it is too early to detail about the geological details based on this, but still there is a hope. As per mission tech leads, the Messenger spacecraft is set to circle Mercury for a year. It will survey the planet's hot, rocky surface, providing what scientists anticipate to be a wealth of information that has never before been gleaned from occasional glimpses caught from fly-by missions.
Even though Mercury sits blisteringly close to the sun, some areas in craters near its poles lie in permanent shadow and are probably cold enough to house ice deposits. Along with the search for water ice, the mission will map out the planet's surface, observe its magnetic fields and examine its surface composition.

How Amazon beat Google and Apple

With the launch of Amazon Cloud Drive on Tuesday, Amazon has an upper hand over Google and Apple in this line. Amazon Cloud Drive is an Internet service that lets customers store music and other digital files on the company's servers and access them on computers, smartphones and other devices. It will give customers 5GB of Cloud Drive storage for free, and if users buy an MP3 album through Amazon, they'll be upgraded to 20GB of cloud storage for a year. The Cloud Player works on PCs, Macs and Android devices.

With this move, Amazon is officially to the cloud with music -- beating Apple and Google's years-long attempts to do the same. The main reason for these two IT giants to fall short in this race is the wait for record labels to get on board with licensing agreements, while Amazon skipped these and simply took the plunge.

Its quite clear that Cloud music services are still in grey area when we talk legal. Music licensing rules are arcane, and labels don't yet know how to handle the cloud. The reason behind this is the technology evolves faster than business models and their licensing services. We have lots of live example, due to the simpler licensing services, Spotify-music streaming services have grown rapidly in Europe while it cant get success in US.

Even you think that India loses when Sachin gets a ton...

When many people say how many of Sachin's hundreds have come for a winning cause, here is analysis of each of those centuries he scored when INDIA lost and reason why it went in vain.

Sachin Tendulkar gets to yet another century but India end up on the losing side - How many times have we seen that?

While there would be the Tendulkar bashers and critics who say that India lose a match whenever Sachin scores a century, the statistics prove otherwise.

Out of the 48 hundreds, We won 33 , Tied 1, Draw 1. And we lost only  13.

1. 137 off 137 (Strike rate 100) balls Vs SriLanka at Delhi in 1996 World Cup.

India scored 271/3 in 50 overs. The only other 50 score was from Azhar. SL made 272 in 48.4 overs. Manoj Prabhakar had 4-0-47-0. He also opened in the innings and scored 7 of 36 balls.

2. 100 of 111 Balls Vs Pak in Singapore - Apr 96.

India 226 all out in 47.1 overs, When Sachin was out score was 186/4 (We cant blame because next 3 are match fixtures). Pak had a reduced target of 187 from 33 overs.

3. 110 of 138 Balls (Slower but...) vs Sri Lanka In Colombo - Aug 96

Again India 226 for 5 in 50 overs, Only other 50 score from Azhar (58 of 99 balls !!!). Sachin has also bowled 6-0-29-1, the second most economical bowler and the only wicket taker (SL were 230/1 in 44.2 ) of the match next to Srinath. Seven bowlers were used by Azhar.

4. 143 of 131 Balls (!!!) Vs Aus at Sharjah, Apr 1998

This was chasing under lights. The qualifying match before the final. The whole world knows about this match. Still one interesting point, when Sachin was out India were 242 at 5 at 43 overs. Target was 276 in 46. Still India finished at 250/5 scoring just 8 of the next 3 overs.

5. 101 of 140 Balls against SL at Sharjah , Oct 2000.

Indian score was 224/8 in 50 overs. (No other 50 score). SL got 225/5 in 43.5, Sachin also bowled 5-0-22-0, better economy rate than everyone except Srinath.

6. 146 of 153 Balls against Zimbabwe at Jodhpur , December 2000

India made 283 / 8 in 50 overs. Sachin was the last man to be dismissed, score was 235/8 at 46.3 overs when he was out. Agarkar and Zaheer Khan propelled India to 283 in the last 3.3 overs.

When Sachin has scored 146 of 235 in 46.3 overs, you can guess what the other 8 great batsmen were doing against the World class Zimbabwe attack. Second Highest scorer was Zaheer Khan with 32.

Zim got 284/9 in 49.5 overs. Kumble bowled the last over. Sachin also got 6-0-35-1

7. 101 of 129 Balls Vs SA at Johannesburg , Oct 2001

India got 279/5 in 50, Ganguly made 127 of 126 balls. When Ganguly got out, the score was 193-1 in 35.2 overs. Sachin was the last man to get out at 263. SA got 280 in 48.4 overs. Sachin bowled 9-0-51-0, second best in economy rate next only to Agarkar (10-0-45-1)

8. 141 of 135 balls Vs Pak at Rawalpindi, March 2004.

India were chasing 329 and were 317 all out in 48.4 overs, 8 balls to spare. No other batsman made even a 50 (when chasing 300 ) and when Sachin was out, India were 245-4 in 38.4 overs. They needed 85 from 68 balls with 6 wickets in hand.

9. 123 of 130 Balls Vs Pak at Ahmedabad, April 2005.

India made 315/6 in 48 overs (48 over match), again no other 50 score. Second highest was Dhoni 47 of 64 balls, (third highest was extras - 39). Pak made 319 in 48 overs. The three quicks (Balaji, Nehra and Khan went for 188 runs from 26 overs between them taking only 2 wickets). Sachin bowled 6-0-36-1. No Harbhajan and no Kumble.

10. 100 of 113 Balls Vs Pak at Peshawar, Feb-2006.

India were 328 all out in 49.4 overs. Pathan and Dhoni got 60 each. When Sachin was out when India were 305-5 in 45 overs. Managed only 23 in the last five overs. Pak scored 311/7 in 47 overs and won by D/L method. Could have been anybody's game. Sachin did not bowl.

11. 141* of 148 Balls Vs WI , Malaysia.

India made 309 /5 in 50 overs. Sachin was not out. Pathan was the only other 50 scorer. WI made 141/2 in 20 overs and won by D/L method. Again could have been anybody's game.

12.  175 of 141 Balls vs Australia at Hyderabad,  5th Nov 2009.

India needed 351 to win. And at the End, lost by 3 Runs. Spare a thought for Sachin Tendulkar. He seemed to have done everything possible but didn't last the final lap. Only Raina scored along with him…made 59…and other Players just Enjoyed Sachin’s batting.

13. 111 of 101 Balls Vs South Africa at Nagpur , 12th March 2011.

India were 267/1 and at the end all out for 296. When Sachin got out after scoring 111, India only managed to score 30 Runs with lost of 9 Wickets.

This Proved how good Sachin’s hundreds were! Hope people will stop laughing now.

Java Founder joins Google, saying no to Oracle

The outstanding programmer, James Gosling, who founded Java at Sun Microsystems, has joined Google, which is locked in a lawsuit over how the Java technology is used in Android. He announced this yesterday through his blog that he will be working with Google from now on. Before this, he was on his own for about one year after he left Oracle acquired Sun.

This all started after Oracle acquired Sun Microsystems last year. On that time, Gosling instantly decided not to join the Oracle acquired group since Oracle's ways evidently didn't agree with Gosling. In addition to this, he has also called Oracle Chief Executive Larry Ellison - Larry, Prince of Darkness. He also disclosed that Oracle lawyers were quite cheered when the group was grilled about the patent situation between Sun and Google during the Oracle-Sun integration meetings. He was not at all comfortable with Oracle's strategies and plans which were 180 degree out of phase with him.

Soon after acquiring Sun Microsystems, Oracle sued Google for patent and copyright infringement concerning how Android uses software called Dalvik that's very similar to Java. A prime benefit to using Java is that it shields programs from the differences of underlying hardware, such as different processors, letting a single program run on a variety of computing devices. Android uses the Java like technology Dalvik to get these features in gift on all the devices.

As a company, Google is more successful both in popularity and commercially while compared to Sun and unlike most other IT company, it has also managed to become a household name.

Benchmark battle : Chrome vs IE vs Firefox

No doubt the new breed of browsers which are getting released these days are the best of their genes, the most stable and the most effective browsers from Google, Microsoft and Mozilla. Opera and Safari are not included in this list because their latest version is not yet released and their current version have not implemented hardware acceleration yet and they are not up to the mark.

BOOT TIME COMPARISON

MEMORY USAGE COMPARISON

Though all the three browser giants claim that their browser is the best in terms of speed, performance, memory consumption and stability. But this is what we get when the three browsers are tested under various conditions. This is how they perform when underwent identical conditions of operation. Here goes the final report.

After various comparison, Firefox 4 the latest release from Mozilla comes out with the best overall points ranked top in almost all the surveys except one or two where it is just behind the Microsoft's IE9.

Google about to start its new service : Google Music

Google's new sensation : Google Music is about to launch very soon and Google has begun testing Google Music internally. Its a great news for all music lovers as they can get hands on to stream almost all the music composed worldwide at any moment. As far as testing is considered, employees at the online behemoth have begun a process commonly referred to in Silicon Valley as dog-fooding, in which employees try out a new service or product.

Google music was in news since long but we have no announced time of its launch from the search giant. But now its seems that Google Music--a streaming service users would access from Web-connected devices--appears close to being ready.

Google managers told counterparts at the top four record companies last year that they hoped everything would be in place for a launch by late 2010, sources said. But it got delayed due to the main component of the site - the Music Collection. Negotiations with at least some of the top publishers and with the four largest record labels are ongoing. The delays are largely due to the complexity of the subject matter. Google is after cloud music rights and not just for songs acquired from Google Music.

Lets hope to see the another miracle from Google very soon.

An amazing story of MacBook

This is the real story of a MacBook Pro and its owner Mark Bao. Mr. Bao left his MacBook in a lounge at Bentley University in Waltham, Mass., allowing an opportunist to swipe it earlier this year. However, he had already embedded a little wisdom inside of his machine by installing BackBlaze software. The software allowed him to access the stolen MacBook remotely and see whatever is going on there.

The first thing the alleged thief reportedly did was photograph himself. Then he filmed himself dancing to Tyga's Make It Rain. Bao, naturally, was impressed by the software's performance rather more than he was by the alleged thief's.

From the files on the computer and some legwork, Bao was able to track down who the alleged thief was, his Facebook page, his e-mail, and the infamous videos. This is how the a genius computer user track down the Macbook thief with the help of the amazing software and facebook.

After all these drama, what Bao did first was to upload this video on youtube where it has now enjoyed almost 1 million views. Hopefully you will enjoy this video as well.

A semi-final which is mother of all finals

A semi final can never be this big. With the clash of India and Pakistan in World Cup Semi final on 30th march, the battlefield experience at Mohali has become the most sought-after destination in India. With the top leaders from two countries to top celebrities and top industrialists, the match has become the most important event of the year. Not only the stadium, but the hotels, airports and even the parking lots are busy on that very day.

Above all this what i saw on news yesterday was most exciting. Punjab's MLAs were fighting with each other. Though the fights and noises of MPs and MLAs are never new to Indians but this time the fight was for the ticket to the semi-final match. Even the relatives of cricketers like Yuvraj, Sehwag and others, who come under VIP category in general matches, were not getting tickets. Flight fares to mohali has increases unexpectedly from 4-5 thousands to 25000.

With the match being so high profile, of course the risk of terror attacks is obvious and Punjab police has taken every necessary steps to avoid any such mishaps with more than 48000 security persons within the stadium and near about with anti air-crafts and various other war equipments. To have a closer look at the ongoing consequences including security, accommodation, tickets, transportation and advertising click here.

Apple about to win the legal suits filed by Nokia

Nokia, in 2009 filed a series of suits against Apple. The company was accused of infringing on 17 patents related to wireless handsets. Nokia asked the ITC(International Trade Commission) that Apple be banned from importing the offending devices. Apple countersued, charging Nokia with infringing 13 Apple patents related to the iPhone.

Today, ITC judge James Gildea stated that Apple is not in violation of these Nokia's patents.Though, its not a final decision as ITC may either agree to the stetement given by Gildea or throw it out for hearing later this summer.

In total, its a busy period for Apple on legal front as recently Kodak has also claimed that Apple and RIM are infringing on image-previewing patents in mobile devices The fights for patent is on and the tech giants across the world going all around ITC for the judgements.

Apple's new Mac guy - Craig Federighi

Craig Federighi is the new Mac guy for Apple, taking over for departing Mac veteran Bertrand Serlet. He left Apple in Feb 1999 for business software company Ariba. Craig Federighi, the Apple boomerang, is now back after 10 years to help Apple build the Mac OS

We all know that, the Mac OS has played a crucial role in Apple's hardware strategy over the past decade. Unlike the case with Microsoft's Windows, you can only buy the Mac OS for Apple-made hardware, and the company has built a business out of trying to produce new iterations of it at a faster pace than competitors. The next step in the operating system's evolution, as unveiled by Apple back in October, is to bring some of the features and familiarities of the company's mobile iOS platform back to the Mac OS. How that integration happens, and where it's going, largely rests on who's in charge of the OS.

The new mac guy can most easily be described as a geek god. He's a man who after buying an $8 million house in Los Altos, Calif., could still be found staying up late on community message boards, helping people get his company's product to work. Nearly two decades ago he was also a self-described fan of martial arts star Jackie Chan and of bad haircuts.

Federighi's first stint at Apple began in 1996 after Apple acquired Next, the company founded by Steve Jobs after Jobs had left Apple a decade earlier. At Next, Federighi had been the Enterprise Objects Framework project manager.

In 1999, Federighi left his role as the director of engineering at Apple to join Ariba, a business software company that had just gone public. Federighi began there as the vice president of Internet services before later being promoted to executive vice president and chief technology officer. His final role before departing back to Apple was as Ariba's user interface technology evangelist.

Robot clouds to cool the stadium when you enjoy the next world cup

Though I have not been fortunate enough to get a ticket of India-Australia quarter final at Ahmedabad but for those fortunate ones who got the tickets for any of these matches, the main huddles in enjoying the cricket was the extremely high temperature especially in day matches. Think of watching IPL matches in April-May when sun will be on its peak.

Here is a good news for you all game lovers, researchers at Qatar University's engineering school have come up with a novel way to cool the stadiums - giant flying saucers. It will be robotic cloud made up of high-tech materials that will be positioned between the blistering sun and the stadium. As per them this cloud will be able to reduce temperature by 10 degree Fahrenheit.

Talking about the product, the initial engineering phase is completed and they have planned to make a 4-by-3 meter prototype by the end of this year to test the concept. The finished product would be a rectangle made up of carbon fiber and solar panels the size of a jumbo jet. It would use sophisticated monitoring gear to track the transit of the sun and would use four electric powered engines to maneuver to the precisely the right position to drop a cool shade across the stadiums. The product could also be useful in security and communications. Radio and camera transmitters could help facilitate wireless communication and provide an eye-in-the-sky for broadcasters or security forces. The final cost for one such unit is expected to be around $500,000.

Lets wait till we could see this in the upcoming matches after some years.

Google optimizing Chrome Browser

Since the launch of Chrome, it as always been in top 3 in the race of most popular browser. But the recent release of Chrome, with plenty of features is now three times bigger than its first release size. Of course, its not OK with Google and they have decided to curtail Chrome bloat.

Team is looking for all possible options to bring down the size of the Chrome distribution binaries. Though its not a major issue as even the current release of 26.2 MB can be easily downloaded on a broadband connection, but Google does not want to stay out of the race as Firefox latest release Firefox 4 is just 12 MB, while Chrome has grown from 9.0MB with version 1.0 to 26.2MB for version 10.0 on Windows. And with IE9, released last week, Microsoft once again has a competitive browser on be on the top seat in the race.

Google has no other option but to cut short unnecessary parts and reduce the binary size to stay in the competition. It has also updated its logo which can be seen in Chrome 11 but not in this version.

YouTube co-founders join hands for a new startup

CHEN & HURLEY

YouTube co-founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen are considering ideas for a new start-up six years after the pair and Jawed Karim founded the phenomenon video-sharing site.

Though its not yet announced what is the new start-up all about, but as per Hurley its related to basic components that every Web site needs to get off the ground. Whatever be the idea, Silicon Valley venture capitalists will surely be reaching for their checkbooks very soon. YouTube is one of the Valley's best-known success stories.

The service has become rooted in our culture. Once dismissed by critics as a place for funny pet videos, YouTube is now a video archive, teaching tool, digital soap box where politicians go to stump, a means to expose criminals and police wrongdoing, a popular jukebox, and a vital news source for people all over the world.

In October 2006, Google acquired YouTube for $1.65 billion. Hurley, who reportedly pocketed more than $340 million from the sale, was YouTube's CEO up until last fall, when he moved into an advisory role. Salar Kamangar, a former Google vice president of Web applications, is now YouTube's chief.

Hurley was at Cooper-Hewitt to discuss design, which he studied in college. He designed YouTube's original logo as well as the logo his first employer, PayPal, used for many years. He also designs wallets, shirts, and jackets for Hlaska, a fashion company he co-founded. If he and Chen start another company together, he'll probably do that logo too and you can bet it will be simple, free of pretense, and accessible to anyone.

Flying swarm robots for disaster rescue services

A new autonomous flying robot is being developed at Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne which will be able to make faster quick and reliable wireless network quite useful in disaster-hit areas. This robot will work on swarm technology, the science of artificially mimicking the efficient collective behaviors of animal or insect colonies.

The research started with a fly-inspired artificial insect that could avoid hitting the walls and ground. Now the idea is to realize in outdoor in real-time scenario with enhanced wireless communication. The model is made up of lightweight plastic foam with a lithium battery-powered electric motor at the rear. These Micro Air Vehicles(MAVs) moves in auto pilot mode and avoid mid air collisions by communicating with each other.

Small flying robots have obvious advantages over temporary land-based network devices, negating problems with difficult terrain and line-of-sight communication and they don't rely on expensive sensors or radar equipment. Though there are still some modifications to be done before it gets deployed as a product, but once deployed they have got a wide range of application in defense, aerial photography, disaster recovery, mapping, environmental monitoring, rescue missions and various others. There is power issue as well as the batteries last only for 40-50 minutes but with the implementation of small solar panel, this limitation can be eliminated. 

You would surely like to have a look at this video demonstrating the flying robots. Get ready to see flying swarm robot teams in the air in maximum 2-3 years.

Yahoo's answer to Google's Instant Search

Yahoo is all set to outrun Google offering a new search experience it describes as the fastest thing you have ever seen. Its latest product Search Direct combines instant search with instant answers, so that typing in lebr instantly shows a full box with all details about most popular Lebron James(Check out the picture). The product has answers for 15 categories of entities, including movies, professional athletes, music, celebrities, weather info, news, shopping, local and stocks. Yahoo has always emphasized on answers in parallel with search.

 
Search Direct is live on search.yahoo.com and other U.S. Yahoo search properties, but not the homepage yet. The same experience will soon come to all search boxes on Yahoo and seeing it popularity there is no doubt that it may find its way to non-Yahoo properties as well.

Yahoo compared the new experience favorably to Google's own Instant Search, saying that Google's feature merely shows search-result pages faster, while this brings people answers incredibly quickly. Search Direct doesn't require a fast net connection and the system is built using infrastructure that Yahoo owns.

It's not clear if Yahoo's figured out search's future, but Search Direct is incredibly fast and could prove to be so useful that we'll all soon forget when we had to type a full word and hit Enter to figure something out. Click here to have a look at Search Direct

A breath-taking quarter final at Motera

24th March, the second quarter final of the world cup played between the host India and the defending champion Australia. It was predicted that the match is going to be great. But, as the match went on it was too fascinating to miss even a single ball yesterday. It was beyond everyone's predictions which proved all statistics wrong, once again in favor of India.

Unfortunately, I had a few important appointments yesterday evening, but i had to call them up for the postponement of the appointment. The match was breath-taking and each and every ball of the match was worth watching. The thrilling second inning was getting more interesting with every ball bowled by aussies bowlers. It was a complete paisa wasool match for the 45000 cricket lovers at Motera watching the match live before them. And above all, the crowd was overwhelmed when India won this knock out match defeating Australia by 5 wickets knocking out 3 time champions from the tournament. What a thrilling moment was that? Apart from batting, India had an outstanding fielding, excellent bowling in fact a very good cricket in total, sealing the entire crowd with every passing moment. Once again Yuvraj came out to be the lifesaver driving India to victory from a time, when India was losing wickets one after another, with a very sensible cricket from Suresh Raina assisting from another side. Yuvraj was Man of the Match fourth time in this series for his perfect all round performance. There were a few mistakes though from our batting side, some mistimed and misled trials for explosive shots from Sehwag, Kohli and Dhoni which offered easy wickets to Australia and a insensible run out which was gifted by Gambhir even after he was saved luckily two times in the same over in the similar way. Match brought a lot of records for Sachin except his 100th 100, which we may see in the semi-final or final.

But in the match there was one player from Australia, who really deserves appraisal from all Cricket lovers - Brett Lee, the popular fast bowler, who was badly hurt above his eye while stopping the ball to save boundary from Yuvraj. Blood was flowing down his face right after the hit but just in one over, he was back with a bandage over his eye to bowl the final overs for his country.

One thing is sure after this match that world cup is going to some new country after the aussies dominance over last 12 years. 30th march, the semi-final between India and Pakistan, is going to be a must see high voltage drama which will take your breath away. Be prepared with your knocking heartbeats for some excellent cricket in Mohali on 30th.

US provides its robotic hands to Japan

As soon as the tragedy evolves in Japan one after another, so too are the supports and aides from various countries across the world including China, US and others.

One such initiative is from the US military robotics company iRobot, based in Bedford-Massachusetts, which also assists US military. The company will be helping Japanese army robots in recovery efforts. iRobot has plan to deploy four of its robots along with six employees to work with two different robotics teams of Japan, one of which operates an 8-meter-long, snakelike robot with a camera. Out of these four robots, two will be PackBots and another two will be Warriors. All these robots can be controlled remotely from a distance upto half a mile.

The PackBot is an agile, battle-tested unit that's been used for bomb dispersal, recon and other tactical operations. Depending on its configuration, it weighs 45 to 60 pounds and is known for being highly  customizable. 

On the other hand, the Warrior model is a 347-pound robot that can traverse rubble or wreckage and carry up to 200 pounds. For this mission, it will be configured with firefighting capabilities that allow it to deploy fire hoses or clear away rubble. It complements the PackBots' agility and scanning capabilities with the muscle to physically neutralize hot zones.

Facebook getting crowded with underage users

Craze of social networking sites has spread from youths to kids as young as 10 years. The social networking giant Facebook and others have a minimum age criteria of 18 years but the kids faking their age are joining such sites on a large scale.

As per an online survey, 64% of 13-year-olds are social networking; between the ages of 14 to 17, that figure jumps to 82%. Which is a prominent figures for all social networking sites which must not be ignored. Cyber-safety committee of countries like Australia and US have notified the social networking giants to take proper action to control this figure.

Facebook is the most crowded site with kids and it is kicking out 20,000 underage users per day on an average. But its not that easy to detect if the user is above 18 or he/she is faking it as theses sites don't have a mechanism to detect whether the teen is telling truth or not.

Underage teens are more immune to risk of online predators over the web as they are very vulnerable and extracting sensitive information like contact numbers and addresses is very easy from these teens.

Firefox 4 downloaded more than twice of IE9 in just one day

Firefox may be under fire from Microsoft's newly competitive browser, but with more than twice the downloads in its first day, Firefox 4 today soared over its rival by one measurement.

Microsoft, not without reason, boasted that IE9 was downloaded 2.35 million times in the first 24 hours after its release last week. And that is indeed a big number, especially for a browser that tech enthusiasts had scoffed at for years. But less than 24 hours after its own launch, Firefox 4 cleared 4.7 million, according to the Mozilla Glow site that logs downloads.

That's a lot less than the 8 million copies of Firefox 3 downloaded in that version's 24-hour debut in 2008, but that event was a heavily promoted "Download Day," and it should be noted that Firefox 4's full day hasn't finished yet.

Of course, people have a lot of reasons to love Firefox 4. It brings a raft of new features--new security and privacy options, faster loading and JavaScript, support for a variety of new standards including WebM video and WebGL 3D graphics, and 3D acceleration that extends even to Windows XP.

Mozilla expects that its arrival will lead to an increase in usage. The browser maker said it has 400 million Firefox users and counting, but as a percentage of worldwide browser use it has lost share to Chrome, which now accounts for more than 10 percent of usage worldwide.

Google's Universal library again in problem

Google's vision of a universal library archiving all books ever published on Earth is once again at odds with laws protecting the authors of those books after the federal judge on Tuesday rejected a settlement deal, Google hammered out with publishers over its controversial Google Books archive.

As per them, the settlement agreement is not at all fair, adequate, and reasonable and it can not be accepted. This decision is the latest twist in a saga that is helping to shape the legal and commercial landscape around digital publishing.

As we know, Google's stated mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. As part of that goal, it struck a deal in 2004 with several major libraries to digitally copy the books in their collections. The company now has an archive of more than 12 million publications. To those who want information to be online and accessible, that's a great idea. To publishers and many of the authors they work with, it's a terrifying one.

Book publishers and their representatives quickly slapped Google with a lawsuit, in reply to which Google prepared a settlement agreement which is a complex, 166-page document. While the company took pains to protect the rights of copyright holders, only tiny snippets are revealed from in-print books, it put the burden on authors and publishers to police their works' inclusion in the archive. Google will remove books on request, but without an explicit request, it will otherwise digitize anything it can get hold of.

Of course, the digitization of books and the creation of a universal library would benefit many, but on the other hand deal would give Google a significant advantage over competitors, rewarding it for engaging in wholesale copying of copyrighted works without permission.

Lets see if Google wins this legal battle or not....

The long awaiting Firefox 4 launched officially today

Three years ago, Firefox 3 set the record for most downloads in a 24-hour period, cracking 8 million and positioning itself as a viable alternative to Internet Explorer.

Firefox 4 released today to the public at large after 12 public betas, two release candidates, and nearly a year of development, faces a hugely different landscape. (Download Firefox 4 here for Windows, Mac, and Linux.) Microsoft's Internet Explorer remains the dominant browser. And in less than three years, a significant chunk of the browser market has taken a shine to relative newcomer Google Chrome.

Mozilla flips the switch from version 3.6.15 to version 4 as Firefox possesses more than 400 million active users. (Mozilla has opened a download tracker at glow.mozilla.org.) The new version of the browser sports several massive changes, including a radically redesigned interface, significantly faster browsing speeds, strong support for the still-in-development HTML5 and other "future-Web" tech, and competitive features like synchronization, restart-less add-ons, and tab grouping.

I am in love with the browser by now, while posting this article for Info-Zephyr. Its amazingly fast in loading pages and does not eat up RAM and on the tops of it it offers an amazing looks with an add-on manager like never before.

Twitter changed the way we communicate

Twitter, the groundbreaking microblogging site with more than 200 million users, started in March 21, 2006 is seen as a powerful tool for democracy these days. Here are the 5 ways how twitter has changed the way we communicate :

1. Made a fast flow of information faster
It's decade-old news that the internet helps information. With Twitter, it's fast on steroids when a user with big follower counts shares something. With one click, those followers share it with their own followers. And the wildfire is set ablaze making news spread faster than ever.

2. Removed the celebrity filter
It has removed the barriers between celebrities and fans eliminating the middle person who was hired and paid by celebrities to spread the updates and news.

3. Created thought leaders
Twitter's list of 100 most popular accounts is dominated almost entirely by celebrities and traditional media outlets, but nestled not terribly far below are hundreds of bloggers, podcasters and online journalists who have found a bigger audience on Twitter than they probably would have without it.

4. Strengthened the second screen
With Twitter, nobody has to watch a TV show by themselves again. The idea of watching a TV show was almost killed but with Twitter, watching a show during air time lets you have a real-time conversation with thousands of fellow fans. TV shows become events, meaning people watch them as they happen and share their views over it in their network.

5. (Over)simplified the conversation
Twitter has certainly simplified the complicated web conversationg between gropus and media. In face it is oversimplified when people just write a couple of tweets to say it all rather than writing a full post.

Thanks for your support and co-ordination

Hi All,

This post is intended to all you visitors who contributed their valuable time and effort to Info-Zephyr.

I, take this very moment thanking you all for your support and co-ordination to Info-Zephyr, which has played a vital role in making the site globally recognized with a global blog ranking of 167 and keeping it updated with the latest picks from every corner of the world. It would have never been possible without all of you.

The day is special as we have crossed together the milestone of 1000 visitors today and i expect even better contribution from you all. Share your ideas, mail me your suggestions and post your views regularly to make Info-Zephyr a global footmark.

Thanks all of you...

Zero gravity arm from Equipois in action at Ford

ZeroG arm lifting heavy tools

Operating on machineries while manufacturing airplanes and cars takes heavy lifting for both workers and their employers. As per reports, injuries from overexertion cost U.S. companies more than $13 billion each year. Garrett Brown, from Equipois(a Los Angeles startup), has invented a solution to it with steadicam, a zero gravity industrial arm that attaches to heavy tools like riveters and grinders, making them effectively weightless for their human operators.

The idea originally came from an industrial engineer at Honda, who approached him in 2006 to ask whether Steadicam arms could be used to hold tools. The arm is roughly the size of human arms and made of aerospace-grade aluminum and steel, require no outside power to operate, but they simulate weightlessness by creating a counterbalance: each arm uses a large spring that pulls upward with constant force on a tool. The zeroG arm uses a gimbal, a structure to hold the tool in place while allowing it to rotate freely, so factory workers can manipulate familiar tools the way they always have. And the arms can be mounted almost anywhere: on walls, tables, floors or mobile carts. With it, you can move something weighing around 25 pounds with your fingertips as if you're in space.  The larger arm costs about $10,000, and the smaller one goes for $5,000.

Earlier Garrett Brown, the inventor teamed up with Eric Golden, the marketing brain behind this invention in 2007 to start Equipois with $2 million from friends and family. After three rounds of venture funding, Golden has raised an additional $10 million. ZeroG is now in use at various manufacturers including Ford, Boeing, John Deere and the U.S. Navy. Equipois with only 22 employees has hit an annual sales of a markable $1 million.

Twitter turns 5, with 140 million tweets a day

21st Mar 2006, Twitter cofounder Jack Dorsey blasted off the very first tweet on twitter which began as an experiment in microblogging -- no more than 140 characters, please. It has been a blasting 5 years for twitter though it had a slow start but now it has become a cultural landmark.

Twitter now has 200 million users, including tech luminaries, celebrities and the president of the United States. It started off slowly, in 2007, Twitter averaged just 5,000 tweets per day. But in 2009, the site hit a tipping point and became a broadcast channel for major news events. And now it has an average of 140 million tweets per day.

In this journey, the company has been through two management shakeups. The first, in 2008, when co-founder Evan Williams take over from Dorsey as CEO; the second, five months ago, when then-COO Dick Costolo moved into the top spot.

Now the twitter top executives have got a challenge to turn twitter into business. The site now has 400 employees and raised an eye-popping $360 million from investors, but has generated comparatively scant revenue. To generate more revenue, they need to turn tweets into profits. Currently search engines pay twitter to access its real time tweet data. Now, twitter needs to look for other revenue opportunities be it advertising or others. Surely, Costolo's job is now to find enough moneymakers to justify Twitter's $4 billion valuation.

IT Companies warned US Government to lower taxes

Following the increment in taxes for IT products and services, the Silicon Valley corporates has joined hands together these big guns have issued an all out warning to the US lawmakers. As per them they all will be moving out of the country to some other countries, if the tax is not lowered. They also told about some other countries like Malaysia which offer a tax holiday to lure the businesses which is more or less like a tax free business policy.

In total, 18 CEOs and other executives met last day with US legislators to talk over various issues related to various IT ventures in the country. As for now, the US IT industry as a whole employs 182,200 people in the US at an average salary of almost $100,000 a year, and it spends $20 billion a year on research. It exports more than any other US industry, and its products are at the heart of dozens of other items as varied as computers, cell phones and automobiles.

The IT industry has been playing a major role in US economy and it is most likely that US Government wont prefer to go against Silicon Valley giants.

Facebook plans to achieve 1 billion users

Facebook has aimed to reach 1billion users now and facebook mobile is going to play a major role in this. As per the FB survey, mobile users are more active in compare to non-mobile users. In order to make itself available on larger set of mobiles, Facebook has acquired Snaptu which had been working over facebook apps till now.

Snaptu is an Israeli mobile startup which has been acquired by FB at around $70 mn. It has ben doing tremendous job bringing a Facebook app to over 2500 different mobile devices. Acquiring Snaptu clarifies the vision of Facebook and it is crystal clear now that it is gonna hit the mobile market to achieve the target of 1 billion users.

Not only Snaptu, Facebook has also acquired the group messaging app Beluga earlier this month and the local mobile advertising startup Rel8tion in late January. It surely points towards the outstanding facebook mobile market which we are going to witness in coming days.

Android faces serious huddle because of Linux copyright issue

Here is a bad news for all Android lovers, developers and all Android based device manufacturers as Android is deep down into another serious copyright issues.

With more that a dozen patent suits over Android, Google's mobile operating system seems to be clouded with serious intellectual property issues. In one of the suits, Oracle has claimed that Android infringes on a lot of java copyright codes. It led to the legality of the central element of Android, its architecture itself which connect Android Application to the Linux Kernel.

As per the claim, Google copied 2.5 megabytes of code from more than 700 Linux kernel header files with a homemade program that drops source code comments and some other elements, and daringly claims (in a notice at the start of each generated file) that the extracted material constitutes no copyrightable information.

Google's no copyrightable material claim for the Android OS has become vitally questionable. Once Google is proven wrong which is most likely to occur, then the entire software stack on Android including popular games and other apps all will be published under GPL. Everyone will become free to use, modify and redistribute the affected software.

It will not only bring down the price of Android based devices but also there would be no more revenue opportunity for the developers of the affected applications.