InfoDrops

Today's Post

2017-08-03T06:31:00.000-07:00

Good Evening Everybody!!

Increase Browsing Speed(100% Working)

2012-06-30T22:26:00.001-07:00

To increase your browsing speed
1. Use Mozzila firefox or chrome.
2. Install the add on called Adblock Plus.
3. And its completely free friends
For Mozzilla Firefox:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/adblock-plus/
For Google Chrome:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/cfhdojbkjhnklbpkdaibdccddilifddb
Our browsing becomes slow when ads also load with the page so it makes it very slow...
This Adblock Plus really works and i am using it now..
Even in You tube it Blocks ads friends...
Enjoy with this tip, have a happy browsing :)
-Praveen

Craze on Cars and Bike

2012-06-01T08:38:00.003-07:00

Craze on cars and bikes are very high now, people not think of the cost just the model and trend makes them to forget about the rates. People who are crazy on cars and bikes does not think about the future generation and also the present world, every individual going in car or bike fills the road and making it busy in traffic. Increasing rates of fuel and vehicle does not seem to be affecting the craze of the cars and bikes. I suggest if you are really crazy on the cars or bikes i request you to find a fuel which will be effective for the future or invent a car or bike which runs on a different fuel which is cost effective and renewable source. People who does not have money also crazy on bikes and cars, no wonder because they are also normal humans. The value for good like cars and bikes will be keep on decreasing so why to waste the money in buying that? If this trend continues then everyone will go back to the olden period traveling on a cart or a horse. Will you people become crazy on those horses and cart or allow the next generation to use vehicles. Using cars and bikes just to go to a near by places wastes the fuel instead you can just walk to the place(You all know this but you never follow this , i know you wont follow after i say also.) . The funniest part of the craziness is that you people wastes your money and gaining obesity. And for keeping you fit going to a gym and wasting money there too. Instead just walk or do cycling at least for shorter distance travel and use the resources properly i mean instead of going singly in car , use car only when 4 or 5 people need to travel, may be your family, friends or neighbors. Is Bike or Car a status symbol for you? If you dint use those car or bike for unwanted places it gives you the name of simplicity and may be others follow your path , you can be role model for others and can be person who cares about future and environment. I finally say that Vehicles are invented only for moving from one place to another use them for that purpose only(For that a low cost, fuel efficient bikes and cars are available use that, else use electric bikes or cars speed does not matter if you start early for any place you want to go)For the present and future generation we have to sacrifice something to make them to enjoy at least a 50% what we enjoyed, remember we all enjoying the technology and science only because of the sacrifice of our historians. I hope at least one individual follow this and try to change himself or herself. That is my success . If any mistakes in the article please forgive me. This is my first article friends.

-Praveen

Aakam team's next short film-Enna vazhka da?

2012-01-01T12:07:00.001-08:00

Internet Facts

2011-12-21T08:25:00.000-08:00

Yahoo! derived its name from the word Yahoo coined by Jonathan Swift in Gulliver's Travels. A Yahoo is a person who is repulsive in appearance and action and is barely human!

Researchers consider that the first search engine was Archie, created in 1990 by Alan Emtage, a student at McGill University in Montreal, Canada.

Marc Andreessen founded Netscape. In 1993, he had already developed Mosaic, the first Web browser with a GUI.

It was once considered a letter in the English language. The Chinese call it a little mouse, Danes and Swedes call it 'elephant's trunk', Germans a spider monkey, and Italians a snail. Israelis pronounce it 'strudels' and the Czechs say 'rollmops's...What is it? The @ sign.

In the Deep Web, the part of the Web not currently catalogued by search engines, public information said to be 500 times larger than on the WWW.

The first search engine for Gopher files was called Veronica, created by the University of Nevada System Computing Services group

Tim Berners-Lee predicted in 2002 that the Semantic Web would "foster global collaborations among people with diverse cultural perspectives", but the project never seems to have really taken off.

In February 2004, Sweden led the world in Internet penetration, with 76.9 percent of people connected to the Internet. The world average is 11.1 per cent.

The top visited websites in February2004, including affiliated sites, were Yahoo!, MSN, the Warner Network, EBay, Google, Lycos and About.com.
The search engine "Lycos" is named for Lycosidae, the Latin name for the wolf spider family.
The US International Broadcasting Bureau created a proxy service to allow Chinese, Iraians and other 'oppressed' people to circumvent their national firewalls, relaying forbidden pages behind silicon curtains.

Lurking is to read through mailing lists or news groups and get a feel of the topic before posting one's own messages.

SRS stands for Shared Registry Server. The central system for all accredited registrars to access, register and control domain names.

WAIS stands for 'Wide Area Information Servers' - a commercial software package that allow the indexing of huge quantities of information, the makes those indices searchable across the Internet.

An anonymiser is a privacy service that allows a user to visit Web sites without allowing anyone to gather information about which sites they visit.

Archie is an information system offering an electronic directory service for locating information residing on anonymous FTP sites.

On the Internet, a 'bastion host' is the only host computer that a company allows to be addressed directly from the public network.

'Carnivore' is the Internet surveillance system developed by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), who developed it to monitor the electronic transmissions of criminal suspects.

Did you know that the original URL of Yahoo! was http://akebono.stanford.edu/ ?

Developed at the University of Nevada, Veronica is a constantly updated database of teh names of almost every menu item on thousands of gopher servers.

The Electrohippies Collective is an international group of 'hacktivists' based in Oxfordshire, England.

UIML (User Interface Markup Language) is a descriptive language that lets you create a Web page that can be sent to any kind of interface device.

In Internet terminology, a demo is a non-interactive multimedia presentation, the computer world's equivalent of a music video.

Did you know that the name of the famous search engine AltaVista came into existence when someone accidentally read and suggested the word 'Vista' on an unclean whiteboard as 'Alta Vista'?

Boeing was the first airline to discover the Y2K problem, way back in 1993.

Did you know that Domain registration was free until an announcement by the NAtional Science Foundation on 14th September, 1995, changed it?

The Internet was initially called the 'Galactic network' in memos written by MIT's J C R Licklider in 1962.

Shokyu Ishiko, a doctorate in agriculture and chief priest of Daioh Temple in Kyoto has created an online virtual temple which will perform memorial services for lost information.

A 55 kg laddu was made for Lord Venkateswara at Trumala as a Y2K prayer offering.

The morning after Internet Explorer 4 was released, certain mischievous Microsoft workers left a 10 by 12 foot letter 'e' and a balloon with the message, "We love you", on Netscape front lawn.

If you were a resident of Tongo, a monarchy in the southwest Pacific, you could own domains as cool as 'mail.to' and 'head.to'.

The American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) began the administration of Internet IP address in North and South America in MArch 1998.

The testbed for the Internet's new addressing system, IPv6, is called the 6bone.

The first Internet worm was created by Robert T.Morris, Jr, and attacked more than 6000 Internet hosts.

According to The Economist magazine, the first truly electronic bank on the Internet, called First Virtual Holdings, was opened by Lee Stein in 1994.

The French Culture Ministry has banned the word 'e-mail' in all government ministries, documents, publications and Web sites, because 'e-mail' is an English word. They prefer to use the term 'courriel'.

The German police sell used patrol cars over the Internet, because earlier auctions fetched low prices and only a few people ever showed up.

Rob Glasser's company, Progressive Networks, launched the RealAudio system on April 10, 1995.

'Broswer safe colours' refer to the 216 colours that are rendered the same way in both the PC and Mac operating systems.

Though the world Wide Web was born in 1989 at CERN in Switzerland, CERN is mainly involved in research for particle physics.

The first computer company to register for a domain name was Digital Equipment Corporation.

The 'Dilbert Zone' Web site was the first syndicated comic strip site available on the Internet.

Butler Jeeves of the Internet site AskJeeves.com made its debut as a large helium balloon in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade in 2000.

Sun Microsystems sponsors NetDay, an effort to wire American public schools to the Internet, with help from the US government.

In Beijing, the Internet community has coined the word 'Chortal' as a shortened version of 'Chinese portal'.

Telnet is one of the oldest forms of Internet connections. Today, it is used primarily to access online databases.

Domain names can be really sell at high prices! The most expensive domain name was 'business.com', which was bought by eCompanies for $7.5 million in 1999.

The first ever ISP was CompuServe. It still exists, under AOL Time Warner.

On an average, each person receives 26.4 e-mails a day.

Ray Tomlinson, a scientist from Cambrige, introduced electronic mail in 1972. He used the @ to distinguish between the sender's name and network name in the e-mail address.

Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) was designed in 1973.

The Apple iTunes music store was introduced in the spring of 2003. It allows people to download songs for an affordable 99 cents each.

Satyam Online become the first private ISP in December 1998 to offer Internet connections in India.

The number of UK Internet users increase by an estimated 75 percent each year.

The Internet is the third-most used advertising medium in the world, closely catching up with traditional local newspapers and Yellow Pages.

It took 13 years for television to reach 50 million users- it took the Internet less than 4 years.

As of now, there are over 260 million people with Internet access worldwide.

1 out of 6 people used the Internet in North America and Europe, as per a 1999 survey.
The average computer user blinks 7 times a minute.

In 1946, the Merriam Webster Dictionary defined computer as 'a person who tabulates numbers; accountant; actuary; bookkeeper.'

An estimated 2.5 billion hours were wasted online last year as people waited for pages to download, according to a study sponsored by Nortel Networks.

AOL says spam is the number one complaint of its customers, and that it has to block over one billion unsolicited e-mails every day.

In 2002, the average Internet user received 3.7 spam messages per day. The total rose to 6.2 spam messages per day in 2002. By 2007, it is expected to reach 830 messages per day.

A terminology industry research firm called Basex says that unsolicited e-mail cost $ 20 billion in lost time and expenses worldwide in 2000.

In 2003 an Atlanta- base ISP called Earthlink won a lawsuit worth $16.4 million (US) against a spammer in Buffalo NY, and a $25 million (US) lawsuit against a spammer in Tennessee.

13 Amazing google facts

2011-12-21T08:22:00.001-08:00

1. Google receives daily search requests from all over the world, including Antarctica. 2. Google’s Home Page Has 63 Validation Errors. Don’t believe me?: Check Google Validation
3. The Google search engine receives about a billion search requests per day.
4. The infamous “I’m feeling lucky” button is nearly never used. However, in trials it was found that removing it would somehow reduce the Google experience. Users wanted it kept. It was a comfort button.
5. Due to the sparseness of the homepage, in early user tests they noted people just sitting looking at the screen. After a minute of nothingness, the tester intervened and asked ‘Whats up?’ to which they replied “We are waiting for the rest of it”. To solve that particular problem the Google Copyright message was inserted to act as a crude end of page marker.
6. The name ‘Google’ was an accident. A spelling mistake made by the original founders who thought they were going for ‘Googol’.
7. Google has the largest network of translators in the world.
8. Employees are encouraged to use 20% of their time working on their own projects. Google News, Orkut are both examples of projects that grew from this working model.
9. Google consists of over 450,000 servers, racked up in clusters located in data centers around the world.
10. Google started in January, 1996 as a research project at Stanford University, by Ph.D. candidates Larry Page and Sergey Brin when they were 24 years old and 23 years old respectively.
11. Google is a mathematical term 1 followed by one hundred zeroes. The term was coined by Milton Sirotta, nephew of American mathematician Edward Kasne.
12. Number of languages in which you can have the Google home page set up, including Urdu, Latin and Klingon: 88
13. Google translates billions of HTML web pages into a display format for WAP and i-mode phones and wireless handheld devices.

watch out this funny tamil pop album (he is the india's first youtube star) Love Marriage: Wilbur Sargunaraj-

2011-12-16T07:23:00.000-08:00

KAMAL HASSAN IN IIT MUMBAI

2011-12-15T22:27:00.000-08:00

this guy is truly a genius ,though he was a high school dropper he learnt each and everything from his life .he had lecture in IIT MUMBAI it was very good ,just watch it out . after watching this sure u will think that he is a living legend.

Longest and shortest on you tube

2011-12-15T20:57:00.000-08:00

This is the longest video on you tube till date. Wonder how much time it has taken to upload, the answer is just one hour, the video is so much compressed.

This is the shortest video 0.0 seconds,but the fact is many more videos are there in 0.0 seconds so it is difficult to find out which is the shortest :(

Nose facts

2011-12-15T10:43:00.000-08:00

You can always see your nose but your brain ignores it.

• There are at least 14 different nose shapes!
• The way you sneeze is genetic, which means it passes on from generation to generation!
• Your nose can detect over 10,000 different smells and scents!
• It’s impossible to hum while your nose is plugged!

Fears you have when you are born

2011-12-15T10:23:00.001-08:00

When you are first born your only fears were of falling and of loud noises. They are built into your DNA and have been passed down from generation to generation as a survival mechanism
Their sole purpose is to keep you alive, and create emotion that will motivate you to avoid danger.
Every other fear you face you have learned throughout your life.

Corruption

2011-12-15T09:45:00.000-08:00

Since 1995, Transparency International (TI) publishes the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) annually ranking countries "by their perceived levels of corruption, as determined by expert assessments and opinion surveys." The CPI generally defines corruption as "the misuse of public power for private benefit." As of 2010, the CPI ranks 178 countries "on a scale from 10 (very clean) to 0 (highly corrupt)."

Overview of the index of perception of corruption, 2010.

9 - 10	6 - 6.9	3 - 3.9
8 - 8.9	5 - 5.9	2 - 2.9
7 - 7.9	4 - 4.9	1 - 1.9
No Information

Political corruption

Methods

Transparency International commissioned Johann Graf Lambsdorff of the University of Passau to produce the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI).The 2010 CPI draws on 13 different surveys and assessments from 10 independent institutions. The institutions are the African Development Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the Bertelsmann Foundation, the Economist Intelligence Unit, Freedom House, Global Insight, International Institute for Management Development, Political and Economic Risk Consultancy, the World Economic Forum, and the World Bank. The 13 surveys/assessments are either business people opinion surveys or performance assessments from a group of analysts. Early CPIs used public opinion surveys. Countries must be assessed by at least three sources to appear in the CPI.
The CPI measures perception of corruption due to the difficulty of measuring absolute levels of corruption.

Limitations

Since the set of sources changes, comparing corruption over time with the CPI is inappropriate.

Criticism

The Corruption Perceptions Index has drawn increasing criticism in the decade since its launch, leading to calls for the index to be abandoned. This criticism has been directed at the quality of the Index itself, and the lack of actionable insights created from a simple country ranking. Because corruption is willfully hidden, it is impossible to measure directly; instead proxies for corruption are used. The CPI uses an eclectic mix of third-party surveys to sample public perceptions of corruption through a variety of questions, ranging from "Do you trust the government?" to "Is corruption a big problem in your country?"
The use of third-party survey data is a source of criticism. The data can vary widely in methodology and completeness from country to country. The methodology of the Index itself changes from year to year, thus making even basic better-or-worse comparisons difficult. Media outlets, meanwhile, frequently use the raw numbers as a yardstick for government performance, without clarifying what the numbers mean. A local Transparency International chapter disowned the index results after a change in methodology caused a country's scores to increase—media reported it as an "improvement". Other critics point out that definitional problems with the term "corruption" makes the tool problematic for social science.
The index mainly provides a snapshot of the views of business people and country analysts. In comparison, the questions in the Eurobarometer surveys 64.3 (2005), 68.2 (2007), 72.2 (2009), and the Flash Eurobarometer 236 (2008) established by the European Commission for all of the 27 European Union members states ask the perceptions and experiences of the general public. In general, the results show a very large divergence between the perception of living in a corrupt country by the general public and the experiences of corruption in everyday life.
Aside from precision issues, a more fundamental critique is aimed at the uses of the Index. Critics are quick to concede that the CPI has been instrumental in creating awareness and stimulating debate about corruption.^{[not in citation given]} However, as a source of quantitative data in a field hungry for international datasets, the CPI can take on a life of its own, appearing in cross-country and year-to-year comparisons that the CPI authors themselves admit are not justified by their methodology. The authors state in 2008: "Year-to-year changes in a country's score can either result from a changed perception of a country's performance or from a change in the CPI’s sample and methodology. The only reliable way to compare a country’s score over time is to go back to individual survey sources, each of which can reflect a change in assessment."
The CPI produces a single score per country, which as noted above, cannot be compared year-to-year. In the late 2000s, the field has moved towards unpackable, action-oriented indices (such as those by the International Budget Partnership or Global Integrity), which typically measure public policies that relate to corruption, rather than try to assess "corruption" as a whole via proxy measures like perceptions. These alternative measures use original (often locally collected) data and so have the same non-comparability problem as the CPI and are limited in scope to specific policy practices (such as public access to parliamentary budget documents) and so they are only an indicator of visible corruption/policy corruption.

Ranking (corruption less to most corrupted)

Worldwide Corruption Perceptions ranking of countries
published by Transparency International

Rank	Country	Index
2011	Country	2011^[17]	2010^[18]	2009^[19]	2008^[20]	2007^[21]	2006^[22]	2005^[23]	2004^[24]	2003	2002
1	New Zealand	9.5	9.3	9.4	9.3	9.4	9.6	9.6	9.5	9.5	9.4
2	Denmark	9.4	9.3	9.3	9.3	9.4	9.5	9.5	9.5	9.5	9.5
2	Finland	9.4	9.2	8.9	9.0	9.4	9.6	9.6	9.7	9.7	9.9
4	Sweden	9.3	9.2	9.2	9.3	9.3	9.2	9.2	9.3	9.3	9.0
5	Singapore	9.2	9.3	9.2	9.2	9.3	9.2	9.3	9.4	9.4	9.4
6	Norway	9.0	8.6	8.6	7.9	8.7	8.8	8.9	8.8	8.5	8.6
7	Netherlands	8.9	8.8	8.9	8.9	9.0	8.7	8.6	8.9	9.0	8.8
8	Australia	8.8	8.7	8.7	8.7	8.6	8.7	8.8	8.8	8.6	8.5
8	Switzerland	8.8	8.7	9.0	9.0	9.0	9.1	9.1	8.8	8.5	8.4
10	Canada	8.7	8.9	8.7	8.7	8.7	8.5	8.4	8.7	9.0	8.9
11	Luxembourg	8.5	8.5	8.2	8.3	8.4	8.6	8.5	8.7	9.0	8.7
12	Hong Kong	8.4	8.4	8.2	8.1	8.3	8.3	8.3	8.0	8.2	7.9
13	Iceland	8.3	8.5	8.7	8.9	9.2	9.6	9.7	9.6	9.4	9.2
14	Germany	8.0	7.9	8.0	7.9	7.8	8.0	8.2	7.7	7.3	7.4
14	Japan	8.0	7.8	7.7	7.3	7.5	7.6	7.3	7.0	7.1	7.1
16	Austria	7.8	7.9	7.9	8.1	8.1	8.6	8.7	8.0	7.8	7.8
16	Barbados	7.8	7.8	7.4	7.0	6.9	6.7	6.9
16	United Kingdom	7.8	7.6	7.7	7.7	8.4	8.6	8.6	8.6	8.7	8.3
19	Belgium	7.5	7.1	7.1	7.3	7.1	7.3	7.4	7.6	7.1	6.6
19	Ireland	7.5	8.0	8.0	7.7	7.5	7.4	7.4	7.5	6.9	7.5
21	Bahamas	7.3
22	Chile	7.2	7.2	6.7	6.9	7.0	7.3	7.3	7.4	7.5	7.5
22	Qatar	7.2	7.7	7.0	6.5	6.0	6.0	5.9	5.6
24	United States	7.1	7.1	7.5	7.3	7.2	7.3	7.6	7.5	7.7	7.6
25	France	7.0	6.8	6.9	6.9	7.3	7.4	7.5	6.9	6.3	6.7
25	Saint Lucia	7.0		7.0	7.1	6.8
25	Uruguay	7.0	6.9	6.7	6.9	6.7	6.4	5.9	5.5	5.1	5.1
28	United Arab Emirates	6.8	6.3	6.5	5.9	5.7	6.2	6.2	6.1	5.2
29	Estonia	6.4	6.5	6.6	6.6	6.5	6.7	6.4	5.5	5.6	5.6
30	Cyprus	6.3	6.3	6.6	6.4	5.3	5.6	5.7	5.4	6.1
31	Spain	6.2	6.1	6.1	6.5	6.7	6.8	7.0	6.9	7.1	7.0
32	Botswana	6.1	5.8	5.6	5.8	5.4	5.6	5.9	6.0	5.7	6.4
32	Portugal	6.1	6.0	5.8	6.1	6.5	6.6	6.5	6.6	6.3	6.3
32	Republic of China	6.1	5.8	5.6	5.7	5.7	5.9	5.9	5.6	5.7	5.6
35	Slovenia	5.9	6.4	6.6	6.7	6.6	6.4	6.1	5.9	6.0	5.2
36	Israel	5.8	6.1	6.1	6.0	6.1	5.9	6.3	6.4	7.0	7.3
36	Saint Vincent and the Grenadines	5.8		6.4	6.5	6.1
38	Bhutan	5.7	5.7	5.0	5.4	5.0
39	Malta	5.6	5.6	5.2	5.8	5.8	6.4	6.4
39	Puerto Rico	5.6	5.8	5.8	5.8
41	Cape Verde	5.5	5.1	5.1	5.1	4.9
41	Poland	5.5	5.3	5.0	4.6	4.2	3.7	3.4	3.5	3.6	4.0
43	South Korea	5.4	5.4	5.5	5.6	5.1	5.1	5.0	4.5	4.3	4.5
44	Brunei	5.2	5.5	5.5
44	Dominica	5.2	5.2	5.9	6.0	5.6	4.5	3.0	2.9	3.3	3.2
46	Bahrain	5.2	4.9	5.1	5.4	5.0	5.7	5.8	5.8	6.1
46	Macau	5.2	5.0	5.3	5.4	5.7	6.6
46	Mauritius	5.2	5.4	5.4	5.5	4.7	5.1	4.2	4.1	4.4	4.5
49	Rwanda	5.0	4.0	3.3	3.0	2.8	2.5	3.1
50	Costa Rica	4.8	5.3	5.3	5.1	5.0	4.1	4.2	4.9	4.3	4.5
50	Lithuania	4.8	5.0	4.9	4.6	4.8	4.8	4.8	4.6	4.7	4.8
50	Oman	4.8	5.3	5.5	5.5	4.7	5.4	6.3	6.1	6.3
50	Seychelles	4.8	4.8	4.8	4.8	4.5	3.6	4.0	4.4
54	Hungary	4.6	4.7	5.1	5.1	5.3	5.2	5.0	4.8	4.8	4.9
54	Kuwait	4.6	4.5	4.1	4.3	4.3	4.8	4.7	4.6	5.3
56	Jordan	4.5	4.7	5.0	5.1	4.7	5.3	5.7	5.3	4.6	4.5
57	Czech Republic	4.4	4.6	4.9	5.2	5.2	4.8	4.3	4.2	3.9	3.7
57	Namibia	4.4	4.4	4.5	4.5	4.5	4.1	4.3	4.1	4.7	5.7
57	Saudi Arabia	4.7	4.7	4.3	3.5	3.4	3.3	3.4	3.4	4.5
60	Malaysia	4.3	4.4	4.5	5.1	5.1	5.0	5.1	5.0	5.2	4.9
61	Cuba	4.2	3.7	4.4	4.3	4.2	3.5	3.8	3.7	4.6
61	Latvia	4.2	4.3	4.5	5.0	4.8	4.7	4.2	4.0	3.8	3.7
61	Turkey	4.2	4.4	4.4	4.6	4.1	3.8	3.5	3.2	3.1	3.2
64	Georgia	4.1	3.8	4.1	3.9	3.4	2.8	2.3	2.0	1.8	2.4
64	South Africa	4.1	4.5	4.7	4.9	5.1	4.6	4.5	4.6	4.4	4.8
66	Croatia	4.0	4.1	4.1	4.4	4.1	3.4	3.4	3.5	3.7	3.8
66	Montenegro	4.0	3.7	3.9	3.4	3.3
66	Slovakia	4.0	4.3	4.5	5.0	4.9	4.7	4.3	4.0	3.7	3.7
69	Ghana	3.9	4.1	3.9	3.9	3.7	3.3	3.5	3.6	3.3	3.9
69	Italy	3.9	3.9	4.3	4.8	5.2	6.2	6.2	5.2
69	Macedonia	3.9	4.1	3.8	3.6	3.3	2.7	2.7	2.7	2.3
69	Samoa	3.9	4.1	4.5	4.4	4.5
73	Brazil	3.8	3.7	3.7	3.5	3.5	3.3	3.7	3.9	3.9	4.0
73	Tunisia	3.8	4.3	4.2	4.4	4.2	4.6	4.9	5.0	4.9	4.8
75	China	3.6	3.5	3.6	3.6	3.5	3.3	3.2	3.4	3.4	3.5
75	Romania	3.6	3.7	3.8	3.8	3.7	3.1	3.0	2.9	2.8	2.6
77	Gambia	3.5	3.2	2.9	1.9	2.3	2.5	2.7	2.8	2.5
77	Lesotho	3.5	3.5	3.3	3.2	3.3	3.2	3.4
77	Vanuatu	3.5	3.6	3.2	2.9	3.1
80	Colombia	3.4	3.5	3.7	3.8	3.8	3.9	4.0	3.8	3.7	3.6
80	El Salvador	3.4	3.6	3.4	3.9	4.0	4.0	4.2	3.7	3.4	3.2
80	Greece	3.4	3.5	3.8	4.7	4.6	4.4	4.3	4.3	4.3	4.2
80	Morocco	3.4	3.4	3.3	3.5	3.5	3.2	3.2	3.2	3.3	3.7
80	Peru	3.4	3.5	3.7	3.6	3.5	3.3	3.5	3.5	3.7	3.4
80	Thailand	3.4	3.5	3.4	3.5	3.3	3.6	3.8	3.6	3.3	3.2
86	Bulgaria	3.3	3.6	3.8	3.6	4.1	4.0	4.0	4.1	3.9	4.0
86	Jamaica	3.3	3.3	3.0	3.1	3.3	3.7	3.6	3.3	3.8	4.0
86	Panama	3.3	3.6	3.4	3.4	3.2	3.1	3.5	3.7	3.4	3.0
86	Serbia^[25]	3.3	3.5	3.4	3.4	3.0	2.8	2.7	2.3
86	Sri Lanka	3.3	3.2	3.1	3.2	3.2	3.1	3.2	3.5	3.4	3.7
91	Bosnia and Herzegovina	3.2	3.2	3.2	3.3	2.9	2.9	3.1	3.3
91	Liberia	3.2	3.3	3.1	2.4	2.1		2.2
91	Trinidad and Tobago	3.2	3.6	3.6	3.6	3.4	3.2	3.8	4.2	4.6	4.9
91	Zambia	3.2	3.0	3.0	2.8	2.6	2.6	2.6	2.6	2.5	2.6

Rank	Country	Index
2011	Country	2011	2010	2009	2008	2007	2006	2005	2004	2003	2002
95	Albania	3.1	3.3	3.2	3.4	2.9	2.6	2.4	2.5	2.5	2.5
95	India	3.1	3.3	3.4	3.4	3.5	3.3	2.9	2.8	2.8	2.7
95	Kiribati	3.1	3.2	2.8	3.1	3.3	3.7
95	Swaziland	3.1	3.2	3.6	3.6	3.3	2.5	2.7
95	Tonga	3.1	3.0	3.0	2.4	1.7
100	Argentina	3.0	2.9	2.9	2.9	2.9	2.9	2.8	2.5	2.5	2.8
100	Benin	3.0	2.8	2.9	3.1	2.7	2.5	2.9	3.2
100	Burkina Faso	3.0	3.1	3.6	3.5	2.9	3.2	3.4
100	Djibouti	3.0	3.2	3.0	2.9
100	Gabon	3.0	2.8	2.9	3.1	3.3	3.0	2.9	3.3
100	Indonesia	3.0	2.8	2.8	2.6	2.3	2.4	2.2	2.0	1.9	1.9
100	Madagascar	3.0	2.6	3.4	3.2	3.1	2.8	3.1	2.6	1.7
100	Malawi	3.0	3.4	3.3	2.8	2.7	2.7	2.8	2.8	2.8	2.9
100	Mexico	3.0	3.1	3.3	3.6	3.5	3.3	3.5	3.6	3.6	3.6
100	São Tomé and Príncipe	3.0	3.0	2.8	2.7	2.7
100	Suriname	3.0
100	Tanzania	3.0	2.7	3.0	3.2	2.9	2.9	2.8	2.5	2.7
112	Algeria	2.9	2.9	2.8	3.2	3.0	3.1	2.8	2.7	2.6
112	Egypt	2.9	3.1	2.8	2.8	2.9	3.3	3.4	3.2	3.3	3.4
112	Kosovo	2.9	2.8
112	Moldova	2.9	2.9	3.3	2.9	2.8	3.2	2.9	2.3	2.4	2.1
112	Senegal	2.9	2.9	3.0	3.4	3.6	3.3	3.2	3.0	3.2	3.1
112	Vietnam	2.9	2.7	2.7	2.6	2.6	2.6	2.6	2.4	2.4
118	Bolivia	2.8	2.8	2.7	3.0	2.9	2.7	2.5	2.2	2.3	2.2
118	Mali	2.8	2.7	3.1	2.7	2.8	2.9	3.2	3.0
120	Bangladesh	2.7	2.4	2.1	2.0	2.0	1.7	1.5	1.3	1.2
120	Ecuador	2.7	2.5	2.0	2.1	2.3	2.5	2.4	2.2	2.2
120	Ethiopia	2.7	2.7	2.6	2.4	2.4	2.2	2.3	2.5	3.5
120	Guatemala	2.7	3.2	3.4	3.1	2.8	2.6	2.5	2.2	2.4	2.5
120	Iran	2.7	2.2	2.3	2.5	2.7	2.9	2.9	3.0
120	Kazakhstan	2.7	2.9	2.7	2.2	2.1	2.6	2.6	2.2	2.4	2.3
120	Mongolia	2.7	2.7	3.0	3.0	2.8	3.0	3.0
120	Mozambique	2.7	2.7	2.6	2.8	2.8	2.8	2.8	2.7
120	Solomon Islands	2.7	2.8	2.8	2.9	2.8
129	Armenia	2.6	2.6	2.9	3.0	2.9	2.9	3.1	3.0
129	Dominican Republic	2.6	3.0	3.0	3.0	3.0	2.8	3.0	2.9	3.3	3.5
129	Honduras	2.6	2.4	2.6	2.5	2.5	2.6	2.3	2.3	2.7
129	Philippines	2.6	2.4	2.3	2.5	2.5	2.5	2.6	2.5	2.6
129	Syria	2.6	2.5	2.1	2.4	2.9	3.4	3.4	3.4
134	Cameroon	2.5	2.2	2.3	2.4	2.3	2.2	2.1	1.8	2.2
134	Eritrea	2.5	2.6	2.6	2.8	2.9	2.6	2.6
134	Guyana	2.5	2.7	2.6	2.6	2.5	2.5
134	Lebanon	2.5	2.5	3.0	3.0	3.6	3.1	2.7	3.0
134	Maldives	2.5	2.3	2.8	3.3
134	Nicaragua	2.5	2.5	2.5	2.6	2.6	2.6	2.7	2.6	2.5
134	Niger	2.5	2.6	2.8	2.6	2.3	2.4	2.2
134	Pakistan	2.5	2.3	2.5	2.4	2.2	2.1	2.1	2.5	2.6
134	Sierra Leone	2.5	2.4	1.9	2.1	2.2	2.4	2.3	2.2
143	Azerbaijan	2.4	2.4	1.9	2.1	2.4	2.2	1.9	1.8	2.0
143	Belarus	2.4	2.5	2.0	2.1	2.1	2.6	3.3	4.2	4.8
143	Comoros	2.4	2.1	2.5	2.6
143	Mauritania	2.4	2.3	2.8	2.6	3.1
143	Nigeria	2.4	2.4	2.7	2.2	2.2	1.9	1.6	1.4	1.6
143	Russia	2.4	2.1	2.1	2.1	2.5	2.4	2.8	2.7	2.7
143	Timor-Leste	2.4	2.5	2.2	2.6	2.6
143	Togo	2.4	2.4	2.7	2.3	2.4
143	Uganda	2.4	2.5	2.6	2.8	2.7	2.5	2.6	2.2	2.1
152	Tajikistan	2.3	2.1	2.0	2.1	2.2	2.1	2.0	1.8
152	Ukraine	2.3	2.4	2.5	2.7	2.8	2.6	2.2	2.3	2.4
154	Central African Republic	2.2	2.1	2.0	2.0	2.4
154	Republic of the Congo	2.2	2.1	1.9	2.1	2.2	2.3	2.3	2.2
154	Côte d'Ivoire	2.2	2.2	2.0	2.1		1.9	2.0	2.1	2.7
154	Guinea-Bissau	2.2	2.1	1.9	2.2
154	Kenya	2.2	2.1	2.1	2.1	2.2	2.1	2.1	1.9	1.9
154	Laos	2.2	2.1	2.0	1.9	2.6	3.3
154	Nepal	2.2	2.2	2.7	2.5	2.5	2.5	2.8
154	Papua New Guinea	2.2	2.1	2.0	2.0	2.4	2.3	2.6	2.1
154	Paraguay	2.2	2.2	2.4	2.4	2.6	2.1	1.9	1.6	1.7
154	Zimbabwe	2.2	2.4	1.8	2.1	2.4	2.6	2.3	2.3	2.7
164	Cambodia	2.1	2.1	1.8	2.0	2.1	2.3	1.5	1.3	1.2
164	Guinea	2.1	2.0	1.6	1.9	1.9
164	Kyrgyzstan	2.1	2.0	1.8	2.1	2.2	2.3	2.2	2.1
164	Yemen	2.1	2.2	2.3	2.5	2.6	2.7	2.4	2.6	2.4
168	Angola	2.0	1.9	2.2	1.9	2.2	2.0	2.0	1.8	1.7
168	Chad	2.0	1.7	1.6	1.8	2.0	1.7	1.7
168	Democratic Republic of the Congo	2.0	2.0	1.8	1.9	2.0	2.1	2.0
168	Libya	2.0	2.2	2.6	2.5	2.7	2.5	2.5	2.1
172	Burundi	1.9	1.8	1.9	2.5	2.4	2.3
172	Equatorial Guinea	1.9	1.9	1.7	1.9	2.1	1.9
172	Venezuela	1.9	2.0	1.9	2.0	2.3	2.3	2.3	2.4	2.5
175	Haiti	1.8	2.2	1.4	1.6	1.8	1.8	1.5	1.5	2.2
175	Iraq	1.8	1.5	1.3	1.5	1.9	2.2	2.1	2.2
177	Sudan	1.6	1.6	1.6	1.8	2.0	2.1	2.2	2.3
177	Turkmenistan	1.6	1.6	1.8	2.0	2.2	1.8	2.0
177	Uzbekistan	1.6	1.6	1.8	1.7	2.7	2.2	2.3	2.4	2.9
180	Afghanistan	1.5	1.4	1.5	1.8		2.5
180	Myanmar	1.5
182	North Korea	1.0
182	Somalia	1.0	1.1	1.0	1.4		2.1
–	Belize			2.9	3.0	3.5	3.7	3.8	4.5
-	Burma		1.4	1.3	1.4	1.9	1.8	1.7	1.6
–

Types of Government

2011-12-15T09:28:00.000-08:00

(the descriptions of various countries is based on their government system in early 2002; some of these have definitely changed since then)

Descriptions of governments can be based on:

Economy - what provides the goods and services that are bought, sold, and used?

Capitalism (Russia)	Socialism (Norway)	Communism (Cuba)
In a capitalist or free-market economy, people own their own businesses and property and must buy services for private use, such as healthcare.	Socialist governments own many of the larger industries and provide education, health and welfare services while allowing citizens some economic choices	In a communist country, the government owns all businesses and farms and provides its people's healthcare, education and welfare.

Politics - how is the government run?

Dictatorship (Iraq)	Totalitarian (China)	Theocracy (Iran)	Monarchy (Jordan)	Parliamentary (Israel)	Republic (USA)	Anarchy (Afghanistan?)
Rule by a single leader who has not been elected and may use force to keep control. In a military dictatorship, the army is in control. Usually, there is little or no attention to public opinion or individual rights.	Rule by a single political party. People are forced to do what the government tells them and may also be prevented from leaving the country.	A form of government where the rulers claim to be ruling on behalf of a set of religious ideas, or as direct agents of a deity.	A monarchy has a king or queen, who sometimes has absolute power. Power is passed along through the family	A parliamentary system is led by representatives of the people. Each is chosen as a member of a political party and remains in power as long as his/her party does	A republic is led by representatives of the voters. Each is individually chosen for a set period of time.	Anarchy is a situation where there is no government. This can happen after a civil war in a country, when a government has been destroyed and rival groups are fighting to take its place.

Authority - who picks the government?

Revolutionary (USA, France, USSR etc)	Totalitarian (North Korea)	Oligarchy/Plutocracy (Pakistan)	Democracy (India)
The existing structure is overthrown by a completely new group. The new group can be very small - such as the military - or very large - as in a popular revolution. After a period of time, this 'becomes' one of the other type of government (unless there is another coup or uprising).	Rule by a single political party. Votes for alternative candidates and parties are simply not allowed. Citizens are allowed and 'encouraged' to vote, but only for the government's chosen candidates.	A form of government which consists of rule by an elite group who rule in their own interests, especially the accumulation of wealth and privilege. Only certain members of society have a valid voice in the government. This can reflect (but is not limited to) economic interests, a particular religious tradition (theocracy), or familial rule (monarchy).	In a democracy, the government is elected by the people. Everyone who is eligible to vote - which is a majority of the population - has a chance to have their say over who runs the country.

REMEMBER: nearly every country in the world is ruled by a system that combines 2 or more of these (for example, the USA is not a true capitalist society, since the government actually provides some services for its citizens). Additionally, one person's opinion of the type of government may differ from another's (many argue that the USA is actually a plutocracy rather than a democracy).

Funny,Interesting,True Facts

2011-12-15T07:49:00.000-08:00

Children laugh about 400 times a day, while adults laugh on average only 15 times a day.
Children's sense of smell is better than adults'.
Donald Duck comics were banned from Finland because he doesn't wear trousers.
The chances of you dying on the way to get your lottery tickets is greater than your chances of winning.
You are about 1 centimeter taller in the morning than in the evening!
The can opener was invented 48 years after the can.
Cherophobia is a fear of fun.
Bill Gates' house was designed using a Macintosh computer.
TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters only on one row of the keyboard.
While it took the radio 38 years, and the television a short 13 years, it took the World Wide Web only 4 years to reach 50 million users.
"Stewardesses" is the longest word that is typed with only the left hand.
The domain name www.youtube.com was registered on February 14, 2005
Hewlett Packard(HP) was started at a garage in Palo Alto in 1939.
If you opened up the case of the original Macintosh, you will find 47 signatures. One for each member of Apple's Macintosh divison as of 1982.
On an average work day, a typist's fingers travel 12.6 miles.
The Dvorak keyboard is more efficient than QWERTY. 20 times faster, in fact.
The king of hearts is the only king without a moustache on a standard playing card!
Your brain is 80% water.(even mine :))
Sound travels about 4 times faster in water than in air.
The only letter not appearing on the Periodic Table is the letter "J".(Chemistry man)
The earth is approx. 6,588,000,000,000,000,000 tons.
The sun is 330,330 times larger than the earth.
The storage capacity of human brain exceeds 4 Terrabytes.
The banana tree cannot reproduce itself. It can be propagated only by the hand of man.
Out of all the senses, smell is most closely linked to memory.
No matter how cold it gets, gasoline(petrol) will not freeze.
If you are locked in a completely sealed room, you will die of carbon dioxide poisoning first before you will die of oxygen deprivation.
The water of the Antarctica is so cold that nothing can rot there.
The warmest temperature ever recorded on Antarctica was 3 degrees F.
An earthquake on Dec. 16, 1811 caused parts of the Mississippi River to flow backwards.
If Antarctica's ice sheets melted, the worlds oceans would rise by 60 to 65 metres (200 - 210ft) - everywhere(so try to stop global warming guys )
The Amazon rainforest produces more than 20% the world's oxygen supply.(plant more trees)
The names of the continents all end with the same letter with which they start, excluding the North and South infront of AmericA.(who would have named all these ? wired)
Even Antarctica has an area code. It's 672.
Canada has more lakes than the rest of the world combined.
There are more than 150 million sheep in Australia, and only some 20 million people.
China is the source of 70% of the worlds pirated goods.
In France, there's a place called Y.
There is a city called Rome on every continent.
WAS IT A CAR OR A CAT I SAW.. 'WASITACARORACATISAW'.. This is the only English sentence which even if we read in reverse, it'll give the same sentence.
"Goodbye" came from "God bye" which came from "God be with you."
The sentence "The quick brown fox jumps over a lazy dog." uses every letter of the alphabet!
There are around 41,806 different spoken languages in the world today.
There was no punctuation until the 15th century.
The word Tips is actually an acronym standing for 'To Insure Prompt Service'.
The only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is "uncopyrightable"!
The most popular first name in the world is Muhammad!
The longest word in the English language with no vowels is Rhythms!
The longest word in the English language is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconioses!
The dot over the letter 'i' is called a tittle.
To have your picture taken by the very first camera you would have had to sit still for 8 hours!
The cigarette lighter was invented before the match.
The first hard drive available for the Apple II had a capacity of only 5 megabytes.
The first alarm clock could only ring at 4 a.m.
Originally, BMW was an airplane engine manufacturer.
Technically speaking, crystal glass is actually a Liquid that flows very slowly.
The Bible is the most-shoplifted book in the world.
In a century's time Islam had converted one-third of the world.
It would take more than 150 years to drive a car to the sun.
Venus is the only planet that rotates clockwise.
The earth travels through space at 660,000 miles per hour.
All of the Earth's continents are wider at the north than in the south - and nobody knows why.

Why LOKPAL is important?

2011-12-14T21:46:00.000-08:00

Source: http://indiaagainstcorruption.org/

The Jan Lokpal Bill (Citizen's ombudsman Bill) is a draft anti-corruption bill drawn up by prominent civil society activists seeking the appointment of a Jan Lokpal, an independent body that would investigate corruption cases, complete the investigation within a year and envisages trial in the case getting over in the next one year.

Drafted by Justice Santosh Hegde (former Supreme Court Judge and former Lokayukta of Karnataka), Prashant Bhushan (Supreme Court Lawyer) and Arvind Kejriwal (RTI activist), the draft Bill envisages a system where a corrupt person found guilty would go to jail within two years of the complaint being made and his ill-gotten wealth being confiscated. It also seeks power to the Jan Lokpal to prosecute politicians and bureaucrats without government permission.

Retired IPS officer Kiran Bedi and other known people like Swami Agnivesh, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Anna Hazare and Mallika Sarabhai are also part of the movement, called India Against Corruption. Its website describes the movement as "an expression of collective anger of people of India against corruption. We have all come together to force/request/persuade/pressurize the Government to enact the Jan Lokpal Bill. We feel that if this Bill were enacted it would create an effective deterrence against corruption."

Anna Hazare, anti-corruption crusader, went on a fast-unto-death in April, demanding that this Bill, drafted by the civil society, be adopted. Four days into his fast, the government agreed to set up a joint committee with an equal number of members from the government and civil society side to draft the Lokpal Bill together. The two sides met several times but could not agree on fundamental elements like including the PM under the purview of the Lokpal. Eventually, both sides drafted their own version of the Bill.

The government has introduced its version in Parliament in this session. Team Anna is up in arms and calls the government version the "Joke Pal Bill." Anna Hazare declared that he would begin another fast in Delhi on August 16. Hours before he was to begin his hunger strike, the Delhi Police detained and later arrested him. There are widespread protests all over the country against his arrest.

The website of the India Against Corruption movement calls the Lokpal Bill of the government an "eyewash" and has on it a critique of that government Bill.

A look at the salient features of Jan Lokpal Bill:

1. An institution called LOKPAL at the centre and LOKAYUKTA in each state will be set up

2. Like Supreme Court and Election Commission, they will be completely independent of the governments. No minister or bureaucrat will be able to influence their investigations.

3. Cases against corrupt people will not linger on for years anymore: Investigations in any case will have to be completed in one year. Trial should be completed in next one year so that the corrupt politician, officer or judge is sent to jail within two years.

4. The loss that a corrupt person caused to the government will be recovered at the time of conviction.

5. How will it help a common citizen: If any work of any citizen is not done in prescribed time in any government office, Lokpal will impose financial penalty on guilty officers, which will be given as compensation to the complainant.

6. So, you could approach Lokpal if your ration card or passport or voter card is not being made or if police is not registering your case or any other work is not being done in prescribed time. Lokpal will have to get it done in a month's time. You could also report any case of corruption to Lokpal like ration being siphoned off, poor quality roads been constructed or panchayat funds being siphoned off. Lokpal will have to complete its investigations in a year, trial will be over in next one year and the guilty will go to jail within two years.

7. But won't the government appoint corrupt and weak people as Lokpal members? That won't be possible because its members will be selected by judges, citizens and constitutional authorities and not by politicians, through a completely transparent and participatory process.

8. What if some officer in Lokpal becomes corrupt? The entire functioning of Lokpal/ Lokayukta will be completely transparent. Any complaint against any officer of Lokpal shall be investigated and the officer dismissed within two months.

9. What will happen to existing anti-corruption agencies? CVC, departmental vigilance and anti-corruption branch of CBI will be merged into Lokpal. Lokpal will have complete powers and machinery to independently investigate and prosecute any officer, judge or politician.

10. It will be the duty of the Lokpal to provide protection to those who are being victimized for raising their voice against corruption.

Rubber neck . Great

2011-12-13T22:38:00.000-08:00

Award winning ad

2011-12-13T21:49:00.001-08:00

Amazing

2011-12-12T00:29:00.001-08:00

Air Into Water

2011-12-11T23:57:00.001-08:00

Johathan Ritchey has invented the Watermill, which is an atmospheric water generator. It converts air into fresh water.

This latest technology invention produces fresh water at a cost of about 3 cents a liter (1 quart). Originally designed for areas that do not have clean drinking water, the Watermill is for households that prefer an eco-friendly, cost effective alternative to bottled water.
Atmospheric water generators convert air into water when the temperature of the air becomes saturated with enough water vapor that it begins to condense (dew point).
"What is unique about the Watermill is that it has intelligence," says Ritche. This makes the appliance more efficient. It samples the air every 3 minutes to determine the most efficient time to convert the air into water.
It will also tell you when to change the carbon filter and will shut itself off if it cannot make pure clean water.

A House that Walks

2011-12-11T23:55:00.001-08:00

A new prototype house walked around the campus of the Wysing Arts Centre in Cambridgeshire, England.

The eco-friendly house is powered by solar cells and minature windmills, and comes with a kitchen, a composting toilet, a system for collecting rain water, one bed, a wood stove for CO2 neutral heating, a rear opening that forms a stairway entrance, and six legs.

A collaborative effort between MIT and the Danish design collective N55, the house walks about five kilometers an hour similar to the walking speed of a human.

The legs reguire a software algorithm to calculate the movement and position of the legs to provide stability over varying terrain.

The house can turn, move forward or backwards, or change height as required and can be programmed with GPS waypoints for travelling to destinations.

Are the deleted files removed from the computer completely?

2011-12-11T22:31:00.001-08:00

A common misconception when deleting files is that they are completely removed from the hard drive. However, users should be aware that highly sensitive data can still be retrieved from a hard drive even after the files have been deleted because the data is not really gone. Files that are moved to the recycle bin (on PCs) or the trash can (on Macs) stay in those folders until the user empties the recycle bin or trash can. Once they have been deleted from those folders, they are still located in the hard drive and can be retrieved with the right software.

Any time that a file is deleted from a hard drive, it is not erased. What is erased is the bit of information that points to the location of the file on the hard drive. The operating system uses these pointers to build the directory tree structure (the file allocation table), which consists of the pointers for every other file on the hard drive. When the pointer is erased, the file essentially becomes invisible to the operating system. The file still exists; the operating system just doesn't know how to find it. It is, however, relatively easy to retrieve deleted files with the right software.

Water Bottles to Illuminate a Million Homes

2011-11-27T20:33:00.001-08:00

In Manila, the capital of the Philippines, lack of electricity keeps millions of the city’s poorer inhabitants in the dark. Metal rooftops on the city’s slum houses also block natural daylight, but students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have found a cheap and elegant solution to the problem: plastic water bottles.

By filling a plastic bottle with water and bleach (to prevent algae from growing), students and residents can fashion a solar lamp that fills even the gloomiest shelters with light. It works thanks to phenomenon you may have learned in physics class – refraction. When sunlight passes through the bottle and hits the water, its rays bend and disperse in many different directions.

Installation is as simple as cutting a small circular hole in the metal roof, placing the bottle in the opening, and sealing the edges to stop rainwater leakage. After the lamps are fitted, they provide light equivalent to a 60 watt light bulb and can last up to 5 years without needing to be replaced.
Volunteers have already installed over 10,000 of these lamps all over Manila through the Isang Litrong Liwanag (“A Liter of Light”) project.
Led by Filipino MIT alum Illac Diaz, A Liter of Light is an organized initiative to bring light to over one million homes by 2012. Their Solar Bottle Bulb is “based on the principles of Appropriate Technology – a concept that provides simple and easily replicable technologies that address basic needs in developing communities.”
Watch this news report on the bulb installations:
For more information on the Appropriate Technology movement and the inventions it has spawned, check out this blog. Also, be sure to read our profile of MIT mechanical engineering professor Amy Smith, founder of the school’s D-Lab, which offers “different courses at the intersection of technology innovation and international development.”

The World's Sweetest Printer

2011-11-27T20:15:00.001-08:00

The World’s Sweetest Printer

Researchers at Britain’s University of Exeter have developed a 3-D printer that Willy Wonka would die for. Instead of using metals or plastics as its “ink,” Exeter’s uses chocolate.
Sometimes called additive manufacturing, 3-D printing technologies work off a three-dimensional CAD design of a product, then construct the item by laying down one very thin layer of material at a time. But this is the first time researchers have used chocolate as a medium.

It’s not proved easy: Chocolate doesn’t flow properly unless it is heated and cooled to precise temperatures. The team, led by Liang Hao, a materials scientist in Exeter’s College of Engineering, developed new temperature and heating control systems to make the prototype printer work. Hao envisions the day when consumers can download CAD software, create a design (or modify an existing one), send it to a shop, and pick up their self-designed sweet treat 10 minutes later. Not surprisingly, several chocolate retailers are already expressing interest in the invention. Although chocolate is hard to work with, it is much tastier than plastic.

Aakam team's Short film 8.30 am

2011-11-27T20:10:00.001-08:00

GOOGLE+ VS FACEBOOK

2011-11-27T20:00:00.001-08:00

Google+ vs Facebook

Facebook currently sits pretty at the top of the social networking ladder and has maintained its grasp for a while now. It is clear that Google+ has been created with the intention of directly competing with Facebook. Google+ does offer more in some aspects, and is somewhat of a combination of Facebook and Twitter, but a lot of the features that attracted many people to Facebook are missing in Google+. But while many Google+ features have been inspired by Facebook, does it offer enough to challenge Facebook for its number 1 spot?

Sharing and

Privacy

With circles, Google+ makes your privacy and sharing a lot easier as you have already got segregated groups of contacts. Sharing information or links on your profile is quite similar between both social networks, with the option to choose specific people, specific groups, tag people or hide or delete posts. Google+ takes it a step further by giving you the option to allow your posts to be re-shared or even prevent comments from your posts. As far as privacy settings are concerned, there are a few minor differences. While both parties state that any material directly posted to the site, such as a status, comment or wall post is licensed to the social network, any links, sites, videos or images that you share from a different location are not owned by them. The difference is that Google+ allows you to completely shut down your account and leave, while Facebook only gives you the option to deactivate your account. Google+ also gives you the option of taking all your data with you, effectively asking them to wipe clean all the stuff you’ve uploaded or shared on Google+, which Facebook does not. Both parties also share information with third party applications or websites, although there exist very few for Google+ so far. The difference is that Facebook shares a lot more information than Google+ does, since the latter allows you to limit your shared data to just your name and email address.

Layout

Facebook users shouldn’t have trouble acquainting themselves with Google+. The central placement and format of the stream, the arrangement of circles and friends on the left side bar, and the placement of recommendations on the right side bar are all almost identical to the Facebook home screen. Google+ differs only slightly in the personal profile page, offering organized tabs for your information, photos, videos, etc. The addition of the ‘Google Bar’ at the top of the window is also reminiscent of Facebook with the notifications icon moved to the right side of the screen. The only difference where Google+ has an advantage is that the Google Bar is static as long as you are navigating between Google services such as Picasa, Documents, Reader, etc. Another very noticeable difference is the lack of ads on Google+. Facebook ads are well segregated, but still draw attention. Even worse is the fact that the material in the ad is sometimes not related to the content on the website it links to. Whether Google+ will open its doors to ads only time will tell.

+1 vs Like

The Google+ equivalent of a Facebook ‘Like’ is the +1. While +1 is similar to Like when it comes to appreciating someone’s post or comment, it can also be used to create bookmarks from Google search results, websites, videos and more. The Facebook Like button is best used to share groups, pages or apps within Facebook as your Likes are posted to your wall and appear on your friends’ timelines. +1, on the other hand, is more discrete, allowing you to archive material that you would wish to view in the future without sharing it on your profile or appearing on anyone’s stream. Every Google+ profile has a +1 tab that contains all the websites or links that you have +1’d. It does not, however, display comments on posts on Google+ that you have +1’d.

Apps

Facebook saw a drastic rise in popularity with the introduction of games, apps and quizzes. They are also the reason people started spending more time and money on Facebook, driving up revenue. While some users on Facebook were unappreciative of apps and games like Farmville, it is these apps that brought more traffic to Facebook. Google+ is still in its early days and Google are known for doing things differently, but it would be hard for anyone aiming to be on top of the social networking ladder to ignore the success of apps. Many new users on Google+ claim it to be better due to the absence of ads and apps, but the absence of apps could also be the reason a lot of users haven’t signed up yet.

Chat

This is one of the features where Google+ has outdone Facebook. Plus is incorporated with the standard Gchat panel, which is similar to Facebook chat, whereby you can text chat with any contact that is currently online. Google+ also features hangouts, where you can have a multi-person video chat with up to ten people. The interface is quite intuitive and also allows you to share Youtube videos while video chatting. To match this, Facebook has announced a video chat service of their own in conjunction with Skype, which allows users to have a one-to-one video chat, but this service is currently not available to all users.

Friends vs Circles

Google has approached ‘friending’ from a slightly different angle. Like Twitter, it enables users to ‘follow’ people rather than request their permission to view their profile. While this makes it easier to find friends and broaden your network, it does put more pressure on the user to ensure every post is on the correct privacy setting. Google+ forces you to place people into different circles, enabling you to share information with a certain group of people without having other contacts view it. This is helpful when you wish to share sensitive information with a select group of people. Facebook also allows for such grouping of friends with lists but the option to share material with a specific list is a tedious process. Another important aspect is that your circles on Google+ are invisible to others, while anyone on Facebook can see your groups and which groups you belong to unless they are specifically locked. The fact that Google+ forces you to segment your contacts rather than giving you the option of doing it makes selectively sharing information a lot easier. Google+ also allows you to prevent unknown people from viewing your friends or people in your circles, effectively displaying your list of friends as ‘0’.

The Minus in Google+

Google created waves in cyberspace by sandboxing Google+ at its inception on June 28. Any avid social networker would be excited at the prospect of having a profile on a social network created by Google and the restricted access to Google+ only elevated the anticipation. Google initially sent invites only to users who they believed were extremely active on social networks in order to get experienced users to spread the word. As a result, talk of Google+ spread like wildfire across popular social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter.

There are still

a few cracks

While Google has stated on several occasions that Google+ is still in beta testing, users have brought up a few security issues that need to be addressed soon if the service is to be successful. For instance, blocking a person on your profile will prevent his/her updates from appearing on your stream, but if you have a mutual friend who reshares your posts, the person you blocked can also read and comment on them. There is also an issue with posts not updating in real-time and delayed email notifications but this might be a teething issue since Plus is still at a nascent stage.

Spam in your Inbox

The servers running out of disk space not only prevented users from signing in or uploading content, it also affected the Gmail notifications. A Google representative explained “For about 80 minutes we ran out of disk space on the service that keeps track of notifications. Hence our system continued to try sending notifications. Over, and over again”. This resulted in users getting multiple emails regarding undelivered notifications and when the issue was solved, users received multiple notifications that were not delivered earlier.

The Rush for Invites

The spread of Google+ by word-of-mouth led to mass requests for invites from users that had not had the opportunity to join it. Google claim that access to the site was limited as they did not have servers that would be capable of handling excessive loads. Steadily, Google+ allowed its members to send out invites for brief windows every few days, thereby slowly increasing the number of members. However, it was not long before users discovered flaws in the system that allowed users to join the network without an invite.

Server Overload

As users discovered loopholes in the Google+ system to give their contacts access to the site, the number of users increased exponentially. It was possible for new users to join the network by simply getting an existing Google+ user to share a post with them or tag them in photos. If a link or a page was shared with a non-member or the non-member was tagged in a photo on Google+, they would receive a notification of this via e-mail. The e-mail contained a link, which allowed users to create a new profile. The unexpected influx of new users had adverse effects on Google’s servers, however, causing them to go over capacity and making the site inaccessible.

But there’s not much happening

Even though anyone and everyone is keen to sign up to Google+, once you’re there, the excitement is quite short-lived. After exploring the site and its features, users quickly realize that there’s very little activity. Compared to the frequency with which there is a new post on your Facebook news feed, the Google+ stream is relatively static, mostly due to the reduced number of friends in your circles. With the scarcity of content in the stream, users are quick to lose interest and defer back to Facebook to follow their friends’ activities.

Advertising on Google+

Where most existing Google+ users used the loopholes to bring their friends and family to the new social network, a few companies saw it as novel methods of advertising or marketing their brands. PH Creative, an Israeli ad agency, capitalized on the popularity of Google+ to advertize its brand name and services by announcing that they were sending invites to anyone in the marketing industry. The message spread, and in just a few hours, their mailbox was flooded with requests for invites. PH Creative promptly provided these people with a doorway into Google+ by tagging them in a photo and giving them instructions on how to get started. Once their profile was created, these new users had just one friend - PH Creative. The company then shared and uploaded its portfolio to Google+, resulting in these new users having their stream flooded by information only about PH Creative.

Will GooGLE+

go the distance?

With people already busy leading their lives in cyberspace courtesy Facebook, the addition of yet another social networking site is likely to cause little stir. One thing is for sure; it’s difficult to escape Google, the omnipresent Web powerhouse that’s everywhere. People who have signed up for Google+ will simply find it difficult to ignore the notifications that appear in the Google notification bar. And as the invitations open up, more and more people will sign up for Google+, at least to give it a try. Since Google already has access to the databases of all the people we interact with courtesy Gmail, you will not have to go find people you know; Google will bring them to you.

Google+ definitely has an edge over the competition as they can track the problems people experience with other social networks. They knew exactly what people were looking for, what worked and didn’t work, and what people wanted. Little wonder then that at first glance, Google appears to have integrated the best features from other popular social networking sites into Plus. Additionally, you also have new features like Sparks making sure you do not need to go beyond Google for anything you need from the Internet.

And considering the reach of Google, social networking will now be available to even those people who had so far managed to keep out of the social networking craze. While for those who are already busy juggling their various online profiles, addition of Google+ can cause some anxiety. Prominent psychologist Varkha Chulani says that while social networking in itself is not a bad thing, what’s missing is balance. She says, “In most cases what’s happening is that people are loosing the balance between reality and the virtual world. They are losing perspective, because at the end of the day, success is not going to be measured in terms of social networking skills, but by what one does and knows in real life. A new site will make no difference, and for it to make an impact, it will have to offer something really exciting.”

All said and done, the question still remains - will people jump onto the Google+ bandwagon? After spending a great deal of time and effort on setting up their social networks on the likes of Facebook, Twitter and MySpace, are people willing to do the same for Google+? Then again, there is the view that some might look to Google+ as a way to ‘reset’ their online presence, and this time add only ‘real’ friends on Google+, rather than the ‘friending’ spree they undertook on other networks.

Now its your Choice to decide which is a better social network for your needs friends.