The City that turned into a lake..

The streets turned into rivers, cars into boats... This is no harry potter story, all this happened in singara chennai on the 27 th and 28 th november. the city bustling with activity came to an almost standstill when the tropical cyclone 'NISHA' crossed the coast and luckily or unluckily i happened to be in the city.

The rain had flooded the city streets with knee deep water. And the unlucky me was on board a bus to Nandanam. The traffic was moving at a snails pace i thought i would reach my destination faster if i walked so did many of my co-passengers and a few decided to walk. I was one among the many who decided to stay on board and wait inside the bus cos it was risky to walk in knee deep water for fear of open pot holes, fallen electric wires etc,. To add fuel to fire the governors convoy was to pass by that route and so the roads were blocked, the traffic came to an absolute standstill.

There was drama everywhere people panicking, everyone in the bus getting calls from relatives enquiring about where we were and everybody had to tell the same answer for almost one and half hours. I sat at the window watching around the traffic. As far as i could see there were only cars, autos,taxis and buses. The other half of the road, meant for traffic from the other direction was dry. Many ppl used that part of the road to check out the reason for the road block. Finally after one and half hours of waiting the governors convoy passed by and i reached my aunts place by 10 that night.

The next day i was on my way to the private bus stand and out of the flood struck city to Coimbatore . We could not find any call taxis to drop us there none of them was willing to take the risk. After searching for long we finally booked a Travera and thank god we hired a Travera. If we had hired anything else then probably we would never have made it to the bus stand in time. I could touch the water if i just dropped my hand out of the window. Many of the vehicles stopped cos water entered the exhaust. Thanks to our skillful driver. We made it in time to have our dinner at leisure and then catch our bus.

History behind Microsoft Surface Technology

The notion of a table-like computer had garnered interest within Microsoft since at least 2001, but it wasn't until industrial designer Allan Han went to Ikea in January 2003 that the effort really kicked into high gear.

With a bright blue table bought from the Swedish retailer, Han helped fashion the first prototype, dubbed T1 (Table 1). He cut a hole in the top, put in a special screen, a mirror and cameras, and added a lighting source and the vision software.

"As soon as they saw the first prototype...we had approval all the way up from Bill G. (Gates) to staff the team," said Stevie Bathiche, part of the group within Microsoft's hardware unit that developed the product, which Microsoft unveiled.

The idea for the new kind of computer dates back to 2001, when Bathiche was part of a team tasked by CEO Steve Ballmer and Lisa Brummel, then head of Microsoft's home and retail unit, to come up with some ideas on how to breathe new life into the consumer software business.

Bathiche had been kicking an idea around with Microsoft researcher Andy Wilson. What if there was a flat tabletop computer that could mix virtual and real-world objects and be controlled by touch?

Bathiche presented the idea at a retreat his unit held in August 2002 at the Salish Lodge in Snoqualmie Falls, a scenic tourist spot about 30 miles from Seattle. At the meeting, each member could use pretend venture capital dollars to fund the best pitch they heard. Bathiche's idea was the winner hands down.

"It struck a chord with everyone," he said.

Microsoft set up a team of about a dozen people, including Bathiche, Wilson and David Kurlander, the effort's first general manager.

The company tried out plenty of other designs. One looked like a tub, while others varied in height, including one that was more like a desk and another that resembled a bar. In all, Microsoft built more than 85 early prototypes, often hand-building new ones out of plywood.

"I never thought I'd use my corporate (credit) card at Home Depot, said Lu Silverstein, product manager for Microsoft's surface computing effort. "I work at a software company."

Trips to Ikea and Home Depot hardly sound like the typical Microsoft development effort. However, such projects are becoming more and more likely as the company opts to do both hardware and software with many of its key new ventures. Such was the case with the Xbox 360 and the Zune, both of which are housed in Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices unit, the same division responsible for Milan.

Much of Milan is software, of course. While it runs on a Vista PC, there is a whole other layer of software that handles the advanced touch input. Microsoft researcher Daniel Robbins built the first application to run on the surface computer, a pinball game back in January 2003.

One of the biggest technical challenges was coming up with a means by which the display surface and the input surface could be nearly the same, without interfering with each other. "We wanted to give the computer eyes," Bathiche said. By its very nature that "forces the interactive space to be right on top of the displayed stuff."

The answer was to use a projector, turned on its side, to send the image up to the flat surface of the computer. That allows the display and sensors to appear right next to one another without getting in the way.

By 2005, Microsoft had the design for Milan, both hardware and software, pretty well established. What it needed was a business model for how to get the still-pricey product onto the market. While its designers really envision their product in homes, they decided only businesses would be able to afford it.

Microsoft decided to take a page from the plasma TV business. Though the fancy displays are now a staple in many luxury homes, for years the displays were largely used by corporations and at trade show booths, with companies often renting, not buying, the expensive screens.

One of Microsoft's early partners is Harrah's. The casino's CIO, Tim Stanley, was heading to Microsoft for a visit last year and asked what the company had cooking in the labs. Microsoft decided to show him Milan.

"I went 'wow'," Stanley said. "Gears started turning in my head."

One of the challenges was explaining it to his colleagues back in Las Vegas. "You can't explain it to people," he said. "They only get it when they see it."

Finally, he convinced Microsoft to bring the device to Harrah's, so the IT veteran could show what had gotten him so excited.

Perhaps as impressive as the technology is the fact that Microsoft was able to keep Milan a secret. Outside of the team working on it, few even at the Redmond, Wash., software maker know about the effort.

Source : news.cnet.com

Think About This....

In my dreams children sing
A song of love for every boy and girl
The sky is blue the fields are green
And laughter is the language of the world
Then I wake and all I see is a world full of people in need

Tell me why, does it have to be like this
Tell me why, is there something I have missed
Tell me why, I don't understand
When somebody needs somebody
We don't give a helping hand
Tell me why

Every day I ask myself what I have to do to be a man
Do I have to stand and fight
To prove to everybody who I am
Is that what my life is for
To waste in a world full of war

Tell me why, does it have to be like this
Tell me why, is there something I have missed
Tell me why, I don't understand
When somebody needs somebody
We don't give a helping hand
Tell me why
Tell me why
Tell me why
Just tell me why

Why why, do the tiders run
Why why, do we shoot the gun
Why why, do we never learn
Can someone tell us why we cannot just be freinds
Why Why.

My first Blog

Alas!!! At last this has happened.... Am a blogger now.... huffff.... The idea of me creating a blog came up in February-March and it has taken three months to get materialized. Anyways am happy that am a blogger now.

Sudharsan C P