TalkGirly » Technology

Google Logo Drawn By Kids – excellent PICs

Namrata — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 20:48:54 +0000

Google has asked students in the United States in grades K-12 to design a logo around the theme ‘What if …?”. The Doodle 4 Google competition was open to all students in U.S. schools from kindergarten to grade 12. The winner was voted by the US public and an award ceremony for the 40 regional winners was held at the Googleplex in Mountain View.

The winning logo was done by Grace Moon (the girl featured in one of the photo) of California called ‘Up in the Clouds’ and her logo was used for Google’s logo art for a day. These are the finalists in Grades 10-12. Apparently some of these kids create better imaginative art than most of us adults can do.

Logos:

New Mobile design by Moto…

Mastermind — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 15:10:52 +0000

Motorola’s new mobile is out in US. Check it out……

Volkswagen’s New Car

Mastermind — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 16:11:52 +0000

With gas prices going through the roof and regulators requiring cars to be ever more miserly, Volkswagen is bringing new meaning to the term “fuel efficiency” with a bullet-shaped microcar that gets a stunning 282 235 mpg.

Volkswagen’s had its super-thrifty One-Liter Car concept vehicle — so named because that’s how much fuel it needs to go 100 kilometers – stashed away for six years. The body’s made of carbon fiber to minimize weight (the entire car weighs just 660 pounds) and company execs didn’t expect the material to become cheap enough to produce the car until 2012.

But VW’s decided to build the car two years ahead of schedule.

According to Britain’s Car magazine, VW has approved a plan to build a limited number of One-Liters in 2010. They’ll probably be built in the company’s prototype shop, which has the capacity to build as many as 1,000 per year. That’s not a lot, but it’s enough to help VW get a lot of attention while showing how much light weight and an efficient engine can achieve.

VW unveiled the slick two-seater concept six years ago at a stockholder’s meeting in Hamburg. To prove it was a real car, Chairman Ferdinand Piech personally drove it from Wolfsburg to Hamburg. At the time, he said the car could see production when the cost of its carbon monocoque dropped from 35,000 Euros (about $55,000) to 5,000 Euros (about $8,000) — something he figured would happen in 2012. With carbon fiber being used in everything from airliners to laptops these days, VW’s apparently decided the cost is competitive enough to build at least a few hundred One-Liters.

VW’s engineers — who spent three years developing the car — made extensive use of magnesium, titanium and aluminum to bring it in at less than one-third the weight of a Toyota Echo. According toCanadian Driver, the front suspension assembly weighs just 18 pounds. The six-speed transmission features a magnesium case, titanium bolts and hollow gears; it weighs a tad more than 50 pounds. The 16-inch wheels are carbon fiber. The magnesium steering wheel weighs a little more than a pound. How much of the concept car’s exotic hardware makes it to the production model remains to be seen.

Low weight only gets you so far in the quest for ultimate fuel economy; aerodynamics plays a big role. The One-Liter is long and low, coming in at 11.4 feet long, 4.1 feet wide and 3.3 feet tall. It features an aircraft-like canopy, flat wheel covers and a belly pan to smooth the airflow under the car. The engine cooling vents open only when needed, and video cameras take the place of mirrors. The passenger sits behind the driver to keep the car narrow. The car has a coefficient of drag of 0.16; the average car comes in around 0.30 and the Honda Insight had a Cd of 0.25.

As for the engine, the concept had a one-cylinder diesel engine producing 8.5 horsepower and 13.5 foot-pounds of torque. Car says the production model will use a two-cylinder turbodiesel for a little more oomph. Doubling the number of cylinders is sure to cut fuel economy, so VW may install a diesel-hybrid drivetrain. The engine turns off at stop lights to save fuel, then automatically restarts when the driver depresses the accelerator pedal.

(Update: The car reportedly has anti-lock brakes, stability control and airbags. According to Canadian Driver, “Volkswagen says the One-Liter Car is as safe as a GT sports car registered for racing. With the aid of computer crash simulations, the car was designed with built-in crash tubes, pressure sensors for airbag control and front crumple zones.”)

What’s it gonna cost? Car quotes “one well-placed insider” who says the One-Liter could have a sticker price of anywhere from 20,000 to 30,000 Euros (about $31,750 to $47,622). That’s a lot of money. But then, the One-Liter, despite its diminutive size, is a lot of car.

New USB flash drive

Mastermind — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 04:12:07 +0000

Brando’s put out a new design twist on stylish looking USB Flash drives with this USB Flash Drive wrist band. No longer do you have to have a lanyard around your neck if you want to wear your flash drive around since this one disguises itself as a wristband that comes in six different colors of red, yellow, blue, green, orange and purple.

The USB port doubles as the connector to hold the strap together when wearing it and it sounds fairly durable as the catalog page boasts that the drive is shockproof and moisture proof (assuming moisture from sweat). It comes in one size of 210 mm long which should fit most geek wrists, and comes in one capacity of 512MB for a $25 (approx. 1000/- Rs.) price tag.

Japan’s Spectacular Floating Airports

Mastermind — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 16:01:20 +0000

As the world’s population increases at a more-than-healthy rate and the cost of travel decreases, the number of people looking to travel by air is understandably on the rise. With this growing demand comes the need for more airports as existing ones struggle to cope with the millions of passengers passing through on a daily basis.

So what happens when there’s no suitable land to build a new major airport or locals protest the new construction without hesitation due to noise pollution or other environmental implications?

If you travel to Japan in the near future you may witness a solution to these problems, in the form of floating airports. At present there are four such constructions in Japan (there are also examples in Hong Kong and Macau), each built on its own artificial island offshore and each backed by the community it serves. The first of these incredible engineering wonders to be built, and the first of its kind in the world, was Kansai International Airport in Osaka Bay. Just to build the 4-kilometre long island called for 21 million cubic metres of landfill plus the assistance of 80 ships, then there was the small matter of connecting the airport to the mainland by way of a 3-kilometre bridge. In total the project has so far cost around $20 billion but has already saved some expense by surviving both an earthquake and a typhoon in the last 15 years, in addition to being open 24 hours a day due to its location.

Here are Japan’s four floating airports.

Kansai International Airport

New Kitakyushu Airport

Kobe Airport

Chubu Centrair International Airport

So, what does the future hold for the location of airports?

For those airports situated near the coast it makes a lot of sense to follow the examples in Japan for a number of reasons, most importantly environmental impact and space consumption.

However, there are also other innovations to welcome, one of the most intriguing being a Rotating Floating Airport invented by Van Den Noort Innovations BV in the Netherlands. As far as we know the idea hasn’t been realised yet but the concept seems like a good one. The RFA’s main circular body (arrival and departure lounges, transport stations) would sit below sea level, its base embedded in the sea bed, whilst the runway platform would float on the water, rotating according to wind direction. In essence the entire structure would resemble a gigantic propeller lodged in the ground, air traffic landing and taking-off on its blades.

Diagram of Floating Airports

5 Best Laptops For Women

paris_hilton — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 21:23:34 +0000

My 2-year old laptop just broke after it fell off the table at office. May be anger management lessons, would have helped prevent the mishap But after the damage, I went on the market to look for a new laptop. And seriously, I didn’t expect the search for a new laptop to be so demanding…

I went to my nearest Circuit City store and all laptops the sales guy was showing me were either too bulky or didn’t have good enough looks. And the ones with powerful hardware had low battery life Even my search online, the next morning didn’t give me much on laptops for women, so I thought this post should be helpful for women like me who are looking for a nice looking, powerful yet efficient and not-so overpriced laptop. This survey rightly gives the stuff women are looking for in laptops.

I drilled-down to 5 laptops, which I felt were the best ones and they are all nearly good enough… Buy the one that fits your budget

Image	Manufacturer/Model (Click For Details)	Description
	5.) SONY VAIO TZ Series VGN-TZ170N/B	This one is slightly overpriced, but it is extremely light-weight. Its only 2.7lbs. You really have to pick it up to realize how light it actually is. Most VAIO laptops that I saw looked absolutely great, but seemed a little overpriced compared to the hardware they sold.Its got great battery life of 4-7.5 hrs and comes with the Core 2 Duo U7500.The screen size is a little small to my liking, but the entire laptop is targetted to being small and cute. The price is ~$2400 and was too expensive for me!! and its got only onboard graphics For people who want to buy online may look at Newegg.com
	4.) Toshiba Portege M400 S5032X Tablet PC	This one is a powerhouse of performanceand is extremely portable and lightweight. It weighs 4.16lbs and has a battery life of upto 4hrs. Its also a tablet and hence is useful for writing notes and watching movies when I’m driving or getting bored.It comes with XP tablet 2005. It also has only onboard graphics. The reason I’m told are that with better graphics the battery life decreases and hence the thin-&-light laptops don’t have graphics cards… At ~$1600, it seemed like a good buy!! For online purchase: ToshibaDirect.com
	3.) ASUS U3 Series U3S-A1B	This one is thin and sleek. It weighs 4.2lbs and seems to be thinner than even the Vaio (but actually is not). There is a slider button which can be changed to either power saving or speed. The 1.3MP camera was pretty good quality compared to most laptop cameras I have tested recently. It also have a nice 8400M G graphics card built into for a gamer.The battery life is 4hrs and pretty good for a 13.3″ screenCost: ~$1550 For online purchase: Newegg.com
	2.) HP Pavilion DV6662SE(GS800UA)	Great package and excellent value for money. Its looks great and comes cheap. Big harddisk and X3100 onboard graphics.The onboard may not be as good as the one from ASUS, but it may be good for most people.Its not the best on this list, but offers excellent value for money with some good looks. It may be weaker in performance, but is a great buy at the price. Cost: ~$1000 For online purchase: Newegg.com
	1.) 15″ MacBook Pro	With all the other laptops coming with Windows bundled, this one is with an OSX… I have never used a MacBook earlier, but used an iMac in school.And with Leopard releasing in 4 days time, I was sure I would buy this one.Costs $1999, I thought it was the best bundle of looks and power. It has a battery life of upto 3.5hrs and with a 15.4 screen and 8600M. Its got iLife ’08 and FrontRow which I would surely love to have since I’m a movie freak and an audio enthusiast. Garage Band would make me happy. Online Purchase: Apple Store

I found these ones good enough for me and I think most other women would be happy with the ones I mentioned. If you have some suggestions or your favorite, then comment below. My previous post on cellphones for women can be found here.

BigAdda Vs Orkut

bizboy — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 08:42:44 +0000

Social networking websites are the biggest things on the internet. Seems like the highest visited websites are social networking websites and based on the Alexa rankings (I don’t think they are completely accurate) they are on the rise. Myspace is currently at 6, Orkut is at 7 and Facebook is at 8. Then, there are other websites like Digg transforming to social networking and there are many more examples. India is a larger market for such websites and Orkut is just one website catering to Indian audiences. Lot more young people and they are more likely to use such websites. Women are one major online socialites and hence it makes sense to talk about it here.

Recently, Reliance backed BigAdda.com was launched with lots of ad-budget. The developers see a lot of money in social networking and hence do not mind spending some capital on the initial publicity. Today, we compare the two social networking websites, and reach a conclusion of how much social existence on the internet is enough!

Community is the main target

BigAdda, is a combination of English and Hindi, exactly what today’s youth in India is about. “Adda”, in Hindi means a place where friends spend their time. BigAdda has different “Addas”, just like Orkut has got communities. Both Orkut and BigAdda are the same here in this category. Infact, the community in both these websites have their roots from group/BBS websites like Yahoo Groups, Google Groups, Usenet newsgroups etc. The only different between Orkut and BigAdda is that “scraps” from Orkut are called “scribbles” at BigAdda and everything else is the same.

Friends Stay

The Friends List is another common feature at both the places. They are the same… and nothing different at all in both of them!! Orkut is older and hence has a lot of users, BigAdda has a lot of catching up to do and the advertisements are helping BigAdda quite a bit!!

The Bad Points – And there are many

But since BigAdda is the new kid on the block its copied a lot of features from other popular websites. Its seen different ideas from the online world and brought them into their website. BigAdda has tried to build forums, blogs, and videos into their domain. The forums and blogs aren’t good enough in my opinion. Specialized blog networking websites are easily better than their implementation and the BigAdda blogs look more like BBS than blogs. The forums aren’t comparable in features compared to Invision, or phpBB or any other forum software… So basically its a complete let-down in terms of features.

BigAdda is also trying to put something like Flickr for Photos and YouTube for Videos, but it isn’t even close to those websites. There is not public sharing outside of BigAdda, like you can do with YouTube or Flickr. The moderation of photos and videos is also not acceptable. Pornographic content/indecent photos are widespread at BigAdda and the Indian regulators should have a look at it. The moderation of content is very slow and no action seems to be taken against the guilty for posting such content. I think in the very near future expect many legal cases against BigAdda in this domain! Just a look at the popular photos will tell you how much mature content is uploaded to BigAdda.

Conclusion

BigAdda is really not in the race in its current state. There are lot better websites in the different domains BigAdda has ventured into, but BigAdda does nothing innovative in any of the categories. Community Sites are all about the user comfort and the pornographic/indecent content reduces the user comfort level. Orkut has really become famous due to its large user base and it’s simplicity in design as well as intuitiveness. Orkut surely wins this round of social networking battle.

5 Gorgeous Cellphones For Women

paris_hilton — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 17:24:04 +0000

Cellphones are no longer a niche show-off. Its a necessity in today’s modern, fast-paced life. You know how much you miss the cellphone when you forget it at home one day?? And why not have something so close to us be more gorgeous and hip!! … I mean why shouldn’t mobile phones be fashionable and used as a fashion accessory along with clothes, jewelery and the like. So here are 5 cellphones that look trendy, fashionable and are beauties with brains!!

The 5 most gorgeous cellphones for women: (Click on the product name to go to their respective webpages)

	5.) Benq CL75: At number 5, we have a designer phone with lots of curves. Curves look great on this cellphone, but may be the color-tone could have been a little more funky. Its got designs printed all over its body, which may not match with all clothes. Its made by Siemens and seems to have a sturdy body. I didn’t try dropping it yet, but it seems strong enough!!The interesting part in this cellphone was that one of its displays also works as a make-up mirror!!Its not a feature rich phone, but offers could reception as a communication device.Features: GSM, WAP 2.0 / GPRS, 40-chord polyphonic ring tones (support Midi), Video recording / playback (H.263), VGA Camera
	4.) LG Chocolate Pink: What’s a feminine phone that’s not pink?? At number 4, we have the gorgeous, yet subtle LG chocolate pink! It’s not a very powerful mean machine, but it’s groovy music phone, looks sweet & cute and has some advanced data features.Features: It’s got V CAST Music, a glowing, touch-sensitive keypad, superlative music/video player, luxurious 1.3 megapixel camera & camcorder, Bluetooth® capabilities, and a microSD™ memory port. It’s High-Speed EVDO based on CDMA networks is a nice feature to have for all the internet ladies out there!!
	3.) Sanyo Katana: The Sanyo Katana comes with a Japanese finesse and beauty unmatched by other phones. It looks a lot like a RAZR clone, but then external body is a slight redesign. Overall a good phone and is also a good value-for-money!!Features: GSM, 2.2-inch QVGA Main Display and 1.0-inch External Display, Bluetooth, VGA Camera, Speakerphone for hands-free, 72-Chord Polyphonic ringers, Instant MessagingExperience the Katana By Clicking Here
	2.) Nokia 6111: The Nokia 6111, with a compact chic design isan excellent female-oriented phone. It look quite a bit like the 6280, but then its got better curves and is lot more compact. Its got nice Push-To-Talk and Video Playback. The 1-megapixel which works in landscape mode is a little wanting though!! Its also got email for SMTP, POP3 and IMAP4 protocols which is useful for gals who use phone to emailFeatures: Megapixel camera with 6x digital zoom, Camera flash, Video streaming and recording (up to 1 hour), Media player with stereo sound and MP3 and AAC ringing tones, Email: (SMTP, POP3, and IMAP4), FM stereo radio, OMA MMS, Xpress audio messaging:
	1.) Motorola RAZR 2 Pink: The first RAZR did it for Motorola and I think the 2nd version is even better. The original RAZR Pink lacked in features, but the new RAZR 2 is a mean machine and pink will make it look as gorgeous as ever. But then Motorola hasn’t released this one yet!! In anticipation I’ve put it at #1. Feature-wise its going to be just like the RAZR 2Features: CDMA (V9m)/GSM(V8)/HSPDA(V9), 500Mhz Processor, MicroSD, Video streaming, blogging and progressive download, Webmail, 2-GB onboard memory, 2.0 mega-pixel camera with 8x digital zoom, Instant Messaging, Stereo Bluetooth.May be there are even better cellphones out there for women. But these are a few that are value-for-money and are easily available. You can suggest others if you like.

PS: Proud that you have a nice women-oriented blog here, where anyone can contribute. Hopefully you like my first post!! Will be posting many such stuff in the near future… Others are also welcome to share their experiences. I have the same name as the actress/model Paris Hilton, but I have a love for technology much more than fashion and glamour.