Cactus Chords

Pardon my silence on this subject. I was a bit too busy with work off late and a few hiccups that are never ending.

Alright, so we were waiting for the result of the meeting with one of the top most group of institutes in the nation. The meeting though went well, we were faced with a lot of queries that were unexpected and frankly speaking utterly useless. Some of the queries like

Q: Why would we want to share even some of our study material with any other student in any other college?
A: What could we possible say to this? We told them we give you the option of choosing to share or not which led to the next question.

Q: Then why do you have a feature like this in the first place?
A: Duuuuuuh…for the ones who want to share something!!!

Q: What is the difference between your portal and a portal that we get developed from another company with the same features?
A: The fact that, you hadn’t thought of any of this till now, until we walked through the door and now since you have the money to invest in building a whole new thing just like ours but for yourselves alone.

Q: What about copyrighted content? What if one person takes one line of matter from a copyrighted document and adds it in his document and uploads it?
A: We just smiled at him. I did not want to waste my breath on answering such arbid and baseless questions. Pull out a line from a document and use it in his document? Jesus Christ. Unless it is a quote, there is nothing we can do about it. But I had to say something. I replied, “with all due respect sir, if we find a solution to that, we will be the first ones in the world and that is kind of impossible to track down one line from a document that has 50 pages.” To which his reply was, “Then please go ahead and find a solution to that.” This is when I realized that, he was toying around with us.

Q: You said this initiative is to make content available to those less fortunate students in other areas, what about rural areas that do not have internet?

A: Now, is this guy for real? Just because there is no internet in rural areas did not stop any other company from inventing products, does he mean we should only launch this when there is internet in every nook and corner in India or does it mean that he is not satisfied with our vision? This time, I looked him dead in the eye, shook my head, smiled. I wanted to say, “Thank you for your time sir, I wish I had had this meeting with you a few months earlier, it would have saved me a lot of time and effort.” Instead, I just said, “Thank you for your time sir” and walked out.

There were a already 2 institutes of Symbiosis using our portal on a trial basis and the students were registering, but when it came to the whole bunch, then problems started. He made it clear to us that, what we had has never been done before and also can be a success, but he wanted the one thing we did not have, TRACK RECORD. He asked us, “Say, I purchase your product and use it and it crashes, then the 19 institutes will call me an idiot for purchasing it. What can you do about that? Do you have any colleges who are using it on a daily basis?” The answer to this was obvious,we did not have anyone using it on a daily basis as it had been less than 2 months since we launched it. So, we gave him an option to use the portal for a period of 3 months on a trial basis and to see whether it works, to which his reply was, “But what if it crashes then?”

At this point in time, he was playing with a paper cutter and flicking it on his chin as he spoke. I felt like getting up and jabbing that paper cutter up his hairy nostril. I contained myself and replied, “Isn’t that the whole idea behind the trial period? If it doesn’t work, you are free to trash it and not purchase it SIR.” He looked at us for a while and said ok fine. I will have to discuss this with the rest of the colleges and we can not take a decision until July as we are really tied up till then.

After that meeting, I did not know if I was to be happy or dejected. Somehow, I was content, not because we did not get the deal then, but because we got to meet the head of the decision making board who was a jerk of the nth order. And this was not just my opinion, even the guys who worked under him who pushed our proposal ahead said he was.

They told us not to worry and they would try again. But we did not push it. We thanked them and walked out. So all the months of waiting and nail biting came to a grinding halt. But looking on the bright side, we had, from stupid questions, some features that we could integrate to our portal. But this was pretty much out. Aayush was the most dejected and was cursing everything that he could think of, even the dogs on the road. But we just couldn’t give up. There would be so many who put you down. I had set out to do this and I would till it fizzed out completely and I had nowhere to go. Otherwise what is the use of all that I worked for all these months?

So Pune trip kinda froze there. Had to concentrate on smaller institutes. This made us realize that our target market had now shifted from tier 1 institutes to tier 2 and tier 3 institutes because that is where this would be useful. There, they did not have funds to maintain a platform like this on their own, or have a technical team. So we started working on that. We had lots more to learn and had the eagerness and energy to learn.

Now, when I sit and write this blog, trying to track back the smallest details of what happened and how far we have come in such a short time, I feel proud of everything we have achieved. None of this would have been possible without the help of the team.

So we had a team meeting to see what was the next step…. and the advice one of our team mates gave just turned the whole thing around. That is why I am so glad that I don’t feel like am surrounded by idiots, but instead I feel like the idiot because of all the brilliant minds around me……

image reference: http://zipline.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/stupid1.jpg, http://smspitara.com/upload_image/questions1.jpg, http://www.filetransit.com/images/screen/38018248b89fc8538c792db719ea689d_3D_Matrix_Screensaver__the_Endless_Corridors.jpg,

Google co-founder Sergey Brin couldn’t make it to a science gala this past weekend, so he went as a robot he could control remotely. It’s a little creepy and a little awesome.  Brin was using a Willow Garage Texai robot, according to the blog Down The Avenue. The e-creature has a two-way computer monitor for a head, which displayed a live shot of Brin’s face, a long metal “neck,” and wheels to propel it around a room in response to remote commands. There’s more in the video here, but we’re guessing envious Silicon Valley CEOs won’t need to know any details beyond “Sergey Brin has one” before putting in their orders. Just like when the geeky trendsetter bought a Tesla Roadster.

Cheers!!!

The Excise minister Renukacharya said that he would be pushing himself to the hilt to make sure Bangalore night life is back to the way it was and restore Bangalore as THE place to party. It has been a long time since Bangalore has suffered with the 11:30 pm rule.

When questioned about whether this is an All-Fart-No-Shit kinda talk, he replied by saying that he had already employed a person to submit a detailed report at the earliest and is ready to face any sort of questions from anybody. “The Chief Minister, B S Yeddyurappa has been briefed in this regard and a decision will be taken soon,” he told reporters. Yes, he has had his share of controversies and lawsuits but this is indeed a great move and kudos to him for taking such a step. Whether it be for personal benefit or not, is a good step. If this goes through, then he will be the new hero of the youth in Bangalore, that much I can guarantee.

According to Renukacharya, the police commissioner, Shankar Bidari has also reacted positively to this move but Shankar Bidari, when questioned about the same, had this to say, “There is no proposal to extend the business hour. If we receive the proposal, we will work on the pros and cons and give our opinion to the government. Amendments have to be made and modalities have to be worked out.”. Now who is telling the truth and who is not?

He has also mentioned that, thought this rule will be lifted, the liquor stores and bars will close as usual at 11:30 pm. I guess that is where the actual problems occur anyway. Whatever said and done. A good move on the whole.

It is completely disheartening when your friends come down from abroad expecting a good party scene in Bangalore from what they heard of it a long time ago. They turn to you and say, “Ok, this is the weekend, you tell us where should we go. We are at your disposal.” And all you can say is “Am sorry, but the curfew is till 11:30 pm. We will have to head back after that.” And to top it off, the checks all throughout the city. But in a way, it is good, but 11:30 pm curfew as well as crazy ass police checks in conjunction not necessary. They could probably extend the time for parties and double up the checks. As it is the cops love to mint money on weekends. They would be more than glad to work overtime for the few extra bucks.

Let us hop this comes through…fingers crossed.

Cheers!!!

image reference: http://llenrock.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/party.gif, http://www.destination360.com/north-america/us/new-jersey/atlantic-city/images/s/atlantic-city-nightlife.jpg, http://www.deccanherald.com/images/editor_images/December%202009/24th%20DEC%202009/renukacharya-200-dec-24.jpg

First it was the invention of the wireless communication device. Now when that has flooded the planet and pollution of all kinds is scaling heights, a means of reducing noise pollution is in the pipeline. Very soon you can speak on your mobile phone without uttering a word and that too in any language. “Silent sounds”, the new technology was unveiled at the CeBIT fair on Tuesday that transforms lip movements into a computer-generated voice for the listener at the other end of the phone.

Electromyography is the phenomenon used by this device, developed by the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT),  monitoring tiny muscular movements that occur when we speak and converting them into electrical pulses that can then be turned into speech, without a sound uttered.

‘Silent Sound’ technology aims to notice every movements of the lips and transform them into sounds, which could help people who lose voices to speak, and allow people to make silent calls without bothering others. Rather than making any sounds, your handset would decipher the movements your mouth makes by measuring muscle activity, then convert this into speech that the person on the other end of the call can hear. So, basically, it reads your lips.

“We currently use electrodes which are glued to the skin. In the future, such electrodes might for example by incorporated into cellphones,” said Michael Wand, from the KIT.

The technology opens up a host of applications, from helping people who have lost their voice due to illness or accident to telling a trusted friend your PIN number over the phone without anyone eavesdropping — assuming no lip-readers are around.

The technology can also turn you into an instant polyglot. Because the electrical pulses are universal, they can be immediately transformed into the language of the user’s choice.

“Native speakers can silently utter a sentence in their language, and the receivers hear the translated sentence in their language. It appears as if the native speaker produced speech in a foreign language,” said Wand.

The translation technology works for languages like English, French and Gernan, but for languages like Chinese, where different tones can hold many different meanings, poses a problem, he added.

Noisy people in your office? Not any more. “We are also working on technology to be used in an office environment,” the KIT scientist told AFP.

The engineers have got the device working to 99 percent efficiency, so the mechanical voice at the other end of the phone gets one word in 100 wrong, explained Wand.

“But we’re working to overcome the remaining technical difficulties. In five, maybe ten years, this will be useable, everyday technology,” he said.

image reference: http://www.telecomspace.com/files/cebit_silent_sound_device.jpg, http://fotosa.ru/stock_photo/image100/p_2462676.jpg,