There has been tremendous motivation to figure out ‘persona’ of users of Internet through information gathered from the web. This information can be from their blogs, comments on other’s articles, home pages, purchase patterns, etc. One recent work has been discussed here.
Unless one is careful, one can reveal traits that can be exploited by others. On the other hand, knowing that such profiling is being done, one can create a ‘virtual aura’ that is beneficial to us.

Check out this article about how Corporates are going to stiffle Internet for general public and make huge profits. 

Also check Save The Internet site to fight for network neutrality. 

Dijkstra started as a first ever programmer of a computer from 1952-1962.
This kindled his interest in computer science and one of the most important and still a very open problem that he tackled is — will this computer program do exactly what I intend it to do.

He was the inventor of shortest path algorithm carrying his name, semaphores and many other core computer science ideas that we take for granted.

He advocated structured programming and promulgated the need for 'Discipline of prgramming'. This changed the move from 'ad-hoc' programming languages such as Fortran to very structured languages such as, Algol, C, C++ and Java.

One of my favorite Dijkstra's quotes is one to a promising researcher, who asked how to select topic for research:

Do only what only you can do!!!!

The more I think about this quote the more pertinent it is, and in a way defines what 'doing research' is all about, and what makes you a researcher.

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A comment from one of the readers -

If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it? – Albert Einstein

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This where the 'profound' nature of Dijkstra's quote becomes apparant — knowing – 'what only you can do is the key' – what are your strengths – weaknesses, what kind of problems do you like to solve, etc. 

Like Google advertises — 'we have a problem with your name on it". It is like stating these are the problems you are most comfortable, happy, and interested in addressing.

Mayabazar is the all time favorite telugu movie. This movie – from first scene to last scene is nearly perfect. The acting is phenomenol — with Savitri being absolutely outstanding while switching from Sasirekha to Gathokatcha almost seamlessly.

The picturization of 'Lahiri, Lahiri' song on a full moon day in black & white is fantastic in terms of clarity. The music, songs and the pure humor makes it a complete family entertainer.

I have known people who have seen this movie more than few thousand times.

Plog allows you to organize photos taken through cameraphones, create a storyline, and share these with others.

With a cameraphone one can shoot movies and recently there was an award given to the best cameraphone movie. It was two minute duration movie .

This is where – anyone, anywhere can get realistic visual perception of what others are seeing. It is not unlikely for a person to go to a shop click few images, send it to spouse for suggestions (through sms) and proceed with purchase of items.

One can also have cameraphone photos/video clips to be automatically posted in blogs for others to see. So, in your next vacation, others can see the photos as and when you capture them in your blog.

This year AAAI is celebrating 50 years of AI.

AI has seen its premature glory days, an era of feeling lost, and now is again on upswing with lots of pragmatic research underway.

AAAI hosts various conferences of which annual AAAI conference is among the best, and the pragmatic nature of AI is most visible in IAAI conference. AAAI also holds fall and spring symposiums which are lively events to participate in.

AI courses have seen a change over the last five years, and this modern approach is best expounded by this course offered at University of Waterloo.

I am personally looking forward to IJCAI-2007@Hyderabad.India

Note the following project from MSR photo2search.

We ain't seen anything in the context how mobile phones and technology will change our lives.

With more proactive 'agents' in mobiles with appropriate learning and suitable configuration, along with corresponding value propositions very many opportunities are hidden.

First time, I heard about these possibilities (not all of them have led to commercial solutions, as yet) was from papers by Pattie Maes, software agents group between 1996-1998.

It has been about 10 years since she and others have proposed these ideas, now the time is ripe to take them into commercial products.

More than the commercial viability it is the social acceptance that is going to be crucial and challenging.

I got this from JonStar, a site where you can create your own comic strip.

And this is the strip I created in about five minutes .

Have Fun!!

Prof. James Tour /*who is Professor of Chemistry, Professor of Computer Science and Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science (what a combination) */ and his group have built World's first single molecule car.

Michael Crichton in his novel Prey writes about nano-factories that produce nano-assembly units to mass produce other nano-agents. It seems that the nano-technology world is not only moving very fast but will totally revolutionize the way we live. India still has lot of catching up to do in the world of nano-technologies.

Sidebar — In 1987 movie Inner Space Dennis Quaid shrinks a huge motorized vehicle to a microscopic size to get injected into human body. Well now, with nano-technologies we will have technology to build such vehicles molecule by molecule.

Check civil disobedience to know about it and its impact towards gaining Indian Independence. This movement in my opinion is to collectively stand for the truth and against any kind of injustice.

Arundhati Roy has been quite caustic about the diminishing individual freedom to fight against injustice. Any kind of civil disobedience is put under the scanner of being 'trouble shooter' and people are put in jail. Check out her excellent book An Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire.

This article was motivated by the long struggle of Medha Patkar towards the rights of the farmers and underprivileged. It is depressing to see the lack of Govermental Action on the issue. An interesting piece of news today was that Amir Khan and part of Rang De Basanti gang visited her.

Just few weeks back there was an outcry over Jessica Lal murder case, and it took more than few weeks before some semblance of action was taken. It is not clear whether justice will be done.

Will this start "a begining of new proactive nature from prominent citizens" to address major issues of injustice in India? Only time will tell. So, even though I was troubled by lack of freedom for individuals to fight — may be there is a glimmer of hope that civil disobedience can still work.

Let us just hope for that.