Kindle 2

Kindle 2

I recently bought the Kindle 2. I have been waiting for a long time to buy this. Sure, if i had waited a bit longer, could have gotten a more advanced and better performing device. But I got a good deal and so couldnt pass it on. I did so much research on all the ebook readers available in the market, before i decided to buy the Kindle. At the end of my research i actually wanted the Nook. But as i said, i got a good deal on this Kindle.

E-ink:

It is such an amazing technology. It looks exactly like paper. There is no back-light involved. And hence less strain on your eyes. No glare whatsoever. So amazing to read using the device even in sunlight. If you ask me, the entire amount we pay for ebook readers is basically for this technology. The Kindle or the Nook doesnt really have a spectacular processor or any other expensive parts in it. The price you pay for the device is simply for the e-ink. Check out some videos and you will know what i am talking about. I have shown the device to so many people. Friends, colleagues, etc. And every single one seem to react the same way when they look at the screen. "Is that a screen? It looks like paper" is the response i get all the time. So money worth spending on this.

But the biggest minus is the refresh rate. It is pathetic. If you understand how the technology works you might not feel so bad. But for someone who is looking at it for the first time, the refresh rate is such a big annoying thing. The entire screen turns black and then you get to see your new page. Actually the refresh rate is better in Kindle compared to other devices in the market. It is actual hydrocarbons that are behind this e-ink technology. That is the reason.

Free 3G:

This is an excellent add-on in Kindle. Not available in any other device right now. You get free 3G (Surprisingly not wifi. Just 3G. Ya i know. That is wierd). It doesnt work in Singapore though. But it works even in India. So Kindle is an amazing device if you travel .

Pdf support:

They recently added pdf support to Kindle. But the device shrinks the entire a4 pdf into a 6" screen. Hence the readability is poor. You can convert the pdf to any kindle recognised formats and it works fine for pdfs with mostly text. If you want to read pdfs with images or charts in it, forget Kindle (or Nook for that matter). I would suggest wait for a better device or just buy the damn ipad.

Battery life:

Now that is a good selling point. A single charge lasts for more than a week. If you find that strange, read up on e-ink. The technology uses battery power only to refresh the page, and hence when you are reading, it is not consuming power at all.

Calibre:

This is an amazing piece of software. If you use ebook readers, you need this software. It is open source and free to download. Simply put, it is the iTunes of ebooks. You can select your ebook reader when you configure the software and whenever you add a book, it will automatically convert the book to your format and when you connect your device to the computer, it will automatically synchronize everything. The best part about this software is, you can specify your RSS feeds and it will convert them into ereader format. So schedule a download for all NYT business articles at 8 am in the morning and connect your device to get today's NYT in your device. I have been using this for over 2 months now and trust me when i say this. Calibre is amazing.

Nook vs Kindle:

Nook is more open. It recognises all kinds of formats compared to Kindle. It runs based on Android. People keep telling me the bottom color screen with touch capability is an impressive thing. But i find it to be extremely annoying. Nook has wifi in it. And it looks a bit more cooler. But as i said, i got a good deal in this Kindle.

Kindle is not a bad device either. It has text to speech which is absolutely useless, if you ask me. It has global 3g support which is pretty impressive. It is just a matter of time before they bring 3g support to Singapore. Then it is an amazing device.

Kindle Vs iPad:

It is pretty difficult to explain this. First of all, i have a decent laptop and buying the iPad doesnt make sense. In my view, you need a device like ipad when you have a desktop, which doesnt offer much mobility. But when you have a laptop, i am pretty comfortable in watching movies or browsing in it. My laptop allows me to run background tasks. Dont get me wrong here. I am not comparing a tablet computer to a laptop. I am just discussing the usability. So when i wanted to buy a kindle, my main aim was to read books and newspapers in it. That is it. Nothing more. Nothing less. And i think if you are this kind of person, go ahead and buy the ebook reader. If you want more than books and newspapers in a device, then ebook reader is simply not your device. To me, it doesnt make sense when someone complains that they cant watch video in Kindle. Frankly it is not made for watching videos. It is made for reading and it does an excellent job at it.

Sure, iPad is not what we all thought it would be. But it is only a matter of time before we see loads of other competitors coming up with similar, probably better devices. 100,000 apps in a computer is not a big selling point according to me. I dont need an app for Citibank in my tablet computer. I might as well go to their website to make a funds transfer. The main reason apps became a hit is because the browser in the phones are too crappy and slow to do anything. So people came up with ideas for apps and it is a huge hit in phones. When it comes to computers, please dont say apps are a big plus point. They are useless. But iPad is a tremendous hit. They sold 300,000 devices on the first day alone. By now they would have sold a million devices. By few measures it is selling faster than the iPhone. (FYI, there are close to 18 million iPhones in the market right now)

I realized the true potential of Kindle during my recent trip to Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. Sure, the free 3g doesnt work in the three countries. But i had few good books in the device and it was so useful in all our long bus journeys.

Book Reviews

'2 states' by Chetan Bhagat:

Obviously the book is not as good as the first one. But i feel it is better than Chetan Bhagat's second one, "One night at a call center" (It was crap!). You have to give full marks for his sarcasm and good narrative style. The story is a bit boring. I mean, we have seen million movies with the same story. That is exactly why this novel by Chetan Bhagat can never become a movie, unlike his previous novels.

He has made some really bold observations about Tamils and Chennai. Sadly most of them is true. Inspite of being a Tamilian, I kind of enjoyed the mockery. Not too bad. It was actually only 95 INR, which is pretty cheap and I finished the book in 3 days. So no complaints.

'Outliers' by Malcolm Gladwell:

Brilliant book. When I first heard about the concept of the book, I immediately decided I should read the book. It is an analysis on why some people in the world are way too successful than others. What apart from talent, distinguishes success? Why some smart people can never reach the top? How much can the cultural legacy of your ancestors affect your success? The book is an answer to all these questions. A must read for people who love non-fiction.

Thesanthiri by S.Ramakrishnan:

I love S.Ramakrishnan's writing. It is more natural and it makes you ask questions. His writing takes you back to the beautiful days of your life. I have read Thunai Eluthu. I wanted to read Kathavilasam next. But my mom highly recommended Thesanthiri. She is an avid reader of Tamil books. So I bought this one. And it is a very good book, if you like travel writers and memoirs.

There are so many places, within India which are completely forgotten by people. This is a compilation of his experience when he travelled to these places. There is a part about pudukkottai and a place called "Nartha malai" in pudukkottai. I have lived in pudukkottai for about 7 years now and I had no idea about this place. It made me feel, how much I have missed in life in the last 21 years, given the fact I am an Indian. Reading the book, I swore to myself, one day I will take a month long trip from Kanya kumari to Kashmir.

The book is not just about the different experiences but also about the good people he meets along the way and interesting realizations about life. I simply loved the book. And have decided to read all of S.Ramakrishnan's work. (After I finish all of Malcolm Gladwell's books).

Summer movie review

1. UP:

Another great Pixar movie. Really liked the movie. The movie was released in the US months ago. But i waited until i can watch it on theatre. Didnt want to watch in my laptop. I dont understand why all Pixar movies are released late in Singapore. Anyways, the movie is not as good as Wall E or Finding Nemo. For pixar standards, not so great. But definitely 8 out of 10.

I liked the first 10 minutes of the movie. Without a single dialogue, that part was good. I also liked the speaking dog idea.

One more thing, there is no point in watching the movie in 3d. Wasted 5 bucks there.

2. GI JOE:

Please dont watch the movie. It is really bad. I hated every part of it. But that could be because i am not a great GI Joe fan. My friends and colleagues were surprised to learn that. They kept repeatedly asking if i have never played with a GI Joe action figure, when i was a kid. To be honest, nope. I have never played with a GI Joe. When i was a kid, i had so many toy cars around me and i always made up a story of how a convoy of cars go before and after my car. (Remember Basha movie?)

Anyways, the movie was a mixture of Iron man, spiderman, Superman, Terminator, Transformers, and even Star wars. But the car chase scene in Paris was good.

3. The Hangover:

It is a really surprise movie. I was once watching the preview of this movie in golden village few months back. And said to a friend sitting next to me, that this movie is going to be a big flop. I mean, we have seen loads of movies like this. And that too, the trailer was not so fantastic. But the movie was good. Really funny.

4. Harry potter:

The movie was really good. The special effects was also good. I like harry potter movies. But I dont read the book. There is a problem in reading harry potter books now. I shall give an example to explain why. It was before the 5th movie was released. I wanted to read the book before watching the movie. So i decided to go to a store nearby and bought the book. (I was in Chennai then). I started reading the book and i didnt understand anything. Then I said to myself, i will start reading from the first book, so that i shall understand what is being said in the 5th book. So wat did i do? I bought the first two books. I start reading the Philosepher's stone and it is damn boring. All i see are Daniel Radcliffe and Emma watson. Really difficult to picturize the book and it is quite bouring too. I mean, i have seen the movie. So you see my dilemma? The information shown in the movie is too minimal. So for people like me, we gotta wait until the next movie is being released.

5. Ice Age 3:

Was pure fun. Loved the movie. Wish i had seen it in 3D. Would have been amazing.

Looking forward to - District 9(directed by Peter Jackson), Still walking (a very different plot), Jennifers body(no reason, but Megan Fox)

Book Review: Three cups of Tea

This is a very inspiring book. Everyone should read it.

I really liked the book. It is a real life story of how Greg Mortenson, transformed the lives of so many thousand people in Pakistan. It is really amazing to read how much trouble the guy has endured to build a school in Pakistan and how he has built so many schools and enlightened so many lives after that incident. Mind you, he has spent more than a decade in a country, that is on top of the "Dangerous places on Earth" list and a country, where people like him (Americans) are generally disliked.

We all know, people are generally scared of Muslims in the western world. In their eyes, all muslims are terrorists. Recently the Bollywood star, Shah Rukh Khan was detained in the Newark airport, just because his last name was Khan. But it plainly is a very normal name in the muslim world. Pretty much 60% of all muslims i know have some sort of Khan in their name.

Along with Greg's troubles and pains in building schools in Pakistan, the book also touches few important events, like the 911. Greg Mortenson was actually there in Pakistan during the incident. And as he recalls in the book, one villager came running by and said to him in urdu, "I am really sorry. Some one has bombed a village named New York. You should leave Pakistan immediately" Imagine how much trouble Greg should have had to raise money for his foundation, after the 911 attacks.

I personally feel, American government can give few millions to him rather than giving billions to the Pakistani government. It will be spent more wisely.

As argued in the book, proper education alone will eradicate terrorism. Education about the world and education about Islam itself is necessary in that part of the world. The main reason for all this trouble is that few people completely mis-interpret Islam and use the strong belief that Muslims have in their religion for selfish needs.

I recall a recent article I read in New York times. Americans use the Drone missiles to just bomb the hell out of every inch of Swat valley in Pakistan and that is not going to control terrorism. It might eradicate few important terrorists. But normal citizens of Pakistan are angry. This anger itself will give rise to new Al-qaedas and LeTs. As Amartya Sen once said, the only way to develop a country is to educate the girls. Read the book and you will certainly agree with him.

Few useful links:

1. http://www.threecupsoftea.com/

2. http://www.gregmortenson.com/

3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greg_Mortenson

4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Asia_Institute

5. http://twitter.com/gregmortenson

6. http://gregmortenson.blogspot.com/

NUS life

I am a graduate now. It does feel good.

I discovered something interesting today. I started using my current google id, 4 years ago. And it became my primary contact id. Which means, my google account has the complete details of my NUS life. The mails, chats with my friends, etc, etc. I took some time today to go back and read through the chats and mails. It was really funny. I can see the difference between me 4 years ago and the me, today. It is surprising really how much 4 years can change you completely.

NUS life did change me a lot, both in good and bad ways. I became more aware of things around me. I was this innocent school kid, who didnt know anything. My parents gave so much importance to studying that they never taught me how to socialize with people. Adding to that the inferiority complex of coming from a village and lacking good english language skills, my first year in NUS was hell. But good thing was I wouldnt have faced my deepest fears, if i had chosen to study in Anna university instead. In that way, NUS was a great idea.

Looking back, third year of Engineering was very busy, with internships and attachments. Fourth year was the best year of my university life. Got a bunch of good friends during this year and my decision to stay off-campus was the best decision during my NUS life. Inspite of FYP, it was the most fun-filled year.

But NUS life has made me more cynical. I completely and honestly believe that people around me are selfish and cunning. These days, i never trust anyone. Thinking about it, me being a cynical person is not bad after all. Maybe NUS did prepare me for the future.

Most people in my batch accepted the NUS offer because of interest. But i accepted the offer only because of compulsion from my parents. During the first two years of my university life, i truly regretted my decision to come to NUS. But i completely changed my opinion during the last two years. The amount of oppurtunities provided to me by NUS was staggering, thousand times better than any Indian universities. There is a question of how much opportunities i made use of. But the fact still remains, NUS is easily far better than any Indian university. I gotta admit, I could have done so much more in NUS, if i had the maturity that i have now. Thinking about this, maybe, schooling when you are 3 years old is not a great idea. Maybe you should wait until you are 5 to start schooling.

I have few regrets though. I should have gone to Germany for the student exchange programme. I should have gone to NewYork for the Harvard conference. I should have stayed in PGP atleast for a semester. I should have spent more time in pudukkottai during the vacations, which i utterly wasted doing some pointless courses in chennai. I should have completed the Technoprenuership minor, which i dropped after doing one module. Shoudlnt have judged the minor based on one bad experience. If i had a time machine and i were able to go back and redo my entire university again, the first thing I would change is, i wouldnt have attended even one 'orientation' session.

And one very important realization after 4 complete years. Never ever take a module in NUS, which people say is easy. Always do the modules which you like.

ஒரு வானம் இரு சிறகு

Recently read this collection of tamil poems by Mu.Metha, titled, ஒரு வானம் இரு சிறகு. Not an amazing classic. But a pretty good read. It is a very small collection. I was able to complete it in one night. Anyways, some good poems from that collection.

சூரிய சந்திரர்

சும்மா இருக்கையில்

விளக்குக்கு கேட்குதாம் விளம்பரம்

.....

பதவிக்காக வலை விரிக்கப்பட்டது

பதவியும் வலையாய் விரிக்கப்பட்டது

கண் விளித்தால் இந்தியாவை காணவில்லை

......

கூடி கூடி பேசிக்கொண்டு இருகிறார்கள்

எபோது பிரிந்து போகலாம் என்று

.....

இங்கு யாருக்கும் முகமூடி தேவை இல்லை

எவனிடமாவது முகமிருந்தால் சொல்லுங்களேன்!

.....

இந்த மனிதர்கள்

முகவரிகளை

பத்திரப்படுத்தி விட்டு

முகங்களை

மறந்து போவர்கள் !

I personally liked the last two poems in the book. One about Barathiyar and the other about the cinemas.

Indian Foreign policy

Recently read this interesting article in the Reuters blog. It got me thinking about the challenges that Indian government is gonna be facing in the years to come. We need a strong foreign policy. It is time, we move on from free TVs to how to tackle china. I strongly believe, that India should take a leading role in the world. Afterall, we are one of the worlds fastest developing country. Unlike china, the growth of India is completely internal. We dont have a bunch of smart technocratic geniuses working in our capital for the betterment of the country. (Maybe we can hope to see that in the next 5 years) 

We badly need a foreign policy(I dont think we have one, except for a policy towards Pakistan. On a side note, i recently read, the Pakistan government has 64 nukes pointed directly at India) Pakistan is completely unstable now. No doubts there. They have a nuclear weapons programme that gets constant support from the people and the government. I dont think Pakistan people and the politicians get the idea that India is lot bigger now to worry only about Pakistan. 

Last few weeks, we have been getting Time Magazine in our home. Though you can read all the articles for free online, nothing beats reading the real magazine itself. On average, you can see  2 articles in every issue of Time about Pakistan. People in the west are really scared about Pakistan and most importantly about its nukes. US is already in too much trouble. Add to that the Pakistan nuke problem, Iran's Ahmadinejad and N.Korea's Kim Jong-il. The press is going crazy. 

My worry is this. Pakistan is getting so much support in terms of money, weapons and technology from the US for the time being. I dont wanna comment on the imminent threat that might post to the Indian stability. But I feel that the Indian government shuould be ready to tackle the military nightmare this advancement can pose in the later years. Indian army is one of the biggest in the world, with respect to manpower. But not in terms of technology. We are still far behind. The number of nukes, air-craft carriers, submarines we have can be counted. That is not a good thing. 

In every possible aspect, India should focus on how the future is going to be. I mean the future 10-20 years down the line. We are not a small under-developed third world nation anymore. With the US, Europe in shambles, it is time, we and other BRIC nations take responsibility in the global stage. 

It seems like China is already ready to do that. Their relations with many countries are constantly improving. China is funding billions to other nations, including countries in Africa and srilanka. They are constantly voicing their opinions against the Americans. Chinese premier recently called on to create a new currency that will replace the green back. Do you know what will happen, if that was made possible? With people dumping the US dollar, the dollar exchange rate will go down and the US government wont be able to afford anything, let alone the bailouts. 

And one more strategic thing is that, the Americans are getting more dependent on China and its exports. Add this to the fact that Pakistan is also getting close to the americans. Given this scenario, there is a very high probability that India could be left out. 

The new congress government should ensure this doesnt happen. They have enough smart people in the cabinet and hopefully they should realize what India should become in the future and act accordingly.

Project Madurai

For people who dont know about Project Madurai, here is the wiki page that gives all the information. Click here to go to their home page. In short, it is a project aimed at using the power of internet to spread the greatest language in the world, Tamil. (I am a Tamilian, what do you expect?) Greatness of Tamil cant be discribed in few paragraphs. Tamil manuscripts were recently discovered in Egypt and the inscriptions date back to 1st century BC. One of the oldest languages in the world is under threat. UNESCO lists Tamil as one of the few languages that could vanish in 50 years(source - Ananda vikatan). 

People gotta understand. Noone is forcing you to abandon English. Learn English, learn chinese, but not at the expense of Tamil. I recall a recent argument in Neeya Naana, where there were few tamilians who were born and brought up in Tamil Nadu, who sincerely felt, learning tamil was a waste of time. I was seriously upset, that there are people who find their own culture and language to be inferior. If you dont respect yourself and your culture, how will a third person respect you?

The project was started and supported by the Tamilians living abroad, not the people in Tamil Nadu who call themselves தமிழ் தாயின் புதல்வன். If you check the list of people who have contributed for the project, there are loads of people from the US, UK, etc. I also saw few professors from NUS including Dr. Ulrike Niklas, and prof Thinnappan, from the faculty of arts. And ya, Dr. Ulrike Niklas is not from Tamil Nadu. I am really impressed.

All the so called Sons of tamilnadu, please re think your strategy to save our mother tongue. Naming lousy tamil movies in Tamil is not going to spread Tamil.

Check out the list of the books that are available in pdf format. It ranges from agananooru, purananooru up until Jeyakanthan sirukathaigal. Only one thing is missing. If someone would take time in explaining the old tamil poems, it would be really helpful for people like me, who want to learn, but find the sangathamil and senthamil really difficult to understand.

thirukural

Congress Govt

India is the world's biggest democracy. The monumental 1 month long election itself is fascinating. Somehow the Congress government managed to win with a majority. I should say they deserve the victory. We have been through a very rouch ride, with the food crisis, economic crisis, Mumbai terror attack and numerous other small terrorist plots, etc etc etc. But India is in a far better shape than any other country.GDP growth is less, but we are not going to face a recession. Our banking system is pretty stable, thanks to RBI. 


I am actually glad, that the congress government is being elected with a full majority. There are no communists around to stop every possible growth. Without them in the picture, it is actually a good chance for Congress to come back and do something good for the country. 


These are the people who are completely responsible for India's growth today. They opened up India for foreign investments. They demolished the License Raj. Hopefully Mr.Singh's team should do a decent job in the next 5 years. I read an interesting article today in the India Today magazine. You can read it here. It is about what needs to be done in the next 5 years. 


Because we all know this term is going to be even more crucial for the congress government. They have to make an impact and make way for Rahul Gandhi to take over next time. When you look at him, Rahul is just an exact photocopy of Rajiv Gandhi. And that similarity alone is enough to make him the next PM. And it seems like he made a big impact in the UP elections this time. Remember, no party has ever captured power and formed a government in the central without winning UP. Even after breaking UP into 3 states, UP is still a big deal in India. Sadly, it is one of the most under-developed state too. One of the many reasons why the US presidential system wont work in India. 


Coming back to the point, this congress government is filled with great and smart people. First of all, our PM, Mr.Singh. One of the most respected politicians in India. Easily the most honest man in Delhi. It is an added plus that he is a finance genius. I personally admire Sonia Gandhi. First of all, she could have peacefully lived in Italy. But she chose to come to a chaotic country, India and lead a political party that was in a very bad shape. Second of all, she passed the PM post to Manmohan singh twice. Say whatever reason you want. When Mayawati wants to be a PM, what wrong can possibly arise from Sonia being the PM. But she didnt. That requires lots of courage and wisdom. That is a great political move, which won her respect among people and even the opposition, who have not made a single comment about her being a Italian born woman, during the last election. 


And then, P.Chidambaram. Another brilliant politician. The one and only Harvard educated politician in India. You should see the way he handled the shoe-throwing incident. A very composed and smart person. Am glad he is the home minister. We need some changes with respect to our attitude towards Pakistan. 


Shasi Tharoor. Have you seen his speeches? (lots available in youtube) He is another damn smart politician in the current Indian government. I was hoping he would be given the External affairs ministry. But sadly SM Krisha got the portfolio. But it is ok. Shasi Tharoor has been given the minister of state role for the external affairs ministry. Hopefully in the next term, he should become the cabinet minister. That would be awesome. 


Another disappointment with respect to portfoli allocation is Dayanithi Maran. He is obviously good at IT. But he was not given that portfolio, instead Raja got it. Really sad. I think it is our honourable CM who should have interferred and made sure that Maran didnt get IT. But lets hope Maran can make a big difference in the textile industry. 


I dont trust Pranab Mukerjee as the Finance minister. But lets wait for the first interim budget. Another disappointment was Kamal Nath. I thought he will get the commerce ministry. He did a great job last time. 


Anyways, lets hope the current cabinet can make an impact for years to come. Here is a great speech by Shashi Tharoor, in New York while releasing his book, "The elephant, the tiger and the cellphone". 





Shasi tharoor on the growth of cell phones in India. (below)

Book Review: Planet Google by Randall Stross

I have always admired Google, as a company. The growth of the company is staggering and that is not a surprise. Their business model is completely different. Unlike Microsoft, they will give you everything for free, but they will continue innovating. Surprisingly this business model is working perfectly for them. Microsoft has been trying to catch up with the Google search, but they are not even close. Their new search engine, sorry decision engine, Bing sux big time. A friend of mine had this status message few days ago, "Bing - But It's Not Google". So true. One important lesson that we need to take from companies like Yahoo is that, in Silicon valley, if you dont innovate and change according to the market, you will vanish. It seems like google has learnt that lesson. They have effectively moved onto the mobile market now, while constantly changing and innovating their existing services. I always read something new in Gmail labs or addition of new features in Google docs or introduction of completely new products. Quite often i get new and cool mobile apps from google as well, for my G1.

The above book by Randall stross is good. It gives a first hand report of how google emerged from a small dorm room to a world dominating company. The narrative style is very good. And this is not another book about statistics. the thing i like about the book is, the author has given a detailed analysis and its implications. So it doesnt feel like reading a history book. It seems like the author was present in every meeting that google ever conducted. It gives first hand report of why and how Google created an empire around its search business. It feels more like a novel. A rags-to-riches-story, that we all love.


Reading the book, i learnt how the google founders made use of every oppurtunity they got. Main reason for the success of google is, they were right-place-at-right-time. After the dot comm bubble, they literally paid pennies to buy huge data centres. When every other competitor of Google had invested millions and millions on Super computers to do the search, google on the other hand used the power of thousands of personal desktop computers. This, according to the author was a bold move by the Google founders which paid huge rewards later, both with respect to cost and technology.


The author recalls one incident during the intial days of Google. This happened many years ago. Marissa Mayer was a new employee (She was employee number 20 in Google, by then a unknown startup). When the company was still in very beginning stage, they didnt have enough programmers or computers. They struck a deal with Netscape, which agreed to divert every one of the five search requests it got from its user, which was so minimal in number compared to the number google is handling right now. But what happened was, the google servers couldnt manage the load and they went up in flames. Sergey brin and Larry page were devasted. After few mins, noone could find the founders. Marissa Mayer went searching for the founders and she found one of the founder in the nearby coffee shop, sitting in a corner. She asked him, why he was sitting there alone. And he said, "I am hiding". Marissa Mayer recently recalled in an interview, that she said to herself that the company would go bust in 2 months. But who knew then, that Google will become a multi-billion dollar empire.

If there is something that i learnt about Google from this book, it is their planning and dedication to quality and innovation. I shall give a small example. Google is offering a free service called, Goog-411. This service apparantly involves so much money and time. But Google did provide this service for free. When it was released 2 years ago, there were few critics who said, this is waste of time. But do you know why Google released this free service? It is to collect voice samples from people. During the last few years, the number of people in the US, who used this service increased in exponential terms. They collected so many millions voice samples, which was fed into an algorithm which used these voice samples to perfectly convert people's voice into text. This algorithm that google has is ten times effective as any other voice recognition system. Do you know what google is planning to do with these voice samples? To index audio content and Google Voice, which is their new service for mobile phones. Read up on Google voice. It is just stunning. Critics say, Google voice will completely change the way we use telephones and mobile phones.

But there could be potential problems with one company controlling all the information in the world. Google's motto is "Dont be evil". But for how long can they be not-evil? Recently in China, Google had two options.
1. To allow any search request irrespective of pro-communist party or anti-communist party. As a result they will be banned by the Chinese government and loose revenue.
2. They had another option to accept the terms of the chinese government and block loads of anti-communist party webpages. By this they can earn loads of money.
If Google should stick by its motto, they should have taken option number 1. But they didnt. Things like this make people wonder what Google is becoming.


Currently, they know all my mails. With the Google search, they know what i am interested in. With my android phone, all my contacts and their phone numbers are all saved in google servers. All my SMSes are stored in Google servers. With google voice, they can also know who i talk to and what i talk about. They know which stocks i am interested in thru Google Finance. they know my family and friends thru picasa and orkut. they know what i am doing today or two weeks down the line thru Google calendar. They know my current location using Google latitude. They also know what videos and news content i like. So literally Google knows everything about me. This is a serious privacy concern.


I recall an interview i read recently, where the VP for search in Google said, they have only indexed 5% of the world's information. Their ultimate aim is to make Google so ubiquitous that you can go to google.com and type, "What shirt should i wear today?" or "Which job should i take?" and Google will give you an answer. Google has created a brand value which is based completely on trust. So I sincerely trust Google and same goes for so many million people who use Google services everyday. Lets all hope, Google sticks by its motto, "Dont be evil".