With this latest innovation, Anupam joins the prestigious ranks of other alarm clock inventors of desi origin. What is it with us desis and alarm clocks anyway?

Rise and shine with this desi’s invention - Über Desi

India’s first unmanned lunar spacecraft, Chandrayaan 1, has placed a probe on the surface of the Moon. The probe, painted with the Indian flag, touched down at 2034 (1504 GMT), the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said.

How effective was the news coverage over here in the US? To use an euphemism, not very. While the BBC has quickly latched on to this news, at the time of posting, the major cable news channels CNN, MSNBC and FoxNews are blissfully unaware of any such event. The network news channels haven’t fared much better either.

The peacock has landed - Über Desi

When you do get a chance visit the SAJA blog, they do a great job of keeping us in the loop about Desi events happening here in the US. They also analyze and discuss events from a Desi angle.

The podcast from SAJA ‘The South Asian Blogosphere and How it is Changing the Media’ - Über Desi

The PC Guru - Über Desi

Hey folks – We just launched the Indian version of MySpace. We’re featuring more Indian music and some of the features should work better with local postal codes, etc.

As a result, my lawyers told ME what I have to tell YOU: now that MySpace is looking more Indian, you should know that we are still running our site from the US, all your data still resides in the US, and that MySpace’s data management practices are still governed by US laws.

Tom (I created MySpace !)
Click HERE to show me you read this. –Thx Tom

Previously we blogged about privacy concerns of Orkut users in India, specifically Mumbai.
[1,2,3]

Even though the MySpace servers reside outside India, is it going to be that easy for MySpace to dodge the bullet of government interference in India? My guess is ultimately someone will post something on MySpace that will “offend” some powerful entity in India resulting in the Indian government threatening to “ban” MySpace in India, since they cannot legally get to MySpace’s servers. When that happens will MySpace buckle or stand firm? Stay tuned.

MySpace India addresses privacy concerns - Über Desi

Nataraj image at the CERN centre
Source: about.com

One of the largest science experiments in recent times, recreation of the Big Bang, the beginning of this world as we know it (and something the creationists from all religions won’t agree with). The Large Hadron Collider experiment, taking place near the French-Swiss border in a 27 kilometer long tunnel underground (link) has been the subject of intense speculation for some. Just to be an impartial observer, the doomsday theorists predicted that the nature of the experiment could create black holes (High school physics 101), and one of them would be strong and stable enough to wipe out Earth itself. While others working on the experiment rubbished any such theories while concentrating on the benefits - contributions to cancer research , climate research and even disposal of nuclear waste (link).

So what is going on in the experiment? A collision of opposing beams of protons charged with 7 Tera electron Volts of energy, and it will help in the search for the ever elusive ‘Higgs Boson’ particle.

The desi connection did you say? Well more than one - while India only has an ‘observer’ status in this experiment, the services offered by eminent Indian scientists has been summarized by Rediff here.

LHC is expected to answer several facts of fundamental nature of the universe that remains a mystery, said the scientists of Tata Institute of Fundamental Research.

Towards the scientific side, two Indian teams are participating in different experiments.

Each of these collaborations is huge with 1000-2000 scientists from 125-150 top class institutions from 20-30 countries participating in it.

Each full detector costs around $400-500 million to build and the R&D and fabrication takes around a decade.

Prof Raghav Verma of Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai, representing Indian scientists, has carried an Indian flag, IIT sources said.

Now, many of us have seen the statue of Lord nataraj dancing and it was only appropriate that a statue depicting creation, destruction, protection be placed at the CERN center. (link).

The first phase of the experiment has been done with the protons colliding while beams are directed in a clock-wise direction, and data enough to fill 56 million CDs and super computers crunching this data looking for relevant scientific info. We are presumably safe and the second phase wil involve the beams travelin in anti-clockwise directions. However, an oft mentioned urban legend, the Mayan calendar ends in 2012 and many consider this the end of the world, and this what some have to say:

IT could take four years for the experiment to bring doomsday, say some scientists.

By coincidence the ancient Mayan calendar finishes then — on December 21, 2012.

The vast majority of experts say it won’t happen.

Self-proclaimed experts used to believe the world was flat, the moon was made of cheese and England would win the 2006 World Cup.

Scientist Otto Rossler tried to get the European Court to ban the tests. He warns: “Nothing will happen for at least four years. Then the weather will change completely, wiping out life. There will be a Biblical Armageddon.”

Good luck until then, any concerns, our scientists on UD (including me) will try to answer your questions in the most confusing and funny way possible!

Nataraj at CERN - Über Desi

Some n00b has totaled his/her LP-640 (that’s the Lamborghini Murciélago Roadster, for you uninitiated n00bs) in Mumbai, of all places. *sigh* And the Team-BHP forums, has a few more unsubstantiated mentions of accidents involving high end cars (incl. Rolls Royce Phantoms and Bentley Arnages) in India.

It is understood that this driver lost control while taking a right turn at 4 in the morning and went over the divider. And it seems that the driver is perfectly fine, which, btw speaks volumes about such cars. Not so much for the drivers themselves.

This driver has to be a n00b, considering the damage (I am weeping tears of blood). Why do these idiots not understand that these beasts need lots of space to exercise? Apart from the Mumbai-Pune expressway, there is no road (apparently) in India worthy of unleashing the horses in a beast such as this one. And the douche-bags all round the world who crash these supercars (like this one) don’t realize that.

*sigh*

A Lamborghini totaled - in INDIA! - Über Desi

After the effort to build a $100 PC, which we featured here on Über Desi and Nicholas Negroponte’s $100 laptop scheme comes a brand new scheme by the HRD Ministry of India to build a $10 laptop. Unlike other grandiose government schemes this one seems to be close to fruition than one would expect.

So far, the cost of one laptop, after factoring in labour charges, is coming to $47 but the ministry feels the price will come down dramatically considering the fact that the demand would be for one million laptops.

The final choices for design are between that of two engineering college student.

The two designs with the ministry are from a final year engineering student of Vellore Institute of Technology and a researcher from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.

Among other factors, the design is expected to stay simple and parts manufactured in India, which the interested parties feel will bring down costs and, of course, as with most government projects the earliest these may be available is 2 years or later.

My initial opinions are that of guarded optimism. While it’s great that the Indian government has taken the initiative to provide affordable $10 laptops, at this stage it’s unclear how the government arrived at this figure and what compromises have to made not only in the design of the machine but also in how much of the taxpayers money will be used/wasted in this risky project. It is also unclear on what the project’s fate will be if there is a change on governments, which seems likely considering the Congress party’s performance in recent elections and the omnipotent anti-incumbency factor in Indian politics.

While it is truly heartening to note that the Indian government has preferred to move away from the concept of antiquated desktops, another question arises, why laptops?

We’ve previously made arguments, not necessarily against computers, but in favor of the use of mobile phones as information devices. [UD link]

In days of yore, which translates to roughly 6 years in computer technology, people used to rely on computers to browse the internet and for running useful applications like MS Word and MS Excel. Besides the fact that most encyclopedic knowledge is available online, with the advent of online tools like Google Docs, a computer or even a laptop could arguably be replaced with a phone that has a robust internet browser and easier-to-use keyboard. If the purpose of these $10 laptops is simply to enable the students online where most of the information is, in fact, an argument could be made for the Indian government to make the push for a $10 iPhone. Yes, it’d be pretty challenging to type a 1000 word essay on a mobile phone keyboard, but think of all the money saved on IT services, expensive software, networks, firewalls, servers, (the list goes on), since the cell phone company would take care of the infrastructure.

Thoughts? Opinions?

Indian govt hopes to make $10 laptop - Über Desi

Tesla is an automobile startup that produces high performance automobiles with a difference - their cars are battery-electric hybrids. Their first first production vehicle (lucky customers have started taking deliveries), the Tesla Roadster, is an all-electric sports car capable of a top (governed) speed of 125 mph with a range of 221 miles on a single charge.

The reason that we is talking about Tesla today is that the company has gotten itself its first Über CFO. Ex- Ford executive Deepak Ahuja is joining Tesla as their new CFO. Previously Ahuja (an IT-BHU, Northwestern and Carnegie Melon alum) was the controller/CFO for a number of successive Ford ventures. Most recently, Deepak oversaw the financial angles of Ford’s strategic initiative to bring several of their fuel efficient cars from Europe to the US.

Considering the birthing pains that Tesla has undergone - their founders acrimonious departure, the Fisker lawsuits, the powertrain issues - the company seems to be finally moving forward with the customer deliveries.

And regardless of Fisker’s plans to introduce a similar car of their own, Tesla is still considered by many as the pioneer of eco-friendly sports car. Tesla has recently set up a design studio and just yesterday, it was announced that Franz von Holzhausen, hot shot head of Mazda’s design studio (and the main brain behind several Mazda concepts that have recently appeared in various autoshows to universal acclaim) has been picked to lead it.

While it remains to be seen if Ahuja’s contributions to Ford’s successes (the paradigm shift to get Ford’s hot Euro offerings to the US should count as a success, IMHO) will move with him to Tesla, things should certainly improve. So Ahuja certainly seems to be joining Tesla at a time when its stock is rising. We, at ÜberDesi, wish him the very best.

Deepak Ahuja - Tesla Motors’ new CFO - Über Desi

In case you have been living under a rock or something, Rajat & Jayant Agarwalla pulled their popular Scrabble like app off Facebook last week (Pssst.. check out Scrabulous.com), after they were sued in US federal court in New York, by Hasbro Inc.

After months of uncertainty, Hasbro (who signed a deal last year with video game maker Electronic Arts to develop digital versions of the classic board games including Monopoly, Scrabble and Yahtzee), went ahead with the lawsuit after EA announced the launch of its online version of Scrabble on its portal, Pogo.com and a similar Facebook app soon.

But now the Scrabulous’s creaters have the game’s back up on Facebook in another format (Wired News), arguably different, but with all the familiar touches that we have all grown to like.

Instead of Scrabble-like square tiles, for instance, Wordscraper has circles. The tiles earning double and triple points have been rearranged, and tiles for quadruple points have been added.

So I am thinking that we can all play and get our quota if we agree not to call it Scrabble? And I am in! However my suggestion is that you use the words “tokens” and “shelf” instead of the standard Scrabble you know whats.

But I am not too happy that Wordscraper will not let me use all the seven “tokens” on my “shelf” to spell “LANGOTI”. Come on guys! We are desi, yaar! And the langoti is what we roll in!

You can now join the Über Desi group on Facebook.

Wordscraper - Facebook’s Phoenix? - Über Desi