Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales at Techfest '08

"Imagine a world where anybody has access to the sum of human knowledge"
And if Wikipedia is the first search result that you imagined, then you're right there!
Jimmy Wales, the funder of Wikipedia was in town and the quote above was according to him responsible for the Genesis of the revolutionary encyclopedia.

Wales walked up the dais to a standing ovation by the enthusiastic crowd only to figure out a mic failure at IITB's convocation hall. However the dint goof up for too long and Wales announced to that in addition to the Techfest trophy just given out ( to IITB of course), he'd like to give out another award to the crowd: that of the biggest audience he has ever addressed.

Wales presented on the history of Wikipedia, its present and the future course of path.He emphasized on the importance of the collaboration culture while giving out various facts and figures that also included a video of the Wiki projects in Africa.

Wales' philosophy of a collaborative culture is to make things as open and public as possible ad keep open the possibility of spontaneous goodwill and discover the bad possibilities in the due course as against the very popular idea of apprehending the negative outcomes and taking precautions in advance.
He thinks, by doing this we can make it cheaper for a person to do good deeds and raise the cost of the bad deeds/possibilities. Wikipedia blocks users and IP addresses to moderate content and keep away the bad guys.

Wales also stated the importance of blogging and that the best of bloggers are akin to the opinion columnists at the NYT.

• When asked about the uncyclopedia, Jimmy Wales said that he loved the spoof so much that they bought it and is now a part of wikipedia.
• On Google's Knol: A leading magazine had nicked him as a threat to Google, but Wales says they're friendly with Google and Knol is not a competitor because of its nature of operation.
• On when will Wiki saturate: Wikipedia English may be done with on this Tuesday, or maybe Wednesday.. its like a lot of new info is coming up and we cant really say when we'll be done with. But theres a lot of scope in the other languages especially Indian and African languages.
  

Jimmy Wales if not the best orator Ive heard is certainly got the vision it needs to change the walk of world. All in all, hes not another brick in the wall.








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Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed are solely the author's and are subjective.They are not intended to influence,offend or hurt anybody living or dead.The articles may have a tendency to be satirical and or sarcastic.

BarCamp Techfest 01

Its been long since I wanted to be at a BarCamp, and finally i got a chance this Sunday at Techfest '08 IITB .Before listing my notes Id like to share what fascinated me in this concept and a little insight about what a BarCamp is all about.

The barcamp has got nothing to do with the booze and the bar.This concept was started by Chris Messina and the name is inspired by FooCamp that has restricted membership. The BarCamp is an open platform to share and gain knowledge in an informal way. Its like one of those dream classrooms where you don't need permission to walk in or out and you could do that even mid way if you're not enjoying the discussion; just to walk into another classroom. As far as the discussions go, anybody can take up center stage for about 20-30 min max and present on any topic to an audience who're either wi-fied with their laptops or just glued to their notepads. In fact I just missed this little school kid present on an offbeat topic, and boy! The kid was all pepped up with his laptop as a member of the audience later.The BarCamp also exhibits tremendous potential in terms of a networking platform. The boards outside these classrooms had various chits stuck onto them offering job opportunities and collaboration invitations; I just happened to get a freelance opportunity because of this. Moreover, the BarCamp has no shape, you can mould it the way you want to. A couple of entrepreneurs exploited this fundaa to launch their companies at BarCamp Techfest.

Notes:
1) Mykavita.com launched. A webportal based on the wordpress platform supported by the creative commons liscencing that allows users to upload poems in various Indian languages.

2) Language translation is a highly sought after tool on the internet. Research on ease of translation from any given language to any other language and vice versa(not just english to langage x and vice versa).

3)Mobile devices going a long way with the open source platform. If there ain't Linux down ur mobile phone , you better shove it up or get one with it.

4) Nokia cellphones not to be addressed as 'cellphones'. They are refered to as 'computers' at their Finland base. Its akin to a crime for an employee to use the term 'phone'.

5)The ipod touch has everything that an iphone has except phone calls and smses. Atul chitnis recommends the pod ,as the phone has poor voice quality and can send only a single sms at the time(no group smses).

6)Open Moko, the ope souce phone has come up with an improved GUI and a rare 640x480 touchscreen.

7)The major cost of developing a cellphone lies in the software and not in its hardware.

8) BarCamp Rocks!


copyrights reserved by Pseudonormicks and boy luvarien.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed are solely the author's and are subjective.They are not intended to influence,offend or hurt anybody living or dead.The articles may have a tendency to be satirical and or sarcastic.

Elecrama '08: the industrial electronics hub

1. Its not the best thing to do when you decide to visit Elecrama on the last day, not only do u gasp at its humongous outreach as a first timer but you are also left asking for more.

Ive been postponing my visit to this international industrial electronics exhibition ever since my first year in Electronics engineering, but now in the final year , the guilt was to high to ignore, so i made a business class visit with my uncle.
Elecrama '08 in its eight year had over 1000 exhibitors in addition to select student projects spread across the entire areas of the Bombay Exhibhition Center. That just explains why people ain't done in a day(no pun intended).The event was held for four days and manifested a smooth and delightful visit for the guests.

VESIT has been consistently winning the trophy in the students category, and this year too they bagged the first and third prizes from among the five projects they submitted.The winners had designed an excellent solution for industrial power distribution by making it completely wireless(thats like wi-fi switch controls for machines from a central room). The runners up were from K.J Somaiya's Baraccuda team (the F1 car they recently produced), but the project was to lame for the second place. Why would you replace a remote by a wheel-paddle setup to drive a toy car with a camera? Well engineers don't take Economics too seriously, so real estate is literally a bubble.The 2nd runners up again from VESIT, had presented a prototype of an uber cool wireless telemetry system named 'Scryer'(see pic). Apart from technical excellence, the VESIT exhibitors manifested professionalism in their attire, presentation ; they even had brochures stocked to distribute akin to the industrial exhibitors, that made my uncle ask what exactly was I doing in this engineering college,just to get back a smirk.

All said and done, this place is certainly worth a visit if you looking for some kind of a solution for your business or just wish to keep yourself abreast with the latest happenings in the industrial field

copyrights reserved by Pseudonormicks and boy luvarien.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed are solely the author's and are subjective.They are not intended to influence,offend or hurt anybody living or dead.The articles may have a tendency to be satirical and or sarcastic.