Soccer World Cup 2006 is a benchmark not just for its size

Filed in Uncategorized, June 22, 2006, 12:04 pm by ,

The entire world is savoring the world’s biggest sports spectacle – The FIFA World cup 2006 is blowing away attendance records with 3 million attendees, additional 12 million in public viewing areas in the major host cities, billions of people watching on TV. Contrast this with the Super Bowl, the biggest event in the USA which attracts about 100MM viewers. If that is not enough to make your head spin, consider the security ramifications. One incident could create devastating damage.  To tackle this, the world cup organizers have tapped several recent technological advances to make the world cup a dramatically more secure event: 1. Personal identification is mandatory in the stadiums and is coded into an RFID tag in each one of the 3.2 million tickets.
2. When the spectator passes the entrance gates, the identity as coded in the RFID tag is checked against the database.
3. Once inside the stadium, the seat location is sensed using the same RFID tag. If someone makes trouble, his/her location can be instantly determined.
4. The stadiums are equipped with advanced video surveillance systems which are capable of zooming in and reading even the brochure in the spectator’s hand.
5. Security personnel are equipped with fast fingerprint scanners to instantly check a troublemaker’s print against police databases. the list goes on. 
(Via IEEE Spectrum)

DNA Fingerprinting on Interesting Thing of the Day

Filed in Uncategorized, June 14, 2006, 4:03 am by

My guest article on DNA Fingerprinting aired on ITOTD today. As always, Joe’s editing and polishing makes even my writing look good. Thanks Joe. Check it out.

Blogs and Wikis will be dead by 2012

Filed in Uncategorized, June 13, 2006, 12:24 am by

Mike Harrison of Kineo has made a provocative prediction that by 2012 Wikis and Blogs will be dead. [Click on the Breeze presentation for more details on his vision].  He has also included SMS in the extinction list.  Nick, you have company, I guess. Here is an interesting rebuttal from Demin Barlas published by Destination KM:

Blogs will survive for the same reason civil rights will survive — people who have won important freedoms do not easily give those freedoms back. The blogosphere is freedom: freedom to read the entire spectrum of human reaction and commentary, not just the handful of views pimped by the mainstream press; freedom to create one’s own responses to the world right from the computer; freedom to be part of an alternative audience; freedom to cultivate an alternative audience (most of us, alas, don’t have TV shows, newspaper columns, and big reading publics of our own, but does that mean we should say nothing?); and freedom to form our own relationships with information.

Couldn’t agree more. <Via Madan Menon>

Google Spreadsheets

Filed in Technology, June 6, 2006, 11:14 am by ,

A while ago, I placed my bets with Microsoft for coming up with Officelive. Well, Google is responding – Cant wait for a subscription to Google Spreadsheets. I am already impressed with their calendar – a quick review of the same can be found here. A well integrated Google Desktop, Notebook, Calendar and other Office tools will definitely pose a siginficant challenge to Microsoft.Note the emphasis on well-integrated which is missing in the popular MS-Office products – I still spend a good amount of time with copy & paste operations. But, I am puzzled with the Google business model. Can a significant number of consumers along with small businesses reach a tipping point to convert the enterprises? As the old chinese proverb says, we do live in interesting times.

The Story of the Weeping Camel – Moving Drama

Filed in Uncategorized, , 10:00 am by

It is a superb ethnographic documentary that Priya Raju picked up from the British Council library over the weekend. Directors Byambasuren Davaa and Luigi Falorni travelled to Mongolia to shoot this documentary about a family of camel herders , who are faced with a challenge – one of their camels has rejected its new born colt. They decide to perform the traditional “Hoos Ritual”  to help unite the mother and child. Does it work? See for yourself.
The Washington Post review says :

The most wrenching passages in “The Story of the Weeping Camel,” which rivals the melodramas of Douglas Sirk in its unapologetic plucking of heartstrings, feature the wobbly little creature bleating plaintively for his mother, who alternately attacks him and turns away from him with unheeding hauteur.

The Mongol Embassy website describes the Hoos Ritual thus:

In their many years of nomadic life, the Mongols have developed their own specific techniques of handling livestock.  One technique employs toig, a special coaxing word, which is uttered or rather sung when a ewe is being coaxed into accepting a rejected lamb. The word toig is used with sheep only; for goats, the word is choig; for camels, hoos. In the latter instance, the morin huur (horsehead fiddle) accompanies the singing.

If you are into understanding other cultures and/or love animals, this is a must-see.