Twitter @sk2eet

Finally I am on twitter. After giving it a long thought, I decided it is indeed necessary for me to be on twitter. Follow me on twitter @sk2eet.

After doing some basic twitter setup, I am all set to beat Lady GAGA in twitter following...Ho ho ho ho !!

Facebook: Behind the scene Release Engineering

I just came across this excellent article which gives the details behind the team working on releasing and deploying the latest code on the site of Facebook. 

Enjoy reading this. It is one of the very few reads which also inspires you to learn how to code, for the rest of us, may be we can borrow and idea or two from this excellent piece.

PS: I hate writing these short posts. Boy I need to get me a twitter account and I should need that fast.

Apple's stock overtakes the stock price of Google

For the first time in history the price of Apple's share exceeds the stock price of Google. Very sad that Steve Jobs is not alive to see this. What a perfect timing for this to happen. Yesterday only Larry Page called Steve Jobs act of destroying Android an act of show and today Apple's stock surpassed the value of Google's stock. Hope this is getting Larry's attention.

At the close of the market this is what it looks like:
GOOG 632.32 -2.83 (-0.45%)
AAPL         633.68    +9.37 (1.50%)

I was reading over the internet and this is what some pro Apple analyst have to say about the rise of Apple's share - "First stop, Google, next stop Priceline, final destination, Berkshire Hathaway."

Video: Google(X) - Project Glass

Watch the video below and see how Google is planning to revolutionize the way we see things. This has been in talks for a long time and it seems Project Glass is one of the very ambitious projects coming out of Google(X).

Amazing video.

 

Prometheus - Official Full HD Trailer

Alien meets Avatar and that makes me very excited to watch this one. Hopefully this will be another good one by Sir Ridley Scott.

Kiva robots in action

Amazon bought Kiva Systems for $775 million. Check out the press release here. Watch this amazing video below to see Kiva robots in action. Kiva Systems specializes in making warehouse robots.

The Skynet vision of James Cameron is coming true, slowly but surely.

My new iPad

It took me less than 30 minutes to buy the new iPad. I walked in to the near by Best Buy store on Friday night (16^th March, the day Apple made the new iPad available). I entered the store at 8:50 pm and by 9:15 pm I was walking out of the doors of the Best Buy store with the new iPad. I might be the last customer to buy the iPad as the store closes at 9:00 pm. Who cares if you are first or last. Important point is, I was able to buy the new iPad and that to on the very same day it started selling out and that to without standing in lines for hours and hours or waiting for the mailman to come.

I totally loved the new iPad. The one I bought is black and 16gb. I wanted the one with 32gb but 16gb also works for me. As this is my first iPad I am in no position to compare the screen resolution and to me it is just magical. The reading experience on the new iPad is just awesome and I have no complains while watching the videos as well. The moment I unwrapped the new iPad and after going through the initial setup process, I downloaded the “Khan Academy app” as my first new app on the iPad. I guess I just don’t need to explain why Khan Academy as I have already wrote quite a bit on this blog about that.

I guess the new iPad or as a matter of fact any previous versions of the iPad or the iPhone are perfect examples of what Apple products are all about. While holding the new iPad in the palm of my hand there are various thoughts going on in my mind but there is this one particular thought I wanted to share – “Why the hell they took so long to put Sir in front of Jonathan Ive? “


My new iPad....loved it....totally.

Apple - The new iPad (Liveblog summary)

Apple TV (not the TV set)

Apple introduces new Apple TV with 1080p support and a new streamlined user interface.

The new iPad

Apple sold 15.4 million iPads​ in the last quarter.

The new iPad with 2048 x 1536 retina display.

That's 3.1 million pixels which is highest ever in a mobile device. 264 ppi.

Around 40 percent better color saturation than before.

A5X processor with quad-core graphics. Apple says the A5 is "twice as fast" and the A5X offers "four times the​ performance."

5-megapixel backside illuminated sensor on the back, 5-element lens, IR filter, and ISP built into ​the A5X chip. Auto-exposure, auto-focus.

1080p video recording.

Voice dictation (No SIRI).

4G LTE (on both AT&T & Verizon); iPad 2 has 3.1Mbps on EV-DO, 7.2 on HSPA.

New iPad now has 21Mbps HSPA+ and DC-HSDPA at 42Mbps, with LTE at 73Mbps.

Verizon, Rogers, Bell, Telus and AT&T will be the LTE parnters. The new iPad will be 3G world-ready.

The iPad can be a personal hotspot if allowed by the carrier.

10 hours of battery life still. 9 hours on 4G.

$499 for 16GB; 32 is $599; and 64GB for $699. If you want 4G it's $629, $729 and $829.

Same prices as current iPad, available on March 16th.

The pre-orders start today in US, Canada, UK, France, Germany, Switzerland & Japan.

All launching on the same day. This is Apple's biggest rollout ever.

The new iPad will be available on Mar 23rd for many other countries. Please check the Apple site for more details.

Raspberry Pi - Credit card sized PC on sale now for $35

This is indeed a very exciting news. Raspberry Pi which is in the news all over the internet for the past few weeks finally went on sale today for just $35. The credit card sized PC runs Linux and it looks pretty cool. I have ordered mine from the following link and I guess it will take around 30 days or more before I'll get one.

This item is heavily back ordered so if you want to buy one I suggest that you should order ASAP. This link is specially for people buying Raspberry Pi in the US as the unit is getting sold only in the UK as of now. There will be a $20 shipping & handling fee on top of $35 so for a mere 55 bucks you can experience the magic of the world's smallest PC and see it in action running in your home or office.

Watch this amazing video to see Raspberry Pi in action. Just can't wait to get mine.

               

Will there be an iPad3 event invite tomorrow ?

If we all believe in the rumors going around for the launch of Apple’s most awaited iPad3, then tomorrow should be the big day. Let me explain why?

Last year Apple send the invite to the press (exactly one week before the launch) on Feb 23^rd to launch the iPad2 on March 2^nd.  Now both Feb 23^rd and March 2^nd were Wednesdays and we all know that Apple loves Tuesdays and Wednesdays to launch their new product. Now according to the rumors, Apple this year should launch the iPad3 in the 1^st week of March. Going by that calculation and my intuitions, Apple will launch the iPad3 on 7^th March (Wednesday).

Why March 7^th? Today is 28^th Feb, so by now Apple should have send the invite (one week gap between invite and launch theory i.e if they are planning to launch the iPad3 on 6^th March (Tuesday)), but there is no news of the invites yet.  If 7^th March (Wednesday) is the date set by Apple to release the iPad3 then the members of the press should receive their invites tomorrow i.e 29^th Feb (i.e exactly one week before the launch). Apple sure should take the advantage of tomorrow i.e 29^th Feb to send the invite, as this date is special as we all know that we all will be seeing the next 29^th Feb not before 2016.

We will see what happens tomorrow, but going by my theory mentioned above I am having this feeling that the invites will be coming tomorrow. We’ll see.


Update: My intuitions were correct (Apple is launching the new iPad on 7th March) but my invite date was wrong. I don't have to prove it to anybody but it seems I was composing the post mentioned above and at the same time Apple sends out their invite to the media. 

Why I choose to invest in Apple? (Apple shares hit $500)

In March 2010, just before the launch of the first iPad I kept some hard earned money aside and bought some shares of Apple. I always wanted to invest in Apple but the shares of Apple were too high for me to invest. Somehow I gathered some courage and finally made an investment in Apple. So far I am happy that I have made that decision as today Apple crossed the $500 a share mark and is still unstoppable. The year to date gain of Apple shares is around $95 per share. I always believed in whatever Steve Jobs had to say about Apple and its unbeatable products, but I never anticipated that my investment will grow by 135% in less than 2 years. A freakin 135%. I am pretty sure there are many other stocks that have gained much more than 135% during the last couple of years, but the question is how many of them are reliable and maintain a continuous upward trend.

Many analysts believe that the shares of Apple have huge potential in the coming few years and this is just the beginning. I cannot comment on that as I am not an expert but one thing is for sure that Apple will continue to dominate the field of consumer electronics for atleast couple of years. I am an investor of Apple so I want this party to go on forever and ever, but keeping into consideration the upcoming product line up (speculations only) it seems Apple will surely do wonders both for its consumers as well as for its investors.

Incredible management team: Apart from its strong product line up, Apple is also having an smart and solid management team. As we all know that nobody can replace Steve Jobs. Steve’s untimely death is not slowing down Apple as the shares of Apple grew by around 32% after Steve’s death. I guess Tim Cook is the best person to replace Steve Jobs as he was the one who rectified and strenghten Apple’s supply chain. Till date Apple’s supply chain is one of the primary reasons why Apple keeps on delivering punches after punches on its competitors. Sir Jonathan Ive, the brilliant design engineer of Apple who designed almost every new product of Apple is another reason why Apple products are so popular. The design team at Apple led by Ive is one hell of a team and is responsible for designing everything from the early iMacs to the latest iPads. Scott Forstall, the senior vice president of the iOS division of Apple is another master player in this incredible management camp of Apple. If you want to know more about Scott and I recommend you should, then read this excellent article “Scott Forstall, the Sorcerer's Apprentice at Apple” published by Business Week. The shares of Apple might take a solid hit if any one of these 3 people decided to move away from Apple.

Apple products, the legacy of the late Steve Jobs: I sound very confident when I mentioned above that for the next 2 years it will be hard to displace Apple from its current position and the reason are the upcoming Apple products. We all are used to seeing computers which says “Intel Inside” in the same way I guess the products which will be released by Apple in the coming few years will surely have Steve’s magic touch and vision inside them. According to me and keeping into consideration the current Apple product release pattern the following products should have Steve’s visison tied to them in one way or the other - iPhone 5 (2012), iPhone 5S/6 (2013), iPad 3 (2012), iPad 4 (2013) and ofcourse the much talked about Apple TV or iTV or whatever (late 2012 or early 2013).

I guess things will start becoming interesting for Apple post 2013. The year 2014 should be the true test for Tim Cook and his team as the world will be watching in anticipation what new or improved products Apple has to offer. Apple has always captured the market share with its awesome and amazing products. Though Apple will miss the midas touch of Steve, but still the company got the potential to make it huge beyond imagination. As Apple crossed the $500 share mark people have already started discussing about how long will Apple take to make it to $1000. Will Apple ever reach $1000 a share? Will Apple become the company with the market capitalization of $1 trillon dollars? Will Apple keep on delivering one magical product after another? What would be the business model for the new Apple TV? How will Apple change the TV viewing paradigm? With these and many new and exciting questions on our minds both the consumers and investors of Apple are celebrating its success.

After investing in Apple I always used to tell my friends, “When you spend money buying that iPhone or iPad or whatever Apple has to offer you spend money and when you spend money on Apple I make money”. This is true that the shares of Apple have more value than Apple products but what will happen to the shares of Apple if everybody started to have this same philosophy. What makes Apple shares so great are the great products Apple has to offer and till the time Apple is offering those conspicuous products and winning the trust and hearts of many the shares of Apple will keep climbing higher and higher. As I said earlier the coming few years will be very exciting and still Apple has to achieve a lot of market share. Till then, let the drums roll and let the party continue. 


BTW, the markets got closed here in the US and the Apple share closed at $502.60 (up $9.18 or 1.86%).

Corning: A day made of Glass - Part Deux

Last year I shared the amazing concept video from Corning (A day made of Glass). You can check out that post and the video here.Now whats amazing about this video is this particular video does not only give us the glimpse of the future but also made us realize that how far we are from achieving it. Anyways this year Corning has released their 2nd video in the series of "A day made of Glass". I recommend you to watch it no matter what. This video is simply superb. I am just waiting for this to happen and to happen soon.

Very good concept and excellent presentation.

Spirit of the Marathon

Time is flying. Sure it does. Before we know it January is over and soon spring will be here in the US. The beginning of the spring will start the incredible season of running. I know season won't matter to some people who are hard core runners. But good weather can bring out the best in you and lift your running spirit all together.

Anyways if you are planning to make your running season more fun and challenging and you are someone who is looking for an inspiration to run and would like to make running an integral part of your life, then you should watch out this excellent documentary which goes by the name of "Spirit of the Marathon". I watched this last night and have enjoyed every bit of it. You can go to Hulu and search for it or you can watch it here from my post.



The documentary revolves around both professional and amateur marathoners and how they overcome various challenges to run the marathon. It does not require to be a marathoner to watch this documentary. You will enjoy this even if you are someone who is training for the 5K (as for most of us that is the starting point) or if you are training for the more challenging half or full marathon.

Well I myself has set some challenging goals as far as my running is concerned and I am training very hard to achieve it. Hope I'll be able to achieve what I have planned. Good luck to you all as well. If you are the first time runner then forget about the timings and pace, finishing is the most important part and the rest can be worked on. Having fun and enjoying while you are running is more important for a runner.

Run hard, train hard and leave everything in the hands of destiny.

Review: The Grey

Last weekend I got the chance to see “The Grey”. The movie was good and if you like adventure stuff then you should go and check this out. The movie is about the oil workers working in the oil fields of Alaska and how their lives went upside down when their plane crashed in the punishing and ruthless wilderness of Alaska. Liam Neeson has done a perfect job in leading the the gang and putting a decent fight against the pack of wolves. The direction looks awesome and cinematography is breath taking.

“The Grey” is not your normal action/adventure movie, this movie is kind of different as it is a mix of adventure, some action and lots of decent acting performances by most of the actors. Joe Carnahan, the director of the movie had made sure that this movie should end up being on one of the years best and I am sure it will make it to the top movie list of this year. 

Khan Academy, Codecademy, Codeyear and now "Udacity"

One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind. Well these words are pretty strong and allow me to explain them considering the openness of the online education. One small step taken by Sal Khan last year to launch Khan Academy has now inspired more people to teach millions of students online and that too for free. What Sal is doing is great and some smart people have borrowed the idea of Sal Khan and this idea is now helping in the democratization of the online education. 

Couple of weeks back I have explained how two students of Columbia University has launched Codecadmy to teach people coding and ignite the interest in individuals about programming and computer science. Well both Codecademy & Codeyear were a major hit and so far and more than 370,000 people have registered for the weekly online programming lessons which teaches Javascript. So far Codeyear has offered lessons on weekly basis. I feel proud in saying that I have completed all the lessons for all the 3 weeks along with additional assignments and projects. 

Based on the free online education in programming and coding there is more intresting news which I would like to share. Professor Sebastian Thrun (Professor of Computer Science and director of the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at Stanford University) has resigned from Stanford to start his own online teaching venture which goes by the name of Udacity. Last fall Sebastian Thrun (who is also a Google research fellow working on driverless cars) along with Peter Norvig taught a free online course - "Introduction to Artificial Intelligence (AI)" to an overwhelming 160,000 people. According to Sebastian Thrun this experience was so rewarding that he decided to quit teaching 200 people in the class to teach hundreds and thousands online. To know more about the AI class taught by Sebastian Thrun last fall go here.

Exciting part is that Udacity will offer its first two courses (CS101 Building a Search Engine & CS373 Programming a Robotic Car) online starting from 20th of Februrary and I should not repeat again that they are free. “CS101 – Building a Search Engine” does not have any prerequisites and if you are someone who have never done programming can opt for this one. “CS373 Programming a Robotic Car” however require a solid foundation in programming plus some knowledge of Probablity and Linear Algebra. The coding language for CS373 will be Python. I have registered for CS101 and I am pretty excited about that. CS101 is a 7 week course and you can see the syllabus per week once you register.

So if this excites you then please login to the site of Udacity and register. Learning to code is just great but learning from someone who is an expert in this field and is having a proven track record is something which we all can wish for. I would like to say thanks to the efforts of these people who are driving this noble project and would like to make the coding main stream.

Apple blasted quarterly earnings (record numbers)

Apple reported the highest quarterly revenue and earnings ever. This is Apple at its best since its operation. Quarterly revenue of $46.33 billion is record breaking numbers ever posted by Apple. Apple’s net profit for the quarter is $13.06 billion. In the last quarter which ended Dec 11^st 2011, Apple sold 37.04 million iPhones, 15.43 million iPads, 5.2 million Macs & 15.4 million iPods.

These results are just amazing and this is what Apple's CEO, Tim Cook said, "We're thrilled with our outstanding results and record-breaking sales of iPhones, iPads and Macs". "Apple's momentum is incredibly strong, and we have some amazing new products in the pipeline."

Amazing new products in the pipeline!!!! It seems that the iPad 3 and Apple TV are coming soon to an Apple store near you.

Good day to be an Apple investor.

Academy Awards nominations - 2012

Best Picture

• The Artist
• The Descendants
• Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
• The Help
• Hugo
• Midnight in Paris
• Moneyball
• The Tree of Life
• War Horse

Best Supporting Actor

• Kenneth Branagh, My Week with Marilyn
• Jonah Hill, Moneyball
• Nick Nolte, Warrior
• Christopher Plummer, Beginners
• Max Von Sydow, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Best Supporting Actress

• Berenice Bejo, The Artist
• Jessica Chastain, The Help
• Melissa McCarthy, Bridesmaids
• Janet McTeer, Albert Nobbs
• Octavia Spencer, The Help

Best Actress

• Glenn Close, Albert Nobbs
• Viola Davis, The Help
• Rooney Mara, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
• Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady
• Michelle Williams, My Week with Marilyn

Best Actor

• Demian Bichir, A Better Life
• George Clooney, The Descendants
• Jean Dujardin, The Artist
• Gary Oldman, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
• Brad Pitt, Moneyball

Best Director

• Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris
• Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist
• Alexander Payne, The Descendants
• Martin Scorsese, Hugo
• Terrence Malick, The Tree of Life

Best Adapted Screenplay

• The Descendants, Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon and Jim Rash
• Hugo, John Logan
• The Ides of March, George Clooney, Grant Heslov and Beau Willimon
• Moneyball, Steve Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin. Story by Stan Chervin.
• Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Bridget O' Connor and Peter Straughan

Best Original Screenplay

• The Artist, Michael Hazanavicius
• Bridesmaids, Annie Mumolo and Kristen Wiig
• Margin Call, J.C. Chandor
• Midnight in Paris, Woody Allen
• A Separation, Asghar Farhadi

Best Animated Feature

• A Cat in Paris
• Chico & Rita
• Kung Fu Panda 2
• Puss in Boots
• Rango

Designed in California, Made In China

I am pretty sure if you are one of the Apple consumer you might have noticed the subject of this post. The subject of this post is what you will see on all of the Apple products. It took me no time when I bought my first Apple product in 2004, an iPod, and noticed that it says “Designed in California, Made In China” and I was somewhat amazed about the kind of globalization that was just starting to happen (atleast for me).

Well yesterday I came across this amazing article published by the New York Times and it was something which will elaborate more on the reasons why Apple and other tech companies are depending on China as far as the product manufacturing is concerned. Though it is about the cheap work force but this is not the only reason. There are many other factors that support the decision of the tech giants to send this kind of work to China and to some other Asian countries. I would suggest that if you have some spare time on your hand then check out this article. Though it is very hard to take a stand on such things but it might give us the insight for the events that might take place in the future.

Read it and check it out for yourself.

"Code Year" will help you learn coding

I usually start the new year by writing something interesting and fun to read. This being the first post of this year is not different to what I have mentioned in the previous sentence. If you are interested in learning coding or computer programming and ran out of ideas to learn, then I am pretty sure you should check out the site of Code Year.

Code Year is the brain child of the duo Zach Sims and Ryan Bubinski of the Codecadmy fame. If you haven’t tried out Codecadmy yet, then I recommend going to the site and experience it for yourself. Codecadmy is created to help teach programming interactively. It is much better than reading and re-reading those thick computer programming books where the method of learning is kinda one-way. The best part is Codecadmy or Code Year will teach you about programming from scratch. There are no prerequisites to these lessons none at all and most importantly it is all FREE. You read it right…FREE. So far Codecadmy uses Java Script as its primary language to introduce programming but soon lessons covering Ruby and Python will be made available on the site.

Code Year launched on 1st of Jan’2012 have so far attracted 200,000 users who want to learn programming this year. When I registered on 2nd Jan I was preceded by some 19,100 users. As of now the site has seen some 210,708 registrations and they are increasing every second. The concept behind Code Year is simple, you register by providing your email address and in return the team behind Code Year will mail you the interactive lessons. I cannot explain much about that as the first email with the lesson details will start coming from Jan 9th and I am pretty excited about it.

Necessity is the mother of invention and that is exactly what Zach and Ryan have done in order to make programming fun and interactive. Zach coming from a non technical back ground have struggled a lot in order to learn how to code and hence Codecadmy was born. So far the site Code Year has gained lots of attention. People ranging from Mike Bloomberg (Mayor NYC) to VC Fred Wilson have registered on Code Year.

After running from coding for more than a decade I have decided to give it a try. I knew at some point I need to learn coding and I guess the time is right. So what are you waiting for? If you are someone like me who want to give coding a try then this is your chance. Go to the site of Code Year and register. I am sure it will be lot of fun.