Technology Madness

Google’s New Web Picasa: Face recognition and Auto Rotate When Needed

Just recently, Google web picasa was updated with new interface with few wow functionalities. Apart from overhaul user interface (UI) they have added face recognition feature.

Face recognition:
It is called “name tag.” This is very important feature for me as currently its taking lots of time for me to sort pictures based on person in it. The “name tag” feature presents users with collections of photos with what it judges to be the same person, and then let them click a button to affix a name. Tagging is a powerful way to sort digital photographs. Until now we all are used to create collection of photos as a album based on event, location, activities etc. But now face recognition technology gives new look and style to arrange pictures. It provides you with different lens on the same data. Once photographic subjects are named, users can browse an album of that individual on the fly. Does this feature sound familiar? Few years back, Riya.com developed such face recognition technology. I still like riya.com for face recognition technology over Picasa’s similar functionality. If you are really committed (for name tagging) the way your committed to eat your vegetables and exercise regularly then after few uploading you can create another set of database, like…

• View all photos of ‘my ex’
• View all photos with the following people my sister, my girlfriend and mom
• Create slide show with the following people …
• Share photos with the people tagged sister

“Once you’ve started naming people, we’ll start suggesting names for you based on similarity,” said Mike Horowitz, Google’s Picasa product manager. “The process of naming people is really addictive and tremendously fun.”

In Picasa, once you give a name tag to a face then it will automatically suggest person name for tagging for all future uploads but in case of Riya.com, after providing some training, it will automatically tags person name, if it considers absolutely positive match. In case of Google Picasa, it may be additive to assign name tag to each person but after a while I become bored. I have few hundred pictures in my non-public albums. I would expect Google Picasa (of course, after little training) to find all pictures when my sister is in instead I tag it manually for each picture or sometimes in bulk.

Rotate pictures automatically, when needed:
Another hidden feature that I like is – to recognize the side of the pictures. Many times when my wife takes pictures; she takes it with keeping camera vertical. So I have to rotate the pictures before I upload to Google Picasa to see the person in pictures in north-south way. However Google understood my pain (and my wife’s habit of taking pictures vertically.) Google Picasa understood all pictures which are taken vertically; rotate them automatically the way we want to see during upload. (like Apple iPhone, picture will rotate and maintain correct direction when you rotate iPhone.) This saves a rotating exercise for each picture that I have to perform before any upload. For me this is way cool than face recognition. Did you find anything interesting in latest version of Google web picasa?

Google Web Picasa Video:

Via [Memory Leak and Google Blog on Picasa web]

Scroll the web horizontally with Widexplorer

Generally all webpages are designed to scroll up and down. Sometimes I hate when I have to scroll right or left to get complete view of webpage. And I curse web developer of that site of being lazy.

But a new startup website: Widexplorer provides a new and revolutionary way to explore search results from multiple online information providers and gives you wide page format, laid out horizontally. You need to scroll from left to right to get same search from various sources. Search is available from prominent destinations of web for a variety of topics.

On top of everything, individual website can also be scrolled up and down site without moving the other four. I know it sounds confusing but it’s very easy, you have to try it yourself.

Try Widexplorer here.

Via [blogs.bnet.com]

Surprise Yourself with SomethingStore.com in $10

We all know excitement of surprises. As time progresses many of us become unenthusiastic about gifts and surprises. But now you can treat yourself and got the same excitement of surprises. Yes, you read correct. There’s a company that will sell you that feeling any time you want. For $10, the SomethingStore will sell you something. And you won’t know what it is until it arrives at your door and you open the box. Initial I thought they must be sending some crap – maid in china - dollar store quality stuff – but after looking the randomness page- here, not every item that is sent is crap or cheap products. Surprises ranging from itune gift card, $25 gas cards, an iPod Shuffle, and a $25 Amazon gift card, Most of items justify $10 (which includes shipping cost for US buyers. Rest of the world pays shipping) SomethingStore is like a gamble (but with guarantee to get something in return)

From the SomethingStore site:

1. Place your order on this page, via Google Checkout, our payment service provider. Your information is safe with us and will not be sold or traded.

2. We will send your randomly picked something within 7 business days and will confirm shipment via email.

3. You will find out what your something is when you receive it and we hope you will be pleasantly surprised.

SomethingStore is classic example of consumerism. Have fun!

Via [SomethingStore]

Tags: consumerism, ecommerce, excitement of surprises, SomethingStore

Do you know that NBC’s so called live Olympic opening ceremony is NOT LIVE?

I was kind of surprise when they announce to do ‘so called live coverage’ of opening ceremony in the evening of 8th Aug as per EST (USA) time instead of Beijing time. (see current Beijing time, they are ahead of US time) It’s all money game of NBC. What happen to their claim of 3600 hours of live coverage? Oh yeah, it’s live from 30 Rockefeller Plaza, rather than China, when the Games begin Aug. 8. I hope they don’t broadcast the recording on the name of live coverage for rest of Olympic coverage. America will be watching on delay, at least an opening ceremony. This is very depressing! Shame on you NBC, Shame on you!

Anyway, you can view few picture of Olympic opening ceremony- here

Don’t Miss:

• How To Watch The Beijing Olympics LIVE On The Web — Even If NBC Doesn’t Want You To
• Some Opening Ceremony fireworks were faked

Via [machable.com and www.chicagotribune.com and live blogging of olympic]

No Dots in The new Delicious(.com)

The popular social bookmarking site Delicious has a new web 2.0 look. Not only they changed the design but they changed the domain name too! –From del.icio.us to Delicious.com.

The new design is way better than old style. New design is clearer, easy to read (remember that red background and badge color text) and identify popular bookmarks, good speed and better search. This was a much needed redesign for Delicious. See all what is changed and what is not AT Blog.delicious.com

Let us know what do you think about new Delicious? Are you missing those dots!?

Via Does The New Delicious Have The Enough Juice? and Blog.Delicious.com

Get unlimited email addresses from Gmail.Google.com

You must have experienced how Gmail is cool and better than its peers. But do you know that you can create unlimited gmail address for yourself from your primary account. Let’s say, my email address is – technologymadness@gmail.com. Here are three different ways you can get unlimited Gmail address and still get your mail to your primary account.

Tip 1: Insert one or several dots (”.”) anywhere in your email address.
technologymadness@gmail.com is same as technology.madness@gmail.com, tech.nology.mad.ness@gmail.com (you can insert as may as dot you want and create a new email address) so on and so forth. All these email variants ultimately delivers emails to my main-primary account: technologymadness@gmail.com

Tip 2: Append a plus (”+”) sign and any combination of words or numbers after your email address.
So technologymadness+Craigslist@gmail.com (email comes from my craigslist listing), technologymadness+family@gmail.com (email comes from my sister/brother/parents) and technologymadness+junk@gmail.com (email comes from my ex or boss)– all these emails ultimately delivers your mail to your primary account. So next time when you are registering on a site or a forum or any freebees sites and all you need to give them their email address with (+) varient, and later you can create a filter for the specific email which comes from that address to skip the inbox and get archived. Cool, isn’t it?

Tip 3: You get 2 email addresses automatically!
If you got abc@gmail.com, you automatically get another email address which is abc@googlemail.com. And yes, it’s the same as abc@gmail.com-your primary account. So Now you can apply tip 1 and 2 (above) to your googlemail.com email address and have some more emails.

You can start organizing all your emails effectively using above tips. Let me know how is your experience about it?

Additional Gmail Tips:

• Conduct Survey by email using Gmail @labnol.org
• 11 Power Tips for Gmail @mattcutts.com
• Migrating from Gmail to Google Apps or other email accounts to Gmail @sudarmuthu.com

Update (08/03/2008):

I notice that several sites do reject addresses with a plus sign. You might use other services like Mailinator for disposable addresses instead. Also, you can use the services like SpamGourmet, which redirects mail to your real address. Good Luck!

Via [gmailblog.blogspot and Know more about gmail @digisteps.com]

Microsoft lost competition against Craigslist- shuts down Live Expo classified ads site

Two years ago, bearing in mind the success of Craigslist, Microsoft developed Windows Live Expo. They were expecting their classified site to be a “Craigslist Killer”. But dint work that way. Today Microsoft is shutting down live expo classified site. According to a message on its homepage, users can no longer create a new account, post or extend listings, or upgrade listings to “premium.” However, all current listings will remain on expo.live.com until they expire. (Who cares?)

Online classified is continue to be dominated by Craigslist since I have heard about “online classified” ads. There are dozens of place in the market waiting to be die in front of solid competition of Craigslist. Ebay has Kijiji. Village Voice media has Backpage, Oodle, Vast, LiveDeal, and literally dozen more but craigstlist is having majority of market share and will probably continue to reign supreme in near future.

Anyway, it’s another website failure by Microsoft. They develop and try to re-invent the (wheel!) stuff (sometimes it’s okay) but because of its size of the company, may be not easy (or don’t want to) to give full attention to small part of their big regime. So, which area of business is next? What do you think?

Is it Down for everyone, or just me? - Handy tool for everyone

One of the most annoying things about searching the web is when you come across websites that is not working, or under construction, or can’t load. And sometimes I wonder when I do see site problem from big reputed name, like amazon.com or cnn.com or Google.com or maybe my own blog-Technologymadness.com. So what you do? This site comes very handy for determining whether a website is truly down or it’s just you–downforeveryoneorjustme.com, (as in, “Down for everyone, or just me?”) It lets visitors type in a Web address and see whether a site is generally inaccessible or whether the problem is with their own connection/computer.

Via [NYTimes and jeremyperson.com]

Very simple concept yet elegant and brilliant design

Nailing For Dummies (Nail Assist):
Some people can’t shoot the straight. I mean can’t hammer a nail straight. ‘Nail Assist’ is a god grace to them. It’s like Nailing For Dummies. Concept is very simple yet elegant and brilliant design. You put a nail in the tube, put it where you want, and bang on wide head/top and done. Magnetic piece inside the hollow tube will hold the nail straight. Make sure you hold the tube firmly while hammering the wide headed tube. There is no way you can go wrong. See how it works in below pictures:

Hang On Outlet:
I often notice bunch of electric wires are spreading around on the floor and disturb the harmony of my living room. One of the ideas that I mentioned is to hide all wires by using Powerblock. (See picture here) “Hang On Outlet” another cool product to organize your wires and keep the bunch of wires and the area neat, tidy and in harmony. Very simple idea yet brilliant.

Original idea of the product (Paulo Oh, designer) is to promote unplugging habit when it is not in use (note: I don’t know why all countries don’t require switches on the power points) and you can save massive amount of wasted energy. (See how much you can save? Electricity Usage Monitor)But I like the hanging design more for keepping wires are in right place and avoid tangling. Of course, I am always for energy saving. See here, here and here.

Via [yankodesign.com and conceptpop.com]

Travel between Los Angelis and Seattle in one tank of Compressed AIR

Could the Air Car be the next generation motor vehicle? Could this charming (but looks very retro) car be the starting of ‘death’ count-down for the oil-petroleum guzzler automotive industry in coming days?

Air Car is running exclusively on compressed air, it emits only air - zero pollution. The air car claims to be able to drive 106 miles per gallon which is 170 kilometer per gallon. Now lets say if car has 10 gallon tank, it means you can drive 1060 Miles in one tank of Gas (opppss, sorry, please read AIR, not gas) that is approximately distance between Los Angelis and Seattle. Wow, now this is amazing fuel economy.

It’s NOT a dream or a project on paper but ZPM (http://zeropollutionmotors.us) will begin taking reservations in mid-2009 for US deliveries of our compressed air vehicle in 2010. It is estimated to have a retail price of $17,800USD. A six-seater model is the first Air Car scheduled to enter the US. On top of all cool specs, this car has no keys - just an access card which can be read directly from your pocket. Also, Refilling the car tank will cost $2 (…that is unless the price of air goes up… he he)

Check it out. Watch this you tube video:

Via [popularmechanics.com and blog.sabasearch.com]