Happy Ugaadi

Pathakulara, Mee andarikee Vyaya Naama Samvastsara Subhaakaankshalu

Google Finance

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SPORE

For many days, I have been meaning to write about EA's next blockbuster, SPORE. Here are a few reasons why you should be excited about it.

1. Will Wright
2. Procedural Animation
3. RPG evolving into RTS into MMORTS/MMORPG

For the gaming neophytes, Will Wright is the creator of Simcity, The Sims and 'sim'ilar games. Procedural Animation is basically on-the-fly animation. In other words, built-in code within the game generates graphics and renders them on the fly. Pretty cool. The game starts as a Role Playing Game where you have control over one creature and slowly progressed into a Real Time Strategy game pitting you against other players.

The game starts with you controlling a spore or a single celled organism. You have to help your spore survive under hostile conditions and oversee its evolution. As the spore evolves, you get to play god by deciding what it evolves into. This is where procedural animation comes into play. Very soon, you would be controlling a whole city of your creatures and then a planet and then a solar system and so on.

Check out this super cool gameplay video on Google.

Google Mars

Not content with their plans of terrestrial domination, Google has launched a new front to their offensive. Just Kidding. If you are a space aficionado, Google has just the right thing for you. High resolution satellite imagery and AJAX wizardy have brought the Martian Planet right to your desktop. I couldn't see any tiny green men though.

Check out Google Mars

The greatest One-Day Ever

For avid cricket-fans around the globe, last night was a watershed moment. The South Africans successfully chased a target of 435 to beat Australia at the Wanderers Stadium. For the first time in cricketing history, a total of 892 runs were scored in a One-Day International. Here are a few adjectives to describe the match: Nail biting, Thrilling, Heart Stopping. In the morning session, Ricky Ponting scored a spectaular 164 off 105 deliveries to construct a seemingly unsurpassable target of 434. To make matters worse, the Springboks lost their first wicket at 3. Did the South Africans give up ? Hell No!!!. Graeme Smith and Herschelle Gibbs set up the stage with some Spectacular hitting. Smith made 90 while Gibbs scored a match winning 175 off 111 deliveries.

Cut to the finish. The South Africans had to face 6 deliveries from Brett Lee to score 7 runs while having 2 wickets in hand. A 4 from Andrew Hall seemed to have done the trick but he gave an easy catch to Michael Clarke in the very next delivery. But Ntini and Boucher did not lose the plot and steered SA to a SENSATIONAL victory.

Bottomline : South Africans , Chokers no more. !!!!

Read more reviews of this game here:
CricInfo
Rediff
BBC

Google vs Microsoft

Informed sources report that Google is developing a Calendar Program to be integrated with Gmail at some unspecified date in the not so distant future. As of now, the Calendar is still in BETA and not open for outside testing. There goes MS Outlook. This site is supposed to have screenshots of this new calendar thingy but it's been down for a while. Google's plan seems to be to take over the world, one Microsoft Program at a time.

In other news, Google acquired a company that developed a collaborative Web Processor called WRITELY. New Registrations are temporarily closed.

There have also been rumours circulating on the WWW about the Gdrive service that would allow users to store all their data on Google's servers.

Quo Vadis

I am back from my self-imposed exile. I couldn't stay away from my blog for too long. After some careful deliberations, I have decided to rechristen my blog. Instead of a generic "Musings, Ravings, ...Dozings..", it will be simply known as "Quo Vadis". Latin for "Whither goest thou", it is a true reflection of my current mental state. A la Robert Frost, I am at a cross-roads and will soon have to choose a path that could change everything. So while I sit here thinking, I just have one question running through my mind.

"Quo Vadis"