Sunday, July 28, 2013

The Next Internet – Healthcare, Education, Governance


Internet has changed the way we connect, the way we communicate and the way we share .
Internet has changed the way we express, the way we entertain and the way we get enlightened.
Internet has changed the way we explore, the way we experience and the way we enjoy the world.
Now its time to move on to the next level and see whats going to be changed with this Internet communications.
Internet is already disrupting these three spheres of our life and this is going to be big in coming days.
  • Healthcare
  • Education
  • Governance
If there is one aspect of life, which even after spending billions and billions into technology, we are still unable to cope up to the challenge, its Healthcare.
We are making huge progress in Biosciences and creating an enormous impact by curing the most deadly diseases on the planet. Internet will help these fruits to be available for all. A patient in Africa can connect with a doctor in India or a doctor in United states and get treated with the help of telemedicine or e-medicine facilities. Internet is helping to get more people to access to healthcare and decrease the costs of healthcare in various countries. Some internet startups are trying to disrupt the Complex US healthcare system and this is another list of startups in SanFrancisco.
Heartbeat online“In rural Bangladesh, 90 percent of births occur outside hospitals. A mobile-notification system alerts clinics to dispatch nurse–midwife teams, who are now present in 89 percent of births. In China, a public–private partnership created a cardiovascular-monitoring system that allows patients to self-administer electrocardiograms and transmit data to specialists in Beijing, who can suggest treatments by phone. At New York’s Mount Sinai Hospital, a venture with General Electric uses smart tags to track the flow of hundreds of patients, treatments, and medical assets in real time. The hospital estimates it could potentially treat 10,000 more patients each year as a result and generate $120 million in savings and revenues over several years.” – McKinsey Quarterly Report.

saupload_Computer-Doctor
There are internet startups in India which ease the pain of various healthcare related tangles ranging from  getting a doctor appointment ,to advise on symptoms , to have a discussion with doctors ,to buy pharmacy online, to buy healthcare products online and much more . Complete list can be found here .Working in a healthcare organization , it is exciting to know what progress can be possible.

Education is the only solution to elevate people out of poverty and there are at least 20- 30 % of world population with very low income levels and cannot afford a meal day .To make education accessible for all and available for all, Internet plays a key role. Khan Academy is pioneering in flattening the education field .Anyone who has access to Internet can be educated . Right now, the growth of  MOOC courses which started offering free online education is super successful. Coursera , Udacity and edX are complementing the school/college education and also helping people gain free knowledge.Everyone , even a PHD should try these out.
educ
There are internet platforms offering tutoring services, offering textbook rentals, offering test preparation services, consolidating video lectures,providing virtual classrooms and most importantly developing educational games . Some exciting list is here and the possibilities are endless. Students now have the entire knowledge at their fingers thanks to Wikipedia and Google. The tablet revolution is turning the tide of how education is perceived  and is disrupting the Education landscape in a way that was never imagined , equalising the Education advantage across the world. Social platforms like Linkedin enables to connect professionals like never before and engage more.
India is not far behind this revolution, though there is a lot to pickup the race and there are some exciting internet platforms striving for the change.

Finally, the most important change that just started is the way how governments perform their Governance.
freedom
Obama has successfully used the Internet trends to maximize his victory chances and projects like CodeforAmerica are changing the landscape on how internet can be put to public use. Almost all the government agencies in many countries have online grievance redressal systems and are used effectively for tracking the people issues.Many governments are already using the Web to improve services and reduce waste. Governments can also use IT to better engage citizens, as South Korea has done with its e-People site, which helps citizens send online civil petitions for policy changes or reports of corruption. Our next world leaders are moving to the internet for their political aspirations and be more reachable to their electoral franchise. Media , now a days takes almost any news and issues from the buzz on SocialMedia and which in turn shapes the political discourse of a country.Its widely acknowledged that Facebook and Twitter played a major role in Arab Spring . Technology is transforming and bringing a new wave of democracy in Africa.
NSDL-establishes-new-unit-for-e-governance-projects
In India, we have internet platforms like PRS legislative  documenting the legislative procedure and is bringing the complex constitutional process to common man.Andhra Pradesh has pioneered in e-governance initiatives helping citizens bringing government functions to his doorstep  .Almost every state government is pursuing e governance initiatives and trying to bring transparency. Open Data initiatives are catching up in India and Govt of India has officially announced open data platform.Some government agencies are active on SocialMedia are resolving queries.And very recently the main political parties have taken their battle to the internet sphere with mocking websites. Almost every news channel takes the issues which are on buzz on SocialMedia and on internet. Major political parties now have  digital campaign management teams. It is estimated that SocialMedia plays major role in election outcomes in India, in the coming general Elections.

!!! The world is flattening more , Thanks to Internet.

You can  follow me onTwitter Facebook and on Quora

Sunday, July 21, 2013

Websites of the Week - Programming special

Hello all, Programmers of the World , this edition is dedicated to all the programming junta of the world , who  slog out day in and day out, churning out thousands of lines of code with caffeine and pizzas as inputs . This is in memory of Douglas Angelbart, the internet pioneer and the inventor of mouse , who propelled all these graphics we see today on our little screens.He has given this demo video called as Mother of all demos which demonstrates the mouse, file processing and some other intricate details of Computer processing,this demo was given in 1968.

There is a professional holiday called  'Programmers day' in Russia and is celebrated on 256th day of the year.

We see some awesome website and want to know what all technologies are used in building that, Go to buildwith.com  and check out all the intrinsic backend details of a popular website.

Sometimes you might be annoyed when the hand palm brushes the touchpad and it changes the position of cursor in the document/programming editor . Use this utility called touchfreeze and it freezes the touchpad whenever your are typing.

Do you wish to know what all popular opensource projects are going on round the planet , checkout this  ohloh website.This a network  website for all open source programmers out there.

Its not that software is only opensource now, Raspberry pi  is the opensource hardware and they are some very good implementations of it.

At last, Browse the complete internet history at this website.

Bonus: Dear Tennis followers like me, you can get a Federer autograph like this.Looking for someone in swiss,who can help :)

Quora thread of the week :
In layman's terms, what are the major programming languages, and what are they used for? (Love the first answer).

Android App of the Week: There have been some rave reviews about this hacking tutorial app on Google play store. Checkout if interested.

Cheerio.. Bye Folks..

Sunday, June 30, 2013

Websites of the Week - Jun 30

Welcome back !!
What an awesome weather it is in India with onset of Monsoon and Sunday Mornings at this time are filled with a semi bright Sun with a rustic rainy smell. But there are thousands of Indians who were stuck in a natural disaster and many of them are coming back home after a week of survival struggle..

First of all, a heart filled Salute to Indian Army for their daring, dashing, successful efforts in relocating 70 thousand people from the flashfloods of Uttarakhand, a northern state in India.You can follow Indian Army on Twitter and on Facebook.
Uttarakhand is a state completely dependent on tourism and this disaster will take back the state atleast 10-15 years back.The cost that require for this comeback would be mindboggling.
Please donate generously to Indian Prime Minister relief fund here and other NGOs like Goonj who are actively involved in this operation.

Coming back to technical stuff, Gmail new email interface is really useful to filter out the important emails and iam actually spending more time on email now. A tip to use it better, you can Go to the next tab with ` and go to the previous tab with ~ .

Continuing on the tips, have you ever wondered what are the two tick marks (Right symbols)  at the end of every whatsapp message . If its one mark, it means the message has been delivered to Whatsapp server and if its two , the message has been delivered to the receiver. And if you are slightly irritated by the 'Last Online' feature on whatsapp , you can always allow the messages to load without opening whatsapp and then turn off data connection and then view and respond back and close it. Then turn on the whatsapp . Last online time will not be updated :)

Do me a  favour and search for "241543903" in Google Images :)  .Noticed something ..? Yes, its one of the google easter egg and you will see all the images with people keeping their heads inside refrigerators.

Have you ever been disappointed that you are unable to print a pdf because of some restrictions on that pdf document , this website FreeMyPdf  should mostly resolve your issue.

Do you want to know what all Twitter accounts are verified. Hop on this twitter account Verified and check the twitter accounts its following ;They all are twitter verified accounts.

This is one amazing blogpost . Check out yourselves and appreciate the effort.

Android App of the Week : Plan B . Dont panic if you have lost your android phone, you can install this app even after loosing it and get to know its whereabouts  (Disclaimer: Not tested).

Quora Thread of the Week:    Fathers Day was couple of weeks back but its not never too late to appreciate parents and take their advice. Get to know some brilliant advice of fathers to various Quorans at

May your Happiness increase like Indian Petrol prices, may your sorrows fall like Indian Rupee and May your joy fill your heart like corruption in India. !!!  You can  follow me on Twitter and on Facebook 

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Sunday, June 23, 2013

Websites of the Week - Startup India Special


With the recent sucess of Just Dial IPO , Webengage 10k customers and very recent successful exit of Redbus.in , Indian Tech startups are back on the spotlight. These successes have put the faith back in hearts of  tons of Indian Startups that there is indeed a bright light at the end of tunnel..

First, to know the best curated daily updates about Indian startups, Subscribe to  Unitechy News letter . This is curated and sent by ApruvaChaudhary of MediaNama

To know the  hottest startups in town , hop on to  500.co which funds some rockstar startups worldwide (There are around 10 Indian startups in this recent incubation)  and Morpheous is its Indian Counterpart incubator and accelerator.

If you are a 'wantreprenuer' (Yes, there is a word for people like us )  , you must take this Online Coursera course ( Startup Engineering ) being delivered by Quora superstar Balaji Vishwanathan  .

If you have already STARTed , you must see this nice slideshare deck of Indias Angel investors prepared by Yourstory.in folks.

If you want to be a part of this Indian Startup conversations, be a part of this google group ( HeadStart Network )  . NASSCOM , India's software association, has just recently announced its 1000 startups initiative and even though the dates are ended, the learning resources on this website are great.

This Android App gives you daily updates of Indian Startups, Yourstory.in

And finally, Quora threads for this week :
Which are the hottest startups in India? 
Which Indian technology companies are doing the most interesting projects?

Bonus:  If you are not sure when to START, where to START, how to START and most importantly WHAT to start ..Read this and this .

Just pump out your nerves with this TED talk of Elon Musk, the man who is pushing the horizons of tech and is like the Dravid of Cricket, if Steve jobs is Sachin ; Nadal of Tennis , if Steve Jobs is Federer.

PS - If you have an idea, let me know , i believe we can work  :)

--
Vamsi
Startup Connoisseur 

Sunday, June 16, 2013

Website of the Week - June 16- Vacation special

Welcome Back !!

Some parts of the world have just completed their Summer and for some , its SUMMER time.

Well, Summer is always synonymous to Vacation and what better than to teach your parents some tech basics of computers , Google has compiled some nice videos so that elders can understand Tech and not be afraid of it.
TeachParentsTech/

Might be needed, that you want to upgrade your parents pc to latest operating system, and dont be worried about softwares that need to be installed after that. Ninite makes your life dead simpler with installing all the necessary applications at once and taking care of updating them automatically.

And vacation always means travel, This website FlightRadar  gives you some live tracking of flights . Seems fascinating ..Easn't it ?

And coming back from Vacation wouldnt be nice to share your experiences to audience around the world. There is this mail list called Listserve where one lucky person per day gets a lottery to share his email to around 22000 people around the world.  Try your luck and enjoy the first count experiences and ideas from people who might want to meet in future. Iam still waiting since last one year :(

Coming back from Vacation mood, wouldnt you want to share the pics or videos , and for people who are still lagging behind the internet explosion of sharing and most importantly who dont want to signup for a website , there is one hassle free website which is for file transfer . https://www.wetransfer.com/ .This is probably the awesome website for file transfer.

People who follow TED talks know about Hans Rosling and his awesome way of depicting statistics. If you want to witness them on your computer , just go ahead to GapMinder  and download the world to your computer as he says.

Caring about the world, you can always go ahead to FreeRice website , brush up your vocabulary and donate some rice to the World Food Programme.


As promised last time, presenting you the one of the awesome Quora thread :
What are the best new products that people don't know about?

And an Android App of the Week .
uTorrent Remote  . Yes, as you guessed, its remotely controlling your Torrent downloads, no need to be at your home computer to put the latest Game of Thrones or Dexter on download :)

Cheerio..

Happy Weekend !!
QOTW: "You can Do anything , if you stop trying to do everything " - Oliver Emberton.






Sunday, June 9, 2013

Websites of the Week - June 9



Welcome Back !!!

It was really a long time and hope everyone is good.And everyone is fit.
If you are not, and are having some time crunch to be fit, go ahead to this site http://7-min.com/ and be fit with 7 min per day.

Everyone knows about the Great Nobel prizes given to persons for their extra ordinary contribution to Mankind . Well, there are some people who have also have done some extraordinary breakthrough work , but alas might not be helpful . But , they are given ignobel awards for their brilliant work. 
Hop on to this wiki page of Ignobel awards for some of the astounding works you cannot even imagine have done.As per their website, these are some of the things which first make people laugh , but then make them think.



Have you any time regretted that you missed a wonderful course during your collegehood  or did you ever want to delve into a subject and learn all about it.There are numerous websites which gives you access to free courses and there is now no excuse for not pursuing those aspirations. This website NoExcuselist helps you learn something you wanted to learn.It is a directory for all the free education resources on the internet.
And just be noted, the next arena that will be revolutionized by digital presence is Education. 

Ok , enough of knowledge gathering and education, lets go some travelling. This website gives you the list of some abandoned wonderful places in the world. Might be fun to travel there :) 

Travelling to such far place reminds me of movie Life of Pi , and if you have watched, Life of Pi, here is a wonderful webpage which gives you details on its making. This is one movie you dont want to miss watching it in 3D. 

If you are one poor soul living in Bangalore and hate those interrupting power cuts, now atleast be informed about the pathetic times ahead.Subscribe to BESCOM alerts for Sponsored Earth Hours in your locality.

 Well talking of electricity, one joke i remember is "In a power cut ,Indians first check if electricity is down for neighbours and then be relaxed if its for everyone ". Likewise, if you just want to know if a website is down for everyone , Check this 

 We will start with something new from this edition.

Quora thread of the week : This thread got me roflol .
Spoiler :Indian Context

Android app of the week : Probably the best app for learning a new language 



Cheerio.. Bye !!!

Sunday, April 28, 2013

Website of the week - Astronomy special

Well, i just found a new interesting topic to be inquisitive about. There is a Quora answer which shows what we are in this vast universe (A tiny peck in an ocean)  and Robert Frost in Quora explains the intricacies of this space exploration and gives a peek inside much of what NASA is doing about. (Have deliberately not included links so that you can go and find these amazing answers and who knows you may have found the real treasure of Quora)

These are some awesome links to be in awe of whats going in out of our planet.

Do you want to see whats going in at ISS . ISS stands for International Space station . This link of NASA gives live stream of inside ISS.

Many argue that why do we spend so much money on Space programs .Well, here is the answer which may satisfy that question to a certain extent. NASA inventions as part of the space programs are being used to help many millions on Earth.

Well, to see more briefly what are the contributions of NASA to society. Here it is.

How many of you know that there is a man made object which is approximately 18 Billions kilometres from Earth and is still in contact with our planet. Its the Voyager1 and Voyager 2 which were launched in 1977 when probably the entire tech expertise is now present in our handheld smartphone . Track it here.

The next one is a website which gives an amazing space photographs every day. Astronomy Picture of the Day

Well, Iam an Indian first and rest next, here is the Indian Answer to Google Earth,GPS etc. Proudly presenting Bhuvan . Believe still in experimental phase though. By the way ISRO is recruiting heavily for this work .

And this is the most  magnificient imagery of the Mighty Sun.

Last, we will deviate and come back to Earth and zoom into India . The biggest thing right now in India is IPL. Are you like me feeling too bored  to see the same templateof  Cricinfo or Cricbuzz and see that routine commentary . Someone has created an amazing scoreboard .Check out SCORYBOARD

Bonus : Do you think you are shortcut pro and productivity hacker. This video will blow your mind definitely.

Saturday, February 23, 2013

How to Migrate between two smart phones

Migrating between phones is really a pain .
Data can be migrated easily by just changing the SD card given that all the data is stored in SD card and not in phone memory.
However, two things which are not so easy are SMS messages and Contacts.

1) Contacts.
Contacts can be exported to a .csv file from old phone and that file can be imported in the new phone.
(Contacts Options >> Import/export )

2) SMS messages
Install SMS backup restore app on both the phones and export the xml file from old phone and import to new phone :)  In case import is not working, one can open the xml file with this app.
Similar apps is available for all the platforms.Since this app works with any xml file, it allows interoperability.

3) For important docs, and other things, use cloud services like Box,Dropbox,Google Drive,Skydrive etc and backup your docs.

Sunday, February 10, 2013

How to tackle Spam Attacks in Facebook

This week, I was a victim of facebook spam attack twice.It took sometime to understand what happened and how to avoid it.I have listed down sometips to tackle this issue.
Looks like that i was an victim of ClickJacking.

WHAT SHOULD YOU DO IF YOUR ACCOUNT IS SENDING SPAM TO YOUR FACEBOOK FRIENDS.

I have seen people who have deleted their facebook accounts just because their account was phished or was part of a spam attack.Below are some tips on how to handle this with peace.

1) Change your password (Account Settings -> General -> Password) 

The number one thing you should do when your account is exhibiting some mischievous behaviour is to change password. If you change password from web interface, it will also prompt you to logoff from other locations where your facebook session is active.

        
2) Disable other sessions (Account Settings -> Security  -> Active Sessions)

Disable all your other active sessions . This will allow phishing to cease in case its a simple one and is not an automated one.

3) Disable Third party applications using your facebook 
      (Account Settings -> Apps  -> Apps you use ).

99% of the time its a third party application which you might have inadvertently accepted which went rogue .Click on  "Turn Off the platform." . This will disable all third party applications using your facebook activity and blocks anything they want to do with your facebook account.
This will take some time (not sure why though ?)  Till then you can remove all apps activity in the same tab.

4) Remove the content that triggered this.
You might get an idea what have triggered this mischievous activity by now.Most probably it would be "like" you did on an external website or a facebook post from a third party app. Remove that or any recent activity which is done from any external entity other than facebook.
If not and in case of Clickjacking , it will trigger this spam attack whenever you login back to facebook. Beware.
Report the app to facebook support /Report as Spam.
( In my case, it was a status update made from a third party app 'Selective tweets' ).

5) Cleanse your system 

Remove all the cookies in your  browser.
Update anti spamware software in your system and run a scan.


But "Prevention is better than Cure" . Do not allow third party tools to access facebook  and do not click on mischievous links.


- VolTa



Sunday, January 6, 2013

Tech tricks, tips and Tantras - 06/01/2012

Some tech hacks which are interesting,helpful  and hopefully insightful .


1)  Whenever you are on a long journey or going to a place where there would be no cellular signals, better put the phone in Flight Mode.This will save a lot of battery. Cellphones use lot of power just to search for signals.

2)  If you have an android phone , you dont need to go to playstore in your phone and download the apps. One can browse the playstore from web interface and install it from there. I believe this is true for all appstores.

3) Skype is completely free for 1 month as trial offer. Follow this link  for signing for this and this link  for instructions. Yes, you an call US numbers for free for a month :)

4) Utorrent remote is an amazing app to monitor your utorrent downloads from anywhere .

5) If you think, your email is getting spammed a lot , just search for "unsubscribe" and unsubcribe to all those unnecessary things you might have subscribed earlier and are no mood to read all those now.


Happy Weekend !!

- Vams




Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Websites of the Year - 2012

Its the new year , new aspirations , new resolutions, new insights and new hopes.leaving all the bad and cherishing all the good  Internet plays a major role in our daily life. And this is my tribute to the Best of Internet for me in the year 2012. Hope you like this as well:)

1) Quora


If browsing something has inspired me, made me addicted , made me Q(C)urious and Qu(V)oracious , its Quora.
The most wonderful discovery i made on this internet space this year.Hop on and thank me later.The real knowledge Hub of the internet . Question Jimmy Wales,Checkout answers of Ashton Kutcher, Stephen Fry and follow the most intelligent people on this planet.And get credits :)

2) Paytm


If there is a option to recharge your Indian cellular phone with maximum benefit and miniumum effort, its this paytm.com . They even launched bus tickets with a bang offer of flat 50% discount on Dec 12, the online shopping festival day. You can even store your credit card and can complete recharge in a whiff. Did i tell you there android app is awesome.

3) Pocket


I am a big time procrastinator and a voracious internet reader. So what can be my biggest internet tool than a facility to read all those internet stuff later when i have time. Initially i was a fan of Instapaper, but after the Samsung Tab added to my digital ecosystem , I had to shift to Pocket as Instapaper App was a paid one.And this is one shift i regret not doing earlier.
Pocket has one of the awesomest user interfaces i have seen. Love the way it displays those Arrays of my to-read list.

4) Livemocha.com


Havent made much progress in my 2012 new year resolution of learning a foreign language, but livemocha.com is one of the best website if you also have a similar bucket list.

5) http://kaipullai.com/
And why should we not end the list with an awesome blog which has some excellent stories to tell in more excellent way. These blogposts blew my mind .if you are interesting in  history and current affairs of India, visit this .

- Vams.

PS- Happy New year 2013.


Comparison of Election manifestos for 2024 Indian general election - BJP Vs Congress

  Some kind soul has compared both the manifestos and linked here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yzUa5PXtgJg_mXJxsLH4zFIcA6Ohy5ho/edit...