I was very excited when I first saw the multi-touch-screen technology demo by Jeff Hans on TED Talks earlier this year. Like Jeff said in his talk, it hinted at what new turns the standard human-computer interaction might take in the near future. A lot of different researchers and companies had been working on it for atleast a decade now but Jeff's demo was the first of its kind that I had seen that delivered such an impressive and seemingly feature-complete product. However, since it was just a technology demo I expected to be left to drool at this marvel till the technology is perfected and hit the market in a few years.

It really didn't occur to me that such products may hit the market as soon as this year. So, I was very surprised when Microsoft recently announced their Surface computing device for release in November! Their "Surface" product delivers the full multi-touch computing experience with an interaction surface area that of a coffee table. Apparently, it can track upto 52 touch points and can even recognize objects placed on it. The product essentially follows similar technology to what was demoed at TED Talks by Jeff. But what really astounded me was the technology demos that Microsoft and technology reviewers have published on the product. Microsoft seems to have done a lot of mock applications to show how the multi-surface interface can be used and exploited towards a radically fresh computing experience. This really is a case of seeing is believing (and being impressed) and requires a look at the demo videos.

Sadly though, with the product's supposed price tag of around US$ 5000, it really packs a blow to the wallet. The price will certainly go down as more multi-touch devices from other companies appear on the market. Apple has already incorporated multi-touch technology on their soon-to-be-released iPhone but will deliver the multi-touch experience at a smaller scale.

Check out the video below of Microsoft's Surface - there's more on YouTube. If anyone would like to give me a spontaneous gift for any reason, I surely wouldn't mind receiving one of these babies!

The male nipple - it is something most of us take for granted. "It is there because it is there!". Every other part of the human seems to serve some purpose, each specialized to perform a particular function. As a kid, I pondered over many such mundane things and the male nipple was a baffling one. I didn't get a satisfactory answer or rather any real answer, from anyone. It really wasn't the sort of question you could ask just anybody. A Maldivian primary school teacher would most certainly have laughed at a student who asked such a 'silly' question and would most likely not know of a proper answer anyway. I had had some bitter encounters while in the primary school educational system and had learnt to not ask unwanted questions (I remember being ridiculed for stating Newton's third law of motion - for every action there is an equal but opposite reaction - AND being laughed at for saying that all it takes to make a navigational compass is a magnet and that they work on the principle of the attraction to the magnetic field of the earth). Since this was before the Internet was publicly available in the Maldives and knowledge had to be meticulously extracted from books and large encyclopaedias. To my disappointment, none of the latter that I had shed any light on the matter...

It maybe most obvious why women have nipples but why do men too sport those two so familiar dots on their chests? Is it an element of deliberate design? Placed there for aesthetics? Are they left over remnants on the male body from a time when they weren't so redundant? Has it something to do with the specifics of genetics? The male nipple is one oddity that, in my view atleast, deserves an answer. After all, it is such oddities that often shed greater understanding of ourselves and the world around us!

What do YOU think the answer is?

Anyway, if it tickles your interest, here are some answers that may help you put the question to rest.
- Quite a thorough scientific answer at Scientific American: Ask the Experts
- A shorter answer at A moment of science - Indiana University

Google has a "20% time" policy that encourages their employees to spend working on creating something of their own choosing. Me, I spend a little time each day on doing something entirely, horribly and grotesquely useless. Anyway, here is something I whipped up today within a few minutes that I just had to waste while cramming for an exam in the afternoon...

The Maldives Police Service (MPS) website has a web page displaying the people on their "Wanted" list. The MPS was considerate enough to provide a (totally pointless?) facility to let people print out any of the "Wanted" person notices - a page that prominently displays the person's photo and bears the title "Hoadhaa meeheh". My interest in the page, however, is that there is a programming glitch on the page (XSS vulnerability to be precise) that paves the way for some naughty fun. This bug would have been pretty mundane and practically useless were it not on a page as amusing as a "Wanted" persons page on a country's police service website. A demo will better elucidate what I'm talking about: Wanted Notice for MAG at MPS website! (here's a screenshot).

I've created a tiny "Maldives Police Service Wanted Person Notice Generator" that you can use to generate your own "Wanted Person" listing. Copy in the URL of a photo (one of your mates?), type in their name/address/age and hit the "Generate" button. It will show a link that when viewed, crafts the page as you desire right on the MPS website. This (trick) should continue to work as long as they leave the bug unfixed.

Hmm, I hope my bum doesn't get whooped for this...

Update (19 May): They've fixed the bug and left a lovely note for me



Disclaimer: These generated links don't bring any permanent change to the MPS website and are viewable as such only by using these specially crafted URLs. Use at your own risk...

Apparently we humans are the only mammalians kinky enough to drink the milk produce from animals other than our own species. Cow's milk is squeezed out of their udders everyday all year around to feed the millions who are hungry for a little bit of milk. I used to be one of those consumers, drinking dairy milk since I was young like everyone else but as I grew older it started making me queasy and vomitish. Eventually, I bid farewell to raw milk, powdered milk, cheese, milk rich cakes and everything else with cow's milk including my beloved yoghurts. I realized that I must have either a milk allergy or had possibly become lactose intolerant.

I had tried a few of the milk alternatives (often used by vegans), namely soy milk and rice milk, but none of it appealed to my taste buds. I had been off milk almost entirely until few weeks ago when I decided to give goat's milk a go. I was pleasantly surprised to find that its actually pretty good! Needless to say, goat's milk cartons have since managed to earn a comfy spot in my fridge. It tastes as good, has almost the same nutrient composition as that which the cows eject out of their mammary glands and most importantly it doesn't give me any bit of trouble. So here's to the goats and their milk. If it weren't for them, I wouldn't be drinking this cup of "kiru sai". Thank you!

Since I wrote about Jinns in my last post, I thought I'd follow up with this...

While at the Centre For Higher Secondary Education (Male', Maldives), I heard of this student who supposedly had been possessed by a jinn/demon and had to spend three months away from school. The school newspaper (called "CentrEye"), for which I was the editor then, immediately took an interest in getting his experiences published (we knew it would be a bit hit - our front page story!). He narrated everything in detail, right from the time that the demon Jinn started harassing him, how the demon eventually took possession of his body and the experiences that he was subjected to and how he came out of it all.

I had listened intently as he recalled the events and we shot questions to clear up this and that. The guy was very sincere in his belief in the events that had happened and had a pretty coherent story to tell. He was in almost all respects the normal sort of guy - friendly, kind and very entertaining. I was very much intrigued by the tale, especially since I was then pretty much accepting of the possibility of the existence of these so-called "supernatural beings"...

His experiences were published in 3 instalments, beginning with the Feb 2001 issue of the paper. Credits go to the original writers - the first instalment was written by Afu but the rest were written by the possessed himself. Here is the first 2 with the original text and has been converted to a PDF with some formatting applied for looks. I can't find the 3rd part but will put up when/if I find it...

- Possessed by Demons: A true story (Part 1)
- Possessed by Demons: A true story (Part 2)

There are Web OSes springing up on the internet left and right these days. The web operating system, in its broadest definition, includes everything from complete browser based operating-system-like environments to terminal access-like services. I've been keeping a keen eye on the developments, partly because I think it will become one the next big raves on the internet and partly because I find such a services quite useful.

The currently active Web OS services all have free sign up available or at least demo versions for try-outs. Here are a few I've jumped through:












Enjoy

Google publishes a whole lot of interesting papers regularly at their Research Publications page. I tend to check up now and then since they do quite a bit of research regarding machine learning and artificial intelligence - my great love interests . Anyway, today I came across a simple paper published elsewhere on the use of Eigenvectors in Google's PageRank algorithms. It is an interesting read - would be more so for anyone with a bigger fancy for mathematics and a crush on Google.

The $25,000,000,000 Eigenvector: The linear algebra behind Google

Abstract. Google’s success derives in large part from its PageRank algorithm, which ranks the importance of webpages according to an eigenvector of a weighted link matrix. Analysis of the PageRank formula provides a wonderful applied topic for a linear algebra course. Instructors may assign this article as a project to more advanced students, or spend one or two lectures presenting the material with assigned homework from the exercises. This material also complements the discussion of Markov chains in matrix algebra. Maple and Mathematica files supporting this material can be found at www.rose-hulman.edu/~bryan.

Grab the paper at http://www.rose-hulman.edu/~bryan/googleFinalVersionFixed.pdf