Movie Review - 'Seven'

On UTV World Movies, i had the opportunity to catch a great suspense flick - Seven. I know its quite an old one, but it doesn't matter. The move's stll worth a watch.


Starring Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman,Gweneth Paltrow put up a great act. Brad and Morgan lay the lead, whereas Gweneth plays Brad's wife 'Tracy' in the movie. Kevin Spacey plays the role of the bad guy 'John Doe' who is mentally challenged.

The movie starts with two detectives - one about to retire(Played by Morgan Freeman) and another replacing him(played by Brad Pitt). They jointly investgate into a series of killngs.

There are serial killings going on in the city. Detectives William Somerset(Freeman) and David Mills(Pitt) are handed over the case to get into the depth of the matter.
During course of investgation, they find out that someone is trying to preach a message through the seven deadly sins.

As the movie continues, the viewer keeps on guessing whats going to happen next. The audience keeps on guessing what might happen next(but all in vain).

The last scene happens to be the best shock, Tracy is killed, and David comes to know she's pregnant.

Overall, i'd say that the movie is 'superb', a fine example of superior direction and story-writing. Its suspense is unprecedented.

I'd rate it 9 out of 10 - a must view for any action and suspense lovers. Especially for the fine acting by Freeman and Pitt(though initial acting by Pitt wasn't that great). They kept the story going.


More Info about the movie on Wikipedia about the plot,cast,etc. Click here for
more
For IMDB, click here

What do you think about it. Do you agree with me?

Google introduces a new 'Buzz' in town

Google , on the 9th of Feb, introduced a new Micro-blogging service called Buzz. The service was avalable for all registered Google users. Buzz provides a social platform for a Twitter like social connecting service.




Twitter was one big domain where Google had been lagging. Already losing its users to Facebook, Google's Orkut needed something that might help it get a major push. Google, whose USP is its wide range of services under one ID - Whether its mail,blogging, or even Mobile Phone contacts. With this,Google tries to regain the 'invincible' tag.

Buzz's penetration in the internet happens to be quite high. When i logged into my Gmail, was asked whether to use Buzz or not. I decided to give it a try. It slowly directed to my Gmail inbox, which had a script working. The script stopped working,but to what i had seen by then, all could see was a field where i could write and update my status. The script was there to let me connect with people who had already started using the service. The service can be used integrated in Gmail, or seperately at buzz.google.com . Also it can be used on mobile(i'm yet to explore its confirmed details).

Google's USP may give people a good excuse to people to try out the new service. Micro-Blogging happens to be a big trend, and Google's Buzz may just be able to create the right waves for its new service.

What do you think. Would Google be able to hit it correctly this time? Feel free to pour in your comments.

Why Steve Jobs introduced Micro-SIM

With the iPad,Apple introduced the Micro-SIM,everyone was surprised ! Everyone was wondering why did Apple did such an unexpected move.

Pondering over it,i get the point. Since iPhone,Apple must be thinking ways to tackle Jailbreaking, this happens to be a good move. Micro-SIM actually is a way Apple ensures that its end-customers are on AT&T(and not some other) and use the network. It'll take other operator a lot of time to shift to micro-sim,or get onto other gadgets that'll be using it. Also it'll make iPAD exclusive to the states(currently iPhone is even in India,all thanks to jailbreaking).

Smart move Stevie,you've done it again,you've proved your intelligence !

Happy PC cleaning day !

Yes. You read it right. Today,february 9th happens to be the national PC cleaning day. You open up your pc,clean it up,run system maintenance programmes and fine tune it.
Well,it wasn't my intention to clean up the pc(which i hardly use ,thanks to the laptop). But,apparently the mighty lord didn't approve of my decision.
This evening,while watching a movie on my pc(after ages),suddenly it restarted,and the worst part, it ceased to POST(power on self test). The more i tried to clean up the inner parts of the cpu,the more agonising it was.
So after an hour of agonising cleaning,and wait,the pc hasn't booted up yet. Seems like i'll need some professional help to get it sorted.
HAPPY PC CLEANING Day !

How to watch blocked shows

While surfing online,i found out about a new site - TVGorge.



While people continue to miss their favirote program just because their local broadcaster doesn't air it, here's a site that people can use.

TVGorge breaks all restrictons and brings to you fresh American TV content to vewers outside the US and other approved viewing areas.

You can check out shows like LOST,Dexter ,Dollhouse,Entourage,Archer,Grey's Anatomy,Prisonbreak and 120+ other shows.

TVGorge scans online content offered by various sites and then organises content with episode guides and all other information using their dedicated indexing scan engine. They also accomodate traditional streaming services like Hulu.

So what do you think?? Is this a good one, or do you have another one better than it?

Feel free to pour in your comments


Source

Can ou read the Signs !

I had been reading a book on Body language by Allen Please. After i've read the book, i've realised that one's body posture affects one's success or failure, no matter how positive the person thinks. Try Googling 'Body language' and 'Mind Defragmentation' for a better look nto it

So stiffen up your body,stay alert,get a book on Body Language(by any good psychologist), and concentrate on everything you do !

The hackers 'Twittered'

Twitter has identified a set pattern which makes use of compromised file sharing sites to steal logs of user information , and use them to attack accounts on Twitter.

Twitter said that it had discovered many compromised "torrent" sites that had been setup specifically to extract usernames and passwords.

Hackers were able to penetrate into servers and access the logs, which provided the login information, and in turn, gained access to Twitter and many other sites because many people use the same logon for many sites and services.

Twitter has stated that it has reset the account of affected users.

The firm has reset the accounts of affected users, it said.

"The takeaway from this is that people are continuing to use the same email address and password (or a variant) on multiple sites," the microblogging firm said in a blog post.

"We strongly suggest that you use different passwords for each service you sign up for."


Similarly, Facebook had reset my account for more verification. I had found that some mobile user had been accessing my facebook account, and messing with things. It might have been someone who had access to my cookies who made the mess. Even till now i'm getting to learn new things. Similar was for Twitter, where many advertising posts were tweeted(though it might be some malware on any of the pc's i used for accessing it).

Facebook has been even been said by some online security experts as the riskiest site to use. And seems like Twitter's coming into that category too !

Symbian goes open-source

Symbian Foundation has declared that its popular Symbian operating system for mobile phones has been thrown open for people. This means that any individual or organisation can modify the code for the legendry OS, which powers more than 300 million devices.

The foundation firmly believes the move will bring new developers to work on their system and help speed up the pace of evolution and improvement of the OS.

Earlier in 2008,the Finnish mobile phone giant Nokia bought the software and assisted establishment of the non-profit Symbian Foundation to oversee its development. That is a different thing that since then , Symbian has had its bad days from the iPhone and now Android OS.

The foundation includes Nokia, AT&T, LG, Motorola, NTT Docomo, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments and Vodafone. Nokia,SE,NTT and TI happen to be the founding members of the foundation,though the leader in it is Nokia, whose almost whole of the smartphones(except the new N810,900 and so forth which run on Nokia's own Maemo OS) work on it. Sony Ericsson's P-series of smartphones also happen to run the smart OS.

It can be downloaded from the foundation's website.

What the company says is that one of the motivations for the move was to speed up the rate at which the 10-year-old platform evolved(which nearly gave the same boring interface - the reason for its lagging behing iPhone and Android OS). Despite being the world's most popular smart phone operating system, Symbian has been losing the publicity battle, with Google's Android operating system and Apple's iPhone dominating recent headlines.

However,the foundation, says that it would monitor phones using the platform to ensure that they met with minimum standards. Thats good when coming to terms that S60 has been the world leader in smartphone platform.


Being a Symbian fan, it does excite me! The experience and powererfullness of Symbian has been miles ahead for me(infact, the S60 3rd edition stll seems much better than the iPhone OS).


What do you think, will it work wonders for Symbian?? Feel free to comment

A new Subscriber Identification Module - Micro SIM

The new iPad has introduced more than just loads of features, ease of use and portability. It has introduced some new evolution in technology too. And the newest evolution - introduction of Micro SIM-card.

One of the new features of iPad viscera besides the A4 chip , is that it's using a micro-SIM card for its 3G features.

Micro-SIM card, is the next generation of the conventional SIM card that we've been using. Micro SIM Card utilises 3FF - or Third Form Factor. In simple terms, It uses a new designing which provides physically smaller,less blubber and shiny gold contact area.

The contact area, where the whole technology works, is of the same size as of its ancestor. You can see it very easily in the given picture.


But thats not all. It allows to accomodate more stuff. It allows backward-compatability with a physical adapter(just the way RS-MMC is to regular MMC).

Micro SIM has a bigger internal phonebook,and also allows supports email storage. It also supports a new authentication scheme that fights carrier spoofing.

Now as the contact surface is of the same size and material electrically, there is a chance that you can size down your old SIM card, so that they fit inside physically in the slot, and use them in the micro SIM slot.

Now lets see what happens. The success of micro SIM also depends on the success of the iPad.

What do you think ?? Will Micro SIM will be a success? Feel free to pour in your comments

Nikon brings a full HD P100

Today, Nikon launched its new camera - the P100. This new camera seems a pleasant surprise for the company's loyal fans.

The camera gives full 1018p video in H.264, at a rate of 120FPS. The device comes with a 10MegaPixel camera and a CMOS sensor for better low-light performance.

Its features include zoom(superzoom actually !) 26x(26mm wideangle or 678mm super telephoto coverage). Though its a bit shorter than its counterparts of Fuji or Olympus which were released in the last two days, but what experts say is that Nikon's flagship point-and-shoot makes them ignorable.

The Nikon P100 is the first of its Coolpix seres to introduce CMOS, reducing lens capacity to 10MegaPixels to improve the device's performance in low light conditions with its bundled HDR processing.

Reportedly its the first camera from Nikon which does a complete 1080p video in H.264. It supports zooming while recording a video. And though it shoots at 10FPS, it can shoot upto 120FPS bursts(that is, when it shoots @ 120FPS). The lens of the camera is the NIKKOR ED.

Fuji's HS10 is theoritically much better than Nikon's P100(we'll have to wait till its available in the market for its on-hands actual usage review). But it costs 100$ than the P100(around $400 when it gets released in March).

Here are some of the additional features of the Coolpix P100

10.3-megapixels and Backside Illumination CMOS Sensor for stunning prints as large as 16x 20 inches, while retaining fine detail

In-Camera High Dynamic Range (HDR) merges multiple images of the same scene to create an image with a range of tonal detail that could not be captured in a single photo

Night Landscape Mode combines a series of images into a reduced noise composite for low light shooting

3.0-inch Vari-Angle 460,000-dot Clear Color Display LCD and Electronic Viewfinder makes it easy to compose and share pictures with friends and family. The new LCD, with anti-reflection coating, can tilt as much as 90 degrees up or 82 degrees down. This enables photographers to shoot from higher angles or from the hip. The incorporation of the an electronic viewfinder enables consumers to see through the lens in most any lighting condition

5-Way Vibration Reduction (VR) Image Stabilization System

Optical VR Image Stabilization by image sensor shift compensates for the effects of camera shake, producing clearer, sharper results in lower lighting or unsteady conditions

Hybrid VR Image Stabilization combines both sensor shift VR and Electronic VR Motion Detection automatically detects moving subjects and adjusts shutter speed and the ISO setting to compensate for camera shake and subject movement

High ISO 3200 capability creates new opportunities to take sharper, more natural-looking photos in lower light conditions (up to 10 megapixels)

Best Shot Selector (BSS) automatically takes up to 10 shots while the user presses the shutter, and saves the sharpest image

Program, Shutter Priority, Aperture Priority and Manual Exposure modes give ultimate creative control over images

New Sport Continuous Scene Mode for shooting at up to 10 fps at full resolution and 120 fps for 1.1-megapixel images

Subject Tracking automatically activates autofocus while tracking moving subjects such as children and animals. Even when the subject momentarily moves out of the LCD frame, the camera will restart tracking if the subject returns in the frame within 3 seconds

Pre-shooting Cache lets users capture up to 40 shots before shutter is released. This setting helps photographers stay ahead of the action

Active D-Lighting minimizes loss of details in highlights and shadows resulting in
beautiful, more natural-looking images

Smart Portrait System integrates the following features to make it a snap to capture stunning portrait photos of friends and family:

In-Camera Red-Eye FixTM automatically fixes most instances of red-eye

Enhanced Face-Priority AF can detect up to 12 faces from a variety of angles

Skin Softening ensures smooth skin tone on the face of subjects by leveraging built-in face-detection technology

Smile Mode automatically detects when a subject smiles and releases the shutter

Blink Warning notifies the user when a subject has blinked in a photo
Blink Proof detects the subject's face and automatically takes a series of sequential shots, then saves the image in which the subject's eyes are open

Google starting support for its mobile product consumers

Google has decided to bring customer support to its Android and Nexus One users after it suffered lashing by bloggers and techies over its bad customer support. Till now, they didn't have a voice support for their customers. But what we find posted on Google's recruitment portal indicates that they're working on the issue.

They have a new opening in their firm which aims to provide direct support to Android/Nexus One users. Here's what the Job portal mentions

"As Phone Support Program Manager for Android and the Nexus One, you are responsible for ramping up and managing operations of Google’s telephone support for our direct-to-consumer Android/Nexus One customers.

The optimal candidate will have direct experience in call center and partner management to drive customer satisfaction around their support experience.
The person will be based in Mountain View but Google will probably outsource the actual phone support job to another vendor."

The above written material is posted on this link.

Earlier, Google had only email support for its product users. People had to mail and wait upto 3 days for getting ther issues/concerns/queries/complains answered, and that too was taken as a query,Google doesn't provide 'direct' support.

Now thats a welcome move,i wonder if they're gonna launch their Voice Support Desk in India!

Beginning of the end for IE6

On the 1st February, Google officially declared that they had phased out support for their widgets working on Internet Explorer 6,starting with Google Docs and ending by dropping support for Google Calendar and Gmail.


Here's what they say

"

In order to continue to improve our products and deliver more sophisticated features and performance, we are harnessing some of the latest improvements in web browser technology. This includes faster JavaScript processing and new standards like HTML5. As a result, over the course of 2010, we will be phasing out support for Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 as well as other older browsers that are not supported by their own manufacturers.

We plan to begin phasing out support of these older browsers on the Google Docs suite and the Google Sites editor on March 1, 2010. After that point, certain functionality within these applications may have higher latency and may not work correctly in these older browsers. Later in 2010, we will start to phase out support for these browsers for Google Mail and Google Calendar.

Google Apps will continue to support Internet Explorer 7.0 and above, Firefox 3.0 and above, Google Chrome 4.0 and above, and Safari 3.0 and above.


"





They had been displaying messages on its popular social networkng site Orkut.


Source : Adam Pash

Rahman strikes gold once again - wins two Grammy's

Last night, A.R.Rahman won two Grammy awards in the grand function which took place.

Rahman won Grammy's for "Best Song Written for a Motion Picture" and "Best Compilation Soundtrack".
This does show that the no matter how much the West criticises Indians for being wierd and uncreative, it is only to the relevance that the music is composed. For example, yoou wouldn't use the "My heart will go on" in "The Hangover"(that'll look stupid and run the flow of the movie). Similarly western numbers work well only when the story supports it.


More on this news : BBC

Nokia Sucks !

On the 1st February, yet once again had to visit a Nokia Car outlet for another problem with the phone. Ths was my 12th visit to the customer care outlet. And yet once again i had the same problem. My phone was suffering multiple software related issues. Equaliser,theme files were corrupted, radio was not workng, and the phone was restartng a lot of times. And not to mention the spamming problem that i had been facing since last month(some malcious program n the phone's firmware using my internet and posting spam messages on social networking sites).

I reached the care centre by 9:45am, thinking that i'll be free by 10:30. Instead, the care centre opened at 11:00am. Till then, i had to wait. How pathetic. Is this a MultiNational Corporation. Earlier, the care centre executives at Nokia's Care outlet Micro Services stole my SD memory card, tried to intimidate me when i caught him lyng, and misbehaved. I even complained about the guy who was involved there with Nokia's central customer care cell, but no action was taken. This pathetic is Nokia's after-sales services.

Now, this time my job sheet number was 105433527/100201/3, NCC number was 105_433527.
My handset was given with an updated firmware,but now the phone is too slow, especially music player(takes 5 seconds to change a track).

Now, when ' visiting the Noka care centre for the dozenth time, i ask myself a question, 'If a company manufactures such bad products, why should i even buy its handsets'.

Hence, from now onwards," I PLEDGE that i shall neither buy a NOKIA handset, nor refer it to anyone" .