Photo of Jupiter and It's Four Moons

Here is a picture of the planet Jupiter and its four moons (Callisto, IO, Europa and Ganymede) taken from my camera last year. More details of the camera settings used on my flickr page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/antonyr/5025499238/

Moon Landing

While we haven't discovered liquid water on the moon (not yet!), scientists now estimate a staggering 600 Million metric tons of water 'stored' on the lunar craters near its north pole. All in a place previously called the driest place in the solar system!

WayNotes in the Wild

WayNotes, my augmented reality app for Android mobile devices, has been released into the android market place. Its a free app, download and try it out today.

For regular updates visit the official blog of WayNotes - http://waylog.blogspot.com/

Batman Sketch

I made a quick sketch of Batman

Windows Update...

"Windows Update: To check for updates, you must first install an update for windows update!"...huh...

India - According to Google Maps

Google, known for localizing their search results, localizes their map images too! Compare the various representations of India in Google Maps

The version for India: http://maps.google.co.in

The Chinese version - http://ditu.google.cn
Notice how many places are now shown as part of China!

The US / International version: http://maps.google.com
See the dotted lines for disputed regions of Jammu and Kashmir, and Arunachal Pradesh!

Image Credits: Google Maps

Water Water Everywhere...on the Moon!

The major space news this past week, and probably most significant in history of space exploration is the discovery of water on Moon!

The international cooperation between Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) and United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) led to this astounding discovery.

The NASA moon minerology mapper instrument onboard ISRO's Chndrayaan-1 moon probe, discovered large quantities of water and hydroxyl molecules on moon. There aren't lakes or puddles (yet) but molecules combined to dust on the lunar surface.


Why is this such a big deal?

Water is important for life (as we know it) to exist.

We already found water ice on places like Mars, why are we excited about Moon?

Moon was supposed to be dry, and after all these years of exploration, including various manned missions, it is hugely surprising that water molecules were not discovered before. This opens up a new set of questions....

• Where did all these water come from? whats its origin?
  
• Why haven't we been able to see it before?
• What other parts of solar system, which we currently think as dry has water?
• Is there liquid water on Moon?
  
• When are we going to announce that we found life on Moon ? ( :)
  

These questions will be discussed and debated for years to come...

"WayNotes" Augmented Reality App for Android!

WayNotes is my new experiment with "Augmented Reality".

Its is an app for Android mobile devices, using which users can create notes and post them to geographical locations. Using phone features such as GPS, Camera, Compass, when the user points the phone in the direction of the note, the note appears as a circle shape, in its location overlaid on top of live camera feed.

Also, users will be able to access place names from GeoNames.org database.

The app has been submitted for Android Developers Challenge 2

More info here:

WayNotes website: www.waynotes.com
Blog WayLog:  waylog.blogspot.com

Similage.com Image Search

 My image search engine "SegamiSearch" is now "Similage"!

With tons of new features outlined below...

• Face Detection : search images containing faces 
• Improved similarity search algorithm
• Multiple similarity  search options: Similar colors, similar features
• Sketch and Find: sketch shapes and discover new images! (the first of its kind!)
  
• Search by prominent colors in an image
  
• Gray-scale images: search only black and white images
• Improved user interface
• Larger image database

visit it at www.similage.com

I had submitted this research work for review in ACM multimedia 2009 Grand Challenge contest, Eventhough it was not selected for publication, I got some very good reviews!

Rainbow From A Binary World...

Celebratng The 1234567890 Day

Feb 13th, 15:31 hours was celebrated as the 1234567890 day by Unix geeks worldwide.

Its the date-time in Unix epoch time format. Defined as the number of seconds elapsed since Jan 1, 1970. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_time)

By Feb 13th, 15:31 hours 1234567890 seconds had elapsed since Jan 1, 1970!

Tip: To see the date in this format type in "date +%s" (without the quotes) in your Unix/Linux terminal

Microsoft's Live.com Search Engine Bug

Here is a bug in Microsoft's live.com search engine.

1) Go to Live.com

2) Type in "search php" or "searchengine php" or "search engine php"

3) Watch what happens

---What happens? Nothing!!! you will be treated with a blank page!

Update: I submitted a bug report to Microsoft, now the bug appears to be fixed! the above mentioned queries result in proper results page.

Bug in Gmail logon page

Update (june 27, 11pm): Now its working. A proper snippet appears in the page.
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Found this in Google's gmail today, see the "undefined..." text at the circled area in the screen-shot from logon page? Thats a javascript code returning "undefined" value!

Martian soil is friendly to life (atleast asparagus)

Scientists from NASA's phoenix mission say that the soil samples tested aboard the lander, contain many minerals, friendly to life. The salts and nutrients magnesium, sodium, potassium and chloride were found. The soil has a pH of 8. It would support the growth of asparagus. This soil is closely analogous to surface soils found in the upper dry valleys in Antarctica.

The wet soil test was the first of its kind carried on the surface of any planet outside earth.

The presence of salts further provide evidence to existence of water on mars.

----
Even though the soil is friendly, the martian atmosphere is hostile to life as we know it on the earth surface. But, on earth itself life exists in extreme conditions, like the depths of sea, with volcanic vents, and no light.

Lets wait for more evidence and test results, who knows one day the lander might dig a hole and find plenty of thriving life forms.

Image Src: NASA (http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/news/phoenix-20080626.html)

Water ice on Mars? What could that mean?

Yesterday, the mars Phonenix lander twittered (twitter.com/marsphoenix) that it had found ice, water ice on mars. There were some substance on the martian surface which sublimated leaving no traces, salt deposits does not do that, so scientists speculate that to be ice.

Why is this an exciting discovery? The presence of water on a planet, is a basic necessity for life to evolve, especially life similar to what we see on earth.

Scientists have long speculated, and there have been numerous unconfirmed details on martian surface which indicate to the presence of water, or atleast water existed long time back. Now finally they seem to have some form of evidence, further exploration by phoenix lander should confirm this historical finding. Also this leads to a much bigger question, is there life on mars now?

-----
Update:

Report from NASA Press conference June 20

- NASA Scientists say they are sure that the substance is water ice

- The phoenix lander mission was specifically sent to confirm that water ice existed on mars

- Ice/ice sheet is 2 inches deep below the dirt/sand

- The mission does not specifically look for life itself

- Could the white stuff be solid CO2 (dry ice)? No, it would turn to gas much quicker

- Is the white stuff any salt? No, would take a long time to disappear, if it indeed is salt and disappeared so fast then there is plenty of water to aid it

- The soil is clumpy and sticky why? we don't know yet

- The next task would be to test the ice for presence of minerals (food for life)

Disappearing Ice - NASA Press release:

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/Texas A&M University

SegamiSearch.com - The WWW Image Search Engine

Check out this cool image search engine created by me. Why its cool? since it does something no other major web search engines is capable of doing - image similarity search. Also, its image ranking algorithm is one of the most sophisticated in web. So play around with it and have fun, and do let me know of your feedback.

URL: http://www.segamisearch.com/

07/07/07

This date looks nice...so here is a post made on the seventh day of the seventh month of 2007!

My Most Popular Video on YouTube

Check out my second award winning animation, sequel to the Hand animation. This one is quite popular in youtube, already more than 12,000 views!

Here it is...

"Meteor Impact!" - Made in Hollywood, USA

Happy Pi-Day

Yesterday, March 14 (3-14) was Pi-Day, celebrating the first few digits of the wonderful constant Pi.

The Hand Learns to Walk!

Here is my Award winning animation, developed using my own animation and modeling tool!