Official Google Blog: Beefing up goo.gl with new features

Official Google Blog: Beefing up goo.gl with new features

Google honours Shakuntala Devi

Google warmed the hearts of billions of Indians, computer geeks and mathematicians around the world, by featuring the late Shakuntala Devi, famously known as "The Human Computer", on her 84th birthday on Nov. 4; by featuring her on the Google Doodle, styled to look like a calculator display !!

Generations of Indians have known her since their schooldays. Her forte was to perform the most  complex mathematical calculations mentally and within seconds. Some of her most remarkable achievements in beating the computer in speed has been in extracting cube root of large numbers and once she gave the 23rd root of a 201 digit number in 50 seconds flat !!

Another of her amazing feat was to multiply two randomly picked 13 digit numbers  in just 28 seconds !! Just about the time one takes in writing out the result !!! This feat is recorded in the Guinnesse Book of World Records.  

Born in a poor family of circus performers, Shakuntala Devi's genius became evident at the age of three, and she went on to display her mathematical skills to the world, despite lacking a formal education. She was 83 years old, when she passed away this year on April 21 in Bangalore.

Bigg Boss 7 - Interesting turn of events

Bigg Boss, the hugely popular TV reality show on Colors TV channel, hosted for the fourth time by Bollywood super-star Salman Khan, is already past midway in its 7th season - 7 Saath; and now comes the most edge-of-the-seat drama that would make couch-potatoes sit still and watch in awe and amazement.

The turn of events with Kushal attacking Andy physically and peppered with choices abuses (thankfully censored for the prime-time family audiences) and thereby getting himself evicted by the Bigg Boss himself on disciplinarian grounds, brings in the much sought after surprise element. Guauhar following him out to prove her solidarity was another bolt out of the blue. Had she too been kept out for defying Big Boss's orders, it would have served the ends of justice better.

However, Big Boss relents; much too the chagrin of those who were looking forward to a peaceful atmosphere in the house and especially Andy who had been victimized more than once, for his soft, open and friendly attitude.

What comes as a surprise, is the audience is unable to see through the persona of Guauhar, who trying her best to appear charming, fair (in the sense of being un-biased, and not with respect to skin color), successfully hides her game of ambition and manipulation. She is the perfect drama queen who can shed an instant  tear at the appropriate moment, succeeds in making people feel guilty while projecting her righteousness. all along her little subterfuge has gone unnoticed, and that speaks for the maturity of the house-mates. It began at the beginning with her announcement that Big Boss had asked her to have a final say in choosing a contestant from the Hell, whereas she had only been asked to select one after taking others' views.  Only Kamya was able to pin-point her un-truth.

She repeats it again on other occasions, especially when there was a nomination for choosing the person who had discussed most on nominations; and Kushal shields her, naturally, and makes Andy the scapegoat. Thereafter, when Kushal hits Andy on the back of his neck, she is in a vociferous denial mode. After her re-entry, she again fights with Salman, the gracious host, and speaks out in favour of Kushal, just ass she had done in the earlier week when Salman was admonishing Kushal for his behaviour with Tanisha.

It is sad to find the two other strong female contestants Kamya and Tanisha, not being able to see through her game.  Due to their own misgivings and other concerns, both have been reduced to also-rans. If things continue this way, its would not be surprising to see Guauhar, considering that so far she has managed to have her way;  walking or rather laughing all the way to the bank as the winner of Season 7. 

I would be very happy to proved wrong !!

(See Wikipedia's nicely illustrated page on Bigg Boss 7 for a sequential refresher of the action in the episodes) :  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bigg_Boss_7

To keep yourself UPDATED with all the action inside the Bigg Boss house; Click this LINK :
http://colors.in.com/in/biggboss/live-feed/