Amazon is going to sell a lot of this..

Amazon's ECHO appears to do a lot of things for its size, besides providing music. It is desk bound Cortana and Siri and other similar wonder woman voice assistants and probably fortified by AI (artificial intelligence based). Looking at the price ($179.99), it appears to be very affordable.

This is how Amazon describes,

·         Information, music, audiobooks, news, weather, traffic, sports, and more--instantly

·         Controlled by your voice for hands-free convenience

·         Far-field voice recognition hears you from across the room

·         Connected to the cloud so it's always getting smarter

·         360º omni-directional audio to fill the room with immersive sound

·         Compatible with Belkin WeMo and Philips Hue connected devices to control lights and switches with your voice

·         Plays music from Amazon Music, Prime Music, Pandora, iHeartRadio, TuneIn, and more

 More here:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/columnist/baig/2015/06/23/amazon-echo-available-to-all-customers/29149899/

 The device is not big and sit on your table or kitchen counter top. It has tweeters and woofers and perhaps the sound quality is reasonable.

Watch this video from this site:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/columnist/baig/2015/06/23/amazon-echo-available-to-all-customers/29149899/

 Looks like if you want it, you can buy it now.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00X4WHP5E

You should really get acquainted with this...

You could do really cool stuff (no programming required) if you know how to use IFTTT.

IFTTT is really useful and depends on just understanding this; if something happens do something' which is the same as thing as 'If THIS then THAT'. IFTTT actually stands for the previous sentence.

All you need to know to work with IFTTT is to clearly state what you need to get done when such and such happens.

For example,

• Call and tell you before you open the door and look out whether you need to take the umbrella
• When the stock you have invested goes down a certain value, you want to be telephoned; 
• If a new book on New York times best sellers list is added you want a email sent to you;
• You want to tweet as soon as you post to a blog on the blogger,

and so on and so on...

Here are two recipes (as they are called) I created in using this useful, free (of course) service. There is a premium version as well. In order to understand you can start with the free stuff.

The first recipe tweets as soon as I add a new post to my blog. The Second recipe looks up the Yahoo Finance stock quotes and when the Microsoft stock rises above $50 I get an email sent to me as well ass 4 of my other partners(fictitious in this case!)

These two posts show you more details and the second post shows you step-by-step how to create a recipe.
http://hodentek.blogspot.com/2015/06/ifttt-and-iot.html
http://hodentekhelp.blogspot.com/2015/06/how-easy-is-it-to-create-ifttt-recipe.html

Toyota makes a hovering board

Much like a magic carpet, but something like a magic surf board.

Not a figment of imagination. Toyota has done it with MAGLEV and it is even branded. You guessed right. It's LEXUS!
Well, MAGLEV is magnetic levitation. There will be trains running a la Maglev. The Japanese  and Chinese (Shanghai Maglev Train) are Still looking into but several German projects seems to have been scrapped.

For a car (or something that is not track-based), Toyota is first. Friction is what makes it difficult to go at high speed. The hovering car (just a board now) of Toyota has no friction with the ground but there will be other friction components.

How soon one can see it? Well in Japan it has already test run. Now, come October if you happen to be in Barcelona, Spain you can see one demoed.

Here is a picture of the hover board as it is presently called:

More here:
http://www.autonews.com/article/20150624/OEM06/150629958/lexus-builds-functional-hoverboard-prototype

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/energy/2015/06/150625-hoverbikes-boards-get-Army-Toyota-attention/?sf10308601=1

Here is a video of a hoverboard which you may like better from this site:
http://www.lexus-int.com/amazinginmotion/slide/
 

Well, how soon you can buy one?
................??????

35000 are gearing up to do this.

योगेन चित्तस्य पदेन वाचां मलं शरीरस्य च वैदिकेन । योपाकरोत्तं प्रवरं मुनीनां पतञ्जलिं प्राञ्जलिरानतोस्मि॥
Homage to Patangali, the originator of Yoga
Come June 21, the UN declared International Yoga Day, some 35000 people in New Delhi are getting ready to do Yoga at the same time. This is besides all the other states, districts and taluqs in India. It will also be celebrated at the United Nations lead by Minister for External Affairs Sushma Swaraj.

Yoga is not just physical but also mental and spiritual. It's ties to religion is really minimal and it is not a cult. It's about mental and physical well being.

I studied Yoga in Mysore a long time ago. I returned to practicing Yoga some three years ago.
I will post some pictures from Yoga in Bengaluru when the time comes. Till that time, adios.

Do you need a larger, more colorful coat-hanger?

AP photo(I guess) from MSN's best-picture of the week June 19.

You may also want to see this:
http://hodentekplus.blogspot.com/2015/06/have-you-seen-one-like-this.html

Are you ready to lose this valuable gift?

Our fauna and flora are a gift from heaven to us. We are supposed to live in harmony with nature. We have seen species after species vanishing into oblivion. Are we ready to lose yet another species, the African wild elephants. Africa is the killing ground and who supports this? The guys who want to make a fortune selling ivory - God's curse to the elephants.

Guess who is buying all these ivory objects.

 

Most of the trade appears to be in Asia and to a minor extent in other countries. I hope the Chinese government and the Asians everywhere consider the plight of these helpless creatures in all earnestness.
Support this international organization to implement their campaigns.

Read some elephant facts here:
http://seaworld.org/en/animal-info/animal-infobooks/elephants/longevity-and-causes-of-death/

That's disgusting, Mr.Bourdain

This is one of the most disgusting things I saw recently. This is from one of Mr. Bourdain's trips to Hawaii where he goes octopus fishing near one of the islands. Two grown up men going and beating up on a little octopus hiding.

 

Mr. Bourdain picks it up at the end of his spear, while his colleague, a native of Hawaii takes a piece of wood and beats it up.

Mr. Bourdain then starts sucking..(looks like). How did he bring him up to do this, I wonder? Probably he could not forget the taste he acquired in Korea for this.

looks like eating live octopus is not far fetched and they have even some kind of name (Sannakji) in Korean for this live octopus dish. It appears it is on the menu in one of those places in Brooklyn, New York.

Shame on you CNN for airing this disgusting episode! CNN airs the following program:
Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown - CNN.com

 

Have you seen one like this?

We have rainbows very frequently in Honolulu. Hawaii is very appropriately called the Rainbow State.

This island is optimized for rainbows, it seems.

But I have never seen like this one before.

I copied this from BING, my best source for great pictures. This is actually from the Crater Lake National Park from
this source:
https://wfoster2011.wordpress.com/2014/08/03/picture-of-the-day-thunderstorm-over-crater-lake/
The picture is from the National Park Service (http://www.nps.gov/crla/index.htm)

Also review these links  if you are a rainbow fan:
http://www.philiplaven.com/p5a.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Circular_rainbow.jpg

If this is not endurance, what is?

Go out and take a walk for half hour and tell me if this is not endurance. This is Harriet who finished the marathon for the benefit of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society in San Diego recently.

The bare facts:

She is 92
Started thinking about marathon after she was over 70
Two time survivor of cancer
Had a chemo just a few days earlier to the marathon
Also a concert Pianist
Finished the marathon in a record 7 hours, 24 minutes and 36 seconds

 This photo is of Harriet after the Marathon by Jerod Harris for Getty Images

 

http://kyxy.cbslocal.com/2015/06/01/92-year-old-woman-finishes-san-diego-rock-n-roll-marathon-in-record-time/

 Donate here online to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society

https://donate.lls.org/lls/donate?mc=baml

Mysore State Anthem and the Last Maharaja

My brother who writes to me off and on sent me this YouTube link recently. My heart fluttered as I heard it after so many years. The last time I heard was at a different time and a different place, but nostalgia hit me like a rock. As one Mysorian (mysorian@gmail.com), to another Mysorian in my audience I could not let go this opportunity of sharing this video.

Jayachamarajendra Wadiyar, the last of Mysore Maharajas was the most enlightened among his peers and you can read all about his love of music and arts in Wikipedia. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jayachamarajendra_Wadiyar)

This is one of the most popular pictures of the Maharaja from Wikipedia, I have a few others taken from photographs during my visits to this beloved city.

Here is a video of the Mysore State Anthem which was very popular when Mysore State still existed.


Attributed to Basavappa Shastry 1881.

The wait is over, Windows 10 is imminent

Terry Myerson of Microsoft today announced the release date. The wait is over, it will be available starting July 29. In fact Cortana told me this morning (if you do not have Cortana you can hear here: http://blogs.windows.com/bloggingwindows/2015/06/01/hello-world-windows-10-available-on-july-29/).

It will be first available for PCs and Tablets on Windows 7 with SP1 and Windows 8.1. For the Windows Phone there will be a delay, probably within the year.

It will be really available on all Windows devices. Review this quote,

“We designed Windows 10 to run our broadest device family ever, including Windows PCs, Windows tablets, Windows phones, Windows for the Internet of Things, Microsoft Surface Hub, Xbox One and Microsoft HoloLens—all working together to empower you to do great things."

The Start menu is back and many of these are upgraded or new:

• Microsoft Edge
• Cortana
• Office on Windows (Office 216 + universal Windows Apps for office [available separately])
• Xbox Live and the integrated Xbox App
• New Photos, Videos, Music, Maps, People, Mail & Calendar apps - all content synced through OneDrive.
• Windows Continuum-responsive design across devices
• Windows Store supported by Global Payment methods.

Plus updates as they appear.

 

How do you get the upgrade?

The following system tray icon will appear when it debuts. Just click on the icon on July 29.
This CNET post gives you more on free upgrading to Windows 10

 

Also this,

 

http://www.cnet.com/news/how-to-reserve-your-free-copy-of-windows-10/?tag=nl.e703&s_cid=e703&ttag=e703&ftag=CAD090e536