The fastest commercial train in the world is now operational in China running at a maximum speed of 394 kilometers per hour (km/hr) in a trail run. The train link connects two cities, Guangzhou in South to Wuhan in central China, and will travel at an average speed of 350km/hr (217mph). The 1,068 km distance between the two cities can now be covered by the high-speed train in two hours and forty five minutes – that is, a saving of about six hours of travel time.

The high-speed train line uses technology developed in co-operation with firms such as Siemens, Bombardier and Alstom.

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Fastest train in the world

It is confirmed. The Moon has water and plenty of it.

The NASA LCROSS mission has successfully uncovered water during the Oct. 9, 2009 impacts into the permanently shadowed region of Cabeus crater near the moon’s south pole. Here is the CBS video:

Steve Jobs did a great job in the past decade to be ranked Fortune Magazine’s CEO of the decade.

It is not the first time that Fortune recognized Jobs as a business genius. On November 27, 2007 Fortune Magazine named Jobs the most powerful person in business (CNN).

I like the way Jobs is portrayed in the article titled The decade of Steve.

Youthful founder gets booted from his company in the 1980s, returns in the 1990s, and in the following decade survives two brushes with death, one securities-law scandal, an also-ran product lineup, and his own often unpleasant demeanor to become the dominant personality in four distinct industries, a billionaire many times over, and CEO of the most valuable company in Silicon Valley.

Some of the notable contributions that Jobs was instrumental in are:

• One of the first commercially successful personal computers (Apple II in 1977).
• First mouse driven graphical interface (Macintosh computer in 1984).
• “Desktop publishing”
• Laser printer
• Personal computer network
• Successful computer animated feature films (Pixar)
• Highly successful digital music player (iPod in 2001)
• Online music store (iTunes in 2003)
• Highly successful smart-phone (iPhone in 2007)

Congratulation to the magician of the digital world, Steve Jobs!

Newly announced Google Maps Navigation caused shares of satellite navigation device companies to fall substantially amidst fears of the death of standalone GPS. Is it really the death or the rumors of the death have been greatly exaggerated?

In the Navigation Application, Google uses search engine to find addresses, Google Street View for photos of locations, and live traffic data in its turn-by-turn GPS software. The application is available in the new Droid phone. Let’s see some advantages and disadvantage of Google GPS attached to mobile phone.

Advantages of Google Maps Nav.:

• It is a free service
• Comes with phone and doesn’t need an extra gadget, easy to carry and you are less likely to forget it at home.
• Real-time updating
• Linked to the HUGE Google search database

Disadvantages:

• It is device specific – only phone it supports now is Motorola Droid. More may be (are) coming but it will take time. 
• Multi-tasking – using GPS and calling somebody would be difficult. It would certainly add concern to the traffic safety.
• Dedicated data connection is required – there are many places where Google service might not be available.
• Mobile phones usually have smaller screen as compared to dedicated GPS. More the screen are better the details on the map.
• Mobile phones’ smaller form factors usually don’t allow for extra battery (like iPhone). Constant use for long period of time might not be practical in some situations.
• Google will certainly add advertisement in future. Would like smaller screen and ads in it?

GPS manufacturers knew it was coming. Sometime back, TomTom started offering its own mobile GPS application for iPhone for $100. But free application is lot more cheaper! It is to be seen if Apple will beg Google to make one for iPhone.

Official video on Google Maps Navigation:

Professionals would certainly go for standalone GPS but causal users like myself would certainly be happy with the new device and new application. Death is a harsh word; but it is sure that they wouldn’t sell like hot cakes anymore.

GPS manufacturers need to step forward in innovating their products, cutting the prices, and offer better value to the customers. It sure is not a dead end!

Google, aiming to revolutionize the way people communicate online, has recently introduced an online application named Google Wave. The online tool will store a thread of data, document the history of a conversation and keep it on a server that runs on a Wave Protocol.

The wave protocol is related to cloud computing in which the users save, retrieve and work on data and applications on remote computers rather than the local hard drives. It is widely believed that future is for cloud computing in which users don’t need to download anything and everything can be done online. The operating system Google is planning to release, Chrome OS, is also based on the similar conceptual framework.

The widely used and most popular online communication tool ‘email’ was first introduced more than 40 years ago and it has little changed in the four decades. Emails are stored in server and are transferred to the users’ computer on request. However, Google Wave allows users to collaborate in real time. Users can see how and when things change and respond as required.

Email didn’t replace snail-mail but it sure did reduce the mail-box load. Now, it might be Email’s turn to shed some weight in the inbox.

Google Australia first proposed Google Wave in 2007. It is told that 100,000 beta users are testing the service currently. The service currently is invitation only. If you want to test it, you can also request an invite by visiting wave.google.com.

When I saw the misspelled Google logo, first thing I did was check the address bar. Yes it was the same old http://www.google.com. The same colorful logo of Google had an extra ‘l’ today. A mouse over the logo for a while revealed the secret of the misspelling.

Google is celebrating its 11th birthday today and everybody is invited to click its’ misspelled logo!

Happy Birthday Google!

Wish, you will prove to be even more innovating and user-friendly, respect our privacy, and wouldn’t meddle with our personal life in the coming year.

It was surprising that that the iPod Nano got a new video camera while the iPod Touch did not. Many people assumed that the camera equipped device could take still photos along with videos. After all, a sequence of still photos make video clips.

But, the mighty Apple doesn’t think so!

The Nano can take video but taking still photos is not its cup of cake. David Pogue of the NY Times asked Steve Jobs about it. Here is what he has to say:

The sensors for doing video are fairly thin. The sensors for doing a still camera, at much higher pixel resolution — and we’d really like to have autofocus — they are just way too thick to ever fit inside the Nano.

Are you working on making them thinner? Why wasn’t the iPod Touch thick enough?

After lot of speculations, Steve Jobs, CEO Apple Computers, has finally appeared on stage at Apple’s “It’s only rock and roll” event in San Francisco. This appearance is his first public appearance after a lengthy pause on such appearances due to his health reasons.

Welcome back Steve!

He has announced the release of iPhone OS 3.1 and iTunes 9.

Later today, Apple is expected to announce a new lineup of iPod media players at the event.

Rumors on camera on iPod Nano are confirmed. iPod Nano will now have a video camera, microphone – speaker built in, voice recorder, and a pedometer. FM is another surprise addition to the little device.

It seems, Apple thought that camera or built-in microphones on  iPod Touch would be ‘too good’ and will eat-up the market of other iPod cousins. There was no iPads/tablets or whatever they were supposed to be called in the event.

Canada made Blackberry may be the world’s most-popular or next-to-the-most-popular high-end smart phone but that doesn’t mean Canadians love cell phones to the ancient land-lines.

In a latest report, Canada has the lowest mobile penetration followed by Mexico. Among 30 member countries surveyed by a Paris-based organization, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), consumers in the U.S., Canada and Spain pay the highest mobile phone bills.

I posted about the previous report of OECD in 2007 and nothing has changed in the last two years – rates in Canada are still the highest and it is still the country with the lowest mobile penetration. Yes $85K mobile phone bill do make sense sometimes.

In the same report, it is told that Italians have 150 mobile phone subscribers for every 100 residents.

Last year it was the tallest man with whom he posed for photograph. Recently he met a long-legged Svetlana Pankratova in London’s Trafalger Square to pose for for the launch of the 2009 edition of the Guinness World Records book, which is published on Wednesday.

The world’s smallest man, He Pingping, is 20 years old and just 74.61 centimeters tall. It is told that the shortness resulted from being born with a condition known as primordial dwarfism. Pingpin is told to be a keen poker player and smokes two packets of cigarettes a day.

According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the long-legged Russian woman, Svetlana Pankratova, has the world’s longest legs. Pankratova, 36, an estate agent from Volvograd, Russia, is 1.96 meters tall. Her legs alone measure 132 centimeters.

Pingping posed for a photograph showing him standing up comfortably between her legs. (Photo Source : WENN)