Design School Reputations

When potential students or project clients ask me which is the best

architecture or design school, I usually give them the names of a few

institutions but also insist: 'don't take my word for it, get hold of

current students or researchers there, and ask them what it's like'.

Even that approach is limited: people inside one institution are not

ideally placed to compare their own experience with that of their

peers in other ones. Citation league tables are a guide, but tell

only one part of the story. There's a gap here: 33 million people in

the US have rated a product, service, or person using an online

rating system - but not, so far as I can see, the big ticket purchase

of a design education. Design portal Core 77 hosts a lively forum in

which students exchange opinions about design courses and schools -

but these exchanges are anecdotal. Is there a ratings system for

education out there that I've missed?



Core77 - Design Schools and Education

Google's Orkut code is stolen

Google's Orkut code is stolen, says the company that its eponymous author founded and left. A lawsuit filed by Affinity Engines, co-founded by Orkut Buyukkokten, claims that there are nine unique bugs in the codebase, and that's too much to be a coincidence. Buyukkokten is a Stanford graduate and developed the social networking code for Stanford alumini, founding a company to develop it commercially before joining Google. But Google says that despite requests to see the code, Affinity Engines has, like SCO, refused to reveal its hand.



Google sued over Orkut bug replication feature | The Register: "Google sued over Orkut bug replication feature"

Google India Code Jam 2005

Hi coders ...

Get ready for the biggest jam of programmers

Great prizes to be won too



Check this out ...



Google India Code Jam 2005

So ‘digerati’… are you game …?

Are you a part of the "digerati" …. A new commune of the affluent digitally elite population in India which has access to and are the only beneficiaries of the IT revolution in India and other knowledge based sectors of the economy.

The digerati totals around 50 million which is a miniscule part of the total Indian population of more than 1 billion. It is not based on caste, inherited wealth or family connections, but on a system of education, brainpower, skills and ability to stay on the “cutting edge” of knowledge.

Students from various engineering colleges in India become a part of this group every year, earn a lot of income as compared to other streams (like Industrial Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, etc) and live in an altogether different way. The lifestyle of the digerati tends to be metrosexual and cosmopolitan one. Regular visits generally include coffeehouses, pubs, movie theatres, shopping malls, gymnasiums, big bazaars and restaurants. The concentration of the digerati to particular cities like Bangalore, Pune, Mumbai, etc has also given rise to different kinds of industries.

The high rise apartments and PG accommodations are spreading to all the nook and corners of the cities and even further to the outskirts. Similar is the scene in case of coffee houses, shops, malls, restaurants and also the cooks and servants they keep. Not to forget, the travel agencies and network of city taxis are now coming up with positioning systems and tracking devices for providing better services.

But surprisingly, this trendy knowledge-based enclave is accessible only to a handful. We say that Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has led to a revolution in India. And many even call India an IT superpower. But what has IT done for the ones ‘other than the digerati’. India still remains one of the poorest societies, millions go to bed hungry, 40% of the population is still illiterate, millions of children never go to school, corruption is widespread, and thousands die everyday of diseases which can be easily prevented.

The responsibility now only lies in the hands of the digerati (I can now refer it as "us") to cut down the divide, to spread prosperity and knowledge to the rest of the society (especially to urban poor and rural villages) and to explore and innovate new services for the "rest".

So digerati … are you game …???


Ref: IT Experience in India
(Kenneth Keniston, Deepak Kumar)

"Media Lab Europe" is closing ...

Media Lab Europe Press Statement



Dublin; January 14 - The Board of Directors of Media Lab Europe announced today that it is putting the company into voluntary solvent liquidation.

The decision was taken because its principal stakeholders - the Irish Government and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have not reached agreement on a new funding model for the organisation.



Media Lab Europe / Press Release: "Board of Directors announces closure of Media Lab Europe

Germany Inaugurates 5 MW Wind Turbine Prototype

Amazing work done by the Germans ....

This kind of renewable sources of energy could also be helpful in India where most of the 'junta' lives in darkness.



RenewableEnergyAccess.com | Germany Inaugurates 5 MW Wind Turbine Prototype: "Germany Inaugurates 5 MW Wind Turbine Prototype "

What is RSS

Check this out to find more about the new technology - RSS.



and also about its arch rival - Atom

that has led to a cold war between Yahoo! and Google.



What is RSS?