Which language do you speak ?? "Vlingo" !!

Hi to one and All,

After Friday comes Saturday. Surely you people remember "Friday", ain't it ?? (Nope,nope,nope I am not talking about the famous "Friday" from Daniel Defoe master piece "Robinson Crusoe"..rather this one http://java-pallab.blogspot.com/2011/10/lets-talk-about-friday.html). Well, till now I haven't got an invitation for this, but still the wait is on.


Meanwhile, moving on, it took me a while to get used to IRIS (tiny sister of SIRI, but no way nearer to it). I was looking for something in Android, which is more advanced  and could do at least the basic stuff that SIRI can do, sending text, calling people through voice, do some basic search. Although IRIS has improved a lot from its initial stages, it didn't satisfy my taste as a new android smart phone user. I just couldn't resist the idea of interacting with my phone verbally in a language I know. And soon enough my inquisition led me to my old Guru, who can answer virtually everything; Google. And one day after coming back from office, i started searching in Android market. I didn't have to wait for long. In next 5 mins I just discovered "Vlingo". And you know what my first thoughts were, Is it free Or a paid app. 


To my utter relief, I found it to be free and the next thing I could remember was calling out one of my friends name at the top of my voice, so that my phone can listen to me and make a call to him. And to my amazement, it somehow understood my Indian ascent and called up my friend. And after that I posted a comment on Facebook, I opened twitter, I messaged to two of my friends and even found out the nearest ATM machine around my place in a 6 mins of frenzied usage of "Vlingo". And to my satisfaction everything worked.


This was much better than IRIS and there are a lot of options, more than what I expected. I was happy because, first thing, it understood what I said ( You can very well infer that from the title). And second thing, it has a wonderful GUI, I somehow liked the color and look and feel and third thing it has an iVersion i.e. you have an app for iPhone also unlike SIRI. For more information you can have a look at the video http://www.howcast.com/videos/258569-How-To-Do-Things-Faster-With-Your-Mobile-Phone-Using-Vlingo.


I would be exploring it more to check out its some more interesting features...Till then 


This is Bishnu.....Signing Off..

"Interface" The Middle Man

We will always find middle man in between producer and consumer of anything. Sometimes more than one layer of middle man. Both producer and end user hate those middle man. They just rip profit by somehow involving in transaction. But no one will deny it require lots of thinking to establish a model which doesn't need middle man. Let’s understand what kind of value these middle men bring.

Like real world every software or services is integration of various modules. Each module is responsible to carry out certain task. Some component consumes the output of other; to integrate these we need middle man. In Java we say it “Interface”.  The basic idea of interface is to act like middle man. But in Java world it can do some additional things.

1)     As the name suggest Interface is basically to integrate two different components.  It exposes the functionality of one component to other in a simple manner.

2)     It can be used to hold Constants of the project. As the properties of Interface are always public and final.

3)     Java doesn’t allow multiple inheritance. So One class can’t extend multiple classes, the work around in Interface. One class can implement multiple interfaces. And a reference of an Interface can hold the Object of implementing class. 

Class A implements Ia {}

Ia ia = new A();

In this way it gives lots of option to designer.

4)     Interface enforces certain behavior on the class. For ex: if my object is instance of Serializable, then the object can be persisted. Interface is used to mark the Object.

5)     I found the best use of interface is it helps to design lots of generic stuffs. It helps in reducing tight coupling between component.

Please share your thoughts and experience with Interface in programming and real life as well.

Let's Talk About FRIDAY

Hi All,

We are now living in a fast growing world. Everyday gives us something new to wonder about and new to think about. And the first thought comes to my mind, what next. And everyday i again start with the same thought...WHAT NEXT....

When the other day i was sitting and having a coffee at a wee hour in office, one of my colleague pointed out that the biggest shock our time has also given birth to probably one of the finest inventions of our time. Used to seeing these technologies in movies like MI and all the Bond movies suddenly this became a beautiful reality of our times. Those who are wondering what i am talking about, yes it is Steve Jobs and SIRI respectively.

Everyone appreciated it and hailed Steve Jobs for this wonderful innovation. But now allow me to go back to that wee hour in office, where my colleague also told me (although rather vaguely) about IRIS. Yes, looking at those bold letters you can find out that this is SIRI in reverse. That is exactly what you find in the app overview in the Android Market. I went and downloaded the app then and there. It was interesting, nothing like SIRI, but still interesting. And the mother of all surprises, it was developed by a small group of individuals in Kochi lead by Narayan Babu after a marathon 8 hour long stretched adrenaline rush (http://blog.dexetra.com/a-day-when-siri-inspired-us-to-create-iris-fo). I rest my case here to the further analysis of my readers about how successful IRIS would be.

But I am not going to bash SIRI nor am I going to praise the team for evolving IRIS. Rather I would like to draw all of your attention to something very interesting that they were developing. Of course the development of IRIS gave them a good exposure to the world, but it simply doesn't make their innovation any less spectacular.

So let's talk about FRIDAY. No no no....not the weekend (It is certainly not a weekend but we always make it one.Gone are the days when Sunday used to be the only weekend...rather the term weekend was non-existent. Anyway, let's focus on the topic). That is what these guys were developing for almost a year now. Before I confuse you with all my explanations, just have a look at the video to see what it is(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vTqYgcKJZ0&feature=player_embedded). Doesn't need much more explaining...does it ?

The interesting thing is, this can tell you where you were, when your battery died last time or for that matter when you were talking to your girlfriend :P (Atrocious logic...why would someone like to know that....But you never know). And you know what, you can register for the Hangout in Google+ for this and check out the launch of friday-app. At least Google+ will have some more hits.

Check this out...And I will let you know about the features...till then....

This is Bishnu Signing Off.....