Education in most of the Asian countries relies on the headmaster-with-a-stick technique where kids are forced to follow a pre-decided (usually ages old) pattern from day one in school. Although some of the schools have taken the initiate to introduce the usage of technology along with the daily education system yet hardly any one of them have understood the importance of free time in between education.

I am not aware of one school in my country, India, where a student leaves school for a year in order to experiment on his project and gets admission all over again with any problems once he is done with his break. Either that student will have to be very lucky to be re-admitted in a school or otherwise the parents of that student must have big pockets so that schools take him without second thought!

This explains that there is hardly any room for creativity in the education system prevailing in this part of the planet. No doubt that the rigorous education system teaches Asian kids the formulas of trigonometry by heart but if I ask a 12 year old to open up his television’s remote control, dismantle it and later on re-arrange it then he might get confused. Not because he was gifted with weak brain but because our system didn’t permit his brain to grow in a manner it actually should grow.

I don’t know one Indian kid (under the age of 12) who has come up with a super famous iPhone app although I have read about multiple such kids out there in the U.S. Isn’t this enough to prove that we are missing out on something that kids on the other part of this planet are being taught? Freedom to experiment!

© CompuWorld - because The Genius Inside You Is Still Sleeping.

I recently got the chance to enjoy Xbox 360 Kinect in a nearby store when I was waiting for a friend. The store had least number of customers as it was weekday and bright daylight. Though I had heard a lot about Xbox 360 Kinect and seen a lot of videos but I never had the chance to enjoy this for real.

What I Like About Xbox 360 Kinect?

The full body sensor of Xbox 360 Kinect was amazing while the controller free motion gaming is ofcourse attractive. The games that are part of Xbox 360 Kinect will keep you on your toes and it is impossible to fool the system. Also, the voice control of Xbox 360 Kinect was pretty interesting.

What I Dislike About Xbox 360 Kinect?

It needs a lot of space. I mean it! Any store that wants its customers to enjoy Xbox 360 Kinect live will surely have to keep aside a lot of space for the motion gaming console just because its requires a lot of movement. Navigation at times can get weird in Xbox 360 Kinect. Most of the games are stand-up games so you might get tired a bit quickly. Also, it surely isn’t for hard-core gamers.

Summarizing my brush with Xbox 360 Kinect

Well, my friend hopped in just in time to break my honeymoon with motion gaming but I did get enough time to understand why Xbox 360 Kinect attracted a section of gamers and repelled the other section. Xbox 360 Kinect is good for daily game parties and for those who feel like doing light workout without leaving the comfort of their homes. It could be good for kids as it will keep them active but you got to be cautious as they might end up jumping around unnecessarily.

On the other hand Xbox 360 Kinect is strictly a no no for hard-core gamers who are madly in love with high end games. To cut long things short - Xbox 360 Kinect is simply amazing even if it has a learning curve. By the way, you got to have big living rooms to play such motion games comfortably.

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The lay off was taken harshly from employees within AOL that work for TechCrunch. AOL’s SVP of new tweeted a pretty sad tweet after the announcement:

I have just laid off dozens of the most talented journalists & product folks I know.

HP India will acquire around 200 employees while MindTree is expected to acquire 170 employees. It is being speculated that AOL has given work commitments to the two companies for few years. As AOL’s legacy dial-up Internet business dwindles, the company is shifting its focus to online advertising and content to build revenue.

© CompuWorld - because The Genius Inside You Is Still Sleeping.

Where are you from and where do you live currently?

I’m a Dallas native

Tell us about your family. Who all you have in your family and their thoughts on this Apple madness of yours?

I have a rather large family so it’s hard to slim this down to a short answer. I’m the only child between my parents biological parents, but have 8 step siblings, 4 nieces and 1 nephew. Since I’m the only one that likes Apple, they were unsure about my famous campouts first, but grown to get used to it.

What is your regular day job other than waiting for an Apple product launch?

Due to the large publicity and for privacy concerns I can not name who or what I do for a living. The only thing I can tell you is that my career experience is in non-profit organizations.

Which phone do you use right now and tell us about the other phones that you have used in the past?

I currently have a iPhone 4 and have owned all iPhone models over the years. All of which I camped out for expect for the original.

What other apple gadgets do you use?

I currently have a iMac 21″ at home that I use for home and work task purposes. I also have owned previously iPods, a white MacBook, and a MacBook Pro.

Since when have you been lining up to be the first to grab an Apple product?

Since 2008 for the iPhone 3G. Been the first one in line every year since then.

What made you do it on the first place and what was the reason that you continued the second time? Tell us about your experience.

Once I started doing this, it wasn’t exactly my goal to just get there first and make full publicity It started by accident when I lined up the first time for the iPhone 3G overnight. Then the second year when I was first again for the iPhone 3GS, I thought “Hmm, it’ll be interesting to see if I can keep this record going.” Then when I camped for the third time for the iPhone 4 last year, thats when I ended up becoming a big hit, because I did it 8 days advanced. Since then, the first in line trend has continued. This year I lined up 5 days in advance.

© CompuWorld - because The Genius Inside You Is Still Sleeping.

Best Buy on the other hand hasn’t declined the rumor though the retailer hasn’t yet confirmed the same. Best Buy has been working on the connected world notion and trying to design their stores more or less like Apple stores where employees personally use the devices that they are selling. For testing purposes Best Buy employees in few of the stores were given devices like iPhone, iPad, Samsung Galaxy Tab etc. so as to process purchases and educate employees.

Though the decision will surely be cheered upon by Apple yet we are not sure if it will prove to be a boon for Best Buy which is still recovering from its few bad quarters that the retail chain has experienced. I am pretty sure that this decision will surely make the Best Buy stores pretty attractive for customers. Might just work!

© CompuWorld - because The Genius Inside You Is Still Sleeping.

Cashing on his online publicity Justin Wagoner has set up his own official page where he plans to keep people posted with regards to his current wait game. He plans to have a life braodcast on UStream during the iPad 2 launch.

© CompuWorld - because The Genius Inside You Is Still Sleeping.

Experts do say that one must not indulge into blogging if you don’t feel the push for the same yet I am forced to admit that many two legged creatures are still hidden in oblivion just because they never had the chance to connect to the outer world. Today, the 10 year old kid living in home next to mine is a walking idea in herself. She is the intelligent powerhouse with questions that confuse me at times. Similarly, her 83 year old grandpa is the walking library that can deliver history in 4 different languages with exact dates like he has mugged them up some 10 minutes back. Both, though of two different age domains, are the knowledge hub of their own kinds. They can be considered the Google of their age group. But do we know them? Are we using this knowledge base? Looks like we are busy earning that extra buck that will buy us the big fat burger! Total wastage of virtual wealth.

Blog so as to be the Google of your own kind

You are that unique living being that does things that your counterparts just dream of.

• You are enjoying the most amazing experience of your life if you are jobless. Blog it!
• You are lucky to have had a fight with your mum. Blog it!
• An accident with a broken nail is simply amazing. Blog it!
• Boring life with zero excitement. Blog it!

To summarize, every experience of our lives is unique for many out their and they will love to know more about such experiences of yours. Blog them down and see how you end up making new like minded friends. Imagine having the complete log of what happens when you run from your home on one single website. People won’t have to Google when they are looking for tips which will come in handy if they plan to run from home – IRanFromHome.com! Ain’t a bad idea, is it?

Blog to be free from any possible clutches

What are the possible walls that you have faced in your lives?

• Your boss is checking your growth? Blog, earn and resign!
• Your girlfriend has super attitude? Blog, be cool and impress amazingly sexy girls. Believe it or not but females love nerdy guys!
• Your dad considers you to be good for nothing? Blog, earn and iRanFromHome.com!
• Money shortage in home hasn’t let you be what you wanted? Blog! You can earn from it. Trust me!

To summarize, blog and be self dependent.

Blog to avoid Porn!

Well, you got to admit this. Most of us have spent hundreds of hours with porn websites. We must understand that the world of social networking is simply amazing. It is so complex and so huge that once someone enters into it then it is rather impossible for him to come out of it. Dive into this world of social networking. Start blogging and discuss issues on your blog and others blogs. Have meetings and discuss on ideas of multiplying the reach of your blog. Be overly busy and porn will never find any free space in your time table.

Lastly, Blog & Earn!

Blogging is hectic task. It is about the power of not giving up in the times of failures just like Naomi did and today she is one amazing online entrepreneur. She works for herself and earns a lot more than a salaried person. Blogging is about leaving your job so as to launch a blog like ShoutMeLoud that earns you a lot more than what your regular job might have fetched you. Blogging does pay. All that you got to do is be consistent and stick around for years. It isn’t a 48 hour good for nothing project.

Blogging, once made mandatory, will have huge amount of tiny Googles around the Internet. Once all these tiny Googles are squeezed into one then what we get is the amazingly huge amount of knowledge plus ever lasting friends. Blogging should be a chapter in every school’s 5th standard syllabus. After all, it isn’t easy to be a blogger. You need plenty of time to be the genius behind professional blogger.

© CompuWorld - because The Genius Inside You Is Still Sleeping.

If speculations from Tech Crunch were to be believed then Facebook was working behind the concept of a smartphone that will be designed keeping in mind the features of Facebook so that the social networking experience for Facebook users proves to be amazingly awesome. Founder of Tech Crunch speculated:

But I’d speculate that it would be a lower-end phone, something very affordable, that lets people fully integrate into their Facebook world. You call your friend’s name, not some ancient seven digit code, for example. I’d imagine Facebook wanting these things to get into as many hands as possible, so I’d expect a model at a less than $50 price. Pay your bill with Facebook Credits. Etc.

In no time Facebook representative released a public statement via Mashable proving TechCrunch’s claims to be baseless:

The story, which originated in Techcrunch, is not accurate. Facebook is not building a phone. Our approach has always been to make phones and apps more social. Current projects include include everything from an HTML5 version of the site to apps on major platforms to full Connect support with SDKs to deeper integrations with some manufacturers. Our view is that almost all experiences would be better if they were social, so integrating deeply into existing platforms and operating systems is a good way to enable this. For an example, check out Connect for iPhone and the integration we have with contact syncing through our iPhone app. Another example is the INQ1 phone with Facebook integration (the first so-called ‘Facebook Phone’). The people mentioned in the story are working on these projects. The bottom line is that whenever we work on a deep integration, people want to call it a ‘Facebook Phone’ because that’s such an attractive soundbite, but building phones is just not what we do.

Of course this forced TechCrunch to come up with answers to the messup that they had started but this messup for sure left open a debate which doesn’t seem to last. Do we really need a smartphone especially for Facebook and will anyone buy a smartphone if Facebook is the manufacturer for the same? Image you getting updates like “Your mother commented on your missed calls.”

© CompuWorld - because The Genius Inside You Is Still Sleeping.

What is In Private Filtering?

Well, it is pretty simple. The idea behind In Private Filtering is to block the part of the content which isn’t hosted on the same domain as that particular page is that you are visiting. So, if you visit nofullstop.com then the ads that are being displayed by Google’s Adsense become the content that is hosted on third party server so they will be blocked. The catch is that this will be blocked if it is encountered 10 times since the last time the browsing history was deleted. Henceforth, if you use Internet Explorer 8 and turn on In Private Filtering then you won’t see the third party ads that are being displayed on a particular website.

Wall Street Journal comments that it has dug up news from its sources that confirm the act of Microsoft due to which today In Private Filtering isn’t turned on by default in Internet Explorer 8. Moreover, Engadget ends up appreciating the WSJ article instead of clearing the real scene behind In Private Filtering. I would request Engadget (not WSJ as I love Engadget more than WSJ) to re-visit their thoughts because literally no Internet Browser (like the all time critic favorites Firefox and Chrome) have any such feature which is close to In Private Filtering of Internet Explorer 8. They need separate plugins so as to utilize this feature. At least Microsoft has been brave enough to provide In Private Filtering as a pre-installed feature in Internet Explorer 8 and given the users the option to turn it on whenever they want to do so.

Please note that In Private Filtering and In Private Mode are two different features of Internet Explorer. In Private Mode is the feature using which people can enjoy pages without leaving trails of what they had been surfing. So you can watch porn and your parents won’t know a bit about that!

How To Turn On In Private Filtering By Default?
Well, if you really want the In Private Filtering feature to be turned on by default in your Internet Explorer 8 then all that you got to do is make a minute change in your registry. I will suggest people not to play with their registry if they don’t understand what it is.

• All that you have to do is surf to PrivacIE value under HKEY_CURRENT_USER as shown below:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Safety\PrivacIE]

• And then set the StartMode dword value to what is show below:

“StartMode”=dword:00000001

To open registry editor go to Start > Run and type regedit and hit enter.

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Those who just can’t resist the wait for Google’s New AdSense interface can apply for being a beta tester who gets the sneak peak into the new version of Google AdSense. All you got to do is fill this form. You must understand that you got to be a registered AdSense user for being a beta tester. Nobody will let you test any kind of AdSense versions untill and unless you are well aware with the current version. Pretty obvious, eh?

If you get to enjoy the newer version of AdSense then do let us know how it looks.

© CompuWorld - because The Genius Inside You Is Still Sleeping.