Merry Christmas: Santa's Google Search Tips [VIDEO]

Merry Christmas: Santa's Google Search Tips [VIDEO]

Really? You Google? You gotta be kidding me! Not has it been a full day when I posted Apple's new Ad featuring Santa using Siri on iPhone, and now, it's Google's turn. What more? With Google, not only does Santa use Google products and services, he also "Raps"! Yeah, you heard me right.

Google seems to behave more like a copycat these days. Copied Android features from the iThings, now even an Ad? C'mon Google, you're better than that. And guess what- The ad mandated to show Santa using Iris (Android's Siri) because the Santa iPhone ad was highly Siri oriented.

One question puzzles me though. Who writes raps at Google? I just knew the guys who wrote in code there. Now I read a comment on the Youtube page where the video was uploaded which said-

the guys at google must've been bored as hell.

Really guys! I had the same first feelings. I re-checked the channel for I thought I'd by chance landed upon RWJ or Smosh or YourFavoriteMartian or the like. What do you think of  the video? Let know through your comments or drop me a tweet @ikartik90.

Merry Christmas: Ad Features Santa with iPhone 4S [VIDEO]

Merry Christmas: Ad Features Santa with iPhone 4S [VIDEO]

Merry Christmas folks! Seems this time Santa's gonna make it to your home for sure. Well, how can I be so sure? Because now even Santa has got an iPhone. This new ad video features Santa using the iPhone 4S with Siri. What more do I say? "Well, if you still don't have an iPhone, well, you don't have an iPhone."

Hope Santa visits you too for he has 3.7 billion appointments. ;) Enjoy the video. Cheers! And Merry Christmas again. :)

Twitter Gets a Redesign, Brings in Brand Pages and More

Twitter Gets a Redesign, Brings in Brand Pages and More

As per a recent news update, Twitter is going to see a major redesign citing the upcoming brand pages for the various brands on Twitter. The new redesign seems to be very interesting which involves the complete revamp of the way we interact with others on the twittersphere. Yes! Twittersphere is evolving, and evolving for the good.

This major redesign and the brand pages feature comes in just a month after Google+ launched the brands feature. Maybe Twitter is gearing up for the upcoming social media war, already into it's cold stage. Closely spotting, Google+ seems not much a threat to any other social network than Twitter, which is currently rope-walking between the ends of a dreadful death and an epic success.

As the video depicts, the new re-design involves a greater emphasis on the @Mentions (@Connect in the video) and #hashtags (#Discover in the video). The current right sidebar that shows the who to follow and the trending hashtags has been shifted to the left. The design changes would also reflect upon the mobile versions and apps for specific mobile devices.

Brands will get specifically customizable pages of their own with many page-specific features like holding a tweet always on the top of other tweets, and showing the content of the photo/video attached to the top-tweet implicitly without the user taking any action.

I liked the overall design update. Would rather rate the design update an 8.5/10. Thumbs-up Twitter. Great job guys. Hope the UX update works equally great as it looks.

What do you think about the upcoming Twitter update? Drop me a tweet @ikartik90 on twitter. Till my next post, stay tuned. Cheers! :)

[Sources: Mashable & Twitter on Youtube]

Why This Kolaveri Di : Chartbuster Underdog [VIDEO]

Why This Kolaveri Di : Chartbuster Underdog [VIDEO]

Why This Kolaveri Di by Sony Music India on YouTube

"Why this kolaveri kolaveri kolaveri di..." These are the words from the underdog song from the upcoming Kollywood movie "Three" that has soared the heights of Internet celebration from nowhere in a matter of twelve days from it's release. The song that released on the 16th of November turned into a Social Media viral with over 8 million YouTube hits and over a million shares on facebook.

Google Plus : Should You Be Interested? [Slides]

Google Plus : Should You Be Interested? [Slides]

Presentation by Real Talk Design on Slide Rocket

Real Talk-Creative Communication has put up a very promising presentation regarding why we should keep our eyes on Google+ as an emerging social media (though I felt that the presentation shifts to explaining the various features of Google+ just near the end). Google has been into exploring it's place in the social media business since it's (social media's) inception. In spite of having met immense number of challenges and suffering many failures Google repels to quit. It's not the time to appreciate Google for it's bravery (we'll come to that later), rather it's time to find the answer to why isn't Google willing to quit the social media business in spite of the backlogs and suffrage.

Facebook Hack Massacre Hits Bengaluru City

Facebook Hack Massacre Hits Bengaluru City

According to a news article that featured in the Mid Day today, a facebook hack massacre has hit the city of Bengaluru. With over two hundred thousand accounts hacked, this is seemingly one of the biggest hacking spree that has ever hit facebook in any country across the world.

Reports say that the users' accounts were hacked and links to their photos morphed with pornographic and nudity-oriented images were posted on their respective walls as feeds to their friends and family. This might just be the beginning of the fiasco as Bengaluru city is just a speck when compared to the complete social graph that facebook hosts.

The preamble of the hacking spree might somewhere be related to the 5th November facebook hack claim by Anonymous. The attack has led to many of it's users leaving social networking and going on a social exile.

Facebook said that the hack resulted due to some browser vulnerability where the users were tricked into fetching malwares via their browsers, resulting in the sharing of pornographic and other offensive photographs in their feeds. Facebook also claimed that the group indulged in this fiasco had already been identified and it's legal team was into finding the apt solutions towards the problem.

With the fiasco already on it's high, the facebook hack seems to show the real consequences of risking your privacy into the wrong hands just for the sake of getting access to a video/image/text snippet worth nothing. Hence, I personally recommend you not to click on random links featuring on your claiming to provide you access to some third rated images/videos or the like. In case you need further assistance regarding the do's and the don'ts in order to maintain a safe access of your facebook and other social networks, I recommend you read this article regarding facebook spams.

Do you think facebook's openness as a platform for all is costing the users their bit of privacy? What do you feel about the reason behind the hacking fiasco that has led to users taking social exile? Do let know through your comments below. Till my next post, adios! :)

17 Steve Jobs Inspired iPad Wallpapers [INSPIRATION]

17 Steve Jobs Inspired iPad Wallpapers [INSPIRATION]

This week's inspiration captures a set of iPad wallpapers dedicated to Steve Jobs by the Apple User & Developer Community. It's been more than a month since the iCon's passing away. Amazing how time flies by. May his soul rest in peace. I hope you like my collection. Cheers!

Thank You Steve: He Who Inspired Me, To Love Design

Thank You Steve: He Who Inspired Me, To Love Design

It's a day past Apple, Inc.'s chairman and co-founder Steve Jobs's (1955-2011) death and I find myself writing this post, still dejected, feeling disowned by my own idol. A person whom I never met or knew personally, seems to have affected my life so drastically that the moment I read the news of his passing away this morning, lightning struck. Everything had come to a stand still that very moment. Like I was no more a part of this world. I realized teardrops surfacing over my eyes. I couldn't understand their significance, though. But probably that was the place that "He" had earned in my life, our lives.

Steve was a revolutionary thinker, an innovator, an icon, a visionary and a salesman-all beautifully gift-wrapper into a single package. He knew what we wanted. He knew how to get the money out of out pockets, how to get us interested in whatever he created.

NYTimes: When asked what market research went into the iPad, Mr. Jobs replied: “None. It’s not the consumers’ job to know what they want.” -via kurt_loder on Twitter

He was such a genius that all I can say is Hats Off to his maker. Born to unwed graduates, adopted by parents who were not even graduates themselves (but promised to send Steve to college), dropped out of college, kicked out of his own company, disowned his own genetic daughter, suffered a unique kind of pancreatic cancer, died young; yet created the greatest of the consumer products of all times for us to cherish, to love and to connect with.

"We all die. The goal isn’t to live forever, the goal is to create something that will." -via ITyorkshire on Twitter

So many failures, yet so many successes that followed. How did he ever happen to achieve the feat in spite of the failures he suffered? The answer is- he loved what he did. He pursued his intuitions, and believed them, strongly enough to act upon them in real time.

"I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did." -via briandelcata on Twitter

He never feared of losing anything in life. He realized the human mortality. He knew that like every human on this planet, he would die one day, and lived his each day as if it were the last day of his life. He would wake up everyday and ask himself if he would be doing the thing he was gonna do that day if it were the last day of his life and pursued it only if the answer happened to be a "yes".

"Remembering that you are going to die is he best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose" -via symo29 on Twitter

 Such a legend, such an idol, such an inspiration, no more. Techkind seems to have it's greatest visionary. The revolutionary behind the multi-touch concepts, the iPhones, the iPods, the iPads, the iMacs and the numerous other innovations is gone. Yet, he resides in our heart and soul, in our memories, in every product he envisioned and created, in Apple, Inc. Thank you, Steve, for everything so wonderful. May your soul rest in peace.