Windows to Linux - Is the tide finally shifting?

How many of us have used Linux as our default Operating system? Not many!

How many of us have tried Linux but went back toWindows because it wasn’t as user friendly? Quite a few!

Many of my friends fall under the latter category of users who dumped Linux for compatibility and other issues. However, every time a new version of Ubuntu is released they go back hoping at least now it will play all video formats and identify the sound card without a problem, but no luck so far!

All of what I just said will still be a part of the core operating system but you’ll love to use it in the years to come. Why? Because you won’t even know you are on a Linux based operating system.

Android is fast becoming a universal OS. We’ve seen it running on Tablets, Laptops, Set-top boxes, in Cars, Phones and almost every imaginable consumer electronic that runs on a platform.

The market for such mobile devices is still unconquered and all the industry bigwigs are battling it out for the title. RIM which currently dominates the Smartphone market will lose it to Apple for the lack of innovation and Android will beat Apple for its openness and versatile adaptability. Last month’s report of Android outselling Apple’s iPhone may prove this point.

Though Windows is the dominating force in the desktop segment, it’s certainly not the OEMs choice for light weight tablets and other mobile devices. Windows OS loses here for its bulkiness and virus prone platform. HP Slate or HP Hurricane is the living example! HP dumped Windows 7 for the newly acquired WebOS.

Also, let’s not forget Google’s Chrome OS which is based on Linux core is yet to make its debut. It might very well be a game changer and Microsoft is probably already preparing for the worse to handle the heat!

Keeping all of this in mind, is it safe to say Linux will probably win the battle when it comes to “Tomorrows operating system"? Time will tell..

A 7.2 Earthquake hits the island nation of Vanuatu, Tsunami Warning in effect

Blogged by PrimeRose.

A 7.2 magnitude earthquake struck near the Pacific island of Vanuatu Thursday, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.

The quake prompted the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center to issue a regional tsunami warning for Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands and New Caledonia.

"It is not known that a tsunami was generated," the Warning Center said in a bulletin. "This warning is based only on the earthquake evaluation. An earthquake of this size has the potential to generate a destructive tsunami that can strike coastlines in the region near the epicenter within minutes to hours."

A tsunami was not expected along the California, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia or Alaska coasts, the Warning Center said.

The earthquake was 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) deep, according to the USGS. Its epicenter was located 215 kilometers (135 miles) from Luganville, Vanuatu. It struck at 4:14 a.m. Friday (1:14 p.m. Thursday ET), the USGS said.

The USGS initially classified the quake as a 7.6 magnitude, but later downgraded it.

Cell Phone Data: A Gold Mine for Telecoms

Cell phone companies are finding that they're sitting on a gold mine--in the form of the call records of their subscribers.

Researchers in academia, and increasingly within the mobile industry, are working with large databases showing where and when calls and texts are made and received to reveal commuting habits, how far people travel for public events, and even significant social trends.

With potential applications ranging from city planning to marketing, such studies could also provide a new source of revenue for the cell phone companies. "Because cell phones have become so ubiquitous, mining the data they generate can really revolutionize the study of human behavior," says Ramón Cáceres, a lead researcher at AT&T's research labs in Florham Park, NJ.

If you were an ATT subscriber and were near Los Angeles or New York between March 15 and May 15 last year, there's a 5 percent chance that your data was crunched by Cáceres and his colleagues in a study of the travel habits of the company's subscribers. The researchers amassed millions of call records from hundreds of thousands of users in 891 zip codes, covering every New York borough, 10 New Jersey counties, as well as Los Angeles, Orange, and Ventura counties in California.

The data set is a collection of call detail records, or CDRs--the standard feedstock of cell phone data mining. A CDR is generated for every voice or SMS connection. Among other things, it shows the origin and destination number, the type and duration of connection, and, most crucially, the unique ID of the cell tower a handset was connected to when a connection was made.

That let the ATT team know the location of a phone to within a mile radius at the time each CDR was generated, making it possible to determine the distance traveled from home by each cell phone every day. The group found that, on average, people living in Manhattan travel 2.5 miles most days, compared to five miles in Los Angeles. "But we also found that when you look at the longest trips people make, people that live in New York go significantly further, 69 miles on a weekday compared to 29 in Los Angeles," Cáceres says.

The cell phone networks are thinking about monetizing their data, says Jean Bolot, a researcher at network operator Sprint. This means a "two-sided" business model where they not only serve end users but also make money through relationships with other businesses. "This is new in the telco space but not in other areas--look at Google, for example," he says.

Blondel's research includes an analysis of connections between two million cell phone users in Belgium. It revealed that the French-speaking and Dutch-speaking populations of the country are barely connected by calls and texts. "This is interesting, since there are already discussions within Belgium about splitting the country in two," says Blondel.

This network shows phone calls between around two million cell phone users in Belgium over six months; each dot represents a tightly connected group of people, and its color represents the language they speak. The Dutch-speaking (green) and French-speaking (red) communities are starkly divided, linked only by a smaller cluster representing users in Brussels. 

Research in this area is typically focused on aggregate information and not individuals, but questions remain about how to protect user privacy, Blondel says. It is standard to remove the names and numbers from a CDR, but correlating locations and call timings with other databases could help identify individuals, he says. In the MIT study, for example, the team could infer the approximate home location of users by assuming it to be where a handset was most located between 10 p.m. and 7a.m., although they also lumped people together into groups by zip code.

"I feel the scientific community should take responsibility for finding out how to trade off having useful data and protecting privacy," says Blondel. He is investigating the effect of techniques like using approximate rather than exact location information, or blurring the exact time stamps of calls from a data set.

Google Latitude - Big Brother can now easily track you!

It is no more a secret that Google stores all the information we share through the softwares on our computer or mobile phones.

Google Latitude recently announced a new feature that lets you track and store location information. Later this information can be analyzed to see patterns of your movements and also sketch a trail of your movements on Google maps.

Their blog suggests, “To try out the new dashboard yourself, enable Google Latitude in the background on your phone, turn on Google Location History, and wait a few days (up to a week) to build up enough history for the dashboard to begin showing information.” 


But we find it hard to believe that Google never stored our location history in the past!

Here is an example of how your location histroy will be displayed..(Click to enlarge)

Click To Enlarge

I am glad that this is an opt-in and not a typical opt-out feature. Google also takes extra measures for securing user privacy which include entering password at regular intervals to accessing different parts of the dashboard even if you are logged in.
Also, this information is not shared with anyone except you. As a user you can delete a part or the entire location history from the dashboard. I am not sure if the information is deleted from the server as well or just stops showing up on our dashboard.



Click Here to access Google Latitude.

Unfollow People Not following You - Twitter Karma

It gets very annoying when you follow these people on Twitter and after a few days, even months they have still not followed you back?

It’s kinda like saying "Hello" to someone and then them not saying it back! Twitting and following someone is like an online hello. Most people don't get this simple online etiquette.

But I just found a solution. ;-)

Twitter Karma is one of the best web-applications to unfollow those who do not follow you back on twitter. You can also follow those who follow you but aren’t being followed by you.

Basically, the Twitter Karma involves managing your twitter followers and unfollowers efficiently. Unfortunately you can not unfollow or follow users in bulk due to a new Twitter policy. Seems we are back to the days when we had to manually unfollow twitter users one click at a time!

Atleast Twitter Karma has a simple user-interface that makes it easier than manually doing it on Twitter.

To go to Twitter Karma click here.

Is Dora an illegal immigrant?

Creators of the Nickelodeon cartoon "Dora the Explorer" are urging fans not to take the bloodied mug shot labeling the animated 7-year-old as an illegal immigrant too seriously.

She is, after all, "just a cartoon."

The doctored Dora the Explorer mug shot shows the cute bilingual character bruised and beaten up.

Shown posing for her booking photo, Dora has one black eye and a bloody lip, holding a sign that reads, "Dora the Explorer Illegal Border Crossing Resisting Arrest."

The image is being passed around on blogs and websites discussing the controversial immigration bill signed into law last month by Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer. The law essentially empowers police in the state to stop people they suspect may be illegal immigrants and demand identification.

The Associated Press reports that the satirical Dora mug shot is being used at rallies by both opponents and supporters of the Arizona law.

Dan Martinsen, a Nickelodeon spokesman, told ABCNews.com that he'd heard about the images but didn't want to comment on them.

As for the stories regarding Dora's illegal immigrant status, Martinsen reiterated that she is a fictional character.

"Dora is an animated character," said Martinsen. "She was developed to be pan-Latina to represent the diversity of Latino cultures."

The half-hour "Dora the Explorer" show is one of the most successful of its kind, and has been on the air since 1999.

A GPS for the entire world.

The world's GPS, or Global Positioning System, is getting a major upgrade which will enable it to pinpoint targets within an arm's length, compared with a margin of error of 20 feet or more now!

The system which guides ATM and Wall Street to time-stamp transactions, US drones to target Taliban hideouts, courier companies to track shipments, and ordinary people to find their missing pets, is getting an $8-billion upgrade at Los Angeles Air Base at El Segundo near here, according to the Los Angeles Times.

It was at this air base that Bradford W. Parkinson and his team developed the world's current GPS three decades ago. Like the Internet, the GPS worldwide is also controlled by the US (the Pentagon), though Russia and China are trying to build their own GPS. 

The $8-billion upgrade will make the GPS more reliable, more widespread and much more accurate. According to the report, the 24 satellites that make up the current GPS system will be replaced, beginning with the first replacement scheduled to be launched from Cape Canaveral this weekend. 

Since accidental jamming of the current GPS has led to power outages, disruption of mobile services and disruption of emergency services in the US, the upgrade will prevent future disruptions by increasing the number of signals beamed to earth from satellites that orbit 12,000 miles above. The new satellites will also triple the amount of signals available for commercial use and will have atomic clocks that are even more precise - keeping time to a fraction of a billionth of a second. 

Because of this (clock) technology, the GPS has become a crucial timekeeper for the financial industry as transactions - made from ATMs to Wall Street stock trades - are time-stamped using precise atomic clocks ticking within the GPS satellites. It's a crucial technology for Wall Street, where a fraction of a second could mean billions of dollars, the report said.

The GPS has become "a ubiquitous utility that everybody takes for granted now," Bradford W. Parkinson, who as an air force colonel three decades ago led a Pentagon team to developed GPS said.

 "GPS has truly become the lighthouse of the world. It's just remarkable how the system has evolved over the past 30 years. It'll be just as interesting to see what will come in the next 30," said the father of the GPS.

Gorilla Reunites with Human after 5 Years

Blogged by Demasia.

I have been always being a strong advocate of inter-species interactions but with mutual respect and knowing when to stop yourselves as Human beings. Recently I came across a story that really underlines my sentiments.

Nahk tells me that two years ago, a lion’s loving reunion in the African wild with the two men who had raised him in London was a YouTube sensation. But now there’s a new star in town, and his name is Kwibi the gorilla.

Kwibi was reunited with Damian Aspinall, a British conservationist, who reared the young gorilla before returning him to the wild. They met after five years and yet the bond was strong as ever.

I think that Humans have a responsibility to this earth, and as a species can do so much more for this planet. But ofcourse I am not  advocating that everyone should adopt a gorilla or bring a loin into their backyards.

Kwibi's story is important to understand because " he’s familiar with his human friend (Damian) but not familiar with other human beings". This way he still remains wild and humans get a chance to help other species out. This is the way it should be,

Watch the video below to understand what I mean:

Get Any BlackBerry on Any Carrier for Free – Only till Sunday!

If you are one of the many RIM fans out there, I got some good news for you. Till 23 May 2010 (Sunday) you can get a new Blackberry or upgrade your current handset to any BlackBerry handset on any mobile carrier absolutely free.

WIREFLY is running an offer that lets you get any BlackBerry phone for $ZERO! Selected models also will have $0 activation fee and will be shipped free.

Moreover, if you are planning to get a phone from T-Mobile, you can trade your old phone in for $75 at the least.

But I also got an inside scoop for you too. If you go to WireFly through Bing.com/Cashback you can get an additional $50 on a phone you spent nothing!

But like all good things, this one too ends soon. So why wait? Visit Bing.com/cashback or WireFly and get your FREE handset this weekend. :o)

Air India Plane crashes in India, 160 people feared dead

An Air India Express plane overshot the runway and burst into flames while landing in heavy rain in southern India, killing all but three of at least 166 people aboard in the country's first fatal commercial air crash in a decade.

Archive Image of an earlier incident

"We have been able to confirm three survivors," said Prabhakar Sharma, additional deputy commissioner of Mangalore district in southern Karnataka state. The plane "is almost completely burnt," he said. There was little chance of more people being found alive, state home minister V.S. Acharya said.

Television channels showed flames and thick smoke billowing from a forested area at the end of the runway. Broadcasters said the plane crashed through a boundary wall and fell into a ravine. Firefighters had to cross a railway line and battle through trees to reach the wreckage, according to the reports.

There were 137 adults, 23 children and six crew aboard the low-cost flight IX-812 when it crashed this morning, Sharma said. The survivors have been taken to a hospital 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the crash site, he said. Acharya put the total number of passengers and crew at 169.

The Boeing Co. 737-800 plane flying from Dubai to Mangalore crashed at 6:30 a.m. local time, Air India spokesman Swaminathan said. The crash may be the worst in India in 14 years, according to the Aviation Safety Network website.

Boeing is sending a team to provide technical assistance to the investigation at the invitation of Indian authorities, the Chicago-based aircraft manufacturer said in a statement.

India will be the fastest-growing air travel market for the next 10 years, Airbus SAS, the world's biggest planemaker, predicts. Over the next 20 years, Indian carriers will need 1,030 new aircraft worth $138 billion, it forecasts. But the current crash might cause a significant number of domestic travels to alter their travel options.

Yammer - The Twitter for Corporate Organizations Today

Lately some of my friends have been sending me tweets and reviews about Yammer. So what in the world is a Yammer?

Yammer is a microblogging service that was launched in September 2008. Unlike Twitter, which is used for broadcasting messages to the public, Yammer is used for private communication within organizations or between organizational members and pre-designated groups, making it an example of enterprise social software.

Access to a Yammer network is determined by a user's internet domain, so only those with appropriate email addresses may join their respective networks. According to a statement on its website, the service is used by some 70,000 organizations! In February 2010, the company launched "communities", which are networks for which access is not restricted by domain, thus allowing businesses to connect to groups such as customers, partners, and suppliers.

Yammer operates with as a freemium, offering basic free service with chargeable extras.

Seems to me that someone tweaked around with a intra-organization chatting service and is making millions out of it! But what I like to see in the near future is whether Yammer will go the Twitter way by being not so exclusive (given it has already started the communities sub-module).

Till then it would not hurt if you would like to try Yammer and get a feel of the corporate world. :)

Hanging from a car window, cop dragged for 100 meters in India!

Dangling from the window of the car, a traffic constable was taken for the roughest ride of his life as the man at wheel of a wrongly parked car rolls up window to trap policeman's hand and zooms off. All because he was asked to show his licence!

In a scene that seemed straight out of a Hollywood movie, a man drove his car for about 100 metres with a police constable hanging on to his window, minutes before a VIP convoy was to pass in India. On Sunday night, the constable Govindrai Bhagat was on duty for the wedding ceremony of a minister's daughter nearby.

The wireless indicated that the Chief Minister Ashok Chavan who was in the city was about to pass and the police began clearing the road. That's when the police noticed a car parked in the middle of the road.

Bhagat approached the man, identified as Ravindra Baburao Shinde, sitting in the driver's seat and asked him to move his car towards the side of the road.

"He started arguing and we could see the convoy approaching. My senior told me to take the car towards the police station. I took him towards the side of the road and asked for his licence," said Bhagat.

That's when the horror began for Bhagat. The man pressed a button and the windows rolled up. Bhagat's hand was half in to collect the licence and it got stuck. The man then started laughing and started his car. He dragged Bhagat in that position for nearly 100 meters!

After about 100 metres, the man told Bhagat he would teach him a lesson and started swerving his car from side to side. "There was a huge crater-type hole as the road work was going on. When he started swerving the car he was looking at me and that's why didn't notice the hole ahead," said Bhagat. "His car's front tyre got stuck in that and the car tilted to one side and he had to halt the car there."

Within seconds, Bhagat's colleague came rushing to the scene and freed his hand by rolling down the windows. Bhagat, was rushed to nearby Rakshak hospital for treatment. He sustained injuries to his right hand but resumed duty the next day despite a swollen forearm.

Shinde has been arrested by the Yerawada police and charged with rash driving and endangering lives of others, besides hurting a public servant. "Had Shinde given the licence he would have to pay a fine of Rs 100 maximum and get away with a parking ticket. Now he is in police lock-up," said Mule.

Image Source: Mid-day.com

Brupt - The Google Search Engine For Documents

Recently I came across a site that offers customized version of the Google Search. This search engine allows us to search for Word (.doc), PowerPoint Presentations (.PPT), Excel Sheets (.XLS) and .PDF documents based on our search criteria.

It is called Brupt.

The search engine is pretty simple to use and seemingly has been around 2008.  It is basically a Google based document search tool that lets you search for documents already indexed by Google.

Most of you must think that if we still have the Google Search Engine why use a new one. Moreover, there are atleast a hundred more search engines out there. So why Brupt?

Well, it is a fact that most of us use Google to search almost everything. But sometimes we do not get the required results for specific files like word documents, Powerpoint presentations, PDFs. Brupt effectively filters your search results and makes your search for a desired document file more efficient.

This document search engine comes in really handy for search engine users who are not aware of Google operators and their functionality. You can also create your own search engine based on the filter you specify. Click here to visit Google Custom Search and create your own with just a few clicks.

For now, Brupt seems to be a good job feeling the void for a good document search engine. I just hope it gains more popularity because it is simply sad if a good work of technology remains obscure for years.

To Syed Abbas and other creators of Brupt : Good Luck Folks :)

Drive with a mind-controlled robotic arm!

A mind-controlled robotic arm is bringing new independence to an Austrian man who lost his arms, even allowing him to drive a car!

Christian Kandlbauer passed his driving test "with flying colors" using a mind-controlled arm prosthesis.
Created by the German firm Otto Bock HealthCare, the arm has allowed 23-year-old Christian Kandlbauer to pass a driving test, giving him the freedom to drive the seven kilometers to and from work each day without assistance.

The device is the first mind-controlled arm prosthesis in Europe. After a high-voltage electrical accident struck Kandlbauer back in 2005, both his arms had to be amputated.

His right arm has since been replaced by a myoelectric DynamicArm, which now operates the steering wheel when he drives his specially equipped Subaru Impreza, modified for him.

Taking the place of his left arm, however, is the new, seven-jointed prosthetic arm, which he controls in real time using just his thoughts. He now operates that arm to control the direction indicator lights, horn and all other safety-related devices of his vehicle.

The prosthesis is based on targeted muscle reinnervation (TMR), a process by which four key arm nerves are systematically relocated to the surgically segmented chest musculature. Once reinnervation is complete -- it can take several months -- the surface of the chest forms an interface to the patient's brain.

For Kandlbauer, who works in a garage, it's been a dream come true. He obtained his driver's license in October and has been traveling back and forth to work in his own vehicle ever since.

It's not clear whether it's truly a case of "mind-control," however, "particularly because other researchers have been working -- with much less success -- on reading out command signals directly from the brain, where the term seems more appropriate," told  Gerald Loeb, professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Southern California.

Nevertheless, TMR is "an important extension of the original concept of myoelectric control because it enables users to operate multiple degrees of freedom in a way that is much more natural and intuitive than has been possible before," he explained.

"That sort of command capability is essential to take advantage of the much more sophisticated mechatronic hands and arms that are being developed by several research and commercial groups, including Otto Bock," Loeb added.

Currently, however, the prosthesis with sensory perception is only a prototype. It will likely take another four years of development before Kandlbauer can use it on a day-to-day basis, Otto Bock said.

Google Apologizes once again..

Recntly Google has been getting their hands slapped over privacy issues. The latest seems to be brought forth by Google itself!

As part of the Google Street view project, Google had been collecting information about WiFi networks,  mainly for the purpose of providing better location data when you don’t have a GPS with you. All you would need to do is denote the network names, unfortunately, that’s not all that Google was collecting.

The software that was in charge of doing this work was also collecting personal information!

Once again, Google has apologized for their actions!

It seems that Google does not value its own apologies anymore!  They seen to do what they want and then apologize if something goes wrong.

I assume that this is my misconception and Google is getting its act together. I hope someone is their Quality Assurance department is held accountable for this fiasco. Google is a big organization and I assume sooner than later they will act like one.

99hrs of iPad Battery Life On a Single Charge with HyperMac!

HyperMac offers a variety of external batteries that support Apple products, including MacBook, MacBook Pro, iPhone, iPod and now iPad.

MBP-222 is the biggest version of HyperMac external battery offering a mind blowing 99hrs of battery life for your iPad. However, a piece of technology that weighs over 4lbs and costs $499 which is heavier and just as expensive as iPad itself.

A better choice would be MBP-060 which weighs .8lbs and offers over 34hrs of battery life and priced at $199.95.

This is one of the best backup battery solutions for iPad and other gadgets that have similar power consumption. Batteries are available for pre-order right now and will ship in about 2-3 weeks.

Click here to visit HyperMac.

Adam - The Indian iPad killer

Looks like the iPad killer is here at last. Rohan Shravan, 24, an engineering graduate from IIT Kharagpur has designed a tablet PC named Adam which may soon offer tough competition to Steve Jobs’ much-hyped machine.

It has already caught the attention of the world after being unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show and the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

Hyderabad-based start-up Notion Ink, Rohan’s company, plans to launch Adam in the market later this year. It will have better features, a longer battery life and will come at a cheaper price than other PCs of its ilk.

Rohan, a whizkid with out-of-the-box ideas, always wanted to do something different. As a child, he loved to fiddle with toys and make his own models. As a techie, he still does the same, but on a higher plane. What motivated him in this instance was the craving for a device that would help him browse the Internet everywhere, anytime.

“So I thought why not a device on which people can use their imagination and develop applications. It took us three years to design Adam,” says Rohan.

He worked on this dream along with five IIT-ians and a management graduate — Rohit Rathi, (co-founder) Sachin Ralhan (co-founder), Mohit Gupta, Anirudh Gupta, Rajat Sahni, and Devanshu Agrawal. The result of the teamwork was Adam.

As the name signifies, it is the first of its kind. The operating system will be open to all. The user interface, the backside track pad, the special Tegra processor, the special never seen before e-mail application, and the swivel camera are all rather unique and will have tech lovers drooling.

“It is not comparable to already existing products in the markets,” says Rohan modestly. “You can probably compare it to the next generation of devices which will hit markets in 2012.”


“Initially, in India people took us lightly, but when they saw the western reception, they suddenly warmed up,” laughs Rohan.


He is enthusiastically looking forward to the launch of Adam, but prefers to laugh away the title of a iPad killer. “Apple has such a big marketing arm that you can never call Adam an iPad killer,” he says.

But then you never know.

Google Translate Now Teaches You How To Speak Like A Robot

Google Translate doesn’t always get every translation right, but it is useful enough to get the gist of a Webpage or even a menu written in a foreign language. It’s machine translation, so what do you expect? But now Google will even teach you to talk like a machine with a voice synthesizer button that reads out translations for 34 languages.

Some of the languages, such as English or French, are smoother than others, But when you click on the text-to-speech icon to translate a sentence to Chinese or Dutch, it sounds like a robot. And so will you if you mimic it exactly. But don’t complain, now you can get free language lessons simply by typing sentences into Google Translate.

The smoother text-to-speech synthesizers are for the following languages: English, Haitian Creole, French, Italian, German, Hindi and Spanish. Google licensed technology from eSpeak for the rest, which is more robotic, but covers many more languages.

The eSpeak languages are: Afrikaans, Albanian, Catalan, Chinese (Mandarin), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Greek, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Latvian, Macedonian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Swahili, Swedish, Turkish, Vietnamese and Welsh.

Skirt doubles up as a Coke vending machine!

A skirt that doubles as a disguise, which has been inspired by Japanese ninja assassins, has been unveiled in Japan. When unfolded, it looks like a Coca Cola vending machine.

Aya Tsukioka, 31, hopes that her dress would help ease women's worry about crime and outfox would-be attackers, Daily Mail reported.

Tsukioka gave a demonstration of her design by lifting a flap on the skirt to expose a large sheet of cloth printed with red Coca-Cola logo and a woman walking alone could hide behind it to outfox an attacker.
Twenty of these skirts, priced at 400 pounds, have been sold and the designer is hoping to market the design worldwide.

She says the design was inspired by a trick used by Japanese ninja assassins, who cloak themselves in black blankets so at night they can't be seen.

"It is just easier for Japanese to hide. Making a scene would be too embarrassing. These ideas might strike foreigners as far fetched, but in Japan, they can become reality," Tsukioka was quoted as saying.

 

 

Restaurants on Devon Avenue, Chicago

 

New Android App on Devon Avenue, Chicago

I recently had the chance to try out the 'Authentic DESI cuisines' at Devon Avenue during my brief stay at Chicago. Here is a quick round-up of my experiences:

- Sukhadia Sweets and Snacks: 
The trip began with a visit to this place on the Devon Avenue. Its a small sweet and snack shop with a counter case full of Indian sweets and a menu of Indian food in snack sized portions.  It has a decent-sized selection of Gujarati-Bombay dishes as well as some North and South Indian dishes.

 Rating: 2.0/5.0

The beginning was not the greatest. It took a long time to place an order as the old gentlemen took his time chatting on the phone oblivious of the growing line in front of him! It also took approx 15 minutes for our 'fast food' to arrive!

But when the food arrived, we seemed to ignore the above. The food was good with nice helpings of spice and herbs. I would recommend trying out the Pav Bhaji and the Jalebi at this place. The other chats were not the greatest Indian snacks that I have tasted in my life.
 Rating: 3.8/5.0


- ZamZam Sweets and Grill: 
There are not many places on Devon Avenue that serve the delicious Pakistani brunch known as halwa/puri/choley, but this place does! The decor is pretty decent for a place on Devon, and it was very clean, which is a plus.

Nothing else they make here stands out from the other shops around Devon but one thing that never changes about this place is the friendliness of its staff. They are always helpful and take that extra step to please you.

We had the Kheema paratha, the Alu paratha and the Gyro Sandwich. The parathas are served with pickled vegetables and tangy yogurt.   Including the 'halwa/puri/choley' item, this was one lunch i enjoyed. All was absolutely delicious, and each item was about five dollars for massive amounts of food!

Rating: 4.4/5.0

- Hyderabad House: 
To all the folks who are not sure how to reach this place, just follow the cabs! This seems to be their favorite place with the mini-parking lot filled with cabs on any given night.

The staff is slightly annoying and can be a little difficult to get their thick accents but that does not hide the fact that this place is famous for its 'Lamb Biryani' and 'Chai'. The lamb biryani was magnificent.  Excellently spiced, nice chunks of lamb with no scary bones or chunks of fat. The accompanying 'raitha' and 'mirchi ka salan' was up to the mark too!  The 'Chai' here is basically tea with some special herbs in it. Must say it was delicious. If not for the staff, I would have given this place the full marks!

Rating: 4.0/5.0

- Usmania Fine Dining: 
This Pakistani menu's heavy on meat, with various types cooked in a number of thrilling ways. The charming staff is like that of a four star restaurant, yet you'd hardly expect that from the appearances of the place, which leaves the spectacular qualities to the food.

Don't miss the nehari, a Karachi favorite, or the equally excellent (and bright red) chicken boti, perfect for someone who wants a tasty but mild dish, rather than one of Usmania's more exotic items (such as brains or hoofs, both of which are on the menu).

These folks also have a Indo-Pak Chinese spot across the street. The unique Indian-style Chinese menu (Chinese dishes amped with Indian spices) features choices like Manchurian shrimp, chili beef and Mongolian chicken, plus signature dishes like shrimp chow mein with lobster sauce. Indian-flavored Chinese classics also make the menu (like chop suey and egg foo young). The low-key dining room features pistachio-hued walls and Asian-inspired artwork.

Overall it is a decent dining experience suitable for people who like their DESI food mild but tangy.

Rating: 4.6/5.0

- Khan BBQ Resturant: 
This is a kebab shop first and foremost.  The meats are cooked over coals so they are all juicy and charred.  It says something when a kebab is prepared so well that it's still moist after being reheated in the microwave, and that was definitely the case at Khan's.  The chicken boti lives up to the hype. My favorite was the 'Frontier Chicken' which so well-cooked and yet so juicy inside.

Since it's a Pakistani restaurant, it's a tad spicier than the food served in the other restaurants on Devon. However don't even attempt to negotiate the level of spiciness. That would destroy the whole taste!

Service was attentive and helpful. Portions were generous. The dining room decor was, to say the least, a bit spartan, and the lighting too bright, but if it were just about the food I'd give this place five stars.

Rating: 4.5/5.0

- Bismillah Restaurant: 

This place is a hidden Diamond located right off  Devon on Ridge Blvd.  There is no real ambiance but the place looked fairly clean.  The chef is friendly and was answering our questions about the items on the menu.  It seems that all things on the menu may not be available and the daily specials are written on paper!

The food took about 15 or 20 minutes to be prepared so we had some samosas in the meantime.  The samosas were huge, delicious and cheap (75 cents each).

Biryani is solid, but on the oily side. Their "Frontier Chicken Roll" was pretty awesome!  The roll should be ordered with chapatis as the paratha are not a speciality of this place. I was also excited about getting the shami kebabs since they're kind of hard to find on Devon.

But the real deal was the 'Khatti-Mitti' chatni at this place. It is the best sauce that I have ever tasted in the United States and truly a strong reason to revisit this joint. The place a decent menu with both grill and regular items put in. Some may complain about the lack of Vegetarian options but then again you don't go to a Pakistani restaurant to eat vegetables.

The only gripe I had was you have to get your own water and there was no ice in it so it was not really cold.  Except for that and the lack of parking, I give this place full points.

Rating: 4.5/5.0

- Udipi Palace: 

Everyone keeps talking about Tiffin, but fortunately for me, they weren't open that day!  So I ended up at Udupi Palace.

Udupi Palace does south Indian cuisine, unlike Tiffin, which does north Indian.  So instead of chicken tandoori and naan, this is the place to get idlis, dosas and thalis.

The menu was entirely vegetarian for a change and the Manager (Pasha) was more than willing to help us make the right choice.

I ordered samosas and a dosa (which comes with sambhar).  The samosas were an awesome crispy crunchiness on the outside and full of piping hot flavor on the inside.  The Mysore Masala dosa was the mindblower.  Dosai is kind of like a crepe, but many places make dosai so that it comes out too soft, sticky, and mushy.  You begin to wonder if they were really trying to make Uthappam. Udupi does it perfectly.  They achieved the perfect balance of softness and crispness.

Overall I think this is the best place for any vegetarian trying to get a taste of DESI food.

- Ghareeb Nawaaz : 
This is a good bang for the buck place. They just remodeled the place and added a flat screen tv. You an get a real good lamb biryani for only 5 bucks! The chili chicken biryani is great too, only 5 bucks also. They also have a great deals on mango lassi and a 99 cent breakfast deal!

They are open 24 hours during the summer months. But you need to get there  not after midnight, because they run out of most of the biryanis!

Overall great place! Im going to give this place 4 stars, they need to work on their cleanliness. For most first-timers the dishes are really on the heavier side. So beware when placing an order as the portions are not only greasy but huge!

- New Naan on Devon: 

If Hyderabad House was a place for the cab drivers, Naan on Devon is THE place for students. THe place is affordable with good taste to savour.

The establishment can be a little rough around the edges but the combination of consistently great food and extremely reasonable prices demands attention.  I saw people usually ordering the chicken biryani, the full volume of which this glutton cannot consume in one sitting.  The chapatis are great.  I am told that the buffet at this place on Fridays is the talk of the town!

Overall this is not a first date location by any means.  Go for takeout your first time.  I give it 3.5 stars as I found the service to be slow and the food can be sometimes from the previous day!

-Sabri Nehari Resturant:

For anyone exploring food-genre's outside of their native culture, the rule of thumb for finding really great food is simple:  Avoid the crowds of white people! To be more specific, look for the crowds with white people peppered in.

Rating: 4.0/5.0

Sabri is a perfect example of this second point:  the clientèle confirms the fact that while the food is of a standard acceptable to demanding Pakistanis, the menu and servers are accessible to anyone whose first pronunciation of "karahi gosht" left something to be desired.  This is a place where a white male can walk in and a woman in a full burqa is doing afternoon prayers in the corner and neither of them gets a second glance.

The food is all very well prepared espeically the Frontier Chicken. I was a little disappointed with their signature dish - The Nahari - which I felt was not up to the mark!   The veggie pakoras were bland (perhaps vegetarian cooking should be left to the Indians).

------------------------------------------------------------------


One thing not to be missed while on Devon Avenue is the Paan. It is an South Asian tradition of chewing betel leaf (Piper betle) with areca nut and slaked lime paste. There are many regional and local variations. The Paan is chewed as a palate cleanser, a breath freshener, and for digestive purposes as well. It is offered to guests and visitors as a sign of hospitality!


The Devon Avenue is really an awesome place to shop. You can haggle like you are in an Asian shop and steal the best deal if you are good enough. I have seen some establishments even waive off the TAX for you if you are adamant enough!


But after a tiring day of shopping the chance to savour the best food in town is what makes this place divine!