Now that's what I call innovation!

Startup company Emotiv Systems have developed a unique and very innovative technology that can connect human brain signals to computer hardware and software.

They have come up with something called as the Emotiv Development Kit which is basically comprised of three detection toolkits as explained below. These toolkits interact with their neuro technology based headset called Project Epoc to capture various brain signals and transfer them as electric signals that can be interpreted as different activities.

Expressiv: The first toolkit Expressiv identifies facial expressions, such as blink, smile, wink etc that will provide for more realistic virtual chatting.
Affectiv: The second toolkit Affectiv detects a user's emotional state such as frustration, anger, excitement etc which would be great for role-playing games. Another interesting use would be to unconsciously rate music in iTunes or videos in YouTube or likes.
Cognitiv: The third toolkit Cognitiv which sounds the most interesting of all, will allow users to manipulate virtual objects using mind control. It supports actions, such as lift, drop, rotate, push, pull, etc.

These kits are currently in alpha phase, so it still has a long way to go before it is ready for consumers like us. But it has certainly brought out an innovation that has a bright future.

You can get some more information here

Some of my recent readings and viewings

One Night at the Call Center: After having heard not too good reviews about the book, I was quite ready to a day or two of boring reading. But once I started the book, I found it engrossing enough. The story had a good start and I kept on reading to find out 'so what will happen at the end of the day, or rather the night'. But then God enters and my interest in the story exits. I don't know, the book started realistically enough and then all of a sudden God intervenes and makes it completely unbelievable. Seemed to me that the author had no clue how to end the story and came up with this weird idea. A disappointment.

The Hungry Tide: This is my first book by Amitav Ghosh. My brother recommended this to me saying that he is considered to be the best among Indian writers. The story is set in the tide country of the Sundarbans and is told from the perspective of the two main characters, Kanai Ghosh and Piyali Roy. Even though the book does not have constant action, thrill and suspense, it is still fast paced enough. Amitav Ghosh keeps the pages turning taking us through the history of the Sundarbans, the perilous ecology of the endangered cetaceans and the conservation projects surrounding the great Bengal Tiger, the stories of the local deities along with the stories for each character. He also reveals the shocking incident of the Morichjhapi where thousands of refugees trying to settle down are violently evicted by the government in the name of conservation. However, I have to admit that at times I got bored by the lengthy descriptions and skipped few paragraphs here and there.

Guru: What was the hype all about? Guru, to my opinion was quite a boring film. I had entered the theatre with a lot of expectations, but was very disappointed. Agreed that Abhishek did a good job, but that's not enough for a movie to be interesting, is it? The story was flat, about a poor guy who makes it big by bending the law. Even though the law manages to catch him, he is sent free after he makes an impassioned speech to the commission, which by the way he manages to speak in a strong voice in spite of having suffered a paralytic attack that weakened him! What was the movie trying to tell? That its okay to bend the law and get you thing done? Or was it trying to give a message that India needs to have less restrictions on entrepreneurs and business starters? Somehow, the message didn't come through clear. Aishwarya has acted her part good enough. Vidya Balan and Madhavan are pleasing to the eye while it was nice to see Mithun in a good role (seen Chingari? You'll know what I mean!). A passable movie, see if you must.

Eklavya: After quite a while did I get to see a movie that kept me fully entertained. The missing song and dance sequences was quite a relief and not missed. I felt the movie was made splendid. The direction and cinematography was arresting and the acting superb. No one, not even the Big B, did I feel overacted. Jackie Shroff - whom I always felt went too overboard with his roles, specially in the few movies that he has appeared in the last few years - even he seemed have acted 'just enough'. Saif is once again brilliant and looking awesomely good while Vidya Balan, my favorite these days, looks beautiful. Boman Irani has portrayed his role of a jealous king very well and Sharmila, still looks gorgeous even to this day. Sanjay Dutt gives a comic relief to this dark story about jealousy, faithfulness, betrayal, ambition, love and revenge revolving around a royal family during present times. A must see!

The Science of Sleep: This is a French movie which I saw at a friend's place. I have always been fond of French movies, their story-line is always simple and involves around regular believable people and I love the sound of their language, so soft and polite! The Science of Sleep is in French and English with bits of Spanish thrown in. This is a story of a talented illustrator Stephane who returns to his childhood home for a job which he soon finds out to be pretty shitty. He meets his equally creative neighbor Stephanie and soon falls in love with her. But that's just a part of the bigger story - Stephane often has trouble differentiating dreams from reality and he finds himself slipping back and forth between them causing havoc on his waking life which starts to take it's toll on his sanity. The movie is created by the director of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. The surrealism you see in Eternal Sunshine is evident here as well. The movie is beautiful and artfully done interspersed with comedy, inventiveness and quirkiness. Watch it if you like out of the box movies!

V-Day and V-weekend

After the eventful Sunday mentioned in my previous post, my next weekend was very normal. Even my Valentine's Day was quite normal. Since V is about 160 miles away and V-day fell in the middle of the week, we didn't have much option but to talk on the phone as often as possible. It snowed a lot that day, our highest snowfall of the season. The roads were empty and even my office had a low turnout. When me and my fren SR reached home in the evening, we realised everyone else had cleaned up their parking spot and dumped snow on ours. There was no other spot empty so we had no other choice but to spend a good 2 hrs shovelling the snow! Wat a way to spend Valentine's Day evening. Whatever happened to candlelight dinner and walk in the beach?

V had sent me a bouquet of flowers, which is still nice a fresh besides my bed. I start my day with the view of the fresh beautiful roses that just brighten up my day. I, on the other hand, after much contemplation, decided to give him a nice gourmet chocolate treat. The website showed lovely looking chocolate shells filled with mousse and other yummy treats. Seemed perfect for V. I paid more than the value of the chocolate for delivery on the 14th. When he received the gift, V called me. He was like the gift looks great....but the tone of his voice made me realize that I made a mistake. Even as I had placed the order, I had a strange feeling that something was not right. And guess what, the gift included just the shells, no mousse nor custard to fill the shells! The gift was pointless :( This weekend I have asked V to get along the shells when he comes visiting and we'll make some mousse at home and try it out.

The last weekend was a long weekend for us due to President's Day. We decided to go skiing. Our friend/my flatmate SR had other plans so there was just me, V and one of V's friend. Saturday was spent making rounds of malls looking for a decent deals on ski pants. In the eve, we went to a friend's place in New Jersey to see a very interesting French movie. But that's another post. By the time we returned to Stamford, it was almost 3 am. We had planned to leave early next morning for the ski resort so that we reach by 10 am when the lessons start.

Sunday morning we woke up bright and fresh, in spite of the late night. The resort, Mountain Creek Resort, is located in Vernon, New Jersey which is about 1.5 hrs drive from Stamford. As we walked up to the resort from the parking lot, we got an inkling of what we were getting ourselves into. Just walking up to the resort sapped up almost all our energy! Damn! I so needed to exercise! After getting ourselves registered for the beginners class, we stopped for a quick breakfast. The place was very crowded and we had to stand in long queues to get our skiing gear - ski boots, skis and poles. Me and V's friend had to buy woollen caps since mine was not appropriate for the purpose and V's friend had none. We were patting ourselves for thinking ahead and getting the ski pants from outside. The resort stores were so damn expensive. A simple woolen cap cost me 26 bucks!

By the time we got all our gear, it was past 12 o'clock. We had missed our lesson and so had to wait for the next one which started at 2 pm. We decided to pass the time by starting on our own. We copied others who were taking lessons and learnt how to put on the skis. We started with one ski and soon all three were sliding along a gradient slope in both skis. Woo! It felt great and the experience was so much better than my ice-skating experience.

At around 2 the next lesson started. There were 10 learners in each group. The instructor started with basic techniques and we were soon whizzing downhill (OK it wasn't exactly whizzing...more like whizzing in slow motion :P ) Once or twice I fell down while trying more advanced techniques like turning and shuffling etc. After few practices on gradient slope, the instructor took us to a higher slope. V was ahead of me and he glided down the slope with ease. Next was my turn and I let myself go. It felt awesome! But soon I gained a whole lot of speed and I felt myself go zoom! I could see V at the end of the slope and I was approaching him real fast. I heard him shout to brake. I willed my feet to move so that I can make a V, the technique we had learned for braking. But my feet just didn't move soon enough. I realized I was soon gonna crash on V and another guy standing besides him. To avoid it, I let myself fall down and then I felt a huge thud on my head. I now know what it means to see stars in broad daylight :) I felt my head had split into two. I tried to look around and I didn't see a hint of panic in V's eyes or people nearby. So I realized my head was still in one piece and that I was alright.

The instructor helped me up. My head was still aching, so I decided to give myself a break. The others went up for two more rounds. As I stood waiting my headache went away. It started to snow and everything looked even more beautiful. The lessons we done and we decided we have had enough. We got out the cameras and clicked a few pics. By then we were famished with hunger so had a hearty meal at the cafeteria. On our drive back to Stamford, I felt so tired, I just couldn't keep my eyes open. By the time we reached, not only was my head aching again, but the rest of my body too was hurting here and there.

The next morning I tried to lift myself out of the bed when I felt shooting pain in my neck. I had to hold my head by my hands so as not to strain my neck, as I got out of bed. Now, almost a week later, my neck is still hurting a bit, but the pain is less intense. At least I can lift myself up from my bed or couch without having to hold my head with my hands :)

So that was my first ever skiing experience. The fall hasn't put me off skiing and I'm looking forward to doing it again - the skiing that is, not falling down :)