How the things went on Mars…

:-)
Follow up to the Post:Landed on Mars. Chase for the water begins…
You all know that I have being selected as a world finalist in this year Imagine Cup Robotics and Algorithms and probably would be glad to see my Robot’s working at Endurance Crater, Mars.
Well I have being thinking to post this video a long time but had to always postpone due to various reasons. So Enjoy it now!

[Posted Using Windows Live Writer on Windows Vista]

Imagine Cup Finalists announced. This time 4 teams from LK

:-)

Well I accept that this news is bit old. But I was on a bit of busy schedule on past few days, had to relocate since our hostel period was over, finalizing and submitting final year project reports etc.

However it’s glad to see that this time we have 4 teams from the island (he he including me-one man team) participating in Imagine cup. The Finalist teams are,

Software Design – Team : Mahee – Project : MISEEFA – Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology

Embedded Development – Team : SAS_EN – University of Moratuwa, Faculty of Information Technology

Robotics & Algorithms – Aravinda DP - University of Moratuwa, Department of Computer Science and Engineering

Mash Up – Team : Sasrutha – Project : Hope for Poor - University of Moratuwa, Faculty of Information Technology.

Hmm sad that we have lost the hold on short film this time.

Good luck for everybody and let’s bring glory to or motherland.

More Info

http://imaginecup.com/Competition/Finalists.aspx

Visual Studio 2010 and .NET 4.0 Unveiled.

:-)

The next version of .NET framework and the corresponding development environment – namely Visual Studio 2010 has been released for the beta testing.

The newly included features include Enhanced User Experience, more IDE support for Parallel Programming with parallel debugging windows and profiling views. support for design and share multiple diagram types, including use case, activity and sequence diagrams, A high-performance and standards-compliant JavaScript IntelliSense® engine for web development, Out of the box support for Cloud Development with Windows Azure™ Tools for Visual Studio, and in built support for IBM DB2 and Oracle databases in addition to Microsoft SQL Server™ databases and much more.

Hmm… So should I pick the Laptop and go to a wi-fi hotspot in the university in midnight or wait till tomorrow and put it in DSL link at corporate place?

For more details:

Visual Studio 2010 Portal: http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/en-us/products/2010/default.mspx

Visual Studio 2010 Professional Beta ISO Download

[Posted using Windows Live Writer on Windows 7 Beta]

Imagine Cup 2010 to be hosted in Poland.

:-)

Well this news is bit old. I had read the news article at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2009/apr09/04-24IC09KickoffPR.mspx a quite a while ago but missed out the statement. “Yesterday in Warsaw, Poland, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced that the Imagine Cup 2010 Finals will take place in Poland, a country with a track record of producing highly skilled IT students as well as successful Imagine Cup entrants.”

And it seems Microsoft might have tightened the Agenda for the world final from 3rd-9th to 3rd-7th of July. (Financial crisis?). Brrr That leaves out my opportunity have few extra leaves from the working place.

[Posted Using Windows Live Writer on Windows 7 Beta]

Windows 7 RC goes public.

Follow up to the post [Drum Roll…] Here Comes Windows 7…

:-)

Microsoft has released the RC of Windows 7 which is the next version of Windows OS family to the public today. Furthermore Microsoft have removed the limitation of number of available copies under the RC program and downloads will be available trough June.

For more details,

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/download.aspx

[Posted using Windows Live Writer on Windows 7 Beta]

Google Similar Images. Since a picture worth 1000+ words.

:-)
Google has recently launched the Google Similar Images feature which is an experimental service from Google Labs that lets you find images that are similar with an image you select. For example if you do a Image search for “Jaguar”  You might receive something like below.

Now If you meant about the ‘cat’ You could click On Similar Images. (Notice the similar features of the images. Background color etc..)

Or more pictures of the brand of car. (Notice the similar features of the images. Background color Car orientation, Color etc… In fact all are different versions of same image…)
Well That’s the example of Google themselves. Now I’m going to do few of my own searches.
Hmm well what does I search? Since I was fond of flowers recently let’s try some flowers.
Search for Water Lily.

Now If I wanted to see Pink Water Lily (නෙළුම් මල්). (In fact single pink water lily on mostly dark back ground.)

or White water Lily (ඕලු මල්) (In fact single white water lily on mostly dark back ground.)

It’s very easy.
Now If I was looking for pictures with only one Pink water Lily it would be really difficult with just Image search.

Now Let’s try about Cherry blossom flower

Hmm I think I like to have similar Images to 1st results. (Single cherry blossom flower on white back ground.)
Oops.

Well 1st 2 pictures are OK. but rest? Well in fact it seems there are no any similar pictures of my cherry blossom flower and considering the image features we may consider the rest is similar to cherry blossom flowers. After all Google bots are just poor bots.
Hmm So what next? Well I do really like to have a feature that would let us to upload our own Image to Google and do a Similar Image search.
References/Links:
Hard at play in Google Labs with Similar Images and Google News Timeline
Google Similar Images
[Posted using Windows Live Writer on Windows 7 Beta]

Landed on Mars. Chase for the water begins…

:-)

Today the list of competitors advanced for the Imagine Cup Robotics and algorithms were published. Hmm It seems 237 are on chase for the water on Mars.

Top 20 Countries are as follows…

TW : 39
CN : 31
FR : 23
HU : 19
US : 16
KR : 10
BR : 9
DE : 8
IN : 8
RU : 6
PH : 5
PL : 5
EG : 5
CZ : 4
AU : 4
JP : 3
DZ : 3
CH : 3
LK : 3
AR : 3

So… Now It’s a matter of water or death.

[Posted using Windows Live Writer on Windows 7 Beta]