New Delhi: After Barrel Roll easter egg, Google has now come up with another pleasant surprise. Stop whatever you are doing and and go to the Google homepage. Type in the words "Let it snow" in the search box and Google will surprise you.
As you type, you will find snowflakes falling in your browser. Snowflakes will fall from the top of your screen and slowly cover Google’s search results.
Let it snow for a few seconds and you will find your browser filing up with snow. Once your browser turns into a frozen lake, you can skate around with your mouse. In other words, you can click and move your mouse to manually brush off some of the accumulated snowflakes.
It's a week before Christmas and Google are trying to get us all into the festive spirit.
On Saturday the web giant rolled out its latest joke which had a very seasonal nature.
If you typed in the words 'Let it snow,' snow flakes started gently falling from the top of the screen.
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| It's snowtime: By typing the words 'let it snow' in the search field the gentle flakes start falling |
Evenutally the whole screen was covered in snow, the Huffington Post reports.
But before the searcher collapsed in exasperation at another computer problem the cursor would wipe away the snow, before adding 'Bye :)' in the bottom right hand corner.
There was even a 'Defrost' button instead of blue 'Search' button.
When the joke was taken down, it could be still be played by searching for 'let it snow easter egg.'
An easter egg is an intentional hidden message or an in-joke inserted into a computer programme or web page.
Last month it came up with 'do a barrell roll.'
When you typed in those wounds the screen rotated and flipped over like a fighter pilot doing a barrel roll.
Google's search engine home page has attracted its fauir share of attention in recent years.
With a vast array of so-called Google doodles, the company has changed its logo more than 1,000 times.
Facebook has rolled out Timeline, its new profile. Here are some tips describing how best to make use of the new features:
1. Cover photo
The first thing Facebook users should do when they open Timeline is to upload a large cover photo. It is the first thing people see when they get to a user’s page.
2. Activity Log
The ‘Activity Log’ lets Facebook users review all of the stuff they have posted on the site – such as photos or status updates. Only the user can see their ‘Activity Log’ and from this the user can decide what stuff to show and hide on their Timeline.
3. Sharing life stories
Users can fill out the Timeline with special moments from their lives. They need to click on ‘life event’ and then can add their baby photos, first car, graduation, engagement, wedding, new house, baby being born – or anything else.
4. Highlighting special moments and hiding the ones people would rather forget
For extra special moments, Facebook users can highlight them on their timeline by clicking on the star to make them extra big. Or they can remove anything they don't want to appear on their Timeline by clicking the pencil icon and selecting hide or delete.
5. Control privacy post by post
Change the privacy of anything on the Timeline by clicking on the dropdown next to any post. Members can choose the audience they want to see anything - ¬some things they can share publicly while other things they may only want to share with close friends.
6. Add apps to your Timeline
Facebook users can now tell a more complete story of who they are by adding new experiences to the Timeline profile – such as music they are listening to or films they are watching via applications.
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| (click to zoom) http://www.faceboo.com/about/timeline |
The first thing Facebook users should do when they open Timeline is to upload a large cover photo. It is the first thing people see when they get to a user’s page.
2. Activity Log
The ‘Activity Log’ lets Facebook users review all of the stuff they have posted on the site – such as photos or status updates. Only the user can see their ‘Activity Log’ and from this the user can decide what stuff to show and hide on their Timeline.
3. Sharing life stories
Users can fill out the Timeline with special moments from their lives. They need to click on ‘life event’ and then can add their baby photos, first car, graduation, engagement, wedding, new house, baby being born – or anything else.
4. Highlighting special moments and hiding the ones people would rather forget
For extra special moments, Facebook users can highlight them on their timeline by clicking on the star to make them extra big. Or they can remove anything they don't want to appear on their Timeline by clicking the pencil icon and selecting hide or delete.
5. Control privacy post by post
Change the privacy of anything on the Timeline by clicking on the dropdown next to any post. Members can choose the audience they want to see anything - ¬some things they can share publicly while other things they may only want to share with close friends.
6. Add apps to your Timeline
Facebook users can now tell a more complete story of who they are by adding new experiences to the Timeline profile – such as music they are listening to or films they are watching via applications.
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| A student poses with the supercheap Aakash tablet computer which she received during its launch in New Delhi on Wednesday, Oct 5, 2011. The $35 basic touch screen tablet aimed at students can be used for functions like word processing, web browsing and video conferencing. |
The seven inch tablet with Android 2.2 is now available through its portal aakashtablet.com. "We have put up on sale about 30,000 tablets online, which will have a cash on delivery of 7 days. We have achieved pre-sale orders of about 400,000 tablets from individuals and corporates. But current supplies will only be limited for individual buyers," Datawind CEO and founder Suneet Singh Tuli told ET.
Aakash's next commercial version called the Ubislate 7, which has a faster processor, is slated to be launched late January. Ubislate 7 is set to have a 700 Mhz processor compared to the 366 MHz processor in Aakash. Ubislate 7 will be priced at Rs 3000 for sale online.
Datawind though seems to be struggling with customer service issues for online retail, even though the sale is only for a limited number of tablets.
According to sources, the Indian government is also planning to provide a new specification for Aakash, which may come with a faster processor and better battery life. The current version of Aakash has a battery life of about 1.5 hours. An email to the Ministry of Human Resource and Development, which is supplying the tablets to schools and colleges remained unanswered.
The government till now procured only 10,000 tablets. It has still not procured the remaining 90,000 tablets for distribution in schools and colleges, even as other nations have expressed interest to the government for similar low cost computing initiatives.
Youtube for schools is a new idea to introduce collaborative education as head of Youtube Angela Lin says,” This is a technical solution to allow schools that normally restrict access to YouTube to gain access to it.”
Youtube's official blog post also �suggested that teachers have been looking up to leveraging the Youtube platform to access a huge database of knowledge in form of educational videos. But the bone in the throat was those other videos related to entertainment would distract students. This was the main reason behind schools restricting Youtube videos. However, the educational value of Youtube videos in visually interactive learning was much wider in horizon. Thus, Youtube introduced a new platform for learning.
Youtube for schools will have a network setting that will allow students only to access videos for knowledge via Youtube EDU. There are also options to stop comments and related video results and students can see and learn with the help of 3G and 4G network connections.
Youtube has been constantly working behind content curation with TED and also organizations such as the Smithsonian. Now there is a whole new range of playlists which are categorized by grade level and subjects. Teachers can also make comments or suggestions and the best part is this is free to use.