Funny Encyclopedia - The Funniest Encyclopedia of India

image source: google WhatsApp, the Facebook-owned messaging service used by more 1 billion users has been updating its app with tonnes of new features lately. Since the service added voice calling feature, there were reports that the messaging service will add callback and voicemail feature too. Early this year in April, a translation document hinted at WhatsApp getting the feature. Now finally WhatsApp is rolling out the feature to its Android Beta program users. The updated WhatsApp app is available to Android Beta user group and also available in the form of a signed APK from APK Mirror. Once WhatsApp version 2.16.189 is installed on your phone, try calling one of your existing contacts and the feature works regardless of the version installed on the recipient's device. With the updated app, when users call someone on WhatsApp and if the recipient declines of does not pick the call, the caller is greeted with a new screen which shows three options - cancel, call

An app launched last month by the French government to alert users to attacks failed to flash a warning until more than three hours after a truck rammed into crowds in the Riviera city of Nice on Bastille day, the interior ministry said. The app, called SAIP, was launched by the interior ministry just before the Euro 2016 soccer championship and was supposed to flash a warning on a user's mobile phone screen if there was an attack close to their location or suspicion of an imminent strike. The app did not send its first notification until 0134 am local time (2334 GMT), more than three hours after the 31-year Tunisian drove down the Promenade des Anglais seaside boulevard, killing 84 people and injuring scores more. "Information related to the attack in Nice on July 14 was sent out much too late by the SAIP app," the interior ministry said in a statement, adding that the app's designers had been summoned to a crisis meeting on Friday afternoon. "An a

There is a reason for this that is rooted in Civil Engineering. Thomas Tharu, who is one of the finest engineers I know, showed me a monograph he’d written about this topic a while back. It was a fascinating scientific insight into a problem that most of us dismiss with a non-scientific explanation like corruption. (Asphalt) roads around the world have pretty much the same construction. There is a layer of gravel (I’ve heard it called ‘jelly’ in Chennai and possibly the rest of India too) and on top of that, there’s asphalt - a concrete mixture with a substantial bituminous / tar component. The asphalt is mildly permeable and can deform to bear very heavy loads; the gravel layer underneath and the basic soil itself provide the structural strength for the road to ‘re-form’ after plastic deformation by a truck or bus that passes over it. If you observe the degradation of Indian roads carefully, you will find one remarkably consistent property: roads are not destroyed during reg

I wonder no one has mentioned  Adam D'Angelo  yet. Being a keen follower of him, I believe that he is truly the most badass programmer. Here are some things about him... Founder of Quora. He was the first CTO of facebook. IOI Silver Medalist [2002]. He along with his team at  California Institute of Technology  won silver medal in ACM ICPC in 2004. In 2005, he was one of the finalists in the international Top coder Collegiate Challenge and was placed eighth in the USA Computing Olympiad while he was at high school. He created a messenger called  BuddyZoo - AOL Instant Messenger analysis  (read this thread it's super cool) at the age of 20. He is red on  topcoder  ( & he has achieved it in just one year & it's not at all cakewalk). In his high school, he developed the Synapse Media Player (a music suggestion software) along with  Mark Zuckerberg  and others which was later proposed to purchase by Microsoft & other giants, but they declined th

The Zika virus - a virus transmitted by mosquitoes - has taken over many countries. It started in Brazil, and has rapidly moved to other countries such as  Puerto Rico ,  Cuba ,  Venezuela , the  United States , and  more. Zika has been linked with birth defects, such as microcephaly - a neurological disorder that causes babies to be born with small craniums and limited brain development.  The untreatable virus has caused many deaths and has even convinced some top athletes headed to the Olympics in Rio this August to withdrawal from the competition. The virus may be untreatable, but researchers are attempting to find another way to stop the devastating virus. A mosquito lab in China - the largest mosquito factory in the world - is working to end the Zika virus. Getty photographer Kevin Frayer recently visited the factory. What do you think you can do this much job for your research.

There was a time when Microsoft's Internet Explorer ruled the world. That doesn't mean that everyone liked it, but Microsoft's firm commitment to the web browser meant it made its way onto most computers. But as these maps, created by Jody Sieradzki at Dadaviz show, there's only so long you can prop up a product that most people despise. These maps show the change in popularity of internet browsers from 2008 to '15, as Chrome, Firefox, and Internet Explorer fought to see who would emerge as the web browser of the future. You will also glad to know that the chrome means the own browser idea was of the current CEO of Google! Mr. Sundar Pichai. Wish to download Chrome Click Here

The way clouds cover the earth has dramatically changed over the last few decades, and what it means for our planet isn't very good. Using satellite data to track cloud patterns since 1983, a  new study published in Nature  found that, because of climate change, cloud coverage has shifted towards the poles. This has caused the subtropical dry zones (located between 20 and 30 degrees latitude in both hemispheres) to expand. In addition, the researchers found that the clouds tops are stretching higher into the atmosphere. Taken together, these cloud changes can accelerate the warming of the planet. Because of the orbital relationship between the earth and the sun, there's more solar radiation in the tropic regions than at the poles, so cloud coverage in these areas is particularly important. Clouds' bright white nature increases the  planet's aldebo , or the Earth's ability to reflect the sun's energy and radiation back into space. So, without those c

Employees carrying their smartphones and using them for office work is a common practice these days. It is a lot easier for most professionals, as they do not need to carry multiple devices, particularly when they are travelling or running from one meeting to the other. The reality is that phones can work brilliantly for e-mails, document editing and conference calls, for example, and can replace a laptop in most cases. Here are some smartphones that can double up as great productivity phones for work on the move. Microsoft Lumia 950XL Price: Rs 34,999 Besides being the only major Windows 10 based flagship smartphone, the Lumia 950XL comes with a 5.7-inch display with a resolution of 2560x1440p. The Windows 10 OS looks a lot more sophisticated than its predecessor and offers some handy new features such as the personal assistant Cortana, the iris scanner and USB type-C fast charging. The phone’s biggest bonus is that it works with Microsoft’s new display dock which transfor

Japanese automaker Nissan will unveil its new fifth generation Micra at the 2016 Paris Motor Show. This time around, freshly rendered images have emerged ahead of its official unveiling. As seen in images, the 2017 Nissan Micra is expected to get more aggressive designs and feature upgrades than the current generation. It is believed that the next-gen Nissan Micra will be offered with a variety of petrol and diesel engine options ranging from 1.0-litre to 1.6-litre. Based on reports, it is believed that the upcoming car might be based on some elements of the CMF-B version from the Renault-Nissan Alliance’s CMF (Common Modular Family) platform. As for safety, the 2017 Nissan Micra will be loaded with all modern safety features. Reports indicate that the 2017 Nissan Micra will share some design cues with the Nissan Sway Concept. The new model is expected to get a more pronounced bonnet and long sleek headlamps. The sloping roofline to the rear along with aggressive rear lights

Saturn would float if you would put it in water. If you would place a pinhead sized piece of the Sun's core on the Earth you would die from standing within 145 km (90 miles) from it. Only 5% of the universe is made up of normal matter, 25% is dark matter and 70% is dark energy. The Sun is 400 times larger than the Moon but is 400 times further away from Earth making them appear the same size. Venus does not have any seasons at all. 1 year on Mercury consists of less than 2 days on Mercury. Helium turns into a solid at 0.95K at 25 atmospheres. The coldest place on Earth is in Wolfgang Ketterles laboratory in Massachusetts. But still they coudn't attain an absolute zero. The pistol star is the most luminous star known 10 million times the brightness of the Sun. All the planets are the same age: 4.544 billion years. 8000 stars are visible with naked eye from Earth. 4000 in each hemisphere, 2000 at daylight and 2000 at night. 90-99% of all normal matter in the unive

Image Source: Facebook Nokia CEO ended his speech saying this “we didn’t do anything wrong, but somehow, we lost”. During the press conference to announce NOKIA being acquired by Microsoft, Nokia CEO ended his speech saying this “we didn’t do anything wrong, but somehow, we lost”. Upon saying that, all his management team, himself included, teared sadly. Nokia has been a respectable company. They didn’t do anything wrong in their business, however, the world changed too fast. Their opponents were too powerful. They missed out on learning, they missed out on changing, and thus they lost the opportunity at hand to make it big. Not only did they miss the opportunity to earn big money, they lost their chance of survival. The message of this story is, if you don’t change, you shall be removed from the competition. It’s not wrong if you don’t want to learn new things. However, if your thoughts and mindset cannot catch up with time, you will be eliminated. Conclusion: 1. The

That an Indian was instrumental in the formation of GOOGLE. So there is a long list of all the top Indian achievers in the States. From Rajat Gupta to Satya Nadella, from Indra Nooyi to Vikram Pandit, from Sundar Pichai to Vinod Khosla, but this man never features in any of them. He is still unheard and unknown of in the mainstream media. He was so instrumental that simply put it GOOGLE WOULD NOT HAVE EXISTED TODAY BUT FOR HIM. Ram Sriraman So when Larry Page and Sergey Brin met at Stanford, they were just young twenty year olds with an idea of a search engine. They explained this idea to their professor who helped them meet some investors. A majority of them were not-so-impressed by this. Then, they stumbled upon this investor called Ram Shriram who also found it OK. But, he was impressed by their passion so without thinking much he handed them a cheque of 500,000 dollars. Can you imagine the duo didn't even have a bank account at that time to deposit that cheque? And

In 2009, Mas Subramanian, a materials science professor at Oregon State University, was running experiments designed to create new materials for electronics. During those tests, he and his team hit on a more unexpected creation in the form of a vibrant new color. Called YInMn blue , the pigment will finally be available to artists and manufacturers later this year through an agreement with the Ohio-based Shepherd Color Company. The pigment is the result of heating a mixture of black manganese oxide and other chemicals to almost 2000°F. The manganese ions absorb red and green wavelengths of light, producing a durable blue color that doesn’t fade in oil or water. “The basic crystal structure we’re using for these pigments was known before, but no one had ever considered using it for any commercial purpose, including pigments,” Subramanian said in a press release. The new pigment is made with all non-toxic ingredients. “Ever since the early Egyptians developed some of the first

What comes after microSD cards for removable storage? Samsung has the answer: UFS. The company announced today the  world's first removable UFS  (Universal Flash Storage) memory cards, offering storage capacity of either 32, 64, 128, or 256 gigabytes, and performance speeds that simply blow older formats out of the water. Read speeds five times faster than the best microSD cards The UFS cards have sequential read speeds of up to 530 megabytes per second — five times faster than the best microSD cards. That means reading a 5 gigabyte, full HD movie in roughly 10 seconds, says Samsung, compared to a UHS-1 microSD card which manages the same feat in around 50 seconds. Write speeds are also significantly im proved, with rates of up to 170 MB/s. That's nearly double the performance of the very fastest microSDs (this SanDisk Extreme Pro card, for example, has  write speeds  of up to 100 MB/s), but seven or eight times faster than the cards  recommended  to non-professionals

A doomed Japanese satellite captured the first ever images of one of the largest weather systems in the universe before it spun itself to pieces. A software glitch caused the X-ray satellite Hitomi to lose contact with ground crews just six weeks after its launch in February. Rescue attempts were later abandoned, but before it died it managed to map a clump of galaxies known as the Perseus cluster. Superheated gas - or plasma - fills the spaces between galaxies within a cluster, but it is usually difficult to detect. But because the Hitomi satellite was sensitive to X-ray wavelengths, it managed to pick up the cluster's faint glow. "We're not just looking at some little fluffy atmosphere," said Andrew Fabian from the Hitomi team, "There's nothing like it." The pictures show a galactic tug-of-war taking place, with the hot gas blasted out by a supermassive black hole - which escapes the gravitational pull of stars within the cluster. Th

It sounds bit  awkward , but Yes.. Google uses a secret web tool called  foo.bar  to recruit new employees based on what they search for online. If Google  sees that you're searching for specific programming terms, they may ask you to apply for a job. The company has created a mysterious page -  Google.com/Foobar  (try this link)- that you can only access if you get invited. How do you get invited? >> Apparently, by showing an interest and expertise in programming languages like Python through your Google search history. Three months ago, computer science graduate  Max Rosett  felt he wasn't ready to apply for a job at  Google  and lacked the confidence to apply for a full-time software role. But when he searched for "python lambda function list comprehension" he was automatically enrolled on  Google's secret hiring process  c alled   foo.bar , the system has been used by Google for at least a year and is triggered when a user enters certa

India's combined internet speed is 36,000 Gbps! Where does your Internet service provider get internet from?  How does Internet reach India?  Let us dive into the world of networking . More than 99% of the internet traffic relies on high quality fiber optic cables connecting various countries. Only a minuscule part of the traffic goes through satellites. These cable networks are laid and maintained by various governments and giant companies. Such projects are usually undertaken by multiple companies due to the large cost of investment. There are three tiers which differentiates the size of the network held by a company. Tier-1 :-  This are the companies which have a global network connecting so much cables around the world that they don't need to pay anyone any fee to access any destination on the internet. They usually can access the network of other tier-1 companies without paying any fee. This network acts as the backbone of the internet. Tier-2 :-  These