ctrl.altered.mind

It seems such a long time ago that my brother and I would plonk ourselves down in front of the TV every Sunday morning to watch Knight Rider with the Hoff. The show had a winning theme - the idea of a smart sports car that can think for itself, let alone respond to voice commands, would be lapped up by kids our age without much hesitation.

Naturally, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the famous KITT (re-christened as the Knight Industries Three Thousand) is making a comeback - and as soon as February 17th in the US, and the central character will be played by a 540-hp Ford GT500KR (with the voice of Will Arnett). David Hasselhoff will be returning as a much older Michael Knight, while the lead (human) character would be played by Justin Bruening. This time around, however, I hope the show can build some not-quite-wafer-thin plots around the central theme, compared to the ones in the 80s series.

(via Autoblog)

A local environmentalist group has called for residents of Mumbai to observe an hour of abstinence from the use of electricity on December 15 from 7:30pm to 8:30pm, in a bid to increase awareness about global warming.

The city has been constantly battling an ever-increasing demand for energy, given its constant strain on resources. Residential areas across the city have had to endure rationing of electric supply for decades, in order to accommodate for load sharing with industrial zones. This problem has been aggravated even further by the exponential demand for energy resources over the past couple of years, as the city witnesses a surge in conspicuous consumption. The mushrooming of malls all over Mumbai, and the increasing demand for motor vehicles by the burgeoning middle class, are factors spearheading the onward march towards increased pollution and the depletion of precious resources.

The city of Sydney faded into black on March 31 this year with it’s event called Earth Hour (pdf), in a similar effort to send a message across Australia about climate change. I sincerely hope that this token move to achieve one hour of no power, will help in educating the masses in Mumbai and India, and increase awareness about the change each individual can bring forth.

Check out MumbaiUnplug.com for more details. Good luck Mumbai!

I came across an interesting feature while reinstalling Skype on my notebook computer - one called Skype Prime. This program is a (relatively) new addition to Skype’s family of services, and like most things Web 2.0, is still in beta. Apparently, the feature has been available since March this year, although I didn’t hear or see anything about it until today. This service uses the tag phrase, “Get paid for sharing your skills, or learn something new”. If you guessed paid phone services, you were quite right.

Skype presents you with an opportunity to earn (big bucks?) by letting you create your own personal ‘call center’. Anything that can be taught over the phone, is up for the offering. You could teach people a new language or narrate horoscopes, while charging them a fee (either per-minute, or a one-off charge). People who call in to avail of your services, will need to use their Skype credit to make payments - the minimum per-minute fee for any service is €0.10 (although that could possibly drop further in the future, as people start seeing greater value in having or providing such a service online, instead of setting up toll-access lines the conventional way).

Just a little online investigation regarding the marketability of this program has me convinced of its value. People are already familiar with the concept of being charged for receiving answers to their questions and problems online (through the popular Yahoo! Answers marketplace). I can easily see someone add the sentence “Call me on Skype if you need additional help with installing your new router (for example)” to their Yahoo! answer.

All this has me thinking.. how clichéd would it be to set up my own personal tech support line as an experiment? Riiight, an Indian guy on the line here on Skype too? At least I’d be charging less than your ‘friendly neighborhood‘ Geek Squad. Thank you, come again.

Here’s a post depicting the vast chasm separating advertising and reality - in this case, related to fast food. Pictures of popular fast food items placed alongside those of what really gets served.

The picture of the KFC Famous Bowl is especially intriguing. Ad nauseam.

(via reddit)

“This guy keeps pushing me and pushing me, I can’t take it anymore!”

Check this video out, it’s hilarious.

(clicking image takes you to the video site)

Google is moving two of their projects even closer in an effort to encourage the use of public transportation in the US (where available). Google Transit is an online tool to view public transit systems and schedules, and even allows you to create your own transit trip, along with itineraries and maps. It is now being integrated with Google Maps, which is arguably the most innovative online tool for locating points of interest and finding directions.

See this example. Searching for these directions on Google Maps now presents users with an alternative to driving - taking public transit.

The display presents a list of suggested alternatives (with icons representing modes of transportation), along with estimated travel times in each case. You have the option to select routes based on preferred departure or arrival times. The trip even provides fare information when available (with a helpful comparison to the estimated cost of driving). The method of calculating the estimated cost of driving has not yet been elaborated upon in the FAQ - that formula would be quite interesting to note (for people who, unfortunately, have to rely on driving everywhere).

Walking directions to and from the transit stations is currently in the form of an arrow, as Google doesn’t yet offer detailed walking routes (although in the example above, the estimated times seem pretty accurate).

Four guys get accidentally locked out of their Audi A4 while the engine is running. Their dealer suggests breaking the right passenger window to get into the car (that is the only one the dealer has in stock). So, they try doing just that, and in the process, learn that it takes more than a couple of attempts.