Photohugs.com claims to offer superior services than Flickr

A new online photo sharing site Photohugs.com has been launched in India that allows the users to upload and share unlimited number of photographs. The site claims to send the photos to every nook and corner of India along with the latest status of your order and the tracking code for your shipment.

Well, the service is meant for both the Indian citizens as well as the Indians living abroad. The most interesting thing is that it allows users to upload UNLIMITED full resolution photographs, which is not even offered by the giants such as Flickr. Photohugs.com has an appealing and cool easy-to-interface that indeed impressed me. the registration process is quite easy with a few formalities such as name and e-mail.

The charges are very reasonable as you will just need to pay US $0.50 for downloading 200 photographs, which is more economical than using Flickr. The detailed charge list can be found here. It will be interesting to see how they execute the things and do justice with their claims of being better than Flickr on some grounds.

IndiaNewsBox.com, a news aggregator site launches in beta

The new site IndiaNewsBox.com has been launched in the beta. The site hopes to be a news aggregator with an inimitable proposition of offering the content in a single page, but yet preserving the segregation in news source. For now, they have aggregated the news from 9 news sources but have plans to merge more regional content aggregation service (Kannada and Hindi being offered currently).

Well, the idea is indeed good but they will have to speed up as it merely aggregates news from a couple of sources. If they really wish to roll out something like the MySpace News, they really need to work a lot. I really liked the easy to use interface but they somehow seem to have missed some of the points. When you open the home page, page seems to be blank except the feature tabs. The news from the news sources are cited below and the half of the page seems to be unused.

Well, the site is in beta phase and I came across a few bugs when I went to the Indian Blogs section. They could even put more emphasis on the Indian Blogs section as blogging is catching up at a swift pace in India.

Power of online media acknowledged; Orkut.com nominated as MTV Youth Icon 2007

Although this story popped out almost a week ago but we are not going to ignore it. Indian mainstream media looks to have recognized the potential of new online media. MTV, one of the India’s leading multimedia youth platforms, in collaboration with Pepsi has announced the launch of �Pepsi and MTV Youth Icon 2007.�

You will be eager to know the nominees. The list includes our much loved �Orkut.com� along with Abhishek Bachchan, Multimedia Cellphone, Rang de Basanti (movie), and obviously YOU. We are not just naming the nominees but trying to say that the mainstream media has finally realized the likes and dislikes of the youth.

The voting is taking place at www.mtvindia.com or by cellphone messaging (SMS ICON to 6882). The voting will continue till 29th of June and I won�t be surprised if we have orkut.com (with nearly 8.6 million audience) as the �Pepsi and MTV Youth Icon 2007.�

Iconic images of the 20th century - in Lego

Some people never grow out of their childhood fascinations. But at the age of 33, Mike Stimpson decided it was time to put his to a creative use, combining his long-standing love of Lego with a new-found passion for photography to recreate some of the world’s most iconic images.
Stimpson, a computer programmer from Birmingham, used the well-loved children’s toy to reconstruct scenes from famous photographs, such as Charles C. Ebbet's 1932 "Lunch atop a skyscraper" and Henri Cartier-Bresson's "Behind the Gare Saint-Lazare."
And although Lego men are endowed with a permanent grin, Stimpson nevertheless put them to work in some of the most horrific images of war from the 20th century.
Shooting them mostly in black and white, he spent hours painstakingly arranging the scenes and experimenting with lighting to ensure he got the right effect. His devotion to detail is apparent in all his recreations, from patterns on clothing to roadmarkings in backdrops.
Stimpson next hopes to recreate Diego Maradona’s notorious “Hand of God” goal against England and soldiers raising the US flag at Iwojima during World War Two.His photographs are available for sale on redbubble.com.

Student Falls Unconscious at Professor's Home and Dies

Michael Todd, a psychology professor at Paradise Valley Community College, was placed on paid administrative leave after one of his students fell into a coma at his North Phoenix home and died, according to a report in the East Valley Tribune.
The Phoenix Fire Department responded to a call of an unconscious woman early Sunday morning. At a local hospital 30 minutes later, Andria Ziegler, 19, was pronounced dead. No cause has been determined, and toxicology results are pending, the Maricopa County Medical Examiner’s Office said.
Ms. Ziegler’s parents reported her missing on Monday afternoon, and Phoenix police officials became involved when they learned that the the woman’s body was lying unidentified at the medical examiner’s office.
Mr. Todd called in sick on Monday and Tuesday, a college official said. He was placed on leave after Ms. Ziegler’s parents alerted the college of her death.
A private investigator who is looking into the case said that Ms. Ziegler’s best friend told him that Mr. Todd had previously sought to date Ms. Ziegler but that she had initially declined, according to the newspaper’s report.
The case is not being investigated as a homicide, police officials said.

Prime Minister Calls India's Universities 'Teaching Shops'

India’s prime minister, who last year described the country’s universities as dysfunctional, has again lashed out at them, calling them “teaching shops and degree-giving authorities” that have lost their tradition of research-oriented teaching.
“I say this as someone who has been a teacher,” Manmohan Singh said on Friday in a commencement address at Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University, in the state of Jammu and Kashmir. “I have often said that I have strayed into politics by accident but my preferred career was teaching. I recall that in the days I used to be a student and a teacher, universities placed great emphasis on doing research along with teaching.”
Since taking office in 2004, the prime minister has often criticized the state of India’s higher-education system. Last year, he lambasted the governance of state universities and described them as below average. “A dysfunctional education system can only produce dysfunctional future citizens,” he said then.
On Friday Mr. Singh said his government had spent more money on public education than any other recent administration. But “it is not enough to spend it on buildings and salaries alone,” he said.” Some of it should be earmarked for research … and for providing scholarships to promising students.”

Harvard Announces $100-Million Gift for Study Abroad and the Arts

David Rockefeller, a former chairman and chief executive of Chase Manhattan Bank and a grandson of John D. Rockefeller, has pledged the largest gift from an alumnus in Harvard University’s history: $100-million. About 70 percent of the gift, a bequest, will finance study-abroad programs for Harvard undergraduates, and the remaining $30-million has been earmarked for arts programs.
Mr. Rockefeller, who is 92, has given more than $40-million to Harvard in the past. In 2006 The Wall Street Journal reported that he was putting this gift on hold in the aftermath of the resignation of Lawrence H. Summers as Harvard’s president. In 2005 Mr. Rockefeller pledged $100-million to Rockefeller University, which was founded by his grandfather.