An in-depth piece on the journey of Google co-founder and current CEO, Larry PageIt's pretty interesting.
I wonder how much is true. :) (I don't necessarily believe everything I read; consider it as a data point.)
I'm keen to read the new book that Eric Schmidt wrote about Google, entitled How Google Works .
"LarryPage: The most ambitious CEO in the universe"
"There’s a joke about LarryPage
that’s been making the rounds at Google X, the 'moon shot' factory
where Google is developing self-driving cars, high-altitude wind
turbines, and a fleet of stratospheric balloons to blanket the world
with Internet access: A brainiac who works in the lab walks into Page’s
office one day wielding his latest world-changing invention — a time
machine. As the scientist reaches for the power cord to begin a demo, Page...
Today, Google is launching a public giving campaign to fight Ebola. For every dollar you give, Google will donate two dollars. In addition, we’re donating $10 million right away to support nonprofits such as InSTEDD, International Rescue Committee, Medecins Sans Frontieres, NetHope, Partners in Health, Save the Children and U.S. Fund for UNICEF. These organizations are doing remarkable work in very difficult circumstances to help contain this outbreak, and we hope our contribution will help them have an even greater impact.
After
Steve Jobs anointed Walter Isaacson as his authorized biographer in
2009, he took Mr. Isaacson to see the Mountain View, Calif., house in
which he had lived as a boy. He pointed out its “clean design” and
“awesome little features.” He praised the developer, Joseph Eichler, who
built more than 11,000 homes in California subdivisions, for making an
affordable product on a mass-market scale. And he showed Mr. Isaacson
the stockade fence built 50 years earlier by his father, Paul Jobs.
Enlarge This Image
Jim Wilson/The New York Times
Steve Jobs, leaving the stage after introducing the iPad, the latest in a long line of his inventions, in January 2010.
STEVE JOBS
By Walter Isaacson
Illustrated. 630 pages. Simon & Schuster. $35.
Related
Jobs Tried Exotic Treatments to Combat Cancer, Book Says (October 21, 2011)
Times Topics: Steve Jobs | Walter Isaacson
Related in Opinion
Op-Ed Columnist: The Biographer’s Dilemma (October 25, 2011)
Andreas Solaro/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Walter Isaacson
“He loved doing things right,” Mr. Jobs said. “He even cared about the look of the parts you couldn’t see.”
Mr. Jobs, the brilliant and protean creator whose inventions so utterly
transformed the allure of technology, turned those childhood lessons
into an all-purpose theory of intelligent design. He gave Mr. Isaacson a
chance to play by the same rules. His story calls for a book that is
clear, elegant and concise enough to qualify as an iBio. Mr. Isaacson’s
“Steve Jobs” does its solid best to hit that target.
As a biographer of Albert Einstein and Benjamin Franklin, Mr. Isaacson
knows how to explicate and celebrate genius: revered, long-dead genius.
But he wrote “Steve Jobs” as its subject was mortally ill, and that is a
more painful and delicate challenge. (He had access to members of the
Jobs family at a difficult time.) Mr. Jobs promised not to look over Mr.
Isaacson’s shoulder, and not to meddle with anything but the book’s
cover. (Boy, does it look great.) And he expressed approval that the
book would not be entirely flattering. But his legacy was at stake. And
there were awkward questions to be asked. At the end of the volume, Mr.
Jobs answers the question “What drove me?” by discussing himself in the
past tense.
Mr. Isaacson treats “Steve Jobs” as the biography of record, which means
that it is a strange book to read so soon after its subject’s death.
Some of it is an essential Silicon Valley chronicle, compiling stories
well known to tech aficionados but interesting to a broad audience. Some
of it is already quaint. Mr. Jobs’s first job was at Atari, and it
involved the game Pong. (“If you’re under 30, ask your parents,” Mr.
Isaacson writes.) Some, like an account of the release of the iPad 2, is
so recent that it is hard to appreciate yet, even if Mr. Isaacson says
the device comes to life “like the face of a tickled baby.”
And some is definitely intended for future generations. “Indeed,” Mr.
Isaacson writes, “its success came not just from the beauty of the
hardware but from the applications, known as apps, that allowed you to
indulge in all sorts of delightful activities.” One that he mentions,
which will be as quaint as Pong some day, features the use of a
slingshot to launch angry birds to destroy pigs and their fortresses.
So “Steve Jobs,” an account of its subject’s 56 years (he died on Oct.
5), must reach across time in more ways than one. And it does, in a
well-ordered, if not streamlined, fashion. It begins with a portrait of
the young Mr. Jobs, rebellious toward the parents who raised him and
scornful of the ones who gave him up for adoption. (“They were my sperm
and egg bank,” he says.)
Although Mr. Isaacson is not analytical about his subject’s volatile
personality (the word “obnoxious” figures in the book frequently), he
raises the question of whether feelings of abandonment in childhood made
him fanatically controlling and manipulative as an adult. Fortunately,
that glib question stays unanswered.
Mr. Jobs, who founded Apple with Stephen Wozniak and Ronald Wayne in
1976, began his career as a seemingly contradictory blend of hippie
truth seeker and tech-savvy hothead.
“His Zen awareness was not accompanied by an excess of calm, peace of
mind or interpersonal mellowness,” Mr. Isaacson says. “He could stun an
unsuspecting victim with an emotional towel-snap, perfectly aimed,” he
also writes. But Mr. Jobs valued simplicity, utility and beauty in ways
that would shape his creative imagination. And the book maintains that
those goals would not have been achievable in the great parade of Apple
creations without that mean streak.
Mr. Isaacson takes his readers back to the time when laptops, desktops
and windows were metaphors, not everyday realities. His book ticks off
how each of the Apple innovations that we now take for granted first
occurred to Mr. Jobs or his creative team. “Steve Jobs” means to be the
authoritative book about those achievements, and it also follows Mr.
Jobs into the wilderness (and to NeXT and Pixar) after his first stint
at Apple, which ended in 1985.
With an avid interest in corporate intrigue, it skewers Mr. Jobs’s
rivals, like John Sculley, who was recruited in 1983 to be Apple’s chief
executive and fell for Mr. Jobs’s deceptive show of friendship. “They
professed their fondness so effusively and often that they sounded like
high school sweethearts at a Hallmark card display,” Mr. Isaacson
writes.
Enlarge This Image
Alessandra Montalto/The New York Times
Cover of the book "Steve Jobs" by Walter Isaacson.
STEVE JOBS
By Walter Isaacson
Illustrated. 630 pages. Simon & Schuster. $35.
Related
Jobs Tried Exotic Treatments to Combat Cancer, Book Says (October 21, 2011)
Times Topics: Steve Jobs | Walter Isaacson
Related in Opinion
Op-Ed Columnist: The Biographer’s Dilemma (October 25, 2011)
Enlarge This Image
Paul Sakuma/Associated Press
Steve Jobs introduced the new Macintosh personal computer on Jan. 24, 1984.
Of course the book also tracks Mr. Jobs’s long and combative rivalry
with Bill Gates. The section devoted to Mr. Jobs’s illness, which
suggests that his cancer might have been more treatable had he not
resisted early surgery, describes the relative tenderness of their last
meeting.
“Steve Jobs” greatly admires its subject. But its most adulatory
passages are not about people. Offering a combination of tech criticism
and promotional hype, Mr. Isaacson describes the arrival of each new
product right down to Mr. Jobs’s theatrical introductions and the
advertising campaigns. But if the individual bits of hoopla seem
excessive, their cumulative effect is staggering. Here is an
encyclopedic survey of all that Mr. Jobs accomplished, replete with the
passion and excitement that it deserves.
Mr. Jobs’s virtual reinvention of the music business with iTunes and the
iPod, for instance, is made to seem all the more miraculous (“He’s got a
turn-key solution,” the music executive Jimmy Iovine said.) Mr.
Isaacson’s long view basically puts Mr. Jobs up there with Franklin and
Einstein, even if a tiny MP3 player is not quite the theory of
relativity. The book emphasizes how deceptively effortless Mr. Jobs’s
ideas now seem because of their extreme intuitiveness and foresight.
When Mr. Jobs, who personally persuaded musician after musician to
accept the iTunes model, approached Wynton Marsalis, Mr. Marsalis was
rightly more impressed with Mr. Jobs than with the device he was being
shown.
Mr. Jobs’s love of music plays a big role in “Steve Jobs,” like his
extreme obsession with Bob Dylan. (Like Mr. Dylan, he had a romance with
Joan Baez. Her version of Mr. Dylan’s “Love Is Just a Four-Letter Word”
was on Mr. Jobs’s own iPod.) So does his extraordinary way of
perceiving ordinary things, like well-made knives and kitchen
appliances. That he admired the Cuisinart food processor he saw at
Macy’s may sound trivial, but his subsequent idea that a molded plastic
covering might work well on a computer does not. Years from now, the
research trip to a jelly bean factory to study potential colors for the
iMac case will not seem as silly as it might now.
Skeptic after skeptic made the mistake of underrating Steve Jobs, and
Mr. Isaacson records the howlers who misjudged an unrivaled career.
“Sorry Steve, Here’s Why Apple Stores Won’t Work,” Business Week wrote
in a 2001 headline. “The iPod will likely become a niche product,” a
Harvard Business School professor said. “High tech could not be designed
and sold as a consumer product,” Mr. Sculley said in 1987.
Mr. Jobs got the last laugh every time. “Steve Jobs” makes it all the sadder that his last laugh is over.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: October 26, 2011
The Books of The Times review on Saturday, about “Steve Jobs,” by Walter
Isaacson, described “Angry Birds,” a popular iPhone game, incorrectly.
Slingshots are used to launch birds to destroy pigs and their
fortresses, not to shoot down the birds
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: October 26, 2011
A version of this review appeared in print on October 22, 2011, on page
C1 of the New York edition with the headline: Making The iBio For
Apple’s Genius.
"Really This is my one of the great book! Sir Walter Isaacson is my best author. Really he is too great person. Mr. Walter Isaacson: My one of the best book in is your book "Steve Jobs Biography". I have read your book. Really too great writing. Just for your info The biography of Sir Steve Jobs is also translated in Gujarati as well as in Hindi. Also Presently we are translating book about Sir Steve Woz auto-biography "iwoz", Sir Robert Cailliau & Sir James Gillies Book "How the Web was Born: The Story of the World Wide Web". and also others great author books. Sir Jeff Ullman book's "Mining Of Massive Datasets" etc great author books." Bittu Gandhi
Thanks for your mail. Yes, to answer
your question, there's no reason to believe a better search engine can't
be made. Things are always changing, and in fact something completely
different might come along and make Google search antiquated, just like
people are gravitating towards different methods of communication,
different services, etc, over time. Apart from the possibility of
improving upon Google's mathematic algorithms for determining results,
It's possible that someone might innovate in voice or image-based
search, or something optimized for mobiles, touchscreens, anything. The
only consideration is whether they would be able to market themselves
and gain a following quickly enough.
Godiji Parshwanath ((Hindi: श्री गोडीजी पार्श्वनाथ)) is the name given to several images of the JainTirthankarParshwananth in India, and to the temple where it is the main deity (mulanayaka). Parshwanath was the 23rd Tirthankara who attained nirvana in 777 BCE.
The original image, about 1.5 feet high, was at Gori in Tharparkar district of Pakistan. The original temple still stands, but is empty.[1] It is in village of Gori between Islamkot and Nagarparkar.[2]
Among the images that bear the name Godiji Parshwanth, the best known is Godiji Parshvanath in the Pydhuni locality of Bombay.[3] It was established in beginning of the eighteenth century in the Fort area. The image is said to have been brought from Hamirpur in Sirohi district in Rajasthan.
in 1877, Seth Amichand of Khambhat settled in Mumbai and constructed a griha jinalaya.[4] The temple was moved in samvat 1859 (1803 CE) to Pydhuni locality because of a fire. In 1811, his sons Nemchand and Modishah acquired the current site, and in 1812 the pratishtha ceremony was conducted. The brick and wood structure was complete replaced by a three story marble structure in 1989. Its 200th anniversary is being celebrated during April 15-May 12. 2012.[5]
A stamp commemorating this celebration was released by Milind Deora, the Minister of State for Communications and IT, on April 17, 2012.[6]
On this occasion, a four volume directory of ancient manuscripts was released.[7]
A massive community feast for 800,000 individuals has been organized. Sweets accompanying an invitation has been sent to 1,34,000 families.[8] The ingredients include 1,50,000 kilo mango juice, 30,000 kilo wheat flour and 2000 kilo red chillies.[9]
Other Godiji Parshwanth Temples.
Other Godiji Parshwanth temples are at Pune,[10] Mohbatnagar, Shivnagar, Falaudi, Laaj,Gohili, Jalore, Sanchor Ahmedabad, Jamnagar, Hyderabad, Guntur, Chitradurga etc.
The original Gori Temple (گوری مندر) in Tharparkar[edit]
For several centuries, the temple at Goripur was a celebrated Jain tirtha. A account of its building is contained in "Gaudi Parshvanath Stavan" by Pritivimala,[11] composed in Samvat 1650 and "Shri Gaudi Parshvanath Stavan" written by Nemavijaya in Samvat 1807.[12]
According to Muni Darshanvijaya,[13] it was installed by Seth Godidas of Jhinjhuvad and was consecreted by Acharya Hemachandra at Patan in Samvat 1228. It was brought to Patan and was buried underground for safekeeping during a period of disturbance. It was rediscovered in Samvat 1432 (1375-6 AD)and was stored in the stable of the local ruler.
According to the old texts, a merchant Megha Sa from Nagarparkar acquired the image by paying 125 dramma or 500 pieces (taka) and brought to Nagarparkar, where it was formally reconsecreted by Acharya Merutunga Suri of AnchalaGachchha. Later, according to instructions he received in a dream, he settled a new town at Godipur and constructed a temple in samvat 1444, thus establishing the Godi Parshvanth Tirth. The construction was supervised by an architect from Sirohi. The shikhar of the temple was completed by his son Mahio.
The tirth became famous and was visited by the Jains from afar.
It was visited by Stanley Napier Raikes in 1854.[14] Raikes met local Jains to compile recent history and consulted a Jain Yati Goorjee Kuntvujajee at Bodhesar, who had manuscripts describing the history of the temple.
In AD 1716, the local chief Soda Sutojee moved the image from the temple to a fort. The image used to buried underground at a secret location for safekeeping, and used to be taken out time to time with great elebration. Raikes write that thousands of monks and hundreds of thousands of ordinary people assembled for the fairs held in 1764, 1788, 1796, 1810, 1822 and 1824 for the idol’s exhibition.[15] In AD 1832, the chief Soda Poonjajee, who was the only person who knew the location of the image, was captured by the ex-Ameers and died in captivity. The image was never seen again.
The temple was later damaged in the battle between Colonel Tyrwhitt and a local Sodha chief, who had taken shelter at the temple.
The temple was inspected the Archaeological Survey of India in 1879.[16] The report refers to it having been built in Samvat 1432.[17] An inscription of 1715 was noted mentioning repairs made.[18]
Jain Muni Vidyavijayaji visited Sindh in 1937.[19] He notes that the temple was empty, and had decayed. A local Bhil served as a guard. At that time there were still many Jain families in towns near Nagarparkar. During India's partition in 1947, the Jains left and the temple became inaccessible to the Jain community. Gori Temple Architecture: The Gori temple was constructed in the classical medieval style. The main structure (mula prasad) with a shikhara is surrounded by 52 subsidiary shrines (devakulikas), just like the Vimala Vasahi at Mt. Abu. It is termed Dvi-Saptati or Bavan Jinalaya by Nandalal Chunilal Somapura in the Sanskrit text JinaPrasad-Martanda.[20] Like Vimala Vasahi, each of the 52 shrines are topped with a low dome. There is a bhonyra (underground chamber) like some of the old temples in North India.
The shrines are now empty. However the paintings in the 12-column ranga-mandap at the front gate are well preserved. An upper band shows people worshiping the Tirthankaras. Two of the bands below show processions with horses, elephants, planquins, chariots, indoor and outdoor scenes etc. and one of the bands has paintings of the Tirthankaras. Such paintings are now quite rare, since paintings of this period in India have generarally been painted over.
"Really This Is The Miracle Of Shree Godi Parshwanath! Lord Parshwanath Is Too Miracle And Powerful God in Jain Religion. Every One Knows Parshwanath God Is Too Powerful Than Others God. This is the secret! Even Shree Krishna Was Chanted Shree Parswanath And Rise Of God Shenkhesvar Parshwanath! I Read This Story. And Most Of Time I Feel The Miracles Shree Parshwanath!" Bittu Gandhi
Descendants of the builders.
According to traditional accounts, compiled in early 20th century by Yati Ramlal Gani,[21] the members of the Gothi clan of Oswals are the descendants of Megha Sa. They now live in various part of India.[22]
There are many remains of Jain temples in Nagarparkar region. Several Oswal clans trace their descent from this region.
Apple Inc and Google Inc's Motorola Mobility unit have agreed to settle all patent litigation between them over smartphones, ending one of the highest-profile lawsuits in technology.
In a joint statement on Friday, the companies said the settlement does not include a cross license to their respective patents.
"Apple and Google have also agreed to work together in some areas of patent reform," the statement said.
Apple iPhones
Apple and companies that make phones using Google's Android software have filed dozens of such lawsuits against one another around the world to protect their technology. Apple co-founder Steve Jobs called Android a "stolen product."
Google and Apple informed a federal appeals court in Washington that their cases against each other should be dismissed, according to filings on Friday. However, the deal does not
apply to
Apple's litigation against Samsung Electronics Co Ltd.
Apple has battled Google and what once were the largest adopters of its Android mobile software, partly to try to curb the rapid expansion of the free, rival operating system.
But it has been unable to slow Android's ascendancy, which is now installed on an estimated 80 percent of new phones sold every year. Motorola, the U.S. company that pioneered the mobile phone, no longer ranks among the biggest smartphone makers.
Both Motorola and HTC Corp have been eclipsed by Chinese Android adopters such as Lenovo Group Ltd - which is buying Motorola - and Huawei and Xiaomi.
The most high-profile case between Apple and Motorola began in 2010. Motorola accused Apple of infringing several patents, including one essential to how cellphones operate on a 3G network, while Apple said Motorola violated its patents to certain smartphone features.
The cases were consolidated in a Chicago federal court. However, Judge Richard Posner dismissed it in 2012 shortly before trial, saying neither company had sufficient evidence to prove its case. Last month, the appeals court gave the iPhone manufacturer another chance to win a sales ban against Motorola.
Apple's biggest victory against Android came against Samsung, where U.S. juries have awarded Apple more than $1 billion in damages. Those verdicts are on appeal, and despite years of court challenges to Android, Apple has not been able to win a crippling sales injunction.
Google acquired Motorola Mobility in 2012 for $12.5 billion, and this year announced it was selling Motorola Mobility's handset business to Lenovo, while keeping the vast majority of the patents.
The case at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit is Apple Inc vs. Motorola Mobility, case number 2012-1528, -1549. (Reporting by Dan Levine; Editing by Andre Grenon and Mohammad Zargham)
Gmail is thought to be undergoing a redesign that will radically change the way people interact with Google email.
The interface change, revealed by leaked screenshots of a test versionpublished by technology site Geek.com, shows a shift towards the simplified design already used by the Google Plussocial network and Google’s intelligent digital assistant Google Now.
It could be the biggest change in the way Gmail looks and operates since the service was created in 2004.
Removing clutter
The design focuses on Google’s search, which can be used to find and highlight emails in a long list, replacing the need to file email in folders or categories. The cluttered sidebar that contained email labels, folders and Google’s Hangouts instant messaging service has been removed in favour of a sliding menu, already used by Google’s social network and other Google services. Google's simplified interface for Gmail. Photograph: Geek.comButtons for composing a new email, setting reminders and other quick actions are now in the bottom right-hand cover, and the tabbed interface that allows users to switch between email, contacts and tasks has been removed. Google Hangouts now drops down from a menu in the right-hand top corner. Google’s starred emails, which are used to flag important conversations, have been replaced by “pins”. Emails can also be snoozed, to be returned to the top of the inbox at a later date.
Google has only made small, gradual additions and changes to Gmail in the past, with some changes remaining entirely optional for years for its 425-million-plus users.
It is possible that the redesign is an internal Google change that will not be released to the public, but it appears to match that of leaked design change of Google’s mobile email interface. It also brings Google’s email service more into line with newer Google online services in look and workflow.
Google declined to comment on the redesign.
Location: The Atishay kshatra Shri Antariksh Parshvanath is situated in the outskirt of the village Shirpur about 75 kilometers away from Akola (Barar) railway station. Shirpur is one of the most important pilgrim centres of the Jains who regard it as their Benaras. Jain pilgrims from all over the country visit this place. At present there are four Jain temples in the village Shirpur, the Atishay kshatra Shri Antariksh Parshvanath Basti Mandir, the Pavali Digamoari Mandir, the Parshvanath Shvetambar Mandir and the Chintamani Parshvanath Digambari Mandir. The temple of Shri Antariksha Parshvanath which is also known as the Basti Mandir being in the middle of the Shirpur village. This temple is said to have been rebuild about 250 years ago. The lnam Record about this temple which was registered in 1867 corroborates the above mentioned fact. The temple is believed to have been rebuilt by Onkaniasji Shravaji of Knarngaon.
The idol is Black- colored idol of Bhagawan Parshvanath in the dhyanastha ardha- padmasana posture around 107 cm, high.
History: The story told about this temple is that two Jain demons ailed Khara and Dushana made the image of cowdung and sand and used to worship it. They hid it in a pit beside a river on the side of a hill near Werul (Ellora) a village near Aurangabad in the then Nizam's Dominions. Long afterwards Ila or Ilaka Raja of Ellichpur happened to pass by the spot and to see a little pool of water, no larger than might be contained in a cow's hoof-mark. He suffered terribly from white leprosy, but on applying this water to his body was immediately cured. He was a Jain, and every night his queen had been accustomed to take the germs of the disease from his body and, not being allowed to kill them, put them in a tin ease till the morning, when they were replaced. She now asked how he had been cured, and went with him to the spot, where she prayed to the unseen god to manifest himself. That night the image appeared to her in a dream and directed that it should be dug up and conveyed in a cart to Ellichpur but it warned her that the king, who was to drive the cart himself must on no account look back. In fact he looked back near Shirpur and the image remained suspended in the air. The king built over it the temple of Pavali- a Hemadpanti building having neither arch nor mortar. Presently the god expressed disapproval of this and directed that another temple should be built at the cost of a panch, and the present temple was built accordingly. The temple has a small campus the main gate of which was built in 1880. The entrance to the temple lacing the east, is decorated with designed and carved metal covering, while the threshold of the same displays coins from the Moghal, the Nizam and the British regimes which are fixed there. This entrance leads to a gabhara also known as Digambari Vedi. On the right of this Veat there is another Vedi of Veersen Svami. There are 15 images of Jain Saints on this Vedi. The main temple with the shrine of Antariksha Parshvanath is underground, about 8 feet below the ground surface, and is below file gabhara referred to above. While proceeding from this gabhara to the sanctuary (devhara) of Antariksha Parshvanath, one cornes across the Vedi of Mahavira Svami, a Jain Tirthankar. Tins sanctuary, though not very spacious, is decorated on the ceiling and with arches on solid pillars. It is built in stone masonry and furnished with while marble tiles, It is also furnished with electric lights. The principal object of worship, the idol of Antariksha Parshvanaith appears to be made of black stone of the local variety. The idol appears to be a fine specimen of sculpture and is about three and a half feet high. It is in a typical meditative posture which is known as dhyanastha ardha-padmasana. There is a hood of the cobra on the top of the idol. Jain devotees believe that the idol was in a floating position in the past and has come to rest on ground at only one point subsequently. However, a plausible explanation of its position as it appears to the human eye is that the idol is supported on the base at one point and is balanced in such a way that its entire weight is supported at that point. The principal interest about the same is that except for one point the entire idol is floating, and is hence called antariksha. The idol touches the ground a! its right knee. A piece of cloth can be passed through the space between the idol and its base. To the right of the main shrine is an altar (Vedi) of Adinatha Svami which contains an ancient image of Anantanatha Tirthankara. By the side of the image of Anantanatha Tirthankara are carved 14 images of the 14 Tirthankaras. The image of Anantanatha contains an inscription said to be in Brahmi characters. Next to this altar, there is another altar of the Goddess Padmavati who is considered as the Yakshini (the female demigod) of Parshvanatha. The image of Padmavati prepared about a century ago is in white marble and is beautiful. To the right hand side of the Goddess is the altar of Devendrakirti Svami. There are five more altars, known as Panchmeru. Of these four altars contain the image of Parshvanatha. In the ninth altar is the ancient Digambar image of Panchaparameshihi. Made in black stone, the image of Panchaparameshthi is broken at the legs. It is said Io have been broken by one of the nobles of Aurangzeb Other idols are in white marble said to be 300 to 400 years old. Below this sanctuary at a depth of about seven to eight feet one comes across another cellar which contains the shrine of Chintamani Parshvanath and two idols of Kshetrapalas. This whole construction which can be said to be a Sabhamandapa is in Hemadpanti style and is supported on four pillars. At the top of the main temple is a dome and a terrace to the east of which is the nagarkhana. On the parapet wall are carved the figures of Digambar Jain idols. By the side of the temple are four dharmashalas including the one recently constructed by the Shvetambars which provide accommodation to pilgrims. In the pavilion in the temple premises religious discourses are held. Pavali Digambar Jain Mandir: The other Jain temple at Shirpur is known as the Pavali Digambar Jain Mandir which is located at the outskirt of the village. To the left of the temple is a well whose water cured the white leprosy of the king Ila. Local people even now claim that the water of this well has curative powers. It is said that the brave warriors from the family of the Jadhavs of Sindkhed were invited and settled at Shirpur with a view to protecting the shrine from the ravages of the Muslims. These Jadhavs were known as Pavalkars and were vested with the responsibility of protecting the temple up to the end of the last century when both Shvetambars and the Digambars agreed to shoulder the responsibility of protecting the temple themselves. This temple, which appears to he unfinished, bears an abraded inscription over its eastern door-way, to one side, with a date which has been read as Samvat 1334 (A. D. 1412), and the name Antariksha Parshvanatha. Mr. Couseus was of the opinion that the temple was begun during the early Muhammedan invasions of the Deccan, at least a hundred years before the dale of the inscription, and that the work was abandoned lest the iconoclastic zeal of the invaders should be excited, and subsequently resumed when their zeal had subsided into the tolerance of rulers, at which time, probably, the image of Parshvanath Antariksha was installed. He also suggested that the old temple was finally abandoned after the commencement, but before the completion of the brick skikhara in hybrid, style and owing to the insecurity of temples during the contests of rival Muhammedan powers in the Deccan. The plan of the shrine is star-shaped and the walls are decorated with bands of arabesque, no images being carved except in the three principal niches, these figures being hose and detachable if necessary. The temple constructed in Hemadpanti style with black stone has an entrance door from which the main sanctuary is visible The temple proper is situated at a low level so that the early morning rays of the sun fall directly on the shrine. After entering the entrance gate one comes across an audience hall with four pillars. The exterior portion of the main temple bears artistic carvings. The audience hall in the main temple has three gateways with a plethora of artistic carvings over them. Each of the doorways bears Digambara images carved on the three sides of the door-frame. All the four pillars of the audience hall bear the beautiful carvings of the devotees dancing and playing instrumental music. The ceiling of the audience hall bears an impress of exquisite sculpture. The interior of the dome is decorated with artistic swans in rejoicing mood. On three sides of the inner chamber, which is renovated with marble tiles, are three altars upon which are sealed three Images, all in white marble, the chief being that of Parshvanatha said to have been as old as the samvat year 1432 (1510 A. D.). The exterior of the inner chamber is pentangular and the pillars are nicely decorated. It is said that 11 images were excavated from the cellar below the audience hall in 1928. The temple was not properly maintained upto 1966-1967 when it was brought under proper upkeepment and maintenance. ' The image of Parshvanatha' according to the old Akola District Gazetteer 'is said to have been set up in the present temple on Vaishakh Shuddh, 3 Vikrama Samvat 555, or about 1500 years ago', but there is no evidence of this. It further states, Two images of Parshvanatha in white marble are said to have been placed in the Pavali temple about 20 years ago'. Pilgrims come throughout the year to visit this shrine also. Vighnahara Prshvatnath Shvetambar Mandir: The third Jain temple in the village known as the Vighnahara Parshvanatha Shvetambar Mandir was built in 1964 In front of the temple is erected the statue of the chief donor. This exquisite modern construction contains a magnificent audience hall (sabha-mandapa) above which there is a dome covering the entire audience hall. The dome is remarkable for being akhand (monolithic). The dome above the gabhara, 35' in height could be reached through a screw type staircase from the terrace. Chintamani Parshvanath Mandir: The fourth temple in the village is known as the Chintamani Parshvanatha Mandir and was constructed by the Digambar sect of the Jains in 1970. This is a small temple as compared with the other three. Fair: Pilgrims from all over the country visit the main temple and along with it others too throughout the year. However, the chief fair is held for three days in Karttika (October-November) and on the third day of the bright half of the month of Fagan. Trust: Shri Antariksh Parshvanath Mahajan Sansthan, Shirpur-444504, Akola, Maharashtra, India, Pin-444 504 Phone numbers 07254-234006 / 234309 Source: The Gazetteers Department - AKOLA
Google
co-founder Sergey Brin's affair with a 20-something subordinate made
Google CEO Larry Page "insanely upset," according to a voyeuristic new
Vanity Fair piece delving into the love triangle that broke up Brin's
marriage.
While many aspects of Brin's breakup with Anne Wojcicki
-- a genetic-testing entrepreneur -- and his affair with Google Glass
marketing manager Amanda Rosenberg have been widely reported, the
anonymously sourced story offered new details of the fallout, related in
a salacious tone that riveted its Silicon Valley audience. For
instance, "ethically strict" Page, also a Google co-founder, was so
upset by Brin's affair that he stopped talking to him for a period of
time. Google employees also were reportedly disturbed by the romance.
Google
co-founder Sergey Brin stands on stage during a bill signing by
California Gov. Jerry Brown for driverless cars at Google headquarters
in Mountain View, Calif., Tuesday, Sept. 25, 2012. (Eric Risberg/AP
Photo)
"Some people were furious internally,
especially women, that Sergey and Amanda were not (professionally)
separated," a source told the magazine.
All of the sources for
the story went unnamed, including one identified as a friend of
Wojcicki's, another as a friend of both Wojcicki and Brin, a third as
"an industry observer" and current and former Googlers.
Google declined to comment to both Vanity Fair and this newspaper.
The
piece about the affair at Brin's secretive pet project, Google X, was a
hot topic on Twitter, with some tweeters calling it a trashy read that
was impossible to put down.
"Not everybody is in that kind of
economic class, so there is that intrigue as well as the intrigue around
these two guys (Brin and Page), who were certifiable geeks in school
who went on to build this empire," said Amy Andersen, the self-described
"love concierge" and founder and CEO of Menlo Park-based Linx Dating.
"So people always want to parachute into the private lives of these
kinds of people. (Brin) seems like he's a very private guy. Now this
whole scandal is quite public and has created a monster that he didn't
really think about."
The story offers no details about how the
affair between Brin and Rosenberg began. It does include fawning
descriptions of Brin as a "handsome, compact man with a toned physique,
an enviable head of hair, and sparkling brown eyes."
Rosenberg,
who is characterized as being in her mid-20s, is described as a
"stunning Englishwoman with Chinese and Jewish roots, (who) often dyes
her long dark hair with streaks of color, like burnt sienna. She has a
comedian's sense of timing and a propensity for sharing her emotions
widely on social media. She went to the same boarding school as the
duchess of Cambridge and Princess Eugenie."
The story says
Wojcicki, "in her professional life as well as her personal one, is a
powerful woman with ambitions that are enormous, which she funnels into
her genetic-testing company, 23andMe."
Aside from a prurient,
insider's view of the breakup of a marriage from the perspectives of
anonymous witnesses, the details of Brin's affair do provide an
opportunity to critique how similar situations could be handled better,
David Kadue, a Los Angeles labor and employment attorney, told this
newspaper.
Brin, who reportedly has a prenuptial agreement with
Wojcicki, has exposed himself to a potential multimillion-dollar lawsuit
if his relationship with Rosenberg turns ugly, Kadue said.
"While there's nothing unlawful about a consensual sexual affair within a company, things happen," he said.
Instead
of incurring the wrath of his co-founder, Brin should have been candid
with Page and Google's board of directors about the affair and created a
legal avenue for Rosenberg to report any complaints to superiors, Kadue
said. At the very least, Kadue said, Brin should have changed
Rosenberg's reporting assignments.
On the other hand, Kadue said,
if Rosenberg had come to him for "quasi-paternal" -- rather than legal
-- advice, "I would advise her to find another job."
Contact Dan Nakaso at 408-271-3648. Follow him at Twitter.com/dannakaso.
"Really ...? Too Good Matter by Dan Nakaso. Really Great! Really This is interesting story. I think some value down of Google Company about this matter. Becoz this is press matter !" Bittu Gandhi
Google chief executive Larry Page has revealed that the search
giant is still waiting for Facebook to get in touch to allow users to
share data between the two companies’ services.
Google and Facebook have long had a frosty relationship, which was particularly spiked when an adjustment of Google’s terms of service preventing Facebook users importing data from the search giant.
Speaking to US talk show host Charlie Rose, as VentureBeat reports,
Page explained that Facebook needs to open its data in order to allow
users to share information — such as contacts — between the two
services, which, he says, would provide significant benefits.
“I think it’s been unfortunate that Facebook has been pretty closed with their data,” Page said.
The Google API requires services to reciprocate the data share and,
since Facebook does not, a disconnect between two of the world’s most
influential sites — which know more about Web users than almost any
others — developed.
Page further added:
From a user’s perspective, you say… I’m joining Facebook. I want my
contacts. In Google, we said, fine. You can get them from Google. And
the issue we had is that then Facebook said, no, Google, you can’t do
the reverse. And so we just said, well, users don’t understand what
they’re doing. They’re putting data in, and they don’t understand they
can’t take it out. So we said, well, we’ll only participate with people
who have reciprocity. And we’re still waiting.
Google enjoys reciprocation with other services, which Page says is
important because “you don’t want to be holding your users hostage.”
The launch of Google+ last year may have clouded the issue somewhat, give the potential threat that the service has to Facebook.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg left no doubt of his thoughts on the
new Google site when last November, he said that the company was
“building its own little Facebook”. Google+ chief Bradley Horowitz fired back,
saying the company has “happy to be underestimated” by its rival, but,
in truth, there remains a significant gulf between the two.
Zuckerberg’s creation now has more than 900 million users, putting it
well ahead of the 170 million Google+ users claimed by Google when the
service underwent its first major redesign in April.
Facebook is one of the Web’s most influential sites yet, in contrast, Google+ has struggled to gain serious traction, with comScore reporting that users averaged just 3.3 minutes on it during January 2012.
If you've ever tried to cook and search at the same time—say, when your
hands are covered in flour and you need to know how many ounces are in a
cup—you know it can be tricky. With the latest Chrome Beta, you can
search by voice on Google—no typing, clicking or hand-washing required.
Simply open a new tab or visit Google.com in Chrome, say "Ok Google,"
and then start speaking your search.
This will be rolled out to
English (U.S.) users on Windows, Mac and Linux over the next few days,
with support for additional languages and Chrome OS coming soon.
Here are a few examples to get you started: Perform searches: Say “Ok Google, how many ounces are in a cup?” Set a timer: Say “Ok Google, set a timer for 30 minutes” Create a reminder for Google Now: Say “Ok Google, remind me to pick up dessert at 6pm tonight”
To enable this feature, visit Google.com, click on the mic icon, then click on “Enable Ok Google:" By
"Really One Of The Great Article by MR Gethin Chamberlain. Why India's vanishing tigers!
Day to day in India grow on land business and down in Natural. Day to day peoples growth and he cut jungle and kill tigers, lion etc animals." Bittu Gandhi
With
some conservationists claiming only 800 tigers still live in the wild,
radicalsteps are needed if the species isn't to disappear from India
within five years
Gethin Chamberlain
The Observer, Sunday 7 March 2010
Article history
Tiger and leopard skins for sale at a market in Lhasa, Tibet. Photograph: AP
The poachers perch on the rough platforms they have built in the trees
about 15 feet above the forest floor, waiting patiently for the tiger to
come. They have been searching the forests of India's Ranthambhore
reserve for days, following the pug marks and other tell-tale signs.
When they found the fresh kill, they knew it would only be a matter of
time before the tiger returned to eat. Working quickly, they placed
their traps on the path, scattering small stones across the dry sandy
soil, knowing that tigers hate to walk on them and will pick their way
around if they can.
The tiger pads forward, guided by the stones into the trap, which
springs shut with a snap. The poachers have fashioned the device from
old car suspension plates; there are no teeth, because a damaged pelt
will fetch less money. In pain and desperate to free itself, the tiger
thrashes around. Another foot catches in another trap, then a third.
The poachers watch to make sure it cannot free itself, then edge down to
the ground, still cautious, because a male Bengal tiger can weigh up to
500lb (227kg) and a female 300lb (136kg) and a single blow from those
claws could kill a man. One man carries a bamboo stick into which he has
poured molten lead to give it more weight. The other has a spear on the
end of a 10ft pole. As the tiger opens its mouth, the poacher with the
spear lunges forward, stabbing between its open jaws. As the blood
starts to flow, he stabs again and again. His colleague smashes the
tiger over the head with the stick.
When it is over, they draw their heavy iron knives and set to work to
skin it. They leave the paws intact; they are too fiddly to waste time
on out in the open. Half an hour later, they are gone, melting away
unchallenged into the jungle, once more eluding the forest guards.
It is always the same, says Dharmendra Khandal, toying with a heavy iron
skinning knife as he recounts the story. Khandal is sitting in the
offices of Tiger Watch on the edge of the national park, one of the most
popular tiger reserves in India. He spreads his palms in frustration.
The government's forestry department is always the last to act, he says,
though it is its job to protect the tigers.
Tiger Watch was established in Rajasthan 12 years ago as an independent,
privately funded organisation trying to stem the decline of the
wildlife population in the Ranthambhore reserve. In the last five years,
it has helped police arrest 47 alleged poachers from the Moghiya tribe,
many in possession of tiger skins and other body parts, guns and traps.
By their own admission, the poachers have killed more than 20 tigers.
Yet in the same period, the authorities in the park did not record a
single incidence of poaching. Something does not add up.
At the turn of the last century, there were an estimated 45,000 tigers
living wild in India's forests. By the time hunting was banned in 1972,
their numbers were down to 2,000. In January, the World Wildlife Fund
placed the animal in its list of 10 key creatures facing extinction,
warning that while counting tigers is notoriously difficult, there might
only be 3,200 left in the wild worldwide. The WWF has just launched a
Year of the Tiger campaign to coincide with the start of the Chinese
year of the tiger. The organisation is working with world leaders
towards the goal of doubling wild tiger numbers by 2022 and there will
be a summit in Vladivostok in September attended by the heads of
government from the tiger range countries. Nowhere will the challenge be
greater than in India, home to that symbol of the country, the royal
Bengal tiger.
The Indian government claims 1,411 tigers are still alive inside its
borders. Few experts believe this figure. When a tiger skin can sell for
$20,000 in neighbouring China, poaching remains a serious problem. Last
year was the worst since 2002 for tiger deaths and even India's
Ministry of Environment and Forests concedes that its way of counting
tigers is so vague that there may be as few as 1,165. Environment
minister Jairam Ramesh now admits the figure of 1,411 was "an
exaggeration". Either deliberately, to hide the true scale of the
animal's decline, or accidentally, through flawed methodology, it is now
clear that the numbers are wrong. Some conservationists believe the
true number of tigers left in India may be little more than half the
official tally and that at the present rate of decline, the tiger will
cease to be a viable wild species in India within as little as five
years. If poaching and habitat loss continue unabated, those reserves
that still have tigers will be little more than open-air zoos. According
to the ministry, there are 16 reserves (just under half the total)
where there may be no tigers at all or where the tiger is in danger of
becoming extinct. Part of the problem is that the presence of tigers is a
matter of pride, both for states and individual reserves. No one wants
to admit that their tigers have been poached. And still the forests are
vanishing as India's burgeoning population places increasing demands on
limited space.
Ranthambhore is one of the better parks, one of the few places visitors
have a realistic chance of seeing a tiger in the wild. Even here, the
number of tigers left is in dispute.
According to Khandal, Tiger Watch's field biologist, there are two
schools of poachers: the professionals who tend to come in from Haryana
and use only leg traps and the local Moghiya tribe who fire on the tiger
from close range with homemade guns. "The Moghiyas are criminals," says
Khandal. "They are one of the most brutal communities in India. A month
ago, some of them cut off a woman's feet just to steal her ankle
ornaments. She bled to death."
In an attempt to stem the tide, Tiger Watch has started working with the
Moghiya, hiring informants for 3,500 rupees (£50) a month, while
setting some of the women to work producing handicrafts and providing
education for their children.
"It's a risky job," says Khandal. "We have four regular paid informants
from this community and we give them money in return for information.
The community knows who the informants are. Some of them are resisting
but there are cracks in the society now. Some of them are asking why
they should live in such a primitive state."
Kesra, 45, is one of the former Moghiya poachers who have been turned.
By his own admission, he has killed at least five tigers. He describes
roaming the forests looking for pug marks and then taking up position in
the trees to wait for the tiger to come, working at night and returning
in the morning to skin the tigers. He says they never had any trouble
with the forest guards, a common refrain. He was arrested as a result of
a Tiger Watch raid and is awaiting trial. He insists he is now
reformed. "I never had much education. My forefathers were doing
hunting, but now times have changed. We are different people," he says.
His wife, Sanwali, also 45, earns about 3,000 rupees a month from making
baskets for Tiger Watch. They have five sons and two daughters to
support. She says that, like the tigers, they have become the hunted.
"We are not willing to live in an atmosphere where the police are always
coming after us," she says. "We had to move from here to there. Our
forefathers were involved in poaching, but we don't want to be involved
in this trade any more."
It is a view echoed by 26-year-old Asanti. Her family are notorious
tiger poachers and she is married to a former small-time poacher,
Deshraj, 30. The couple, who married when Asanti was 10, have an
eight-year-old daughter, Puja, and say they don't want her to grow up
like they did, shunned by the rest of society. They provide information
on what is happening in the tribe and in return receive money and a
chance to start afresh.
"We want our children to be educated. We want to learn more. We want a
regular source of income," says Asanti. "Hunting is not a regular source
of income. Times have changed and our community is scattered. Now we
want to live respectably."
Tiger Watch's approach is clearly having an effect, but that has not
been enough to save it from the wrath of the authorities whose indolence
it has exposed. Not long after the group revealed that poaching had
reduced tiger numbers in Ranthambhore to just 18 in 2004, officials
turned up at the office of its founder, Fateh Singh Rathore, and
demolished it. His daughter's shop and their restaurant were also
flattened, ostensibly for operating without the correct permissions,
though others in a similar situation were left untouched. It was a
warning.
Fateh Singh is now 75. He was the government's field director at
Ranthambhore from 1977 to 1996 and is regarded as one of India's
foremost tiger experts. Sitting in his rebuilt office, he picks up a
newspaper and stares at the large WWF advert on the front page, with its
warning that there are only 1,411 tigers left in India. He shakes his
head; the true figure is probably closer to 800, he says. "They are
always saying that the numbers are on the increase, but there is no
proper scientific research. They are lying to save their skins. If they
have a problem they should declare it. The authorities like only
praise."
He doubts there are more than 20 tigers left in Ranthambhore.
"The field directors are responsible. They are not trying. They are too
busy showing VIPs around to spend time on protection. All the popular
parks are suffering from the same disease. They know they are posted for
two years and then they will go somewhere else. No one is being
punished for the tigers that are being lost."
Still, he says, while there are still some tigers, there is a chance. "I
am still optimistic because I feel the tiger has a lust for life. It
can survive if it gets protection, but you have to be very strict if you
want to protect the tiger."
The system, however, is simply not geared up to deter the hunters. There
were 72 arrests for tiger poaching in India last year, but the only two
convictions were for cases dating back more than 10 years.
It is hardly a deterrent. Tiger poaching is a lucrative business for
some – though not necessarily the poachers, who may have to share the
100,000 rupees (£1,450) they will get for one tiger between 10 gang
members – and there are plenty of people with an interest in turning a
blind eye.
When Tiger Watch and the Rajasthan police went after one of the biggest
poachers in the region, Devi Singh, they had to sneak across the state
border into Madhya Pradesh to snatch him from his village without
alerting the local authorities because, Khandal explains, had they
revealed their true intentions, someone would have tipped Singh off.
When they got him back to Rajasthan, Singh confessed to killing five
tigers in the park, in a period when no poaching was officially
recorded.
The last full tiger census in India – which claimed 3,642 tigers – was
carried out in 2001, based largely on pug marks, a hopelessly unreliable
method of counting. Satya Prakash Yadav, deputy inspector general of
the National Tiger Conservation Authority in Delhi, admits it was
"seriously flawed" and "not scientifically correct". For the latest
study, he says, officials switched methods, using a mixture of camera
trap results and a survey of the habitat and prey base to produce an
estimate of how many tigers might conceivably have survived. But he
admits that problems remain. (Yadav did not have any figures for the
number of tigers actually recorded in the camera traps. There are no
data for this in the latest report and repeated requests for the vital
statistic drew a blank.)
Many of those reserves are already on the brink. The greatest threat to
the safety of the park officials comes from the Naxalites, Maoist
guerrillas who have been described as the greatest threat to India's
internal security. They have seized control of vast swaths of the
country, ostensibly in the name of tribal peoples who they claim have
been oppressed. They have a particular loathing for forestry officials,
who they regard as the stick with which the state beats the tribals,
extracting money and goods from them in return for the use of the
forests on which they rely for their livelihoods. At least six of the
parks are overrun by Naxalites and are inaccessible to the forest
department. There is simply no way of knowing how many tigers remain
there and certainly no way to install camera traps.
It is hardly surprising that the latest update lists 16 of the 37
reserves as being in a "poor" state. It is possible, Yadav concedes,
that there are no tigers there.
"We have classified some reserves as poor where there is no population
of tiger or where the tiger may go extinct. Despite our various
milestone initiatives, the situation may go out of control in certain
tiger reserves."
Simlipal reserve, in Orissa – the fourth largest in India – provides an
insight into just how problematic the official figures are. A 2004
report, based on pug marks, claimed that there were 101 tigers in the
reserve. Last year, India's environment minister, Jairam Ramesh,
conceded that 40 tigers had been poached from the reserve over the
previous five years, but insisted there were still 61 tigers alive and
well in Simlipal alone. Yet the government's own figures claim that
there are only 45 tigers in the whole of Orissa state, which also
includes those in the Satkosia reserve. Again, something does not add
up.
Then there is Panna. The latest report claimed that there were
approximately 24 tigers in the 974sq km reserve. Last year, it was found
that there were none. And this was three years after the government had
announced a complete overhaul of the system, after the Sariska reserve
was also found to be empty.
Luckily for the tiger, complacency is not endemic. In the Periyar tiger
reserve in Kerala, a small group of women has been mounting their own
fightback. Every day, members of the Vasanta Sena (Green Army) venture
unpaid and unarmed into the forest, in search of poachers. There are 76
of them, living around the edges of the park, mostly from poor families,
each taking one day a week off from jobs and looking after their homes
to seek out intruders. One aim is to stop the destruction of the tigers'
habitat, the forest itself. The sandalwoods are prized by illegal
loggers for their oil, which is used in medicines and cosmetics. One
kilogram of the wood can fetch 5,000 rupees.
The forest is lush and green, a gentle breeze rustling the leaves of the
sandalwoods and the swaying stands of giant bamboos arcing overhead. A
small stream runs beneath a roughly made wooden bridge. The women pick
their way among the trees. At the front is Gracykutty, 39. She is
married to a mason and has two daughters. She has been doing this for
seven years.
"Here we breathe the best air in the world and we are dedicated to
protecting it," she says. "I think if there is only one tiger left in
the world in the end, it will be here."
Her colleague Jiji, 35, says they know that if the forest goes, so too
will the tiger, destroying the tourist industry on which their economy
depends.
"We keep a look out for trees that have been cut or signs that people
have been in the forest. It is important because if the forest is cut
then there is less space for the animals and if the forest goes and the
tigers go then it will be terrible for everyone who lives around here.
We understand this and that is why we are doing this. It is not just for
ourselves, it is for our children too, so they can enjoy the forest
like we do."
How many tigers remain in Periyar is a matter of conjecture. Sanjayan,
the range officer, says the park has about 34 tigers, maybe 36. He says
camera traps have identified 24 and the rest have been calculated using
the unreliable pug mark method. But his boss, Bastian Joseph, the
assistant field director, cites the official figure of 46 tigers.
Many conservationists fear that without drastic action, the only place the tiger will soon be found in India is in its zoos.
Inside the royal Bengal tiger pen at the Arignar Anna Zoological Park in
Chennai, Nagammal, the woman who looks after the tigers, spins a metal
wheel on the wall to slide open the internal cage door. Padma, the zoo's
15-year-old female, has been growing increasingly restless. Now she
pads through the open door, lets out a roar and launches herself at the
thick metal grille with a shuddering crash. She lands and turns away,
pacing around the cage before repeating her assault several times,
roaring her displeasure. Eventually, she settles on the floor and sits
watching warily, emitting a low growl. Up close, it is easy to
understand why the poachers are so keen to make sure their prey is
securely trapped before they approach.
The zoo's director, PL Ananthasamy, argues that the answer to the
tiger's decline lies in a captive breeding programme. "The basic game is
conservation and in due course of time to take these species back to
their home and release them," he says.
Tigers breed well in captivity, but releasing them into the wild is
another matter entirely and most experts agree that it is fraught with
difficulties, which may explain why there do not appear to be any
examples of successful reintroduction of tigers.
Ananthasamy disagrees: "It is possible to release captive bred animals.
We must do it gradually and ensure that the animal can survive by
itself. We have not yet reached the stage where the tiger cannot breed
in the wild, but the pressure is such around the sanctuaries that the
numbers are coming down. There is enough prey base for the animals to
survive, but the problem is the encroachers and poaching."
Aditya Singh, 43, conservationist and tiger expert, worries that time is
running out. Singh runs a lodge on the edge of the Ranthambhore reserve
park and spends much of his time inside the park. "I think the numbers
have gone down. I think there are about 1,000 now," he says.
What will finish off the tiger as a viable species, he says, is the
final destruction of the remaining corridors of forest that link the
parks together. "There are still connections between the reserves, but
in five years they won't be there. I think the tigers have five years.
They will stay in isolated pockets, but they will have reached an
evolutionary dead end.
"There is a view here that the forest belongs to the foreigners. For an
average villager living outside the park they don't see it as an asset.
They used to be able to go in for wood, but now they cannot. The
problems for the tiger are poverty, illiteracy and overpopulation. The
big problems that India has are the problems the tiger has."
We’ve just signed an agreement to sell Motorola to Lenovo for $2.91 billion. As this is an important move for Android users everywhere, I wanted to explain why in detail.
We acquired Motorola in 2012 to help supercharge the Android ecosystem by creating a stronger patent portfolio for Google and great smartphones for users. Over the past 19 months, Dennis Woodside and the Motorola team have done a tremendous job reinventing the company. They’ve focused on building a smaller number of great (and great value) smartphones that consumers love. Both the Moto G and the Moto X are doing really well, and I’m very excited about the smartphone lineup for 2014. And on the intellectual property side, Motorola’s patents have helped create a level playing field, which is good news for all Android’s users and partners.
But the smartphone market is super competitive, and to thrive it helps to be all-in when it comes to making mobile devices. It’s why we believe that Motorola will be better served by Lenovo—which has a rapidly growing smartphone business and is the largest (and fastest-growing) PC manufacturer in the world. This move will enable Google to devote our energy to driving innovation across the Android ecosystem, for the benefit of smartphone users everywhere. As a side note, this does not signal a larger shift for our other hardware efforts. The dynamics and maturity of the wearable and home markets, for example, are very different from that of the mobile industry. We’re excited by the opportunities to build amazing new products for users within these emerging ecosystems.
Lenovo has the expertise and track record to scale Motorola into a major player within the Android ecosystem. They have a lot of experience in hardware, and they have global reach. In addition, Lenovo intends to keep Motorola’s distinct brand identity—just as they did when they acquired ThinkPad from IBM in 2005. Google will retain the vast majority of Motorola’s patents, which we will continue to use to defend the entire Android ecosystem.
The deal has yet to be approved in the U.S. or China, and this usually takes time. So until then, it’s business as usual. I’m phenomenally impressed with everything the Motorola team has achieved and confident that with Lenovo as a partner, Motorola will build more and more great products for people everywhere.
Posted by Larry Page, CEO
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Apple and companies that make phones using Google's Android software have filed dozens of such lawsuits against one another around the world to protect their technology. Apple co-founder Steve Jobs called Android a "stolen product."
