Vote for Picporta ..
Guys ...
Click the link below and vote for picporta [ Click ]
Alternatively
type "HOT 123" in your cell phone and sms it to 56767
UAV's with AI
Stanford does it again ..
Here is the link for Stanford's AI enbled autonomous helicopters
Thanks Subhash for sending this link :)
Hello Robocon : Update
See you all there :)
Update :
We're back - the event was fun, although did not like the managment much - specially guys standing outside in scorching sunlight for hours.
Guys from Egypt did a gr8 job and should have won.
Dance presentations were awesome - specially mashup of fan dance and kathak 
Misinterpretations !
Well,
I am writing this post in response to some of the articles which were featuring us recently - a few online news portals misinterpreted the news regarding us and iRobot corporation.
Let me make it VERY clear that iRobot were just interested in seeing what we guys are doing -nothing yet has materialised and no business association or any other development has taken place.
Please consider that iRobot corporation is a major player in this segment and a listed company - while we are a relatively new company who still have not released any product in the market.
Please give us some time to make our presence felt by showcasing our products.
I think i have put my point and it is quiet clear now.
-
Pulkit
Gridbots
picporta demo at proto.in
Yes ! ...
picporta was the finalist for proto - 2008 July edition ..
The experience was quiet amazing and we met many investors 
and participants of proto.
All the particiapnts were quiet amazing specially Soliton, muziboo, lifeblob and lootstreet.
I met quiet wonderful people there who helped and appreciated our efforts not forgetting to mention Mr. Jaspreet Singh(Druvaa Softwares),Kaushik and Arun(Lootstreet) and Mr. Sameer(Morpheus Ventures).
Vijay and his team lived up to the expectations and manged the event wonderfully.(Although internet connectivity remained an issue)
It was an enriching experience for us and not forgetting to mention that picporta was appreciated a lot 
by the critics.
gridbots featured in D.A.R.E.magazine !
We recently were featured in D.A.R.E magazine - a magazine on entrepreneurs in India.
So grab a copy ..
or follow this link for a preview ..
Mesmerised ....
Yesterday i met with someone who needs no introduction.
But this is not the reason of this post - as i have met a many high profilers before even.
Most peculiar thing which i noticed about this gentleman is his simplicity and down to earth attitude.
I was with him for almost about a day but not for a single moment i felt that i am with someone who has this much diversified background and achievements at mere 31 ,sufficient to give someone a huge inferiority complex.
We talked about robots and had delicious gujrati food together
But this meeting definitely will be a unforgettable moment of my life for sure.
And those .. who still are wondering who this gentleman is then here is the clue :
World's most powerful supercomputer
Today Sun microsystems and TACC unveiled world's most powerful super compter RANGER.
Ranger bring petascale computing to realisation.
Its designed on Sun's constellation system and has the capability if 504 tera flops peak performance 
More about it here
teleGRID - Making our homes safer and accessible !
Today we launched yet another novel product : teleGRID - A home/office/factory automation and surveillance solution.
Primarily this solution is meant to facilitate the user automate his home completely and let him access it from anywhere later.
Thus,it serves dual purpose of home automation and surveillance.
Tech details and other information is available here .
Gridbots - In News
We were in news for roboGRAD (gBOT series) on the main page of Economic Times (National Edition) on 2'nd Jan 2008.
Our first consumer robotics product roboGRAD was covered along with our future plans of marketing and production.
Cool .. eh !
3 Options ....
Edukite guys called today and assured of resolving the issues which were lying pending.
Prima facie .. it seems to be the miscommunication from both the sides.
Both had points to prove each other wrong but we mutually agreed over settling this issues and closing the deal.
I hope things will settle down peacefully.
MYSQL Clone records in same table
While working on picporta we had one requirement where were supposed to clone records within the same table.
Searching in MYSQL manual i found INSERT-SELECT statement but it still does not supports same table 
So did this quick hack in PHP ..
$tempTable = mysql_fetch_array(mysql_query("SELECT * FROM table." WHERE id='$passedId'),MYSQL_ASSOC) or die("Could not select record");
$result = mysql_query("INSERT INTO table (".implode(", ",array_keys($tempTable)).") VALUES ('".implode("', '",array_values($tempTable))."')");
Worked for me ..
PHP India
Currently we are operating from Ahmedabad.
I found this city to be a big hub for web design, PHP development outsourcing solutions from coutries like U.K. , U.S.A.
Just Google "PHP India" and you will get about 4-5 companies from ahmedabad .. strange isn't it
Top reasons which i could think behind this rather unusual phenomenon may be following :
1)Cheaper Solutions as compared to other cities in India.
2)A lot of immigrants are from Gujarat in these coutries.
3)PHP , Web designing are relatively easy to learn and get money flowing in ... ahem
Still there is a scarcity of quality programmers just like any other city .. coz by the time a programmer realize his potential he already has a lot of compelling reasons to migrate to other cities.
Swim capable Snake Robot - ACM-R5
Wow ...
Hirose Fukushima Robotics lab has made this awesome creature..
Following are the technical specs of this robot
| D.O.F | 18 |
| Size | 1750 (length) x 80 (diameter) [mm] |
| Weight | 7.5 [kg] |
| Torque of joint (Max.) | 9 [Nm] |
| Speed of joint (Max.) | 70 [deg/s] |
Pun Intended ....
Found this post at http://www.destraynor.com/serendipity and thought of copyiong it here :)
The Ubiquity of Perl
The likelihood of Perl being involved in a system is directly proportional to the length of time the system has been in maintenance.
Boasting
If you boast about how quickly you developed your product, people will complain about its performance. (Rails)
If you boast about how well your product runs, people will complain about its development time. (Vista)
If you don't boast about either, people will assume you are developing in Java.
Web 2.0
For every 1.6 billion dollar buy out, there are 1.6 million start-ups in garages digging their own websites.
Startups 1
If your target market is the readers of digg, reddit, and delicious then you're trying to sell shelves to a carpenter. If he really wanted them, he would have built them himself, years ago.
Startups 2
If you build it, they might come. If you have a nice website they might stay. If you offer a free service, they might use it. If you've gotten this far without thinking about where the cash comes from , you're in trouble.
Software Development
For every Architecture Astronaut out there, there is at least one coder who thinks that being "Agile" is a perfect substitute for foresight.
Learning programming languages
Every 5 minutes you spend writing code in a new language is more useful than 5 hours reading blog posts about how great the language is.
3d labelling
A not so novel approach towards environment mapping from this company.
Though it can not be used as a solution in day to day robotics but may sound like a good option for not much changing environment (industries,labs etc).
Anywayz, to me it does not looks like an innovation.
Yahoo Pipes - Cool IDE for custom RSS feeds building
Today only came across Yahoo Pipes , I should say its one of the best online apps i have came across.
In mozilla ,it seems they are using canvas object to show realtime interconnecting threads and in IE i assume they are making use of the SVG/VML plug-in from Adobe.
All in all , a true web 2.0 product 
Picporta ... coming soon !
Seems ,
Soon we will be able put picporta online . Vijaita, has been cooperative on my weird suggestions and pre-release changes.
Desktop manager will follow the release , which provides one click sharing and printing of pictures, albums from anywhere - with anyone .
Some of the unique features of are enlisted here :
- Quick Edit -Quick picture editing in your browser window,without Flash
- Geo Tagging with locations Explorer.
- and some other cool stuff which will be disclosed later !
count down begins .....
Controlling Monitor Power - Switch On / Switch Off
Nothing new ..
but this code fragment will allow you to control your terminal display to be switch on or off.
Well you may use it to schedule your monitor power after a predetmined time instead of screensaver - go greener :)
To use this code put this code in your form code and put 2 buttons on the form.
Private Declare Function SendMessage Lib "user32" Alias "SendMessageA" (ByVal hWnd As Long, ByVal wMsg As Long, ByVal wParam As Long, ByVal lParam As Any) As Long
Const SC_MONITORPOWER = &HF170&
Const MONITOR_ON = -1&
Const MONITOR_OFF = 2&
Const WM_SYSCOMMAND = &H112
Private Sub Command1_Click()
SendMessage Me.hWnd, WM_SYSCOMMAND, SC_MONITORPOWER, MONITOR_OFF
Command2.SetFocus
End Sub
Private Sub Command2_Click()
SendMessage Me.hWnd, WM_SYSCOMMAND, SC_MONITORPOWER, MONITOR_ON
End Sub
Combobox and TreeView handy tricks
While working on a small project i used these frequently,thought should share it !
1)To Select First Item as default in Dropdown Combobox use :
ComboBoxName.ListIndex = 0
2)To remove a particular nodes children from tree view use this fragment :
While treeControl.SelectedItem.Children > 0
treeControl.Nodes.Remove treeControl.SelectedItem.Child.Key
Wend
3)This code fragment facilitates ajax type autosuggest/autocomplete feature in combobox.This code is not mine !
'Api declaration
Private Declare Function SendMessage Lib "user32" Alias "SendMessageA" (ByVal hwnd As Long, ByVal wMsg As Long, ByVal wParam As Integer, ByVal lParam As Long) As Long
'Cont declaration
Private Const CB_FINDSTRING As Long = &H14C
'Procedure declaration
Public Sub ComboAutoComplete(ByRef SourceCtl As VB.ComboBox, _
ByRef KeyAscii As Integer, ByRef LeftOffPos As Long)
Dim iStart As Long
Dim sSearchKey As String
With SourceCtl
'If text entered so far matches item(s) in the list, use autocomplete
Select Case Chr$(KeyAscii)
Case vbBack
'Let backspace characters process as usual; otherwise try to match text
Case Else
If Chr$(KeyAscii) <> vbBack Then
.SelText = Chr$(KeyAscii)
iStart = .SelStart
If LeftOffPos <> 0 Then
.SelStart = LeftOffPos
iStart = LeftOffPos
End If
sSearchKey = CStr(Left$(.Text, iStart))
.ListIndex = SendMessage(.hwnd, CB_FINDSTRING, -1, _
ByVal CStr(Left$(.Text, iStart)))
If .ListIndex = -1 Then
LeftOffPos = Len(sSearchKey)
End If
.SelStart = iStart
.SelLength = Len(.Text)
LeftOffPos = 0
KeyAscii = 0
End If
End Select
End With
End Sub
Use this code as follows:
Private Sub Combo1_KeyPress(KeyAscii As Integer)
Static lWhere As Long
ComboAutoComplete Combo1, KeyAscii, lWhere
End Sub
