Play Things

Play Things has moved...

Posted by sadmin at 
Play Things, along with all of Livemint's blogs has moved to a new Wordpress platform. You can access the new site and more cool gadget, web and time-passy posts on http://blog.livemint.com/play-things or simply click here . Also update your RSS feed readers and tell all your friends! Share this post: email it! | del.icio.us! | digg it! | newsVine...

More>>

30 Hours of GTA IV: Mumbai Lad attempts to set Guinness Record

Posted by Krish Raghav at 
The current record for 'Longest time spent playing Grand Theft Auto IV' (and yes, such a record does exist) is held by one Jim Patton, who played the game for 28 hours straight . Tomorrow, 26-year Mumbaikar Chirantan Patnaik plans to one up the man , setting his sights on 30 continuous hours of GTA IV. 30 hours, ladies and gentlemen. Here's...

More>>

A Complex Situation: Videogames and Gay Rights

Posted by Krish Raghav at 
Shadow Complex is a new action/adventure title for the Xbox360 Live Arcade, a game that attempts to combine fast-paced side scrolling a la Metroid or Castlevania with crisp 2.5d visuals. That combination, of course, is an incredibly enticing one, and Shadow Complex has garnered quite a bit of critical acclaim for its gameplay and mechanics, with an...

More>>

How Twitter saved my holiday

Posted by Sidin Vadukut at 
Around 1:00 PM last Friday I was standing in the lobby of The River View Retreat somewhere inside Corbett National Park in Uttaranchal. There are glasses of welcome drink arranged on a table outside the resort's lobby, along with biscuits, but I rush past it in my eagerness to check in. The idea of course was to spend a longish weekend in the resort...

More>>

Grab your screen with a single click

Posted by Sidin Vadukut at 
For all the fancy hardware that goes into modern computers sometimes the simplest tasks can stump you. For instance suppose you’ve made a blog for the entire family and want to tell your uncle in Vancouver how to embed a video in his post. One option could be to send him a long, patiently written email with every step put out in excruciating detail...

More>>

Microsoft Word's 60 Day Ultimatum

Posted by Krish Raghav at 
A Texas Judge has issued an injunction against Microsoft - ordering the software giant to stop all sales of Microsoft Word , that piece of software we spend most of our working time staring at. The point of contention seems to be an alleged patent violation held by i4i , a Toronto-based document management firm. i4i claims that it holds a patent for...

More>>

The Q1 to beat all Q1s

Posted by Krish Raghav at 
Remember that little list of games you were planning to finally play sometime this year? Games like Starcraft II , or Splinter Cell: Conviction , which have been in development since the Paleolithic, and have seen a veritable blitzkrieg of trailers, promos and PR since e3? Well, fiddlesticks. The vagaries of annual results and the deadening thud of...

More>>

Working Through the Night? Don't Forget this Neat Little App

Posted by Krish Raghav at 
The pitch black room. The single white glow of a computer screen. Most of us are familiar with the droop-eyed persistence of working through the night on a tight deadline, and the way the sunlight next morning seems to pierce a little too brightly. Most monitors today, especially some new laptop screens, are way more bright than they need to be, and...

More>>

The first UID project joke?

Posted by Sidin Vadukut at 
(Received last night via email forward) When we all have the UID card this could be one such conversation?. Operator : "Thank you for calling Pizza Hut . May I have your..." Customer: "Heloo, can I order.." Operator : "Can I have your multi purpose ID card number first, Sir?" Customer: "It's he..., hold..........

More>>

Cryptic crosswords for dummies

Posted by Sidin Vadukut at 
A recent update from the blog of that new-fangled search-computation-engine Wolfram Alpha: Does today’s crossword have you puzzled? You could continue to fret, and fight the urge to check the full solution, or you could consult Wolfram|Alpha , which has the tools you need to solve the sneakiest constructions. Wolfram|Alpha can find words matching a...

More>>

My shady online credit card life

Posted by Sidin Vadukut at 
How many times have you seen that perfect gift on Ebay or Amazaon but decided to skip the purchase just because of credit card safety concerns? Or ached to subscribe to the New Yorker or the wonderful BBC History Magazine only to cower with fear when the online payment portal pops open? Well maybe my little secret will perk you up and help you take...

More>>

The Ramayana Remixes: Krishna vs Kula Shaker

Posted by Krish Raghav at 
Watching this , one wonders why no one thought of it before: the stunningly psychedelic special effects of erstwhile mythological TV serials, mashed with stunning psychedelic rock. The internet, of course, leaves no meme possibility unturned, and Vinayak Razdan, who blogs at At the Edge , has taken up the mantle of filling this important online void...

More>>

Blasts from the Past

Posted by Krish Raghav at 
Only two distinct vestiges of my childhood pop culture education seem to have survived into the Web era. The first, rather disturbingly, is the business of Arranged Matrimony : moving with almost seamless ease from the pervasive classified ads of yore to the swanky, spiffy websites of today. The second, surprisingly, is children's magazines. Late...

More>>

Become a model for Facebook. Or not.

Posted by Sidin Vadukut at 
A curious thing happened a few days ago when Cheryl Smith's husband was browsing through Facebook. He suddenly saw one of those dating ads they show you on the website. You know the type. "This hottie wants you right now! And we are not thinking platonic! Wink! Nudge! Ok click now." You know how it is. But the only catch was the hottie...

More>>

Import that office directory into your Blackberry

Posted by Sidin Vadukut at 
Two days ago one of our very resourceful admin staff emailed out a mammoth excel sheet with contact details of everyone in the national Mint network. It had names, extensions and mobile numbers. And I don’t have to tell you how, in a newsroom environment, this sort of thing is pretty helpful. When you MUST have a quote from that someone in Kolkatta...

More>>

More Posts Next page »