Google 21

Google celebrated its 21st birthday with an adorable and special doodle today. The search engine was founded by two Stanford Ph.D. students, Sergey Brin and Lawrence (Larry) Page, 21 years ago in September 1998.

Larry and Sergey invented Google in their dormitories at Stanford in California. The two had published a paper about launching a prototype of a large-scale search engine.

Before discovering Google, the two had also developed a search algorithm known as Backrub’. However, the two zeroed in on the name Google for their project because it resembled with the name googol which is a mathematical term meaning 10 raised to the power of 100.

In fact they wrote about this in their paper too, "We chose our systems name, Google, because it is a common spelling of googol, or 10100 and fits well with our goal of building very large-scale search engines."

For its twenty first anniversary, the search engine celebrated with a cartoon of a throwback photo of a bulky computer, which shows a Google search screen, lying on the side on a table with the timestamp of ’98 9 27 written on the right hand corner of the image.

Though the search engine celebrates its birth anniversary today, September 27 was not always its official birthday. Until 2005 the website celebrated its birthday on September 7. But since 2005, it has marked its birthday on September 8, September 26 and, recently, September 27.

IIT-M Open House

IIT-Madras provides an insight to the general public on research/design, using an Open House on Sat 21 Sep.

Indian Institute of Technology IIT, is premium tech institute in India, with 2017-18 center budget aloocation over one billion dollar. The faculty-to-student ratio in the IITs is between 1:6 and 1:8.

During the one-day event, teaching and research laboratories, department infrastructure, and project and industry connect will be showcased to the public. Stalls in the open house will highlight the research projects and expertise available at the department. Laboratory visits will provide a walk through of their facilities.

Members of the public can also interact with researchers. There will also be lectures by industry experts on specific topics.

Registrations are mandatory & free to learn with your family & friends. Happy Open House !

Ref: https://ed.iitm.ac.in/~openhouse/

Indian IT Raise & Fall

This week is little special to me. Quarter Century (25) work years in Information Technology (IT); Close to Half Century age :)

As the early birds of Indian Computer Engineering (late 80's Undergrads), I'm blessed to travel a great industry journey both Raises and Falls along with Indian global CEOs generation.

LinkedIn article reference at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/indian-raise-fall-ganesan-senthilvel/

Chandrayaan 2

India's ambitious second lunar mission Chandrayaan 2 was expected to make its soft landing on the surface of the moon last night.

Unfortunately, the lander losing communication with ground stations during its final descent just about 2.1 km away from the lunar surface near south pole in last 3 minutes.  History depicts few interesting scorecard. Russia initiated moon landing program on 4 Jan 1963; it failed 11 times before their first success on 31 Jan 1966.

On positive note, this mission is 96% success; hope to receive some response from Vikram Lander in next day or two.

Just few minutes back, India's Prime Minister addressed the nation at Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Bangalore.

Beyond political stand, his words are inspiring and motivating to every Indian.  No failures in Science; only experiments and efforts in the learning journey.  I can personally sense our great Rocket Scientists' sacrifice and PM's Leadership.  Jai Hind!

After the failure notice, Indians across the globe could not sleep.  Felt like it's our personal failure & should have contributed to ISRO.

What am I doing sitting here, when I should be part of this super proud team to build nation's space vision with High Quality & Low Cost.  Being an Engineer, that's a life worth living.

News Ref: https://www.indiatoday.in/science/story/chandrayaan-2-moon-landing-india-space-research-organisation-reactions-live-updates-1596237-2019-09-06

Broadcom Symantec Acquisition

Last month, chipmaker Broadcom formally announced its acquisition of Symantec’s enterprise business for $10.7 billion in cash.

Earlier, Broadcom acquired CA Technologies for $18.9 billion in cash on mid July 2018. This deal has helped Broadcom diversify its business.

Symantec's consumer business will be rebranded Norton Lifelock, which  is the logical next step in its infrastructure software strategy, following the acquisitions of Brocade.  They are makers of data center and enterprise storage networking equipment. 

Recent acquisition of mainframe software company CA, is adding the $160 billion cybersecurity market to Broadcom's addressable market