Katrina is Google's most searched Bollywood name

Indian search terms in 2008 are a pointer to popular taste

No one can be sure how many of India's In­ternet users — estimated to number 50 million — keyed in a query at the world's largest search engine, Google. If global trends are a guide, an overwhelming percentage; but what they looked for in their 'cyber khoj' (search) during these last 12 months is an interesting - and revealing - barometer of public taste, preoccupation and concern.

The leading search engine last week unveiled statistics of the most popular key words that originated from its India-based users.

Google's own social net­working site, Orkut; e-mail service, Gmail; and video por­tal, YouTube, are, not surpris­ingly, among the top searched terms — presumably users too lazy to go directly to these sites. Interestingly, people did a Google search to quickly reach rival offerings Yahoo and Yahoo Mail.

When it comes to subject categories, the top Bollywood searches reveal the snowball­ing popularity of actress Ka­trina Kaif, by far the most-searched name this year. Google engineers told The Hindu that Katrina has a huge following in Pakistan as well, which outnumbers Indi­an searches. The actress has pushed long-time favourite Aishwarya Rai to the second place - maybe the price one pays in the public's fickle fancy for getting married!

Among sports personali­ties, Sania Mirza rules - out­numbering cricket stars Sachin Tendulkar and M.S. Dhoni. Rahul Dravid and Sou-rav Ganguly do not make the top ten this year.

Hindi cinema has always swept the top film title searches, and 2008 is no ex­ception with Jodha Akbar in lead position and another eight titles in the top ten. A surprise southern entrant at no. 2 is the Tamil film and Kamal Hassan's opus, Dasavatharam.

Goa and Kerala head the list of holiday destinations searched - which shows that Indian preferences mirrored the international popularity of these two States. When it comes to politicians, Mahat-ma Gandhi is a perennial number one - outdistancing popular interest in contem­porary names like Raj Thack­eray and Barack Obama. Three generations of Gandhis - Indira, Sonia and Rahul -find a place in the top ten in politics for 2008.

And in an era of affordable budget flying, good old Indian Railways holds it own: The Indian rail site was tlfl most popular government website, beating hardy annuals like CBSE results and Income Tax.

Did all these seekers of in­formation find what they were looking for? That is a separate story!

skydiving

Skydiving

Skydiving originated from military parachuting and has grown into a giant sport today. The excitement and the thrill that this sport provides have pulled in participants from all over the globe.

Modern skydivers free-fall from a height of 12,000 feet and open their chutes at 2,500 feet. The sport has developed to the extent that any person can be trained to skydive with four hours of training on the ground.

By controlling the position of the body while free falling the divers are able to maneuver. Today the chutes themselves have cables and mechanisms that can steer the diver and provide a soft landing.

At the outset of parachuting the chutes were circular but nowadays a lot of research is going into the design of the chute. Conventionally the chutes are called Ram-air chutes and are rectangular with a double surface to them. The chute unfolds to form a shape similar to an aircraft wing and allows the diver to be up in the air longer. Now isn't that exciting?

Do you know that the first skydiving competition was held as early as 1930 in Russia? By 1936 Russia had 115 schools for training divers. Skydiving became an international sport in 1951 when five nations met for a competition.

Today the sport of skydiving has gone extreme. Diving from planes has become a tradition of the past. Now people dive from tall buildings, cliffs, bridges and any place that provides the minimum height required for the sport. The international competitions are held once in two years by an organisation called the Federation Aeronautics Internationale.

There are no particular skills that one needs to skydive. It is more a matter of letting go of your fears. Today the training provided for this sport is state of the art and cutting edge technology goes into the design of the chute and the gear.

There is nothing more exciting than to feel the wind rushing past the speed is an ultimate thrill and as the saving goes The sky is definite the fink.' So go for it.

Which is best?

Playstation

This is one of favorite gaming platform. It is more interactive and its graphics level is mind blowing.
With the introduction of the new playstation 3, the graphics rule have been changed. It looks livelier. It is a great device to own and it does make you to ruin your time. If someone gets the hand on this then it is difficult to take your hand off. You will feel like i need to sit back at the couch and have another game

Xbox

With sony hitting the box with its play station Microsoft has its own way of doing things. Microsoft's answer to its rival sony's play station is Xbox. With its neatly designed device it has the ability to take on the game. Its great gaming environment with its greatly improved joystick is a marvel. You have it one your hand and you will have it in your hands till you sleep.....

Wii

Nitendo- not a very popular name word worldwide. But in japan and korea and in that region you cant see anyone not remembering that name. Nitendo with its wii, is trying to take on the gaming world. With the wireless wii, having the motion detector, is a all together a different machine that has hit the world. It is making serious efforts to punch its name in the gaming market worldwide.

with each machine having its own '+' and '-' its up to individual to buy the products of their choice.

Laptop Cooler with HDD slot

Toshiba Laptop Cooler with HDD slot

Brando has come out with a cooling device for your laptop with USB Hub and HDD Slot. It measures 300mm x 252mm x 32mm and weighs at 504grams. The laptop cooling tray has three USB hubs, a 2.5-inch SATA HDD slot, and two cooling fans. Its 2.5 inch SATA hard drive slot support up 250GB SATA HDD. This USB-powered cooling pad is available for $33. More pictures after the break.

Christmas Coke Bombs

Christmas Coke Bombs

These should be some Christmas Coke for this year. It looks great to be the Coke bomb, get the Mentos. It will be even greater if there’s Diet version. More pictures after the break.