Friday, July 31, 2009

Microsoft Bing's 'sex'ual discrimination

Have u ever searched the term 'sex' on bing.com, Microsoft's new search engine? Most certainly not. If u ever wanted to do that, u would have done that thru Google. I heard about this funny aspect of bing search and I searched 'sex' on bing and we know that the term 'sex' in many usages is not that sinister. I have two screenshots put together in the pic.
The top one is the first result you will get if you are searching from India. Bing declares that the results may be explicit and demands change of search term for results! If u need results, just change the location to.. say US. Tada! Bing springs to action and claims that it has returned 1.7 billion results. Google returns 0.7 billion results for 'sex'! Just have look at the related searches tag. Girls? 2009? Sigh! And none of the results on the first page on bing had links to porn sites, while Google had a couple of them. Its clear that even if Microsoft and Yahoo join hands aginst Google, unless they induce some common sense to the engine, nothing gonna happen.

Sunday, July 12, 2009

Reviews: Kambakkht Ishq and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen


It would be fun comparing the big summer flicks of Bollywood
and Hollywood, which have garnered similar reaction from critics and the box-office. I mean the critics were thrashing the films black and blue while the films were raking in really big dough. T2 (I apologise to all terminator fans, but the second installment of Transformers has a painfully long name to type) has grossed over $600m globally in 2 weeks, while KI has netted around Rs.36 crores in the first week, both very good figures by respective industry standards.

KI is supposed to be the bollywood-meets-hollywood
film, but that backdrop pales out in comparison the central theme of the battle of sexes, which itself is ridiculously lame. So what does it have? I does have Sly Stallone, who got a feel of bollywood than the reverse. The cameos by Brendon Routh and Holly Valance lacks punch, and Denice Richards just acted in what perhaps is the most gawky and sidelined roles in her career. And Kareena? She is convincing sometimes, but mostly is unimpressive.
Akki? Well,the man and his comic timing are the only only things worth in the film, considering that most of the jokes are not funny at all. And yes, the film has such number of kisses that it can put Emran Hashmi to shame. So is it worth a watch? Yes, if you have no value to your time and money.

T2 picks up where the first film has left, but has a lot of back-story to tell. The best thing about the film is that it is as big as we expect it to be. CGI is used in almost every scene of the film and it, despite being some what 140 minutes long (a bit too long by hollywood standards) is having a thorough script. You have to keep your logic out of the hall, though. This is a feat for your senses if you like kick-ass films. Guess what, I found this action film to be funnier than KI, which is supposed to be a comedy. They have dragged in a family angle to the film, which was sometimes ok, but mostly not. LaBeouf and Fox have done what they are supposed to do pretty well, but the real stars of this film is the men who created the CGI. If you are looking for a perfect action filled weekend film, look no further.