FriendCircle was the winner of Yahoo! University Hackathon – HackU 2010 at IIT Bombay in October.

Yahoo! intended to use it in their products but we don’t really know how they’ve done it.

Facebook, in a few months had a small feature with a rather inconspicuous and not so convenient UI on their news feed settings which allowed the user to show more of <friend>.

Google, has recently released Google+ a new social networking platform with one of its USP based on Friend Circle. Though we have been a few steps ahead, they do seem to be heading in a similar direction:

Google+ Circle

FriendCircle

Want to try out FriendCircle? Leave us a note.

-Manav

(on behalf of my HackU team:
Sumit Somani, Mayank Singhal and Gaurav Toshniwal)

Tadaaaa!

I am just in a glee mood!

Here is a demo video showing 3-leads being produced from ECG Synthesizer.

Trying to mix colors:

The combination colors were not very clearly visible. I haven’t made a diffuser yet. OK. I just placed a white envelope on it. The red being the most intense overwhelms the r+b, r+g and r+g+b with its color. Blue + Green looks sexy but I think I better diffusion would make it prettier.

Normalized Intensities:

Reduced intensity of Red.

I still would love to know

1. What is the best way (accurate method) to normalize the intensities and produce better colors
2. Better ideas to diffuse light

Cheers!
Manav

—

/* Arduino Code*/

/*
Fading Triple Color RGB LED / PWM
Manav Kataria/1st April 2010

Using Stub: Fading; By Tom Igoe
This example shows how to fade an LED using the analogWrite() function.

http://arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/Fading

*/

/* Digital Pin Connections */
int redPin = 3;
int greenPin = 11;
int bluePin = 10;

int ledPin = redPin;

int colorSequenceTable[][3]={
{0xFF,0,0},    //Red
{0,0xFF,0},    //Green
{0,0,0xFF},    //Blue
{0xFF,0xFF,0},  //Yellow = Red + Green
{0xFF,0,0xFF},  //Magenta = Red + Blue
{0,0xFF,0xFF},  //Cyan = Blue + Green
{0xFF,0xFF,0xFF},  //White = Red + Blue + Green
{99,99,99}         //Terminate
};

void setup()  {
// nothing happens in setup
}

void loop()  {
mixrgb(100);
}

void mixrgb(int secs) {
for (int count = 0; colorSequenceTable[count][0] != 99; count++) {

// fade in
for(int fadeValue = 0 ; fadeValue <= 255; fadeValue +=5) {
analogWrite(redPin, colorSequenceTable[count][0] & int(fadeValue/1.8));
analogWrite(greenPin, colorSequenceTable[count][1] & fadeValue);
analogWrite(bluePin, colorSequenceTable[count][2] & fadeValue);
delay(secs);
}
// fade out
for(int fadeValue = 255 ; fadeValue >= 0; fadeValue -=5) {
analogWrite(redPin, colorSequenceTable[count][0] & int(fadeValue/1.8));
analogWrite(greenPin, colorSequenceTable[count][1] & fadeValue);
analogWrite(bluePin, colorSequenceTable[count][2] & fadeValue);
delay(secs);

—

I was surprized and delighted at the same time with the frequent use of  words (translated)  ”I would not like to hide/conceal from you what we discussed with your government …” coming from a politician! There was sense of loyalty, trust and straightforwardness in every word. This was so unlike Indian politicians.

I’ve recently started respecting politicians. Unfortunately, I see a clear difference of strata between ours and the ones that I like! I’ll refer to them as “Diplomats” and ours, well – “Politicians”

Outlook & Impressions

Very humble, straight-forward and elegant. A charming personality. Short height. No unnecessary attitude or style. I doubt any lady in the room would not call him handsome!

One starking difference about Russians  - Never hesitate in doing what is right!
Whether its performing (what some of us might call) lowly activities like testing the mic or throwing a coffee cup into the bin, kicking-butt of the enemy who attacked your country or just speaking your mind. They have no hesitation or fear of Public, which makes their case seem so genuine in action!

I only wish/hope our Indian counterparts were as inspired by him as I was.

Discussions

IIT Bombay was developed by funds & training from USSR. So in a way, his visit had a symbolic significance and we intended to strengthen ties with them in various technological fields like

• Weapons,
• Controls,
• Health-Care and
• Nano-Technology Collaboration with India.

We also talked about:

• UNSC support,
• Anti-Terrorist Military Collaboration,
• Russian Republic Communism vs Democracy,
• Peace, Economy and Technological Development with India.

From FB:

‎@All: This investor is already investing in Wilcom – Prof’s Girish Kumar’s Start-up, EE Dept. He has intentions for investing in a Mobile-Apps startup. We discussed his ideas and analysed the marketability and feasibility of the idea, and devised few alternatives.

Like an investor he was very sharp and witty, but humble nevertheless. It was an interesting meeting! My first ever of the kind!

“Some Advice from the heart for people who want to start a company”

“It boils down to three questions. And these are three questions you have to ask about anything you’re doing”

• You have to ask - So what? – What does that mean? Why am I doing it?
• You have to ask - Who cares? – identify real people are whose problems you’re solving (customers)
• And then the third one, real important - Why me?

His advice is: “If you’re hard on yourself with those questions and you can find credible answers to them, you probably have something that’s very valuable.” All that’s left is to “remove the barriers…and get out of the way so it can explode.”

Another interesting/useful read:

• 53 Ways to become a better Entrepreneur

Refer the Movember style guide:

Image Source: http://www.meninternational.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Movember-Style-Guide.jpg

People: Kunal, Gautam, Vishal, Manav, Alkesh, Surendra, Jitendra

School: St. Xaviers, Mount Carmel, Adarsh Mahavidhlaya
Locale: Adipur, Gandhidham, Kutch, Gujarat, India

Music: Hyperakt (www.ilovepsd.com)
Photo Credits: Vishal, Manav, Gautam, Surendra, Jitu
Photo & Video Editing: Manav

Have hundreds of acqaintances? Tried of the irrelevant newsfeed on Facebook and find it difficult to manage?

My team recently developed a simple Facebook app that analyses your friend circle and identifies who is important to you. We believe future models of Social Trend Analysis and Personalized Marketing will target such information.

It automatically figures out who’s important to you using carefully researched heuristics. It saves you a lot of effort! And just in case we are wrong, we even allow an intuitive interface for you to modify your friend circle.

We were surprised with the initial results! Hopefully you will be too! Especially, if you’re single

Honors: Won the Yahoo! HackU at IIT Bombay, October 2010

Sneak Preview:

We did this hack in 24hours. The project is still  at alpha. Needs some work before we want to release it. At this moment its an invitation-only access. If you would like to try it, leave us a note!

-Manav
(on behalf on my Yahoo! HackU team, Mayank Singhal, Gaurav Toshniwal and Sumit Somani)