Download Browse the Epic Way

4 Gyan Vigyan
THE GLOBAL TIMES | JANUARY 16-31, 2011
OTOMANIA
My first experience of stepping into the shoes of a
journalist was in one word, Awe-fantastic-some!
Sarthak Batra, Page Coordinator
Science & Technology
Imaging: Pankaj Mallik
Plain is simply old they say, let us go the edited way!
M
Rashika Sood
X A, AIS MV
ore than 14 million photos are uploaded
daily on facebook (umm, yeah
I Googled it). So yes, you
open facebook and your news feed
will be full of photos! What all, do
we NOT do to get a perfect picture
that can fetch us hundred “likes”? Posing? Make-up? Or EDITING?
Manipulating photographs to cover up that extra flab or
concealing tiny yet embarrassing pimples, is the magic
called photoediting! It is also a perfect display of your
emotions, especially when you don’t know what to gift
on your friend’s b’day - edit a photo of yours and your
friend together and voila, you have a gift ready!! So,
to all the photo maniacs, here are some free KeWl
oNliNE Web$ite$ to have fun with.
Befunky.com: As the name ‘Be funky’ suggests,
the site provides funky editing effects. Feeling
lazy? Just one click away! Use the repair option
which effortlessly produces the desired results.
FunPhotoBox.com: Want a picture with Edward
cullen? Or limelights falling on your posters? Or
one with bats flying behind you? You can get cool
animated picture effects on this site. It’s one web-
site where you can really have fun.
Moronface.com: This is the best site to vent out your
enmity and yet end up giggling! You can distort faces,
make them creepy, scary or funny and then simply
post it. Just upload your photo and the result=a
moron face.
Picartia.com: You can create beautiful mosaics
and collages in just three easy steps.
Photo505.com:A facebook app, this one provides a huge variety of cool templates and digital photo effects to choose from. It surely will
keep you busy.
Magmypic.com: Flaunt yourself on more
than 50 fake magazine covers that the site offers. Edit your photos and make yourself famous.
Pizap.com: All pranksters are going to relish
this site! You can add groovy glasses, funny
emoticons; text bubbles and even stickers! A
little bit of tomfoolery is fun.
Hairmixer.com: If you are gaga over Lady
Gaga’s hairstyle or want one like Megan fox,
you can choose from the hundreds available
and change your hair color and style in a click!
Try a hairstyle every second.
So, all the photo enthusiasts go and check out
these addictive sites and have fun. G T
Browse the Epic Way
B
Sarthak Batra, X A &
Ankita Marwaha, XII B, AIS MV
Killer
Plants!
I
Ritika Sharma
X A, AIS MV
f I tell you to imagine plants, conventional thoughts would be
colourful flowers with scented
petals and little dew drops on green
leaves, a pleasant sight indeed.
But if your imagination ends there, it’s
time to rescale your thoughts, because
there is another side of the plant kingdom which you are yet to unveil.
Plants can also play Killer roles! We all
know about Pitcher plants and Touchme-not plants, but they aren’t all. Here
are a few more.
SUNDEW
This New Zealander plant lures the insects with the shiny droplets on its leaf,
which is actually a sticky liquid, landing on which, the insect gets stuck!
The more the poor creature fiddles to
escape, the hold of the tentacles gets
tighter.
COBRA PLANT: “Cobra!” generates
a danger instinct, doesn’t it? The tubular leaves of cobra plant resemble a
rearing cobra and when any insect ventures the inside of this plant, it be-
comes his last venture. Lubricating secretions and downward-pointing hair
in the pitcher, traps the insect till death.
Not just restricted to the wilds, These
killers might even have a clandestine
existence in your vicinity.
STAPLE CYANIDE
The African staple, cassava, must be
thoroughly boiled and soaked to separate it from its poisonous compound,
cyanide.(Yes ! the quick killer cyanide)
SEEDY POISON
Seeds - well, we don’t pay much attention to those seedy parts of fruits. We
don’t care even if we swallow them at
times. But halt there, if you are eating
an apple while reading this! Cherries,
potatoes, peaches and apple seeds are
all toxic – eat enough of the latter, and
it will prove fatal (Now you may resume eating and stop gaping).
Just around you
Many incredibly lethal plants are often
hanging around the neighborhood park
or gracing your tabletop.
How many of you still believe green is
clean? Anyways, Beware! You can be
the next target of these killer plants.G T
ehold! India’s first web browser
‘Epic’ is here. Developed by the
Bangalore based ‘Hidden Reflex’ on the open source Mozilla Platform, Epic browser is specifically
customized to the taste of Indian users.
First launched in July 2010, it comes
LOADED with preinstalled widgets. Social networking and email are just to
name a few. Notes, videos, to-Dos,
alerts, maps, games and even browsing
through your computer files can be easily done through a single application, effectively reducing number of windows
one has to open while surfing the web.
It gives you 1500+ themes and wallpapers to choose from, supports transliteration to 12 Indian Languages including
Hindi, Bengali, Telugu, Punjabi, Tamil
Windows users can download it from
www.epicbrowser.com, Linux and Mac
versions are also expected soon.
Listen to Learn
and Urdu (and not just Indian- Greek,
Nepali, Persian and Russian too). It is
claimed to be the first web browser featuring built in antivirus and anti phishing protection. Its icon is a tribute to the
Indian Tricolor Flag.
Though it lacks the raw speed of Google
Chrome, the flashiness of Safari 4, the
extendibility of Firefox and the packaging of the Internet Explorer, it’s definitely worth a download. This Republic
Day, be Indian, surf Indian. G T
Do you think that reading is boring? Try listening!
P
Ankita Marwaha, XII B, AIS MV
icture this…You are going to
sleep, someone’s whispering a
story in your head and just
when you were about to sleep…
WHAM! goes agent double-oh-seven’s
bullet...
No I‘m not talking about a friend telling
you James Bond’s latest exploits over
the phone, nor am I hinting you to reminisce your childhood storytelling sessions that have now faded into oblivion.
I’m talking about AUDIOBOOKS. i.e
sound recording of books that can be
narrated into your ear via any audio
player. While such books have existed
for quite some time, not everyone has
availed the plethora of advantages audiobooks have to their credit.
Benefits of audiobooks:
•Its great for homeschoolers, learningdisabled or – visually impaired students,
struggling readers or non readers and
second-language learners.
•Learning through audiobooks is a great
way to expose children to literature other
than the traditional fairy tales.
•More economical as opposed to buying
dozen of books. One book can be used
for the entire class.
•Fun way of learning with interesting
sound effects.
•Improves pronunciation and interpretive reading.
For those who wish to buy audiobooks
might have to face issues like their rare
availability in stores and shelling out an
exorbitant amount. However, you need
not worry as you can easily get them via
internet for free or at a nominal price.
All you need to do is to search for the
audiobook on Google, download it,
transfer it to any device that supports
mp3 format and voila- You have someone narrating your favourite book to
you, just the way you had wanted.
(P. S. For those who are transferring the
files into iPods, go to itunes, import the
mp3 format file, right click and select get
info>options>media kind>audiobook
and itunes will then start recognising
your file as an audiobook. Audiobooks
are large files, so use download mgrs to
speed up your downloads)G T