Harley Davidson withdraws SuperLow and FatBoy Special from the Indian market

Harley Davidson India recently unveiled the 2016 line-up of motorcycles with upgrades for most of the products on sale under a new theme known as Dark Custom. However, what one didn’t notice that Harley Davidson also withdrew two of its models from the Indian market namely the SuperLow and the FatBoy Special.

Priced around Rs.6 lakh and Rs.15.5 lakh (Ex-Showroom) respectively, the SuperLow and FatBoy Special were withdrawn from the Indian market reportedly due to the low sales cost. Even though both the models were available in India for an estimated 3 years, they still didn’t manage to gain popularity. They were brought to the Indian shores through the CKD route.

The SuperLow is powered by an 883 cc V twin air cooled engine that produces 70 Nm of peak torque at 3,750 rpm. The V twin engine is paired to a 5 speed transmission. The SuperLow gets a decent share of chrome bits that makes its appearance as good as the bigger Harleys in the segment.

The FatBoy Special, on the other hand is powered by a 1690cc air cooled engine that produces 132 Nm of peak torque at 3,250 rpm. This engine was mated to a 6 speed gearbox. The sales of the FatBoy Special were so low that Harley couldn’t manage to sell even a single unit of the motorcycle in the last few months. Another possible reason for the low sales of these bikes could be the introduction of the Street 750 which is a comparatively affordable model and took the place of being the most reasonably priced motorcycle from the U.S. based manufacturer.

What in your opinion would be the ideal choice for a bike with the SuperLow and FatBoy Special being discontinued in India by Harley Davidson? Will Harley replace these models with something new?

Google, Tesla And Automated Car Startups: Are We Ready For The Next Big Shift ?

The whole of civilization and evolution of humankind can be summed up as simply getting from one place to another. An average American male spends 699 hours per year of their life driving. That is a total of 48,390 hours, if we consider 70 years as an average life, being on the road, stuck in traffic jams and generally being non-productive. Companies like Google and Tesla are keen to come up with a solution to this problem. Autonomous cars will not only save time but also save lives as nearly 1.37 million people fall victim to road accidents every year. However, as it often is with new technology, people are skeptical more so because their lives are literally at the hands of a computer. Despite, companies are betting on the future of self-driving cars and electric cars.

Traditional car manufacturers in the last few years have focussed heavily on safety and making cars more intelligent, so that the passengers inside are comparatively safer. New age cars are fitted with traction control, automated braking systems, and some of the newer Tesla models can even handle themselves without any human intervention on highways and easily navigable places. The near future promises to bring us fully autonomous cars courtesy efforts from companies like Google and Uber. But, the future for autonomous cars is not as simple as companies like Google are presenting automated cars, not as a personal vehicle, but as a node in the grid of an intelligent and connected transportation system. Where does this place the traditional car manufacturers? And are we even ready for such a sea change? With questions like these, a buzz in our minds, we delve deeper into the new and exciting world of automated cars!

SELF DRIVEN AND ELECTRIC CAR INDUSTRY WITNESSING A REVOLUTIONARY DEVELOPMENT

As the infographic above states, we are in the stage of passive autonomous driving. Heading into 2016, the industry has no clear leader. Google has been working on their cars from 2012 and rumours suggest that they’re ready to branch off the Google Cars Team from the experimental Google X Labs to a full blown company under the Alphabet umbrella. Back in September, Google hired John Krafcik, an auto-industry veteran, as the CEO of the cars project and till now the autonomous cars have logged nearly a million miles (1.6 million km) on open public roads.

Reports suggest that next year we will see Google release these cars in and around Austin, Texas and San Francisco in controlled environments like college campuses, military bases or corporate office parks. Google is looking to position itself as a viable alternative to Uber and Lyft by offering consumers the experience of driverless cars without the hassles of owning one.

Not to be undone, Uber, the startup that is now evaluated at close to $50 billion, is spending some of its investor money in coming up with a viable competitor to Google Cars. While the future of companies like Uber and Lyft hangs in the balance, the traditional automobile manufacturers are stepping up their game as well! Companies like Ford and GM motors are aggressively testing out their own version of automated driving as well. Some like Tesla have already beaten Google to the punch, although their automated cars still require humans to be at the helm should any sort of tricky situation arises. Morgan Stanley analyst, Adam Jonas predicts that Tesla can triple their revenue by 2029 if they follow Google’s footsteps and venture into the on-demand mobility market.

THE ONE MAN WONDER: CHALLENGING GOOGLE AND TESLA

While all the big companies have spent millions of dollars to get their cars on a road, one man by the name of George Hotz has built a car that can drive itself in his own backyard. The genius hacker has managed to turn his run of the mill Honda Acura into an autonomous vehicle. What’s even more impressive, is that Hotz plans to make these kits available for car manufacturers and even car owners at only $1000/unit. 

Most of the current automakers that have implemented autonomous driving to an extent have used the Mobileye technology. Mobile eye has seen dramatic increases in their revenue with their last quarter racking up $71 million, a 104% increase YoY. However, Hotz believes they’re technologically inferior as he says

“They’re a company that’s behind the times, and they have not caught up.”

Hotz and his off the shelf solution may be the new entrant that will kick-start the growth of consumer grade autonomous cars. Being dependent on machine learning and end-to-end deep network algorithms, this implementation of autonomous learning can learn how a real human drive and is better at handling situations than a piece of software that is hard-coded for certain circumstances.

ARE WE READY FOR ROBOT DRIVERS?

Overall, if we have a look at the data, in the three developed countries, there seems to be a universally positive opinion towards driverless cars. There is still a vast number of skeptics who think that letting a computer make such split-second life and death decisions is letting the AI run a little too far. However, with that being said, what most drivers are worried about is the laws and legislatures as nearly 50% across all 3 markets consider that they will still have to pay when their Automated vehicle is involved in a crash!

Some companies are thus taking matters into their own hands and companies like Volvo with their liability promise is reassuring consumers and easing their way into this new market. While the pros of such a society would be manifold, we can divide them into a few main categories.

GAIN IN PRODUCTIVITY

Harping back to the point we made at the beginning of this article, driving is a time-consuming chore, one we could do very well without! If we look at the data for the US alone, we see that the gains in productivity for a year can be to the tune of $422 billion.

REDUCTION IN COSTS

One of the major hassles of owning a car comes from the fact that whenever something unforeseen happens to it, the owner has to shell out a ton of money. In the future, however, Google and Uber will see for us, no one owns a vehicle. This reduces traffic jams and precious biofuel. Also, having the car back to a central hub at the end of the day could mean that companies could perform daily checks for software updates and safety measures which can never be done with personal vehicles. The reduction in the cost of travel/miles comes down from $0.75 to $0.15 a whopping 80% decrease.

BETTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND QUALITY OF LIFE

Paraphrasing Enrique Penalosa, former Mayor of Bogotá, Colombia

A developed country is not a place where the poor have cars. It’s where the rich use public transport

With automated cars running the roads and private ownerships of cars being reduced to a minority, we can expect drastically lower fuel consumptions. With lesser number of trips required, traffic jams will be a thing of the past as, and the rate of accidents will decrease as well.

MANY STILL REMAIN SKEPTIC

As this infographic above clearly demonstrates, our society as a whole is still not ready for human less cars. With more than 76%  saying they would never trust a robot to take care of their children. In fact, we see some of the earliest legislature and legal hurdles that these cars and their companies will have to face are already coming up. Driverless cars have been all but banned by the California DMV, and severe limitations are placed on cars with some degree of automation as to where and how they can use their autonomous capabilities. We can only hope that with positive campaigns from companies like Google and Tesla a change in public opinion comes around!

FINAL THOUGHTS

With a huge number of potential industries benefitting from the move to autonomous cars, one can say that driverless cars are all but an eventuality. As the cost of living and fuel prices increase around the world, the expenses of owning a car and the insurance and related hassles will outweigh the convenience. The success of companies like Uber and Lyft have proven that there is a growing shift in the mindset of daily commuters and with the advent of robotised cars, this trend will continue to grow in momentum.

With help from the Government regarding laws and legislatures as promised by US Secretary of Transportation, the dream of driverless cars all over the world by 2025 seems to be getting more and more in touch with reality. This is certainly an exciting space to look forward to as the duel between consumer electronic companies like Google and traditional car manufacturers for the top spot in autonomous cars heats up in the near future!

Apple names the best iOS apps of 2015

Apple on Wednesday announced its choices for the best iOS apps of 2015. Taking top honors was Periscope, an app Eddy Cue, Apple's senior vice president of Internet Software and Services, called "truly revolutionary."

hat Periscope was named app of the year for iPhone shouldn't be surprising; Meerkat may have hit the market first, but Periscope really captured the zeitgeist. It didn't hurt that Twitter acquired the small team behind the app before it even launched.

Other iPhone apps honored this year include photo editing app Enlight, stock-trading app Robinhood, the amazing productivity tool Workflow and health apps such as Lark and Fit Men Cook.

For the iPad, The Robot Factory by Tinybop was selected as iPad App of the Year. The Robot Factory is an app that lets kids build, test and collect robots. Other iPad app honorees includeHBO Now, Patterning: Drum Machine and LiquidText.

"I continue to be really impressed with the types of apps that are getting created," Cue told Mashable. "You think everything that's been created has been done and then people continue to innovate and push the envelope across all the apps."

For the editorial picks for Apple's best iOS apps of 2015, they ran the gamut. Some winners, like Periscope, originally had small teams and were acquired by bigger companies. Other apps, such as HBO Now, are truly the product of big companies, but they still managed to push the envelope in other ways. Cue cited HBO Now as one of his favorite apps of the year, just by the virtue of how much more HBO he now watches as a result.

And some apps — especially in the gaming categories — are successes that grew out of upstarts. Prune, which Apple names its Best iPad Game of the Year, is the product of one person. It's the type of game Cue loves: "Who'd think a game about trimming trees would be so beautiful and fun," Cue said. "But they've done an amazing job."

The most-downloaded apps of the year

In addition to the editorial picks, Apple also released its year-end charts of its most-downloaded apps and games of 2015. Most of the big players — Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, YouTube — are on this list, but so are some apps you might not expect.

Crossy Road is the most downloaded free iPad app and in the top 10 of the most-downloaded iPhone apps. From Aussie-developers Hipster Whale, Crossy Road is an updated take on Frogger.

We spoke with Hipster Whale cofounder Matt Hall, one of the founders of Hipster Whale, about Crossy Road and its success in 2015 — an app that has transcended just mobile andmoved to the Apple TV.

Originally, Crossy Road was a project that cofounders Matt Hall and Andy Sum worked on as a game to do between projects. But quickly into the development process, Hall said he knew something was different and that "this could be something really special."

"We assumed failure but planned for success," Hall said. At launch, Apple featured the game as one of its best new iPhone apps of the week. And while Hall can't say how much that early exposure ultimately helped the game (we think it's the sort of game that had a viral component regardless of how it was featured), he acknowledged that being featured was "enormously helpful" and helped give the game "legitimacy."

With more than 40 million downloads for Crossy Road on iOS alone, the game has legs.

The list: Top downloads

Top free iPhone apps:

1. Trivia Crack
2. Messenger
3. Dubsmash
4. Instagram
5. Snapchat
6. YouTube
7. Facebook
8. Uber
9. Crossy Road - Endless Arcade Hopper
10. Google Maps

Top paid iPhone apps:

1. Heads Up!
2. Minecraft: Pocket Edition
3. Trivia Crack (Ad Free)
4. Five Nights at Freddy's 2
5. Facetune
6. Geometry Dash
7. Five Nights at Freddy's
8. Afterlight
9. Plague Inc.
10. Goat Simulator

Top free iPad apps:

1. Crossy Road - Endless Arcade Hopper
2. Candy Crush Soda Saga
3. Messenger
4. Netflix
5. YouTube
6. The Calculator - Free
7. Microsoft Word
8. Trivia Crack
9. Skype for iPad
10. Pinterest

Top paid iPad apps:

1. Minecraft: Pocket Edition
2. Five Nights at Freddy's 2
3. Five Nights at Freddy's
4. Geometry Dash
5. Terraria
6. Goat Simulator
7. Heads Up!
8. Five Nights at Freddy's 3
9. Toca Kitchen 2
10. Monument Valley

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Darth Vader’s Swim with Turtles

In these times of Star Wars frenzy, I have to make a revelation: no, I am not your father – you’re thankfully quite a number to read this so I’d have a tad too many children, although I’m a guy so technically I do have millions of little Sebastians available… but I digress as I barely started my post and the thought is slightly creepy too. So: I may not be your father, but I am… Darth Vader. Yep, that’s right, Darth Vader himself. Well if not himself, at least my heavy, slow breathing in a snorkelling tuba would clearly give me away or indicate some family connection, you have to give me that.

I felt at peace though, swimming in the straits between Gili Air and Lombok island in Indonesia – but my breathing initially clearly wasn’t. I was still breathing more rapidly than necessary. I knew I could finally relax but I had to consciously focus on slowing my breathing down.

Slowly inhaling air through my mouth – my nose was stuck in the snorkelling mask I was wearing – I started mentally counting up to the number six. I then held my breath for two seconds, before slowly expiring for another eight long seconds. The deep sound of air flowing through the tuba resonated in my ears, I sounded more and more like Darth Vader (or maybe like a whale, that would probably be a more accurate comparison), but thankfully my panting didn't disturb anyone nor the creature right below me.

I had suddenly remembered this breathing technique from a cute little squarish book full of simple quotes and relaxation methods. Too much of a rational mind, I had never been very keen about the topic of meditation, mindful introspection and other semi-Eastern voodoo-style stuff; Sam Harris'sWaking Up, a Guide to Spirituality Without Religion had however started to open up my mind a little, before I got my hands on that anthology of quotes and other simple, occasionally simplistic (but does it really matter if they work?), suggestions.


The beloved sea creature was calmly feeding itself, grazing algae and sea grass. I had been looking for turtles for a few days now. It's only when I finally saw one from close up that I realised how their shell camouflaged itself so easily with the brown-yellowish colour of the almost completely dead coral and of the sea grass it was feeding itself from.

Okay, let me admit how lame I was in detecting those turtles: they were more than one metre (three feet) in diameter... so yes, I really wasn't very good at detecting their subtle, if lethargic, movements. Most times they were submerged a mere metre below the surface, their rugged-edge carapace dangling and hitting rocks as the sea was ebbing and flowing. I couldn’t really mock them for being entirely focused on eating, not worrying about waves carrying them away: I was myself so intent on going into the sea that I blindly walked on the dead coral, fins on my feet, falling down like a clumsy clown and hurting myself against the sharp rocks every time a slightly bigger-than-expected wave would come crashing in.

I did eventually figure out a technique: walking backwards into the sea (no, it wasn’t quite moonwalking à la Michael Jackson but “almost”) and, just as importantly, taking the time to identify the areas where the coral had been blown up to let boats come alongside the shore. So if you ever travel to the eastern side of Gili Air, get in about a hundred metres north of Satu Tiga cottages where a few boats are anchored, let yourself drift with the currents, and get out at the little white flag that signals the blown-up channel right before the beach walls. Swim right at the frontier between the coral and the deeper sea where all the tropical fish of all colours and sizes – yes, including things that look like mini-sharks, yikes – love to swim around.

Temptation to swim with the turtle holding onto its hard carapace was high – I never watched The Little Mermaid (“it’s for girls”) so the closest analogy would be Aladdin and his flying carpet (no, I didn’t say the turtle was a carpet, argh!). So did I do it? I’m not sure I want to make you more jealous – or risk being demonised because turtles should be left undisturbed. Let’s just say I “accidentally” brushed against its large, paddle-like flippers. I followed the turtle as it swam away: it was quite a feeling to be able to swim at the same pace as the sea mammal, with no one and nothing else around except that beautiful uniform blue colour of the deep sea in the background. My heart leapt in small bursts of joy as one turtle led me to another, and yet another, and when their large beady eyes seemed to stare at me for a few seconds. Those days were good days for Sebastian.

At the surface of the sea, boats were whizzing around. Children were playing football on the beach – I would dismally lose later on but, to be fair and because I have to find a scapegoat, a player on my team attempted useless headers, literally planting his head into the sand without even touching the ball, what the heck – well, it’s not tomorrow that Indonesia will be on the world map of football (sorry). Tourists were tanning under the sun, sipping some watermelon or pineapple juice. The turtle couldn’t care less about all those mundane activities. It couldn’t be bothered by my presence either.

Once replete with its meal of dirt-coloured sea grass, the turtle broke the surface one last time to breathe one big gulp of air – and immediately dove vertically straight towards the floor of the deep blue sea. Sometimes I wish I could also disappear in some other-worldly pleasant-blue reality, away from feelings of responsibility, away from silly issues. Perhaps I should instead remind myself of that Buddhist analogy as regards to inner tranquillity: down there, far below the waves and the twirl of everyday life, it is always peaceful and quiet...

WhatsApp Is Blocking Links To Rival App Telegram On Android

Facebook-owned messaging giant WhatsApp appears to have started deliberately blocking links to rival messaging app Telegram so users can’t share clickable Telegram-associated URLs in their chats. The URLs just appear as unlinked text.

Mobile messaging customer service startup orat.io noticed the issue earlier today, and has blogged about it here.

Currently links only appear to be blocked within the Android app, with no unlinking going on in the iOS app. Even in the latest version of the iOS app, which was updated as of November 30 — we checked.

So it’s possible this is a bug rather than a deliberate attempt by WhatsApp to discourage its users from easily tapping into a rival service.

That said, Android developer Jernej Virag claims to have found evidence in WhatsApp’s code that suggests it is indeed specifically targeting Telegram…

We’ve reached out to WhatsApp to ask ‘bug or feature’ — and will update this post with any response.

In a note on its website Telegram also claims its Facebook page has vanished — “for no apparent reason”.

Of the Facebook page deletion Durov was less concerned, adding: ‘We didn’t use it, so we didn’t even notice it.”

The messaging app, which launched in mid 2013, has seen some impressive engagement growth this year — with the volume of messages sent daily via Telegram rising from around 1 billion this February to 12 billion by September. Although its monthly active users remained at around the 60 million mark between May and September.

Telegram is still very much dwarfed by WhatsApp’s massive user-base, of course. The Facebook-owned giant claimed to have passed the 900 million monthly user mark as of this September, so it can’t be far off hitting the magic 1BN MAUs mark.

Perhaps that milestone prospect is encouraging WhatsApp to throw its weight around against upstart messaging rivals.

Whatever the truth, it’s a not-so-gentle reminder that when it comes to dominant commercial platforms the content we the users are allowed to see and access is perennially at the whim of the platform owner and their commercial interests. And no, that’s not cool.

Pack goodness into your holidays

A few easy-to-do things that you can keep in your mind and follow for a goodness-filled break.

For many of us, the day progresses something like this: get up and realise that we have just about enough time left to bathe and rush to office; reach office after a fierce battle with the crowd and traffic; work like there would be no tomorrow and come back home half dead. And, in the middle of all this, just mindlessly hog on to anything bearing the closest resemblance to food.

No. There is no concept of wellbeing left in our lives. Let alone doing proper exercise, we don’t even consider deep breathing for five minutes in the day. A few people who have shelled out money for gymming, do, at times, manage to run on the treadmill and think that they have done the needful. And yes, we don’t even have the time to think where we are headed towards, in terms of health and happiness. 

So, this is the kind of life that we are leading and when we feel we are really bottled up with pressure and stress, we plan a holiday. Considering our sorry state of being, for once, we need to think differently about our holidays. How about a place which would pack both fun and wellness into itself? Ok, if you are not planning to go about it in full swing, how about getting these few important things right while you are on a break:

1. Try and stay at a hotel or a guesthouse which either has a wellness or recreation centre or is close to one. Get up in the morning for a yoga session, swim or play a game of badminton. Believe me, it will make you feel happier than you can think.
2. Walk as much as you can. Considering that you would plan a trip to a prettier, cleaner place than your resident town, a walk will be fun.
3. Go for the region’s authentic cuisine, which generally has some goodness. No KFC or Mc Donald’s, or any other thing equally bad.


4. It is completely okay if your idea of holidaying is to get drunk and make merry. Just balance it out with some physical activity, proper food and good conversations. How about renting a bicycle for a ride around the town, if possible?
5. Stay happy. Don’t carry your laptop and work along with you. Enjoy the simple pleasures of life like looking at the star-studded night sky, gazing into the limitless expanse of the sea, smelling the flowers, or getting up in the morning to the sounds of the birds chirping. It will all do good.

5 Reasons Why US Open Champ Serena Williams Is The Sexiest Babe On The Tennis Block!

US Open 2014 champion Serena Williams is one of the top ranked Tennis star around. The American, who has won 18 Grand Slam titles, is also known to have a ‘fashion sense’ off the court as well.

After a triumphant 2014, Serena is currently sitting atop of the WTA rankings and with her powerful serve and on-court backhand, the former is looking to dominate the tennis scene for years to come. But even though with her ‘hardcore tennis’, Serena is known to be a ‘babe’ off it!

Appearing in many top brand ads and photo-shoots, the 33-year old carries a svelte figure that sends many tongues wagging. So what makes her so ‘hot and sexy’? If you care to know, well, we have listed down 5 reasons that make her the ‘oomph’ chick of the tennis court:

1 – Fashion figure
Be it the ear jewellery, lip stick, mascara or the American-styled ‘bling bling’; Serena Williams has it all! The 33-year sets up the Wimbledon alive, not only by her game play but also the dressing sense. Serena will be often seen in a white one-piece that grabs eye-balls from the paparazzi.

2 – Rivalries and off-the court ‘tamasha’
Serena Williams is one hot headed woman and her tempers are known to flare, if she doesn’t get her wish. In the 2009 US Open semi-final, the 33-year old screamed at a line umpire with cussing words. Moreover, two years later in the same tournament, Serena was seen swearing at the line umpire after the latter found her violating the tennis rules. Her off-court rivalry with Maria Sharapova is a big ‘hit’ amongst the tennis faithful.

3 – Chiselled and powerful body
Serena’s superb serve matched that with a forehand winner is down to her svelte figure and those muscular biceps. In the women’s arena, Serena is known to carry one of the ‘strongest’ body shape a woman can ever have. Try matching that, Caroline Wozniacki and Maria Sharapova!

4 – Parties with Hollywood celebs
And we lest forget that, Serena hails from the land of Hollywood. Yes that’s right, the land of Bruce Willis to Channing Tatum. Serena’s ‘friends zone’ include Kim Kardashian, Paris Hilton and Kelly Rowland.

5 – One woman army
Whenever Serena is on the tennis court, the racket does the talking (at times – mouth). The world number one is a fierce competitor and is known to bring down the opponent in limited given time.

Bet she has the best curves in tennis, if NOT, who is? Let us know in the comments below 

5 Fascinating Ways To Bring Authentic Love In Your Life

You may at times claim that you don’t want the love and approval of people in your life. You may also claim that you can make it till the end all alone. But sometimes in you most honest moments with yourself, you may realize that your logic or denial has been faulty throughout.

Finding love is not meant, to be easy, especially when we’re talking of authentic love. You know you have a liking for a person and the person likes you in a similar manner. But the question that remains is that where do you see this love five years down the line. We tell you a few ways that could help you bring authentic love in your life. Read on!

1. Seeking love genuinely
People generally seek a relationship out of fear in today’s date. Fear of being lonely, fear of being left out on the shelf, fear of not conforming up to society’s expectations, and fear of being left out among coupled friends. In doing so, you seek a relationship out of fear and not love. This could result in you ending up with someone who does not even value you. So be patient and ‘fall’ in love, rather than running behind love.

2. Love yourself
You’ve heard it a number of times, and deep down that self love wins over the love of someone else. But there definitely are moments when that self love is not on your mind and you feel that someone else’s love is something that is a necessity for you. In those moments, sit down and think about things that you love about others and why did those things grab your attention. Write yourself a love letter, and feel the spark within you.

3. Be the best ‘You’
If you alter or change yourself, so that you match up to the other person’s expectations, there is a high probability that the person is not compatible with your true self. In that case, time and again you get confused if you should continue your fake persona or get back to your true self. That is when you miss yourself. If you really love the person you continue faking your persona, and if you love yourself, you switch to what you truly are. In either case, you’re the one to lose. However, if the person loves whom you truly are, be sure that he’ll come around.

4. Stop looking
Soul mates are like two magnets in a heavy magnetic field. Just like two magnets attract each other, there will come a time when you and your soul mate, no matter how far you are, will bump into each other. There is a reason why people call it ‘falling’ in love. If you look for it, chances are less that you’ll find the right person. Just let it tour, and see the magic.

5. Don’t limit your chances
I have come across a number of people who limit their prospective of finding love depending on their conditions. For example, someone who does not work at the same place, or someone who shows interest first, or someone who asks you out within three days of dating. Unfortunately, these expectations hinder you from receiving love. Thinking about the consequences on the way your manifestation of love looks like, is a big no-no. Leave yourself open to different manners and you never know, when your heart gets struck by the love arrow.

All I have to say, is that the more you limit yourself and manifest your love for others, the more are you hindering the entry of authentic love in your life. Love yourself, open up to people around you and there it is- sheer romance in your life.

Thoughts on GPI

In a major breakthrough for exoplanet discovery and exploration, the Gemini Planet Imager (GPI) is proving to be one of most powerful and effective instruments ever invented for directly imaging planets in orbit around other stars.

The behind-the-scenes story of this project sheds light on the complexities and challenges of designing and building a truly game-changing instrument. We started work more than thirteen years ago under the leadership of Bruce Macintosh and the auspices of the Center for Adaptive Optics. At that time, a number of scientists, most from California and Canada, met to discuss building a groundbreaking adaptive optics (AO) system powerful enough to confront — and overcome — the challenging of directly collecting photons from young Jupiter-like exoplanets. The discovery of 51 Eri b, which was announced last August, is the culmination of that effort. 

Exoplanet β Pic b orbiting β Pictoris from Dunlap Institute on Vimeo.

Today, GPI is fully operational and in the process of observing ~600 bright and nearby stars as part of an 900h-survey to search for exoplanets and their circumstellar disks. There’s no way to predict how many we will find, but the survey has already generated interesting and groundbreaking data — allowing scientists, for example, to study exoplanet Beta Pictoris b. The little white dot moving in the video above is the faint glow of this young and warm exoplanet, which is 60 light years away and was observed nine times by GPI between November 2013 and April 2015. Collecting an image of this planet and its star allows us to infer the orbit and composition of the planet, and measure its temperature. In time, GPI and its successor instruments will allow us to do far more.

Images like these make us confident that another revolution in human understanding of the cosmos has begun. Twentieth-century astronomers fundamentally changed our understanding of the universe and our place in it when they mapped asteroids, comets and satellites in our solar system and beyond. Their twenty-first century counterparts have begun work on what may well be an even greater revolution by expanding our knowledge of the Milky Way and mapping far more distant objects such as stars and exoplanets. 

We’ve just begun work on this difficult but revolutionary task. GPI and the next generation of ground- and space-based telescopes equipped with advanced AO technology are the key to finding earth-like exoworlds, including ones that other forms of life may call home.

Alien Engineering Around Strange Star?

There's a new big dipper in the nighttime sky.

No, it's not a cozy constellation, but a distant, non-descript star that behaves like a shipboard semaphore, beaming flashes of light into the cosmic darkness that seem random, but may not be.

While the luminous output from everyday stars is relentlessly steady, this one occasionally dips its brightness as much as 20 percent, suggesting either that it is orbited by lumps of dust, rock or other opaque material, or - and hang onto your desk chair - there are residents in this stellar system who have deliberately built hardware of a size and extent big enough to intercept a substantial amount of their sun's output. In that case, what we're seeing is the consequence of a massive, alien construction project.

Seriously? Could this star, lovingly named KIC 846 2852 - a fairly ordinary stellar orb roughly half-again as big as our Sun and nearly five times brighter - be home to some advanced society that's solving its energy crisis by constructing what's called a Dyson sphere (or more practically, a Dyson swarm): a phalanx of solar panels that orbit their sun, turn oodles of starlight into electricity, and then beam that energy back to the home planet to power their fossil fuel-free lifestyle?

Well, that's certainly a possibility. The idea of Dyson swarms (first proposed by physicist Freeman Dyson) is appealing enough to have tempted several astronomers to look for them throughout the Galaxy. They've done so by searching for the warm glow of infrared light that would waft off the back side of the solar panels. Their task is tricky however, because any dust floating in the space between the planets (and there's always dust!) would mimic this infrared glow.

But KIC 846 2852 is different, because the evidence suggesting astroengineering is direct - there's a clear-cut and periodic dimming of the starlight - a much more straightforward observation than trying to tease out a foggy bit of infrared light.

Given this intriguing behavior, shouldn't we be checking out this star more carefully? Isn't it possible that this is a home to true cosmic intelligence - not just pond scum in the watery recesses of a nearby world, but technically adept beings who might have something interesting to tell us ... or at least spark endless conversation by becoming the first sentience discovered other than our own?

Of course. But history gently prods us to temper our enthusiasm by noting that the explanation for KIC 846 2852's inconstant glare might be prosaic, rather than profound. This star is one of the 150,000 stellar targets examined by NASA's Kepler space telescope. It was also one that was vetted in a citizen science campaign that used human eyeballs (as opposed to computer code) to hunt for unusual features. And indeed, what the humans found would likely have escaped notice by the software. The changes in brightness were highly variable and substantial, much as you might expect from a small swarm of moths attacking a street lamp.

The scientists who wrote the paper announcing this behavior gave their own take on what's going on here - their own explanations for what these "moths" might be. Clumps of dust are a possibility, as is natural variability of the star itself, or even errors in the data processing.

But none of these seem to cut the mustard. The discoverers prefer another explanation: A small star, now visible about 100 billion miles away from KIC 846 2852, recently made a closer pass, and disturbed some outer solar system comets. Much as lifting a rock sends sow bugs scurrying, the gravitational tug of this star could have prodded otherwise inoffensive comets to careen towards the inner regions of the KIC 846 2852 star system, filling it with debris that's causing the blinking.

That would be interesting, but obviously less exciting than finding a Dyson swarm. Still we must beware: Given our natural inclination to blame aliens for just about all unexplained phenomena on Earth, it's inevitable we'll give them credit even when they're not involved. Pulsars, when first discovered, were dubbed "Little Green Men" by Cambridge astronomers. They turned out to be dead stars. CTA 102 - a quasar discovered in the early 1960s, was seen to change its brightness very quickly, and at least a few Soviet astronomers figured that clever extraterrestrials were sending coded messages to whoever was paying attention. In fact, it turns out that quasars just naturally blink and for reasons that have nothing to do with intelligence.

In addition, KIC 846 2852 is hardly a star system anyone would finger as "most likely to house aliens." A few thousand degrees hotter than the Sun, this star would bleach the surface of any encircling planet with highly unfriendly ultraviolet light. In addition, it will take only 3 billion years for it to totally exhaust its natal supply of hydrogen fuel. It will die young. Keep in mind that it took 4-1/2 billion years for life on Earth to reach our own, modest technological level.

These are not show-stoppers: Maybe other planets can produce clever critters a lot faster than Earth did, and maybe the inhabitants are born with a number 50 sunblock epidermis.

And more generally, one shouldn't let healthy skepticism degrade into unattractive pig-headedness, even if in this case the evidence for something revolutionary isn't terribly promising. You have to follow up. And we are.

Since October 16, the SETI institute has been using its Allen Telescope Array to observe KIC 846 2852 over a wide range of radio frequencies (1 to 10 GHz), looking for any artificial signals. Keep in mind that this star system is relatively far, roughly 1400 light-years away. That's more distant than the Orion Nebula, and getting there (if you feel the need) would require a 23 million year ride in our fastest rocket. But more to the point, any signals detectable here on Earth would have to be exceptionally powerful.

We're continuing to analyze the data. In another week, our SETI team will once again observe KIC 846 2852 using some new receivers being affixed to the Allen Array - known as Antonio feeds - that will increase the sensitivity by a factor of two. Check this space.

Meanwhile, consider KIC 846 2852 as something suggestive of cosmic company, but no more than a suggestion.

The Jeep® Grand Cherokee

The Jeep® Grand Cherokee took home two awards at this year’s Active Lifestyle Vehicle (ALV) awards, including the inaugural Phoenix Automotive Press Association (PAPA) Best of the Southwest award. The 12th annual Carspondent.com “Active Lifestyle Vehicle of the Year” awards competition was held at San Marcos Golf Resort in Chandler, Ariz.


Local members of the Phoenix-area media, including PAPA members, spent the first day of the competition evaluating cars, crossovers, SUVs and trucks. The second day brought more than 100 athletes and outdoor enthusiasts from all over the country to evaluate the same vehicles.

At the conclusion of the ALV event, Jeep Grand Cherokee took home two awards:



The inaugural PAPA Best of the Southwest award

Luxury Off-Road (MSRP over $35,000 with true off-road capability)  

“The Jeep Grand Cherokee ticked all the boxes for our PAPA panel of automotive journalists as a durable go-anywhere vehicle with plenty of room for people and gear,” said Bob Golfen, automotive journalist and PAPA member. “PAPA jurors also were impressed by the Jeep's premium interior and superior drivability, which make it an ideal all-around SUV for daily driving and vacation fun.”  

The Active Lifestyle Vehicle competition is unique because it’s the only annual awards program where outdoor enthusiasts, athletes and the automotive media come together to pick the winners. The evaluation process includes navigating an off-road course and on-road driving, too.