Raj Agrawal – Page 4

Wrike – Quintessential Tool For The Task Oriented

February 11, 2015 by Raj Agrawal Leave a Comment

To improve the odds of project success, it’s important to have a task-oriented team on board. And it’s even more important for such teams to have the right tools to communicate and manage their workflow. Wrike is a Software as a Service (SaaS)-based project management solution that improves your collaborative efforts, so you can get the job done leaner and smarter.

Wrike offers a comprehensive list of features to enhance your workflow. Here are a few notable features:

Real-time Activity Stream
Subtasks
Progress reports
Branded workspace
Email-to-task syncing
Interactive Gantt charts
Custom calendars for events like sick leaves and vacations
Recurring tasks and projects

And here’s how the Gantt Chart on Wrike looks like.

With over 33 integrations, connecting Wrike with your other favorite web tools is easy. From convenient cloud storage with Box, Dropbox, and Google Drive to automating tasks with Zapier, Evernote, Wufoo and Zendesk, check out the full list of Wrike integrations to see all the possibilities.

Wrike was founded in 2006 and has gone through many iterations and improvements since then. It has won several awards since its inception, and was named a 2014 “Cool Vendor” in Social Software and Collaboration by Gartner.

Game Reviews Are Becoming Polarizing And Unrealistic

December 25, 2014 by Raj Agrawal Leave a Comment

Game reviews have been all over the place lately. There was a time when scores were in a range that gave gamers a fair idea of how a game will be. On a scale of 100, games in the low 60s were trash and the ones in the high 90s were godly. Seeing a game get a 95 on multiple sites was a pleasure to watch. Most gaming sites these days are split on the review parameters. For instance, take a look at Alien Isolation. IGN gave the game a 5.5/10, while Gamespot gave it a 6. Yet the game has a Metacritic user average of 84/100.

alien isolation — Poster – Alien Isolation

Metacritic users are extremely unforgiving when it comes to games. Even a single bug can garner a lot of unwarranted ratings that can bring the whole score down. But 84/100 is solid however you look at it.

The giveaway is that gamers loved it, and reviewers didn’t. The question is, who would you give more credibility? I played Isolation and loved it. The game is more terrifying than it had any right to be. And that set it apart from any other game of 2014. The Evil Within was supposed to be THE horror game to make you defecate your pants, but it ended up leaving just a slightly uneasy feeling in my stomach. And yet it got an 87/100 from IGN. Which brings me to my point about parameters.

the evil within — Poster – The Evil Within

Reviewers should define a set of parameters, and should keep changing them with the changing trends in the market. You cannot review Killzone 3 and Half Life 1 with the same reviewing standards. In the same way, a person who does not love slow paced strategy games cannot possibly give an unbiased review of a slow paced action RPG like Dark Souls. Every Gaming publication should define personas and then only allow people to review games who fall under a particular persona. That way, at the very least we might start seeing realistic reviews.

‘Regenerate’ Lost Or Damaged Body Parts, Organs and Bones

July 21, 2014 by Raj Agrawal 1 Comment

UPCOMING TECHNOLOGY – In biology, regeneration is expressed as the ability to heal back from a physical damage. Think of it as the body’s self-repairing mechanism. A perfect form of regeneration will grow back lost body parts, bones and other organs to it’s original form and function. Sounds fictional, right?

All living beings can regenerate to varying limits. And we have no control or command over achieving this perfect regeneration process. To further establish the context, let us understand the types of animals by generalising them into two main categories. On one hand we have animals (for instance, a tape worm or a Mexican salamander) that possess perfect regeneration capabilities, and on the other hand we have animals that can regenerate to a limited extent. Humans and most other animals fall in the latter type.

Our body has some ability to heal it’s parts, organs and bones. Our hair and nails regrow. Our skin can recover from minor damages. Without any conscious effort, children under the age of 12 may regrow their sliced finger tips. A foetus inside of a human womb can “regrow” most of the damaged parts of it’s own body. So there should be a way to extend this regenerative capability of ours, while we age.

So let’s take a brief look at the ongoing researches and upcoming technologies that promise enhanced regeneration in humans.

Reversing physical injuries and damages

regenerate upcoming technology — One of the many successful trials by Dr. Rongxiang Xu (Image Credit: mebo-international.com)

Severed fingers, bodies with burns, signs of ageing on skin, gastro-duodenal ulcers, coronary heart disease, facial scars, shortened life span due to cancer – All of these damages have been undone in numerous trials on humans by a technology invented by Dr. Rongxiang Xu. He has been honored with Golden Biatec 2013 International award for this remarkable research. I encourage you to learn more on this through the link below.

Via [Mebo-International]

Regrowing lost limbs

Michael Levin has dedicated his life to the study of tissue regeneration in animals, and eventually enable humans to regenerate lost limbs. Among many other successful experiments back in the year 2005, he has successfully triggered regeneration in an elderly Tadpole to perfectly regrow it’s tail (an animal that loses it’s regenerative ability after the first seven days of it’s life). Michael believes animal bodies store information about it’s shape like a language, and such information may be found in the electrics singles that transmitted among the cells. So one of the major challenges that remain now is to decipher this language.

Via [Medium]

A painless and cost effective way to heal decayed teeth. No drills and fills required

teeth dentist — A visual illustration of oral health examination.

The technique focuses on remineralising the defective areas in teeth. This is done by triggering the natural healing process. This technique may be out in the market as late as 2017.

Via [King’s College London]

Using low powered lasers to regenerate body parts

A visual illustration of a laser point. (May not represent the actual procedure)

The idea is to persuade tissues to regenerate themselves, using a low powered laser. The tests have shown positive results for growing back an important component of teeth. Researchers have expressed the possibility of using this technique for regenerating body parts too.

Via [TechnologyReview]

Accelerated healing of physical injuries

A group of researchers have identified an important gene that triggers stem cell renewal. Learn more about stem cells at stemcells.nih.gov.

Via [EurekaAlert]