Just Tech 2.0.

It happens such that you are reading a blog and you bump into a difficult word for which you need to open your Dictionary or visit Merriam-Webster online. The exercise won't be painful anymore. Thanks to Microsoft's "Encarta® Instant Answers" that can be added to your MSN or Live Messenger and access the power of Dictionary, Encyclopedia, WorldBook, Maps and the entire Encarta all from your chat window. "Encarta Instant Answers" will also solve your kids Quadriatic Equations, no joke.

Requirements: MSN Messenger 7.5 and above. OR Windows Live Messenger. Both are Free.
Note: Windows XP users, you get Windows Messenger for free pre-installed. "encarta buddy" won't work with Windows Messenger.

How to add Encarta Instant Answers to your messenger Buddy List ?
Contacts --> Add a Contact --> Add this id "encarta@botmetro.net".

Exploring the power of Encarta Instant Answers:
Dictionary - Click on the Encarta buddy and begin chatting. Say, you want to find the meaning for "Shangri-La". (LazyBoy is me) Just type in the chat window, define shangri-la and you get the answer within few microseconds as "Here is the definition for Shangri-la: imaginary utopia."

Encarta now sends you an invitation to open Encarta, if you accept, a new window pane will open within the same window as shown here. Now you can also listen to how "Shangri-La" is pronounced.


Encyclopedia - Now to explore the power of encyclopedia, I typed in my next query "tell me about Gandhi". Boom!! In few milli seconds you have the answer, "Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948), Indian nationalist leader, who established his country's freedom through a nonviolent revolution..". It also loads more details about Gandhi Ji from MSN encylopedia as shown to your left.


Maps - Say you want to view Map of Mumbai. Just type "Map of Mumbai" and there it displays the Mumbai Map as shown to your left. It also tells you little bit about Mumbai "Mumbai, India is in western India, on Bombay Island, on the Arabian Sea; capital of Mahārāshtra State." in the chat window. Indian Maps are not very exhaustive while Maps of American cities are very refined and you can also slide the map with your mouse literally getting driving directions.

Maths - Arithmetic calculations are trivial tasks to my Encarta Buddy. He can now solve your Maths assignments. Can calculate percentages and solve Quadriatic Equations explaining every step involvedi n the calculation. Some of the examples I tested are as follows.
"what is 20% of 150,000"
Encarta® Instant Answers says:
20% * 150,000 = 30,000

"Solve 2x^2-7x=5"
Encarta® Instant Answers says:
Equation Solver:

Let's solve the quadratic equation:
2x^2-7x = 5
First we need to put the equation in the form:
ax^2 + bx + c = 0
For this, we set the equation to equal 0, and arrange the terms from the highest exponent to the lowest:
2x^2-7x-5 = 0
We have:
a=2 b=-7 c=-5
We can now apply the quadratic formula:
x = ( -b ± √(b²-4ac) ) / 2a
We find two solutions:
x=4.1084952830142 or x=-0.60849528301415

HaHa!!! Encarta® Instant Answers buddy is great.