Highlights of an upcoming interview with Kate Beckinsale on her film Love and Friendship. This was the opening night film at the 59th San Francisco International Film Festival. The film is based on a Jane Austen novel. Beckinsale plays the lead role of Lady Susan Vernon. Others in the film include Chloë Sevigny, Xavier Samuel , Stephen… Continue Reading
Virtual Reality (VR) is the big trend this year in Silicon Valley. This big trend is market by the transition from cardboard VR headsets to fancy headsets like Oculus Rift and Samsung Gear VR and the introduction of 360 cameras and other hardware that help created VR content. We spoke with Karl Krantz, founder of Silicon… Continue Reading
The Man Who Knew Infinity is a 2016 film about the life of the Indian mathematical genius Srinivasa Ramanujan, who was born in India in 1887 and died at the young age of 32 years old. Within a short period of time Ramanujan established his mathematical brilliance and became one of the youngest Fellows of the… Continue Reading
Prof. Freeman Dyson of Princeton University worked on Srinivasa Ramanujan‘s partition of numbers theory while studying at Cambridge University. In this interview Prof. Dyson shares how he first discovered about Ramanujan in ET Bell’s book Men of Mathematics, and later on he went on to work on Ramanujan’s number theory at Cambridge University and developed a tool called Rank.… Continue Reading
Today I finally got to dip my toe into this frontier technology called Virtual Reality (VR) at Silicon Valley Virtual Reality (SVVR) show in San Jose. To be fair I did get a cardboard VR headset last year from DoDo Case, but never got around to trying it. I rectified that glaring oversight today… Continue Reading
For over 2 decades Silicon Valley’s The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) has held its annual conference in Santa Clara that brings entrepreneurs, technologists and investors. This year marks the 23rd year of TiECon which will feature panels on innovation, social entrepreneurship, Internet of Things, data economy and Destination India. Here is a list of featured speakers… Continue Reading
The 59th San Francisco International Film Festival is underway from now till May 5, 2016. With over 170 films showing at the festival it is always a challenge to figure out what films to watch and invariably you end up missing some really good films. That is my constant dilemma during film festivals, but the important thing is… Continue Reading
Prince is gone. Earlier today Prince (57) the musician was found dead in his home in Paisley Park.Minnesota. His death was confirmed by his publicist, but the cause of his death remains unknown. He reportedly fell sick last week and was hospitalized, and got well and returned to his home in Minnesota according to LA Times.… Continue Reading
The 59th San Francisco International Film Festival starts today and continues till May 5, 2016. We sat down to speak with Rachel Rosen, director of programming at San Francisco Film Society to find out about the highlights of this year’s festival. The opening night film today is director Whit Stillman’s sharply funny film LOVE & FRIENDSHIP with… Continue Reading
Bollywood live concerts are back in a big way this year in San Francisco Bay area. And kicking off the season was a live concert by Vishal Dadlani and Shekhar Ravjiani or Vishal-Shekhar on Sunday, April 17, 2016 at San Jose’s Civic Center. The musical duo ended their whirlwind tour of the US with their final… Continue Reading
SOLD is a feature film about human trafficking and is based on the novel by the same name by Patricia McCormick. In this interview director Jeffrey Brown and actress Susmita Mukherjee take us behind the scenes. Brown shares how he read the book in one sitting and optioned for it the next day. He was… Continue Reading
Director Jeffrey D.Brown and actress Sushmita Mukherjee talk about SOLD, a film about human trafficking. SOLD is based on a novel by the same name by Patricia McCormick.The film is told from the perspective of Lakshmi, a 13-year old Nepali girl, who is sold to a brothel in Calcutta, India. Mumtaz (Mukherjee) plays the role of… Continue Reading
Meet social robots Nao and Pepper, who are unlike anything you may have seen. Both these humanoid robots are studded with all sorts of sensors and are able to interact with users. For instance Nao is equipped with HD cameras, microphones and an array of sensors. Nao is used in American schools to help children… Continue Reading
April is Jazz Appreciation Month. Hot music or jazz traces its roots to New Orleans in Louisiana. It was in New Orleans that Bardu Ali or Bardou Ali or Bahadur Ali was born in 1906 to an African-American mother and a father who came from India. Interestingly, Ali’s father Moksad Ali is believed to have… Continue Reading
Twitter turns 10 today. And in 10 years Twitter has changed our world and how we connect, communicate and share with people around the world. And in 10 years Twitter’s journey has been a roller coaster ride where it went from a scrappy startup to a public company. Here is a quick history of Twitter… Continue Reading
The motley crew from HBO’s Silicon Valley is back. The popular series premieres on April 24, 2016. Mike Judge and his crew have brilliantly captured the essence of Silicon Valley’s startup culture with its warts and all. HBO’s Silicon Valley gives you a sense of what it takes to do a startup in Silicon Valley.… Continue Reading
March is Women’s History Month and here is a collection of my interviews with women from various walks of life from authors to filmmakers to entrepreneurs to engineers and venture capitalists. In each of these interviews the goal was to find out how about their journey and how they developed a passion for what they do. … Continue Reading
Oscar-winning writer/director Tom McCarthy talks about the making of his film Spotlight in our interview. The film was nominated for 5 Oscars and won 2 Academy Awards last night. McCarthy and Josh Singer won an Oscar for the best original screenplay, and the second for the best picture. Spotlight is based on a true story about… Continue Reading
Oscar nominated director Lenny Abrahamson’s film Room has got 4 Oscar nominations. They are for best director, film, best female actress and best adapted screenplay. That the film scored 4 Oscar nominations may come as a surprise to some, but not to those who have seen the film. We recorded this interview with Abrahamson in San… Continue Reading
The San Jose Jazz Winter Fest starts on Feb 25th and runs all the way through March 8, 2016. And this year they have a great line-up of singers, who will perform in downtown San Jose and in Palo Alto. I think this is the first time San Jose Jazz is spreading its wings and reaching to… Continue Reading
Forget zooming up and down the coastal towns of Kerala, Karnataka and Goa to explore the various cuisines of this region. Instead head straight to Karavalli at Taj Gateway in Bangalore to explore new and old dishes from these coastal towns that are a patchwork quilt of Christian, Hindu and Muslim communities. There are the… Continue Reading
Indian filmmaker Prashant Nair’s award-winning film Umrika will screen at San Francisco’s CAAMFEST. The film premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the World Cinema Dramatic Audience Award. Umrika generated a lot of buzz after it premiered at Sundance. Umrika is a humorous film about a young man’s journey from Punjab, India to Umrika, or America.… Continue Reading
In the last few years San Francisco Bay area has emerged as a hub of food startups, who are using technology to create new products and Kite Hill is one such company. We talk with Matthew Sade, CEO of Kite Hill to find out what they are doing differently about making cheese that is dairy… Continue Reading
It is boom time in Indian e-commerce space. The heat is on for an epic race between Snapdeal, FlipKart and Amazon India. All 3 major players are vying to corner a piece of the lucrative Indian market that a Goldman Sachs report pegged at $100 billion (FY20201) reports the Economic Times. FlipKart and Amazon have invested hundreds of millions… Continue Reading
Facebook India’s Managing Director Kirthiga Reddy is stepping down and will “explore new opportunities” at the company’s Menlo Park headquarters in the US. The decision to relocate to the US is based on personal reasons wrote Reddy in her Facebook post. For the next 6 months she will be busy transitioning out of her role as… Continue Reading
My 5 best vegetarian foods to eat in Bangalore are: filter coffee, idli, dosa,vada and coconut water. Technically speaking coffee and coconut water probably qualify as drinks. Now that I have shared the list let me share why they made it to my 5 best vegetarian foods to eat in Bangalore. Every year on my annual… Continue Reading
Nila trailer from Selvamani Selvaraj on Vimeo. Nila (Moon) from first time director/screenwriter Selvamani Selvaraj will premiere at Silicon Valley’s Cinequest Film Festival this year. The film is part Spotlight section of the film festival that you can watch on Friday, March 4, 2016 at California Theatre in San Jose. Nila is an independent Tamil film from India. Over the past… Continue Reading
I guess we can no longer have, as Facebook puts it “digital equality for all Indians.” Despite aggressive lobbying by Facebook, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) ruled in favor of Net Neutrality and against Facebook. What this means is that Facebook‘s Free Basics service, a limited and free Internet service, can no longer be offered in India.… Continue Reading
I was craving for some Mexican food from San Jose’s La Victoria Taqueira in Bangalore after seeing all those Superbowl 50 tweets about salsa and burritos. If only there was a local taqueria from where I could order a veggie burrito and get some nachos with some guac it would be wonderful I thought. While… Continue Reading
Bill Pohlad directed and produced Love & Mercy (2015), a biopic of Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys fame. This is Pohlad’s portrait of the talented singer and composer Wilson and is not a “cradle to grave” biopic as he puts it. The film focusses on two different parts of Wilson’s life that is… Continue Reading
The Kamla Show 