Questions and Answers from the Tech Quiz that @venkyiimb and I conducted @kqaquizzes
1. In the mid-2000s, the web was generating more and
more information on a daily basis, and it was becoming very difficult to index
over one billion pages of content. In order to cope, Google invented a new
style of data processing known as MapReduce.
A year
after Google published a white paper describing the same, Doug Cutting and Mike
Cafarella, created ______ to apply these concepts to an open-source software
framework to support web indexing. Today, it is used for large-scale data
management.
What did they create?
In India, what is the best example of a system built on this?
Apache Hadoop
Aadhaar
2. Given that in the tech world, this word refers to a common and
multi-pronged carrier of data and signals, it should not surprise you to learn
that it is the contraction of a Latin word you have come across in a similar
context in the publishing world.
What word? What’s
the Latin word?
Bus
Omnibus
3.Identify the speaker from the 1974 interview.
Arthur C Clarke
4. Eugene Garfield, the founder
of the magazine, The
Scientist, was also a
professor in the University of Pennsylvania working on citation analysis.
•Massimo Marchiori, an Italian
Mathematician and scientist created an engine based on link analysis.
•Jon Kleinberg is a professor of
Computer Science at Cornell University and is known for his work in algorithms
and networks, as well as creating the HITS algorithm.
Which paper that later formed the basis of a
patent owned by a university, references the work of these three scientists in
its set of citations and influences?
Google PageRank
5. This logo made up
of 4 minimalist slashes, represents the wordmark used by the company. It was
developed for the company as part of a brand re-design study in 2011 by Moving
Brands.
The management of the company
decided against adopting this logo in 2011. However, post the mid-decade split
of the company, the spun-off company started using the minimalist logo on their
high-end consumer products.
Which company is
this?
HP
6. A quote from
X, “I could be wrong, but I'm fairly sure the phrase “________ __ ______”
started life as the title of a presentation I made at Procter & Gamble
(P&G) in 1999. Linking the new idea of RFID in P&G's supply chain to
the then-red-hot topic of _______ was more than just a good way to get
executive attention. It summed up an important insight which is still often
misunderstood.”
X was a British pioneer who
co-founded the Auto-ID Labs and Centerat MIT.
Identify X and the
phrase he coined, used widely today in the context of a connected world.
Kevin Ashton
Internet of Things
7. Apart from replicating
homely experiences and providing comfort to the limited set of people involved,
the operation of this customized invention is also used to study fluid dynamics,
and the impact of microgravity on liquids.
The said device is heavier than
the normal ones, and is more complex with steel hydraulic ducts (instead of
plastic), and has a set of microswitches that prevent leakage. There is also
minimal residual water.
What is the
portmanteau name of this innovation, undertaken in partnership with an Italian
giant in the industry? Also name the Italian co.
ISSpresso
Lavazza
8. Cases like the one shown
below were used for computers or network switches, and tended to be wide and
flat, with one or two rack units.
Data General advertised their
Unix servers in 1991 with the tagline, “Who just fit mainframe power into a
_____ ___?”.
The most common usage of this
two-word term was in reference to the Sun Microsystems workstations launched in
early 1990s.
What is the two
word term?
Pizza Box
9. When this movie came out in 2010 , the founder of this
platform was asked if the platform was named after the character in the movie.
The founder denied this, and laid down the criteria that he had used along with
his co-founder for arriving at the platform’s name:
•Something
that probably was two syllables long
•Ideally
something you could spell after hearing it
•A word
that wasn't commonly used by anything else, so you could search for it easily
and not get false positives
•Starts
with an unusual letter
•Ideally
something with double Os in it for good luck (Yahoo, Google, Facebook)
•Something that made sense for what we were working on
While the name doesn’t meet 2 of
the 6 criteria mentioned above, they still went ahead with the name rather than
Quiver, which was the alternate option.
What is the name of
the character/ name the platform?
Quora
10. The name of this scalable routing service is derived
from a legendary road that ran from Chicago to Santa Monica, and the port
number used in TCP/UDP for accessing a hierarchical, decentralized naming
system used by computers/services or other resources connected to a network.
What is the name of
this service and who provides it?
Route 53
Amazon/AWS
11. In 1973, 239 institutions
from 15 countries got together to solve a common problem: how to communicate
about cross-border payments. The banks formed a cooperative utility
headquartered in Belgium.
Quickly name this
in-the-news system.
The technology they replaced was
a slower, electro-mechanical communication method that had started in Germany,
being used by Reichspostin 1926, before spreading to Europe and the rest of the
world. Name it.
SWIFT
Telex
12. Referred as the Apple 871 drives in service
documentation, the File-ware floppy diskettes were designed as a high
performance alternative to the Disk II that was used on Apple II machines.
It is however commonly known by
its codename among computer enthusiasts, comparing the slimness of the drive to
the person in the picture.
What was the code
name of this product?
What does the 871
stand for in the Apple 871?
Twiggy
Formatted disk capacity of 871kb
13. SS Great Eastern was an iron sailing steamship designed by X, and built
in London. She was by far the largest ship ever built at the time of her 1858
launch, and her length and gross tonnage was not surpassed for many years. The
designer died in 1859, shortly after the maiden voyage of the ship, when there
was an explosion. Name the designer.
Given her size, she was the
first ship to use the contraption shown, which was designed by Scottish
engineer John McFarlane Gray–a feature common place today in many forms of
vehicular transport.
What feature?
Isambard
Kingdom Brunel
Steering Engine / Power Steering
14. The aforementioned SS
Great Eastern failed at its original purpose of being a passenger ship.
However, a few years later, in 1865-66, captained by Sir James Anderson, the
ship played a critical role in installing, repairing, and ensuring the smooth
functioning and stability of something pathbreaking –the same is commemorated
in the stamp. What?
Trans-Atlantic telegraph
cable
15. The Automated Musical Instrument Company was founded as
National Automatic Music Co. They primarily manufactured nickelodeon pianos.
In 1927, they introduced the
National Automatic Selective Phonograph. Enclosed in wooden boxes, they made
several improvements to these over the years, including fluorescent lights,
plastic parts and other fancy-looking designs. The first time this two-word
term was used to describe this was in a Time magazine article in 1939.
What was this
innovation?
Juke Box
16. The Microsoft
______ originated in 2009 in the Microsoft Redmond campus with Chris Pratley
and a handful of engineers working on a few specific projects after hours. The
name was appropriate, given the origins of several other start-up successes and
captured the notion of innovation and the start-up culture.
One of the Indian apps that has
come out of this project is a productivity and information sharing app for
workplaces, available on Android, iOS and web versions, and is named after an
informal greeting in the western part of India, roughly translating to, “What’s
up?”.
What is the
Microsoft initiative called? What is the app called?
Microsoft Garage
Kaizala
17. What is the issue that is being discussed in
this comic strip?
GIF vs JIF
18. A documentary
series on a famous scientist/inventor by PBS as part of its American
Experience series, has a chapter named The Contract that explores
the perfect partnership between the scientist and another
inventor-cum-entrepreneur.
The latter made his fortune in
the railway industry by pioneering safety features to braking and signaling
systems, which are used to this day.
Who are the two
people?
Nikola Tesla
George Westinghouse
19. This 1973 film, has been
back in the news since 2016, when it was adapted for the small screen. The
film, which was nominated for the Hugo, Saturn and Nebula awards, marked the
directorial debut of a writer.
The film also heralded a
landmark in the industry –this came about when the director-writer found the
cost of animating a particular sequence very costly, and went to a firm called
Information International, Inc. instead.
Identify the film.
What first was achieved?
Westworld
First use of digital image
processing/CGI
20. About six years ago, when this particular social media
site starting gaining popularity, there was some speculation that the site was
named after the man of letters seen in the picture. When asked about this, his
widow, Lady Antonia said, “I cheer it on, I encourage anything called _____”.
The association seemed plausible with the first six letters in both names being
the same.
Identify the site,
which is still in the Top 10 list among social media sites, and the person.
Harold Pinter
Pinterest
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