Jeetu's shared memory

MUMBAI: An HDFC branch at Shimpoli on the busy S V Road in Borivli (W) was the third bank to be robbed in the city in less than two months, with five gunmen making off with Rs 27.5 lakh.

The operation was over in less than five minutes and no one was injured. The police arrived 10-15 minutes after the gunmen had fled the bank as the silent alarm was not working.

Barely an hour after it opened for business, an armed man clad in a pair of jeans, windcheater and hooded cap entered the bank at 9.21 am and overpowered the lone security officer—who had a rifle on him—with a knife. The 11 employees and three customers were paralysed with fear. He was followed by four masked men, armed with revolvers.

“The man brandished a knife and disarmed the guard inside the main entrance. He emptied the guard’s rifle of all bullets and carried the weapon with him. Four of his aides, all masked, followed him into the branch,” said a police official. The gunmen—clad in jeans and windcheaters and believed to be between 25-35 years old—herded the staffers and customers to a corner, brandishing their weapons at them.

Another guard in the bank had just finished his duty for the day and was unarmed; he was in plainclothes and was made to stand with the rest of the hostages. Everyone was instructed to switch off their cellphones. While the others were guarding the hostages, one of the gunmen approached the cashier’s desk and asked where the money was kept. The teller had Rs 27.5 lakh—banks usually keep more money on Mondays because of a surge in transactions at the beginning of the week.

The robbers quickly stacked wads of notes into a green duffel bag. Eyewitnesses said they made no attempt to enter the strongroom. They carried with them the ammunition from the guard’s rifle and his arms licence.

The men are suspected to have boarded a bus headed towards the eastern suburbs. Eyewitnesses said they conversed amongst themselves in Hindi. Four of the five robbers were masked; CCTVs inside the bank have captured images of the unmasked crook. “Special teams have been formed to hunt for the culprits, who are certainly professionals,” officials said, adding that the modus operandi of past heists were being checked for similarities. The Borivli police has lodged a case of dacoity. The crime branch is also conducting a parallel investigation.

The possibility of the gang having conducted a recce hasn’t been ruled out. “We have some leads and are working on them,” said zonal DCP Sharda Raut. Police officials do not believe that it was the same gang that had robbed Model Bank at Malad in June.

HDFC bank officials confirmed the incident but did not make any official statement.

Many politicians, including Shiv Sena MLA Vinod Ghoshalkar and BJP Mumbai chief Gopal Shetty expressed their concern about the growing number of daylight robberies in Mumbai, and have taken up the issue with DCP Raut.

Looks like
“>BlackBerry maker has provided the Indian government with “proposals for local security agencies to monitor BlackBerry service” so that, when necessary, the Indian government can tap into BlackBerry users’ email. And while that may not sound too positive a development, it was either that or risk an outright ban.

A new hard drive on a chip portends reduced weight and size in portable PCs.

The Centre has conveyed to the BlackBerry makers to install its server in India for tracking its messenger and enterprise mail service as data from RIM’s Canada-based server could affect India’s national security.

It’s official. Google has acquired Like.com. In a post on Like.com’s homepage, the company’s CEO and Founder Munjal Shah writes that the visual search engine has been bought by Google. We originally reported the acquisition last weekend. While terms of the deal were not disclosed, we’ve heard it’s valued at upwards of $100 million.

Shah’s message doesn’t really give us any hints as to what Google will be doing with Like.com but he alludes to the fact that he (and his team) will continue to work on visual search and cross-matching in e-commerce for the search giant.

The history behind Like.com and Google is complicated. In late 2005 Google was on the verge of acquiring a company called Riya, which was Shah’s first attempt at image facial recognition and tagging for consumers. Google eventually walked away from Riya.

In 2009, Riya was shut down, but the company had already refocused its efforts on ecommerce – using the Riya core technology to let people search visually by seeing images that are similar to other images. Like.com was born. And the company raised nearly $50 million in venture capital since 2006 and has revenue in the $50 million/year range.

From the product standpoint, Like.com operated its visual search engine and then went on to launch a number of smaller sites devotes to fashion and e-commerce. The company launched shopping personalization engine Covet.com; acquired street style social network Weardrobe, and rolled out visual styling tool Couturious. Most recently, Like.com launched a fashion Q&A site, What To Wear, which takes on a model similar to Q&A site Quora.

But there was a question as to what these verticals did for Like.com. The site’s traffic seemed to stagnate over the past few months. And the other sites in the family don’t have nearly as much traffic as Like.com

I doubt that Google wants to become a mini-fashion e-commerce empire so it’s unclear what Google wants with Like.com. It could be that Google, which has experimented with visual search, likes what it sees.

In the end, it seems like one thing stands clear. If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.