One of the most anticipated features that came on the iPhone 4S was a new thing called: Siri. Zooming out before concentrating on Siri, mobile assistants were the new rage. Beforehand, people were fascinated by the cloud, and how you could store your files in the Internet and retrieve it from anywhere. You could store your file at home, and get it at your workplace to make a presentation. However, next came virtual assistants. When you’re in the car, it’s hard to send text messages. It’s hard to call people. It’s hard to set reminders that just popped into your head onto your phone. Thus, came the virtual assistant: a new way to be able to talk to your phone to be able to do what you want it to do, and in this case, text message, or call people, and many other features. Apple jumped onto the bandwagon with the iPhone 4S and came out with the new feature: Siri, a virtual assistant that is tailored to assist you in your endeavours by your diction.

Getting started with Siri

To get Siri in the first place, you need an iPhone 4S; although you may have the latest updates on your iPhone 4 or earlier, having an iPhone 4S means you have the hardware that is required to run Siri on your phone. Therefore, if you are interested in using Siri, check into getting an iPhone 4S, as they are getting cheaper every single day.

Unlike Java, Python does not have a string contains method.  Instead, use the in operator or the find method.  The in operator finds treats the string as a word list whereas the find method looks for substrings.  In the example shown below, 'is' is a substring of this but not a word by itself.  Therefore, find recoginizes 'is' in this while the in operator does not.

s = "This be a string"
if s.find("is") == -1:
    print "No 'is' here!"
else:
    print "Found 'is' in the string."
    
if "is" in s:
    print "No 'is' here!"
else:
    print "Found 'is' in the string."

#prints out the following:
Found 'is' in the string
No 'is' here!

Google is one of the most popular websites in the entire world that gets millions of views each day. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that it needs a strong and reliable programming language that it can rely on to run its searches and many of the apps that Google has created. Because of this, Google uses Python to ensure that every time a user uses one of their products, it will work smoothly and flawlessly. That being said, Google uses Python in a variety of different ways, outlined below.

Code.Google.Com
Since its creation, Google has always used Python as part of its core for programming language. This can still be seen today considering the strong relationship the two have with one another. Google supports and sponsors various Python events, and Python works to better itself so that Google remains on top of cutting edge material. One way that they do this is by working with code.google.com. This is the place where Google developers go to code, learn to code and test programs. And with it being built on Python, users can experience exactly what it is that they should expect once they start using the real site.

Google AdWords
Google AdWords is a great way for people to get their websites out there, through the use of advertising. Each time a person types in a certain string of keywords, or if they have history in their cookies, then they’ll come across these AdWords. The way that these AdWords are broadcasted to online web surfers is built on the foundation from Python. Python also helps clients access their AdWord accounts, so that they can tailor where they want their advertisements to go.

Beets
If you have loads of music, but some of it is uncategorized or sitting in a music player without a name or title, Beets is for you. This Google project uses Python and a music database to help arrange and organize music. The best part about Beets is that even if it doesn’t run exactly the way that you want, you can use a bit of Python knowledge to tailor it to be more specific to your desires.

Android-Scripting
Not only does Google run off Python, but Android also has its own value for the language. Whether you are someone who is just creating your own app for your phone or if you are someone who is looking to create the next app that gets downloaded multiple millions of times, you can use Python and Android-Scripting to create an app that does exactly what you want it to do.

YouTube
YouTube one just started as a video viewer on its own, but is now a billion-dollar company that is owned by Google. YouTube uses Python to let users view and upload video, share links, embed video and much more. Much like Google itself, YouTube relies heavily on Python to run seamlessly for the amount of traffic it gets daily.

Python is not your average coding language. Instead, it is a valuable and integral part of some of the biggest websites in the world, one of which is Google. And the resources listed here are just a fraction of what Google uses Python for in total.

Related:

What Are The 10 Most Famous Software Programs Written in Python?

The Future of Java and Python

Ranking Programming Languages: Which are Gaining Popularity?

Top 10 Software Skills for 2014 and Beyond

Working With Strings In Python

Working With Lists In Python

Conditional Programming In Python

IT Outsourcing came to foray as a means for corporations to focus on critical business operations while having a specialized IT company take over the responsibility of managing the IT infrastructure and application development. For corporations especially in the developed countries, IT outsourcing provided two fold advantages, one was access to a highly talented pool of engineers and that too at a lower cost since countries like India were quickly growing their stature as an IT outsourcing hub.

IT Outsourcing is now as mainstream as ever and almost every leading organization outsources some or all parts of its IT infrastructure to a specialized company. It makes pure business sense and with tightening budget controls, IT outsourcing has become one of the strategic cost reduction driver for most organizations. Moreover, IT outsourcing is no more restricted to companies in USA & Europe outsourcing their IT projects to countries like India. Domestic companies within India itself actively use IT outsourcing including the Indian government like the India Post project given to TCS.

Is it then a no brainer that IT Outsourcing is critical to your business? Well, if it is cheaper and does not seem to have any inherent disadvantages why not!! Not really, IT Outsourcing despite proven benefits has its limitations and you should be cognizant be of the same before considering outsourcing your IT operations.

·         Limitations in estimating the actual cost of IT outsourcing:Let’s tackle the biggest driver of IT Outsourcing-Cost Savings. For anyone to estimate the cost savings from IT Outsourcing one needs to be able to predict the cost of outsourcing which then helps understand the cost savings from the same. Yes, at a higher level it is a matter of a simple $ per man-hour costs and IT outsourcing will appear to be cheaper in almost all cases. However, “hidden costs” are commonplace with IT outsourcing and it can be immensely difficult to accurately predict these hidden costs. For example, you need to be able to identify the costs of transitioning your in-house IT to an outsourcer, management overhead needed to manage the outsourcing relationship etc. In addition, IT outsourcing contracts are fixed at the start of the contract and as a result any additional requirement/change tends to be charged additionally. It is no surprise that IT requirements can change frequently and if your outsourcing contract doesn’t account for flexibility, you might be limited in the actual cost savings you might make. There is no surprise that there have been so many instances of IT outsourcing projects overshooting their budgets by a huge margin such as the one government shared services project going 500 million pounds over budget