EFF's list of endangered gizmos

posted by Amit at 4:48 AM Comment (0)

Bridging India's digital divide with Linux: "Anyone who doubts the power of Linux needs only to get hold of a nifty, hand-held device that the Indian army plans to give soldiers in its million-strong army. It is unlikely that Linus Torvalds, creator of Linux, ever intended this open-source operating system to be put to military use. But it is a mark of the robustness of this revolutionary operating system that the Indian army is adopting it, and has now completed user trials on the device.

Called SATHI (short for situational awareness and tactical hand-held information, and Hindi for buddy), the 875-gram device helps soldiers coordinate with one another on the battlefield. It is one of the many spin-offs of a low-cost computer developed indigenously, the basic version of which is available on the market for about US$200. "

-K

posted by Kaushik at 5:53 PM Comment (0)

Some offices opt for cell phones only: "In a move that other companies might soon follow, Sprint announced Monday that about 8,000 employees at Ford Motor will jettison their desktop phones and use cell phones exclusively."

posted by Farookh at 11:33 PM Comment (0)

Feature Films Without Wires: "It was a film without film, a movie without moving parts. The premiere of Rize that took place last Saturday at a ski lodge here was a historic event -- the first feature film to be delivered via wireless internet technology. "

"...here's how it worked: Intel technicians in Hillsboro, Oregon, encrypted Rize, which was shot on high-definition digital video. The file was streamed to Salt Lake City, then beamed via microwave to Park City and through a WiMax connection to the top of a 10,000-foot mountain. "

posted by Farookh at 11:30 PM Comment (0)

Digital Evolution Continues with Xerox Glyphs: "Petroglyph, hieroglyph, dataglyph -- is this the evolution of the glyph, a small mark or figure that has represented words and concepts throughout the ages?
Xerox researchers think so. They've been perfecting dataglyphs: tiny forward (/) or backward (\) slashes which represent the ones and zeros of binary code."

posted by Farookh at 11:06 PM Comment (0)

Machine learns games 'like a human': "CogVis observed human volunteers playing a version of the game using cards marked with a pair of scissors, a piece of paper, or a stone. They were also told to announce when they had won or when the game was a draw. After watching for several rounds, CogVis was able to call the outcome of each game correctly."

posted by Farookh at 11:02 PM Comment (0)

Information Wants to be Liquid: "Hegland's project, Liquid Information, is kinda like Wikipedia meets hypertext. In Hegland's web, all documents are editable, and every word is a potential hyperlink.
Hegland is based at University College London's Interaction Centre and collaborates with Doug Engelbart, inventor of the mouse. Engelbart refers to Hegland's project as 'the next stage of the web.' "

posted by Farookh at 10:55 PM Comment (0)

Computer scientists identify future IT challenges: "A group of British computer scientists have proposed a number of 'grand challenges' for IT that they hope will drive forward research, similar to the way the human genome project drove life sciences research through the 1990s. Ambitious goals include harnessing the power of quantum physics, building systems that can't go wrong, and simulating living creatures in every detail."

The Grand Challenges report is here.

posted by Farookh at 10:42 PM Comment (0)

Asteroid named after ‘Hitchhiker’ humorist: "Asteroid Douglasadams was among the 71 newly named celestial objects announced Tuesday by the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Mass. Other honorees range from Ball Aerospace and the city of Las Vegas to the sometimes-overlooked co-discoverer of the DNA double helix, Rosalind Franklin."

posted by Farookh at 8:29 PM Comment (0)

Ancient inbreeding caused disease: "Many of the illnesses we suffer today are down to our ancestors not having enough choice in the mating game, UK researchers believe."

posted by Farookh at 4:22 PM Comment (0)

Petrified wood created in the lab

"Researchers from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory turned wood into mineral by soaking poplar and pine in a solution and then cooking them.
The process could provide new ways of filtering pollutants, soaking up contaminants and separating chemicals. "

posted by Farookh at 4:19 PM Comment (0)

At least 10 dead in multi-train collision

A southbound Metrolink commuter train struck the Jeep and caromed into a stationary freight train locomotive. As it came apart, the southbound train then struck part of a northbound Metrolink commuter train in Los Angeles.

All because a motorist contemplating suicide got his Jeep Cherokee stuck on a stretch of track, then changed his mind about taking his life and fled from the vehicle. And now he faces potential homicide charges.


posted by Anonymous at 2:23 PM Comment (0)

Boy brings encyclopaedia to book: "A schoolboy has uncovered several mistakes in the latest edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica - regarded by readers as an authority on everything.

Lucian George, 12, from north London, found five errors on two of his favourite subjects - central Europe and wildlife - and wrote to complain."

-K

posted by Kaushik at 1:25 PM Comment (0)

Book - Shadow Cities: A Billion Squatters, A New Urban World

Heard bits and pieces of a discussion with the author on NPR yesterday. He mentioned that 50% of people in Bombay (yeah, ok, Mumbai) are squatters (living on land that isn't owned by them and that they don't pay for). That number amazed me.

"The vast, bustling favela of Rocinha in Rio de Janeiro, for example, has distinct neighborhoods, apartments for rent, dance parties in the street and local entrepreneurs, as well as drug lords and gangs. In Nairobi's Kibera, many squatters have white-collar jobs, yet lack the income to rent more than a simple mud hut."

"Pointing out that many major cities were founded on squatter-style neighborhoods, Neuwirth treats readers to some fascinating historical case studies in London and New York."

posted by Farookh at 12:32 PM Comment (0)

Researchers tailor surround sound
"Spatial filters examine how the features of a person's head and ears alter sounds before they reach the eardrum.
...
Mr Tew said the measurements would be recorded on a card or downloaded from the internet and be readable by next-generation sound systems. "

posted by Farookh at 11:25 AM Comment (0)

Tiny robots made of cells and microchips: "Rat cells grown onto microscopic silicon chips worked as tiny robots, perhaps a first step towards a self-assembling device, researchers working in the United States reported on Sunday."

posted by Farookh at 12:08 AM Comment (2)

Massively Parallel Tech Mathematically Derives Amdahl's Law: "Gene Amdahl, a recognized authority on parallel processing, crafted 'Amdahl's Law' in 1967, which states that there are communication issues that eventually place an upper limit on the maximum speed of parallel processing systems, therefore mitigating much of the benefit of parallelization. Amdahl's Law has until now limited parallel processing's appeal as a commercially viable solution."

posted by Farookh at 12:00 AM Comment (0)

Amazing hominid haul in Ethiopia: "'It is a very important finding because it does confirm hominids walked upright on two feet definitely 4.5 million years ago,' said lead author Sileshi Semaw, of the Craft Stone Age Institute at Indiana University in Bloomington, US."

posted by Farookh at 2:02 PM Comment (0)

Branson mulls starting Indian airline: "British entrepreneur Richard Branson is considering starting his own low-cost airline in India rather than taking a stake in an existing carrier, The Business newspaper has reported."

posted by Farookh at 1:59 PM Comment (0)

Delicious Monster is the Mac software company behind the hit Delicious
Library, a program for cataloging collections of books, movies and
games. The software is selling like hot cakes and has garnered rave
reviews and awards, yet the company's headquarters is a Seattle coffee
house.
....

Version two, due later this year, will allow users to browse each
other's libraries. It will be location-aware, letting users know who has
what in their neighborhood or city.

It will also work on local networks (using Apple Computer's Rendezvous),
so people can browse their colleagues' or fellow students' collections,
just as Apple's iTunes exposes other users' playlists.

The current version already has a checkout manager for keeping track of
loans.

As well as running personal lending libraries, the software can set up
social connections: What better barometer of someone's personality than
their taste in books and film?

"If you look at my movie collection, you can learn a ton about me," said
Matas. "It's like a personal profile on Friendster listing interests and
hobbies, but it

posted by Amit at 3:20 PM Comment (0)

Tsunami moves North Pole, shortens daytime: "Daytime is now 2.68 microseconds shorter because of last month's tsunami."

posted by Farookh at 12:13 AM Comment (0)

Yahoo! It's a boy!: "A Romanian couple named their son Yahoo as a sign of gratitude for meeting over the Internet, a Bucharest newspaper reported Thursday."

posted by Farookh at 12:08 AM Comment (0)

Glass That Keeps Its Cool: "Ivan Parkin and Troy Manning at University College London have developed “intelligent glass,” which selectively reflects the infrared on hot days."

posted by Farookh at 3:28 PM Comment (0)

Apple's Profit Quadruples, Thanks to IPod: "Apple's chain of retail stores had revenue of $561 million in the quarter, an average of $5.9 million a store."

$5.9 million per store is amazing! When they launched stores I was extremely skeptical about the move especially with the failed ventures by Gateway etc. I wonder how much profit they are generating given that they import stone from Italy and glass from elsewhere and are located in upscale places. I guess with the iPod they have a cash cow and don't care - for now.

posted by Farookh at 8:20 PM Comment (0)

'Torture' to uncover brain secret: "Volunteers are to undergo torture to see if faith eases pain."

posted by Farookh at 9:26 PM Comment (0)

Microsoft to digitise Indian maps: "The Government on Wednesday asked software giant Microsoft to put its vast collection of satellite images, remote sensing data and other information about the country's terrain in digital form."

I had heard rumors that MSR was considering Pune as the location for the Indian research center but lost out to Bangalore. Bummer.

posted by Farookh at 12:53 PM Comment (1)

Samsung develops mobile phone with motion-recognition capability : "The SCH-S310 phone allows users to dial by waving the phone to write numbers in the air instead of pressing a keypad, Samsung said.

Users could also delete unsolicited commercial text messages by shaking the phone up and down."
...
"...the world's first mobile phone with the capability to convert spoken words into text messages. "

Samsung is just kicking ass these days. They are dominating the cellphone market and they are also doing great on large screen televisions. Sony, Nokia and others should be very scared of them.

posted by Farookh at 10:28 AM Comment (0)

The Free Lunch Is Over: A Fundamental Turn Toward Concurrency in Software

A nice article by Herb Sutter about how processor speeds are capping out and developers getting automagic perf improvements in their code due to improved CPU performance is coming to an end. He talks about the trend towards multi-core processors (not just hyperthreading) and the need for developers to understand concurrent programming more than ever before to get the maximum from the CPU (which will predominantly be multi-core).

Rather than programmers getting better at concurrent programming, I would rather have the JITers in the .NET runtime (or Java runtime) to be smarter about generating parallel execution paths, do the necessary magic to get better cache coherency and the languages supporting hints on what is parallelizable that the JITers can act upon. RDBMS's (SQL Server, Oracle, et al) do a good job in generating parallel code execution plans out of SQL, our OO languages need to do the same and here is where JITed code stands to benefit imo. Herb also states that most apps are going to be CPU bound soon (rather than IO bound). I guess he also include cache misses and CPU stalls in this, but for me being CPU bound is if the app is really crunching the CPU vs stalling for code or data to be fetched. I think the latter is a bigger problem at this point and for some time in the future.

posted by Farookh at 7:28 PM Comment (1)

Go metric :
From 20th January the measurement of speed limits on Irish roads will change from miles per hour to kilometres per hour (km/h). In addition there will be significant changes to the speed limits on some categories of Irish roads, the most important being the lowering of the speed limit on most regional and local roads outside of built-up areas from 60mph to 80 km/h (equivalent to 50mph).


posted by Anonymous at 4:55 PM Comment (0)

US parents outsource maths tuition to teachers in Kerala: "Twice in a week, Ann Maria, a sixth grader at Silver Oak Elementary School, California logs on to the internet from home after school hours. Ann is not chatting up her friends.

She is connecting to her personal tutor, already online, armed with headset and a pen mouse sitting in a call centre like cubicle almost a timezone away in Panampillynagar, Kochi, Kerala."

Somewhat surprised that this is happening. Somebody told me that funerals are also being outsourced to churches in Kerala from countries where it is too expensive to hold a full service.

-K

posted by Kaushik at 1:19 PM Comment (2)

Deep Impact
Deep Impact is to launch tomorrow with a July 4th impact date.

posted by Farookh at 1:04 PM Comment (0)

Man auctions ad space on forehead: "A 20-year-old US man is selling advertising space on his forehead to the highest bidder on website eBay."

posted by Farookh at 8:41 PM Comment (0)

Is It Real or Is It Photoshopped?: "Farid and his students have so far developed six algorithms that detect disruptions in that pattern, including those caused by differences in the resolution or graininess of separate original images."

posted by Farookh at 2:42 PM Comment (0)

Mass DNA test for US murder town: "Police in a small town in Massachusetts are hoping to test the DNA of the entire adult male population as they try to solve a three-year-old murder."

posted by Farookh at 12:42 PM Comment (0)

Recently saw the making of Viaduc de Millau in Extreme Engineering on Discovery. Super crazy!

Wikipedia: "The Millau Viaduct (French: le Viaduc de Millau) is a cable-stayed road bridge that spans the valley of the River Tarn near Millau in southern France. It is the highest vehicular bridge in the world, with one pier's summit at 341 metres (1,118 ft)—slightly higher than the Eiffel Tower and only 40 m (132 feet) shorter than the Empire State Building. It was formally opened on 14 December 2004 and opened to traffic on 16 December 2004."

posted by Amit at 5:04 AM Comment (1)

Stapless Stapler: Instead of using the tiny pieces of metal that add up to lots of waste, this ingenious little device joins your papers by punching a small, neat hole in your documents and folding the remaining flaps together for a secure binding. No paper is torn off of your sheets and there’s nothing to toss out or pry apart with your fingernails.

-K

posted by Kaushik at 4:05 PM Comment (0)

LadderMill: The LadderMill is the response to the challenge for exploiting the gigantic energy source contained in the airspace up to high altitudes of 10 km.

The concept has been developed with the aim to convert wind energy at altitude in electricity on the ground in an environmental and cost effective manner.

It's basically a ladder of wings or kites. Interesting.

-K

posted by Kaushik at 4:03 PM Comment (0)

Novel calendar system creates regular dates: An American physicist has developed a "rational" calendar of 364 days, in which each date falls on the same day of the week every year, thus saving profs the bother of drawing up new homework schedules every September.

His constraints meant eight months would have different lengths than they do now. March, June, September, and December would each contain 31 days, while the other months would each get 30. To keep the calendar in synchronisation with the seasons, Henry inserted an extra week - which is not part of any month - every five or six years. He named the addition "Newton Week" in honour of his favourite physicist, Isaac Newton.

"If I had my way, everyone would get Newton Week off as a paid vacation and could spend the time doing physics, or other activities of their choice," he says.

Despite this incentive, Henry says he has encountered resistance to his plan - mainly because people would be "stuck" with a birthday that always falls on a Wednesday, for example. Henry, who is among that group, is not moved by the argument. "You have my permission to celebrate your birthday the preceding or following Saturday," he says.

-K

posted by Kaushik at 3:18 PM Comment (0)

Sketch a move: "Sketch-a-Move is a 5 weeks project I did with Anab Jain (anabs website). The brief was set by Mattel Hotwheels to come up with a new concept for their small toycars.

Draw a straight line on top of the car, lift the pen and the car shoots off in a straight line. Draw a circle on the car and the car starts wildly spinning around. Draw a complicated squiggle and the car spirals in and out. "

Watch the video!

-K

posted by Kaushik at 3:13 PM Comment (1)

Watch Paper: "This is a fully functional clock that is printed onto ordinary paper. Using a heat sensitive coating, the minutes and hours blur from one into the other in a very subtle, warm and organic way. The ornamented wallpaper was used to contrast the digital interactivity with our perception of traditional, static wall space. The graphic surface however could be changed to display any graphic or photographic motive.

Using the familiar language of segmented LED displays and running from a tiny chip, WATCH PAPER can be integrated into Wallpaper of any printable size. It was designed to appear only when it is needed in order to be an un-obtrusive element of the interior.

WATCH PAPER is the first of a number of products that we are developing for a range of different applications. Interactive walls, display systems and customised, made-to-order installations."

-K

posted by Kaushik at 1:25 PM Comment (0)