Blue-Tooth Technology

Er. Neeraj Dubey

Blue tooth technology is an Industry specification standard for use in various devices for short-range communications. As a radio-based technology it allows devices to share information's over a maximum range of 10m. Blue tooth enables mobile computers, mobile phones, portable handheld, and the Internet to "talk the talk" without cables. With blue tooth, devices do not need to be looking at each other unlike other wireless technologies (i.e infrared). As long as two blue tooth devices are close enough to each other, it is possible to make a connection. With Blue tooth technology getting connected takes on a whole new meaning.
Blue tooth wireless technology is a short-range technology. Blue tooth wireless technology makes it possible to transmit signals over short distances between telephones, computers and other devices and thereby simplify communication and synchronization between devices. It is global standard that:-
* Eliminates wires and cables between both stationary and mobile devices.
* Facilitates both data and voice communication
* Offers the possibility of Adhoc Networks and delivers the ultimate synchronicity between all your personal devices.
The Blue-tooth Wireless technology comprises hardware, software and interoperability requirements. Beyond unleashing devices by replacing cables, Bluetooth wireless technology provides a universal bridge to existing data network, a peripheral interface and a mechanism to form small private adhoc groupings of connected devices away from fixed network infrastructures.
Blue radio uses a fast acknowledgement and frequency-hopping scheme to make the link robust, even in noisy radio environment.
One would wonder how bluetooth got its name. It has an interesting heritage. Bluetooth is named after the 10th century Viking King Herald Blatand (Blatand meaning Bluetooth). He was instrumental in uniting the countries in the Baltic region like Sweden, Denmark, Norway and thus emerging as a powerful force. Bluetooth aims at uniting the computing and telecommunication World and so achieving the same greatness.
Now the question arises. Is Bluetooth a technology, a standard or an application?
Bluetooth is all about a world with no wires. Functionally, it is no different from physical cable. The key difference is that Bluetooth uses a radio link to connect devices instead of a cable, thus idea behind Bluetooth is that we should be able to connect different devices that are equipped with Bluetooth, so that can communicate and exchange information without any wires. It is low Power, high-speed microwave technology.

The Invention that Changed our Minds

G V Joshi

The geocentric theory which maintained that the Earth on which we live, was the center of the universe, dominated ancient and medieval science. It seemed evident to early astronomers that the rest of the universe moved about a stable, motionless Earth, which appeared like a huge flat disk. The Sun, Moon, the then known five planets, and stars could be seen moving about Earth along circular paths day after day year after year.
It appeared logical to believe that Earth was stationary, for nothing seemed to make it move. Finally, geocentrism was in accordance with the theocentric (God-centered) world view, dominant in the Middle Ages, when science was a part of theology.
The geocentric model created by Greek astronomers assumed that the celestial bodies moving about the Earth followed perfectly circular paths. Greek mathematicians and philosophers regarded the circle as the perfect geometric figure and consequently the only one appropriate for celestial motion.
To explain this motion of the planets (called retrograde in astronomy), Greek astronomers like Ptolemy (90 A. D.-168 A. D.), devised complicated models in which planets moved along circles (called epicycles) that were superimposed on circular orbits about the Earth. These geocentric models were able to explain, for example, why Mercury and Venus never move more than 28° and 47° respectively from the Sun.
As astronomers improved their methods of observation and measurement, the models became increasingly complicated, with constant additions of epicycles. Nonetheless, the geocentric theory persisted.
In 1514, Copernicus first suggested a replacement for the geocentric system. According to Copernicus, a heliocentric theory could explain the motion of celestial bodies more simply than the geocentric view. In the Copernican model, the Earth orbits the Sun along with all the other planets. Such a model could explain the retrograde motion of a planet without resorting to epicycles, and could also explain why Mercury and Venus never stray more than 28° and 47° from the Sun. However, Copernicus’s work did not spell the demise of geocentrism.
The Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe (1546-1601), a brilliant experimental scientist whose measurements of the positions of the stars and planets surpassed any that were made prior to the invention of the telescope, proposed a model that attempted to serve as a compromise between the geocentric model and the Copernican model .
According to Dr A. L. Basham, the ancient Indian astronomers also knew of seven members of the solar system - the sun, the moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Ancient astronomers followed the geocentric theory - that the earth was the centre of the universe - though, in 497 A.D. Aryabhatta had suggested that the earth revolved round the sun and rotated on its own axis.
To spread his new knowledge about the objects in the sky, Galileo arranged the world’s first star-gazing parties with his telescope, to the rich and powerful in Venice and elsewhere.
For the first time, people saw that the Moon was pockmarked with craters, that Saturn had strange rings around it and that Jupiter had moons of its own, and that even the sun had ugly spots.
All this annoyed the Pope. Galileo had to pay dearly for his so called sins, ultimately dying in disgrace under house arrest, a lonely, broken man. He had to publicly acknowledge that he had been wrong to have said that the Earth moves around the Sun. It is said that after his confession, Galileo quietly whispered “And yet, it moves.”
The very year that Galileo died, a child (Isaac Newton) was born who finally completed the geocentric to heliocentric revolution. In the mean time another astronomer Kepler had developed his three laws of planetary movement around he Sun.
Newton even invented a new type of telescope, the reflecting telescope, which is the basis of modern telescope technology.
With the passage of time it was accepted that the Earth was not the center of the Universe. But only on 31 October 1992, Pope John Paul II expressed regret for how Galileo was treated, and officially conceded that the Earth was not stationary.
United Nations has scheduled 2009 to be the International Year of Astronomy

Stem Cell Research

Dr. K S Parthasarathy

Stem cells are "blank slate" cells which can divide and renew over long periods. They can develop into a specialized cell, tissue or organ. They can serve as a sort of repair system for the body. Past few years have seen unbelievable advancements in the field of stem cell research.
Medical specialists believe that stem cells have unlimited potential which can be used to return memory to Alzheimer's patients, to enable wheelchair bound patients to walk or to replace damaged skin of patients. The possibility of such miracle cures lies in tweaking the cells to develop into desired types.
Recently, researchers grew prostate glands in mice by using a single stem cell transplanted from the prostates of donor mice. The findings may pave the way to new therapies for prostate cancer (Scientific American, October 22,2008). Stem cells are capable of dividing indefinitely. Cancer cells multiply uncontrollably. So it is reasonable to assume that stem cells may have a role in the induction of cancer.
The researchers Wei-Qiang Gao and his colleagues from Genetech, a Californian biotechnology firm reported their success in identifying stem cells in mouse prostates in the British Journal Nature on October 22 this year. They transplanted a stem cell below the kidney in laboratory reared mice and found 14 functioning prostates from out of the 97 single cell transplants.
Scientists have developed techniques to generate stem cells in vitro. It provides invaluable opportunities to study human embryology.
In 1998, scientists at the University of Wisconsin isolated and cultured human embryonic stem cells. This year scientists at the Universities of Granada and Leon confirmed that they can use stem cells from human umbilical cord blood to treat liver diseases.
In August 2008, researchers from Harward Medical School and Children's Hospital in Boston, USA used a new method to re-program ordinary cells from patients with ten incurable genetic diseases and conditions. These virtually immortal cells may be grown in the lab; researchers can closely watch the progress of the diseases; it offers an opportunity to develop treatment for them.
The ICMR guidelines address ethical and scientific concerns to encourage responsible practices in the area of stem cell research and therapy. " Since the latter is being contemplated with greater vigour in India, it was necessary to formulate guidelines for development of clinical grade stem guidelines for development of clinical grade stem cells" Dr. M.K Bhan (Secretary, Department of Biotechnology) and Dr. N.K Ganguly (Director General, ICMR asserted in the foreword to the guidelines.
According to them, ICMR prepared the guidelines for stem cell research and therapy, for adult, cord blood and embryonic stem cells in response to the support provided by the Government to facilitate stem cell research in India so as to improve understanding of human health and disease, evolve strategies to treat serious diseases.
According to Department of Biotechnology (DOB), Government of India, over 30 institutions, hospitals and industry are involved in stem cell research in India. Clinicians and scientists are collaborating in a few institutions.
Stem cells are routinely used to repair corneal surface disorders at L.V Prasad Eye Institute, Hyderabad. In the January 30, 2008 issue of the Scientific American, Larry Greenemeier described the pioneering work carried out by this institute.
In an article published in 2006 in the Asian Biotechnology and Development Review, Alka Sharma of DOB summarized some of the other Indian developments in the field: Christian Medical College, Vellore has established technology to collect, isolate and purify stem cells for haematopoietic stem cell transplantation. An institution set up by industry has characterized 10 stem cell lines, including two neuronal cell lines.
The National Centre for Cell Science, Pune, which received one cell line, has its research focus on embryonic stem cells; haematopoietic stem cells; treatment of leukaemia; sickle cell anemia and skin and tissue engineering.
Though currently the annual investment for stem cell research in India is only very modest, at a few million US$, the Central Government has plans to create centers of excellence, generate adequate human embryonic stem cell line and to develop human resource through training, short and long term overseas fellowships etc. to support this nascent field. - (PTI)

Professor Virginia Shepherd knows it isn't easy being green in the world of physics: she's a plant neurobiologist who wants to reinstate the idea that plants have a sophisticated electrical signaling system similar to the human nervous system. It is a controversial idea, first proposed by the multifaceted physicist Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose nearly a century ago.
"Bose had argued all along the importance of electrical signaling in plants, and the world has now come around to this view. I consider him my guru," said Shepherd, a biophysicist at Sydney University in Australia, while delivering a lecture - titled Reflections on the Many-in-ones: J.C. Bose and the roots of Plant Neurobiology - to commemorate the scientist's 150th birth anniversary last week at the Bose Institute, Calcutta. Bose had shown that electrical activities are associated with the dipping of mimosa leaves and the rhythmic movement of desmodium leaflets, and that these plants have an electromechanical pulse, a nervous system, a form of intelligence and are capable of remembering and learning. "The idea was not well received and even ridiculed by the contemporary scientific establishment -- perhaps because of a colonial or a racist bias against his work," she suggested. Said Sibaji Raha, a physicist and the director of Bose Institute, "Bose extended his specialist knowledge of physics of electromagnetic radiation - which first made radio communication possible - into insightful experiments on the life processes of plants."
Shepherd first got to know about Bose's electrophysiological experiments 16 years ago when she stepped into the world of biophysics in her university. Ever since then she's been trying to decipher how plant cells communicate with one another, how they sense touch, and how they transmit electrical signals.
Soon after she took up research, Shepherd discovered that she was not alone in the emerging field of plant neurobiology. "I found a growing body of research showing how plants perceive their circumstances and respond to their environment in an integrated fashion. And some sort of a structure of information network operates within the plants," said Shepherd. Indeed, scientists around the world began discovering how the tiny strangle weed can sense the presence of friends, foes, and food, and make adroit decisions on how to approach them. Siblings of the sea rocket can recognise other plants that have grown from its own mother's seeds and don't compete with each other as fiercely as unrelated plants do. The ground-hugging mayapple was found to plan its growth two years into the future, based on computation of weather patterns. "The most remarkable finding, however, was the parasitic dodder vine's ability to sniff out victims," said Shepherd.
Last year, in a symposium on plant neurobiology, researchers at Pennsylvania State University showed a chilling video footage in which a dodder vine (Cuscuta pentagona) sinisterly sniffed for its prey and grabbed a succulent tomato plant. "It was amazing to watch that given the choice of wheat and tomato, the dodder picked the tomato," she said.
However, in spite of such definitive evidence, most plant biologists are loath to believe that such responses to the environment are the result of active intentional reasoning. "Bose had proposed way back in the 1920s that plants are sensitive explorers of their world, coordinating movements and responses like intelligent organisms. The recent findings vindicate his work, reaffirming that plants have an integrated communication system. They have also been found to use the hormone auxin, akin to serotonin - a human neurotransmitter that transmits nerve signal," says Shepherd.
Yet sceptics say it's less a product of intelligence than mechanical directives. "For centuries, plants have been regarded as passive creatures. Their development is thought to be predetermined, with only temporary interruptions in response to stress," Anthony Trewavas, a plant biochemist at the University of Edinburgh and a prominent scholar of plant intelligence, wrote in the journal Nature. The root of the problem is the assumption that plants have, or should have, human-like feelings in order to be considered intelligent life forms.
Shepherd believes that further damage was done by the 1970s hit book The Secret Life of Plants and the film based on it, which propagated quite unscientifically that greenery had feelings and emotions. Ever since then many scientists started avoiding discussions on plant intelligence. "Basically it was a clash of philosophies between materialistic and holistic thoughts, exactly like what happened in Bose's time," expounded Shepherd.
"But the attitude of scientists is changing quite substantially," added Shepherd. Three years ago the Society for Plant Neurobiology was established to discuss research on plant signaling and behaviour at the molecular, genetic, cellular and electrophysiological level. "The society holds an annual meeting every year to discuss both sides of the controversy," she added. Their heated arguments reiterate how Bose's research is relevant till this day. "Intelligence isn't only about having a brain, or eyes or ears," she clarified. "If you define intelligence as the capacity to solve problems, plants have a lot to teach us," she added. INAV

The Future Lights

G V Joshi

A new way of making cheap Gallium Nitride (GaN) light emitting diodes (LED) may see household lighting bills reduced by up to 75% within the next five years.
Gallium Nitride (GaN), a man-made semiconductor used to make LEDs, emits brilliant light but uses very little electricity. Until now high production costs had made GaN lighting too expensive for wide spread use in homes and offices.
Now, the scientists working at the Cambridge University, UK have developed a new way of making GaN LEDs for a tenth of current prices. Since the 1990s, GaN is made in laboratories on expensive sapphire wafers, but it can now be grown on silicon wafers. This low-cost method could mean that cheap mass produced GaN LEDs might become widely available for lighting homes and offices in the next five years.
This could cut the proportion of electricity used for lights from 20% to 5%. That means that the power shut periods experienced by us routinely could be a thing of the past.
A GaN LED can work for 100,000 hours so, on average, it only needs replacing after 60 years. And, unlike currently available energy-saving tube lights or compact fluorescent lamps (CFL), GaN LEDs are also eco-friendly because they do not contain harmful mercury. GaN LEDs also have the advantage of turning on instantly and being dimmable. They are totally silent.
According to Professor Colin Humphreys, lead scientist on the project, "This could well be the holy grail in terms of providing our lighting needs for the future. We are very close to achieving highly efficient, low cost white LEDs that can take the place of both traditional and currently available low energy light bulbs."
The dynamo invented by Michael Faraday ushered the age of electricity. This was followed by the invention of filament lamp announced on December 21, 1879. However, the filament lamp delivers only a fraction of 1 percent of its electricity in the form of light and the rest is wasted as heat.
The fluorescent lamp called as tube light or Mercury tube light in India was perfected in the first quarter of the 20th century. Tube lights consume less electricity and yield more light. They are more efficient than the filament lamps, but are bulky and fragile and require starter or ballast circuits that sometimes give out a buzz which can be heard.
The modern Compact Fluorescent lamp (CFL), introduced in mid 1990s, also works like a tube light, and is very compact. There is no flicker and it starts quickly. CFL lamps are being made in India by a number of manufacturers. The initial cost is high, but they are very long lasting and consume much less electricity, even less than tube light and give out a pleasant white light.
A LED is a semiconductor diode that emits light when charged with electricity. LEDs are used for display and lighting in a whole range of electrical and electronic products.
The first known report of a light-emitting solid-state diode was made in 1907 by the British experimenter H. J. Round of Marconi Labs, USA. Russian Oleg Vladimirovich Losev independently created the first LED in the mid 1920s, but his research was ignored, and no practical use was made of the discovery for several decades.
The first practical red LED was developed in 1962 by Nick Holonyak Jr., while working at General Electric Company. Holonyak is seen as the "father of the light-emitting diode". Yellow, red and red-orange LEDs followed in 1972. However, they were extremely costly, and so had little practical application.
The Monsanto Corporation of the US was the first company to mass-produce red LEDs suitable for indicators in 1968. Hewlett Packard (HP) introduced LEDs for alphanumeric displays and they were integrated into HP's early handheld calculators in 1968.
GaN was first produced over 30 years ago. GaN LED was first developed by Jacques Pankove at RCA in 1969. However, his devices were too feeble to be of much practical use. Over the next 25 years, many other people tried to make blue diodes, without much success.
In January 1993 Shuji Nakamura working at a small Japanese company called Nichia Chemicals made GaN LED, not just blue, but bright blue 100 times brighter than the feeble blue glow other devices emitted then.
For the electronics industry, blue light is attractive for many reasons. Blue light can be combined with red and green - the other primary colors of the light spectrum - to produce any other color, including white. All colour LEDS mean a radically new type of lighting - the end of the light bulb.
The invention of a bright-blue LED by a little known Japanese company surprised everybody. From his experience, Nakamura already knew that making blue was the big challenge. Nakamura chose to work on gallium nitride not because he was confident of success, but he chose a material that almost no one else was working on.
The existence of blue LEDs quickly led to the development of the first white LED, which employed a phosphor coating to mix yellow light with blue to produce light that appears white.
Nakamura was awarded the 2006 Millennium Technology Prize for his invention. If all of the world's light bulbs were replaced with LEDs for a period of 10 years, economists estimate that there would be massive reduction in Electrical energy consumption, crude oil consumption and carbon dioxide emissions.
Research to develop GaN LEDs should be taken up seriously in India, for white light lamps based on GaN LEDs are going to be future lights.

Mouse and Medical Research

G V Joshi

A mouse (plural mice) is a small animal that belongs to one of numerous rodent species. The best known mouse species is the common house mouse. It is found in nearly all countries and serves as a guinea pig in biology. The average mouse lives only 1 - 2 years. A fully-grown mouse weighs between 15 to 30 gm. Mice are prolific breeders, producing six to ten litters continuously throughout the year.
Mice are common experimental animals in biology and physiology primarily because they are mammals. Ninety-nine percent of human genes share a comparable version in the mouse, and many of them appear in the same order in our chromosomes. Humans also have similar reproductive and nervous systems.
The mouse genome has been sequenced, and virtually all mouse genes have human homologs. In evolutionary biology, homology has come to mean any similarity between characters that is due to their shared ancestry.
They can also be manipulated in ways that would be considered unethical to do with humans. About 25 million mice are used in labs around the world each year and the number is on the rise.
The use of animals in physiological scientific investigations, also called vivisection in medical language, has been a very old practice. The first extensively documented practice of vivisection was done by Galen of Pergamum (130-200 A.D.) who performed dissections and vivisections on pigs, monkeys and dogs to study the physiology of the human body, since dissection of the human corpse was prohibited by Roman law.
Since then, the use of animals in medical research has yielded a lot of knowledge, both about the anatomy and physiology of the subject animals and the human body in all branches of medicine.
In fact, the mouse might have got off to a much earlier start if Gregor Mendel - the father of genetics - hadn't been thwarted by his bishop. In the 1850s, Mendel began his investigation of inheritance by studying coat - colour traits in mice. But he was a monk and his bishop decreed that a monastery was no place to experiment with mice Mendel switched to a study of peas.
Biologists were not the only people to experiment with mice. Breeders of fancy mice had tinkered with mouse for centuries. In the seventeenth-century Japanese bred and collected unique varieties, creating albinos and mice with spotted coats.
They also bred "waltzing mice" that seemed to dance.
By the 20th century, such breeders had established clubs and exhibited their prize specimens at mouse shows.
One hundred years ago in a lab at Harvard University, a young zoology student was busily overseeing the breeding of pair after pair of brother and sister mice. He was trying to create the first inbred lab animal -a strain of mouse whose genes would be stable and identical.
Such a mouse would allow biologists to reliably replicate their experiments for the first time. His professor said it couldn't be done, but he proved him wrong. We are all indebted to those inbred mice and their descendants, which have helped researchers, develop treatments for a wide range of human diseases.
Mice gained their new significance not long after the completion of the human genome project in 2001. Scientists rushed to finish sequencing the mouse's DNA sequence the following year, and when they put the two genetic codes side-by-side they found something they'd always suspected the genes of mice and humans are virtually identical.
The obvious differences between us and them lie not in the genes themselves but in where, when and how those genes are activated. "It means that the anatomy and physiology of a mouse is pretty much similar to what you see in a human."
Hardly a week goes by without some new findings about heart disease, cancer, obesity, anxiety, or the life-prolonging benefits of red wine and like, all based on studies and experiments on mice.
There are many mice farms in the US. The Jackson Laboratory, a nonprofit supplier in Bar Harbor, Maine, sells more than 2 million a year. Charles River Laboratories of Wilmington, Mass, makes about $500 million annually selling and caring for lab animals, most of them mice.
Depending on the specific genetic manipulation, the cost to create a custom mouse is usually in the tens of thousands of dollars. Once the line has been established, individual animals can run into the hundreds.
The blind mice cost about $250. And for your own custom designed mouse, with the genetic modification of your choosing, expect to pay as much as $100,000.
India scientists have one lab for breeding transgenic mice at the center for Cellular and Molescular Biology (CCMB) at Hyderabad, (AP). The lab, which houses transgenic mice for biomedical research, has been funded by the Department of Science and Technology and the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research.
Although transgenic mice facilities exist in a few other laboratories in India for in-house research, the new facility is available for use for any research group in India in the public or private sector. It would procure transgenic mice strains for important human diseases and make these available to researchers wanting to develop new drugs.
However, the most well-known mouse is Mickey Mouse, the brainchild of the famous American motion picture wizard Walt Disney. He gained success in 1928, when he released the first short cartoons that featured Mickey Mouse.

10 yrs of International Space Station

G V Joshi

The concept of an International Space Station (ISS) was first suggested by one Edward Everett Hale, in 1869, when he described the "Brick Moon," a satellite 60 meters in diameter with the crew of 37, to help ships to navigate at sea. This was nearly ninety years before the launch of Sputnik I and 100 years before Neil Armstrong landed on our Moon.
At the turn of the 20th century, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky in Russia envisioned many elements of future spaceflight, including a space station. By 1923, Hermann Oberth wrote "The Rocket to Planetary Space," a theoretical study, discussing among other things the roles and the design of a space station. By 1929, H. Noordung advanced the idea of the station further in his work "The Problems of Navigating the World."
The ISS is a research facility currently being assembled in outer space, the construction of which began in 1998. The space station is a joint project among the space agencies of the United States, Russia, and Japan, Canada and eleven European countries (ESA) and the like.
The ISS weighing nearly 300 tonnes is 58 metres long 44 metres wide, 27 metres high. The span of solar power arrays is 73 metres. It is in a Low Earth Orbit and sometimes can be seen from Earth with the naked eye. It orbits at an altitude of approximately 350 km above the surface of the Earth, and travels at an average speed of 27,700 kilometres per hour, the orbital period is 91.34 minutes i.e., it makes 15.7 orbits in a day.
One of the main goals of the ISS is to provide a laboratory to conduct experiments that require one or more of the unusual conditions present on the station. The main fields of research include biology, physics, astronomy, and meteorology.
Research in the station's six laboratories will lead to discoveries in medicine, materials and fundamental science that will benefit people all over the world.
The research that will be performed aboard the station includes, protein crystal studies, tissue culture and life in low gravity
Through its research and technology, the station also will serve as an indispensable step in preparation for future human space exploration.
Scientists also plan to create better metal alloys and more perfect materials for applications such as computer chips. Some experiments aboard the station could study the space environment and how long-term exposure to space, the vacuum and the debris in space would affects materials.
Some experiments will study fundamental Physics, where experiments take advantage of weightlessness to study forces that are weak and difficult to study when subject to gravity on Earth.
Observations of the Earth from orbit help the study of large-scale, long-term changes in the environment.
The ISS is a continuation of several other previously planned space stations; Russia's Mir , the US Space Station Freedom, the European Columbus laboratory and the Japanese Kibo laboratory.
This project was first announced in November 1993 and was called Space Station Alpha. It was planned to combine the proposed space stations of all participating space agencies. US administration then started negotiations with international partners like ESA, Russia, Japan and Canada to build a truly international space station. India has no participation.
Assembly began in November 1998, and as of July 2008 the station is approximately 85% complete.
The assembly of the International Space Station is a major aerospace engineering enterprise. When assembly is complete the ISS will have a pressurised volume of approximately 1,000 m3.
The projected completion date is 2011, with the station remaining in operation at least until 2016.
As of 2008, the ISS is larger than any previous space stations. The ISS has been continuously occupied since the first resident crew entered the station on November 2,2000, thereby providing a permanent human presence in space.
To mark the level of cooperation that the project is fostering between nations, in 2001, the station received the Prince of Asturias Award for International Cooperation. By November this year ISS has spent 3652 days in orbit and has been occupied for nearly 2900 days.

Did life come from Space?

G V Joshi

Indian scientists have discovered three new species of bacteria, which are not found on the earth and are highly resistant to ultraviolet radiation in the upper stratosphere (more than 15 km above the earth).
While one of the species has been named Janibacter hoylei after well-known astrophysicist Sir Fre Hoye, who along with Dr Nirmal Chandra Wickramasinghe from Sri Lanka, a mathematician working at Cardiff University in the UK, proposed that micro-organisms are being continuously brought in by debris from comets and meteorite showers from space.
The second has been christened Bacillus isronensis recognising the Indian Space Research Organisation's (ISRO) contribution in balloon experiments which led to the discovery. The third has been named Bacillus aryabhata after the Indian astronomer after whom, one of the early Indian designed satellites had also been named.
The precautionary measures and controls operating in this experiment inspire confidence that these species were picked up in the stratosphere. While the present study does not conclusively establish the extra-terrestrial origin of microorganisms, it does provide positive encouragement to continue work in our quest to explore the origin of life.
The experiment was conducted using a very large balloon and carrying 459 kg of scientific payload soaked in 38 kg of liquid neon.
The balloon was flown from the National Balloon Facility in Hyderabad and operated by the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai.
The payload consisted of a cryo-sampler containing 16 sterilised stainless steel bottles designed by Dr P Rajaratnam of the ISRO. .
After these bottles collected air samples from different heights, ranging from 20 to 41 km they were parachuted down and retrieved. The samples were analysed by scientists at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), Hyderabad, and the National Centre for Cell Sciences (NCCS), Pune.
In all, 12 bacterial and six fungal colonies were detected. Of these, three bacterial colonies were totally new species and highly resistant to ultraviolet radiation.
This is the second experiment of its kind. The first balloon launched from the TIFR in April 1999 returned with an air sample from the stratosphere.
According to Dr J.V. Narlikar, Retired Director of Inter University centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) based at Pune, and an internationally famous astrophysicist from Pune, it is tempting to speculate that the collected microorganisms have come from space. Though their terrestrial origin seems unlikely, scientists cannot rule it out completely.
As principal investigator, Dr Narlikar headed the team of scientists from ISRO, CCMB and NCCS.
The origin of life on Earth is perhaps the most fundamental and at the same time, the least understood biological problem. It is central to many scientific and philosophical questions and to any consideration of extraterrestrial life.
To begin with, people thought that life started as a result of a supernatural event -spontaneous generation that is, one permanently beyond the descriptive powers of science.
During the mid-17th century, while studying the reproduction and development of the deer, the British physiologist, William Harvey, made the basic discovery that every animal comes from a fertilised egg. However, the idea of spontaneous generation died hard.
In the late 1970s Sir Fred Hoyle, British mathematician and astronomer, best known as the foremost proponent and defender of the steady state theory of the universe, and Dr Wickramasinghe proposed that micro-organisms are being continuously brought in by cometary debris and meteorite showers.
They descend on Earth from above the atmosphere. Hoyle and Wickramasinghe say that the microbes are deposited throughout space by dust in the stream of debris of comets or metrorities. As Earth passes through the stream, while revolving in its orbit around the Sun, dust (and perhaps the bacteria and virus) enters our atmosphere, where it can lodge for two decades or more, until gravity pulls it down.
Wickramasinghe explained that in lower levels of the atmosphere, the particles along with microbes condense, ultimately coming down in raindrops. They have quoted previous global epidemics as evidence that only contact between human beings does not account for the spread of influenza.
In 1918, an outbreak of influenza occurred on the same day in Bombay and Boston, yet took another three weeks to spread to New York
Hoyle and Wickramasinghe think that as the microbes can float down in patches they can strike different places at slightly different times. However, other researchers say the idea is totally wrong.
There is scant evidence of any thing like that going on. However, Hoyle and Wickramasinghe have also their followers who support the idea. Recently, there has been considerable re-thinking on the issue of how life originated on the Earth.
Today the concept of implantation of life, through bacteria and viruses of extraterrestrial origin is not considered as outlandish today, as it was two decades ago. According to Dr Narlikar, the focus next would be on determining the origin as well as the nuclear characteristics of the three new species of bacteria.
Even if Hoyle and Wickramasinghe are proved right, the question (origin of life) remains unanswered. It shifts the origin to some other planer or comet or something like that.
What is a living life form? The answer is not clear cut. Life was defined as any system capable of performing a number of such functions as eating, metabolizing, excreting, breathing, moving, growing, reproducing and being responsive to external stimuli. But many such properties are either present in machines that nobody is willing to call alive, or absent from organisms that everybody is willing to call alive.
A lot of ‘in depth’ research is necessary to answer the questions: What is Life? Where did it originate, on Earth or elsewhere? If elsewhere, how did it come to Earth?

C-DAC and the Super Computing

G V Joshi

In India, the name C-DAC (Centre for Development of Advanced Computing) has become synonymous with supercomputing or High Performance Computing (HPC) as it is also called.
The reason for that lies in the history of C-DAC. In late 1980s, India, faced with a technology non-cooperation regime that denied its scientific community access to supercomputers, in particular Cray systems, set up C-DAC in March 1988 with the clear mandate to develop an HPC system to meet high-speed computational needs in solving scientific and other developmental problems where fast computing is absolutely necessary.
Following a specific recommendation to that effect, C-DAC was established at Pune, as a scientific society of the then Department of Electronics (now the Department of Information Technology (DIT) under the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology).
C-DAC achieved its primary target of developing a supercomputer with a capability of one giga, or one billion, floating point operations a second in the early 1990s. Christened PARAM 8000, it set the platform for a whole series of computers, called the PARAM series, over the years, with PARAM 20000, or PARAM Padma, breaking the teraflop (Tflop) (thousand billion flops) barrier in 2002 with a peak speed of 1 Tflop.
The latest in the series is called PARAM Yuva, which was developed in 2008 and was ranked 68 in the TOP 500 list released in November 2008 at the Supercomputing Conference in Austin, Texas, USA.
A supercomputer is a computer that is at the frontline of current processing capacity, particularly the speed of calculation.
Supercomputers are used for highly calculation-intensive tasks such as problems, involving weather forecasting, climate research, computing the structures and properties of chemical compounds, biological macromolecules, polymers, and crystals, simulation of airplanes in wind tunnels, simulation of the detonation of nuclear weapons, and research into nuclear fusion, secret code braking and the like. Major universities, Defence establishments and scientific research laboratories are its heavy users.
C-DAC has also set up a National PARAM Supercomputing Facility (NPSF) in Pune, to allow researchers access to HPC systems to solve their computer - intensive problems, C-DAC’s efforts in this strategically and economically important area have thus put India on the supercomputing map of the world along with select developed nations of the world.
As of 2008, 52 PARAM systems have been deployed in the country and abroad, eight of them at locations in Russia, Singapore, Germany and Canada.
Having thus fulfilled its primary goal, C-DAC broadened its spectrum of activities to give true meaning to the phrase Advanced Computing embedded in its name.
C-DAC now has 11 R&D centres, which are located in Pune, Bangalore Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mohali, Mumbai, New Delhi, Noida and Thiruvananthapuram, and the number of highly skilled employees exceeds 2,500.
C-DAC's language technology mission was initiated to create a framework to support various Indian languages with diverse scripts on standard computers. C-DAC's innovation in language technologies began with its widely acclaimed Graphics and Intelligence based Script Technology (GIST), whose inventor initiated its development at IIT Kanpur and later joined C-DAC in the early 1990s.
In fact, this led to the creation of a GIST group within C-DAC, which developed several applications using GIST.
C-DAC has also developed a Real Time Weather System (RTWS) called Anuman, a fully automated flexible, portable, web-based software for simulations of weather.
C-DAC's Avanced Computing Training School (ACTS) is dedicated to creating high quality manpower for C-DAC in particular and the IT industry in general through the designing and delivering various courses. The courses are offered through a network of more than 100 authorized training centres in India, besides the C-DAC's own centres in Pune, Delhi, Hyderabad & Bangalore.
C-DAC's work on Machine-Assisted Translation System, MANTRA, got the Computerworld Smithsonian Award and is the part of the "1999 Innovation Collection" in the National Museum for American History.
The newest initiative of C-DAC is LILA - Learning Indian Language through Artificial Intelligence - a multi-media based intelligent self-tutoring application for learning Hindi as a second language through southern Indian languages. Users can study for the Hindi Prabodh, Praveen and Pragya examinations through the medium of Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu through their PCs and INTERNET.
Facilities include reading and writing of Hindi alphabets, a speech interface to enable correct pronounciation and intonation; an online bilingual dictionary, a tool to record and compare one's own voice with standard pronounciation as well as grammar notes, interactive exercises and tests.
Through such services, C-DAC continues to help Indians surmount the barriers of Languages. Its mission: Dissolving language barriers we strive to reach out to place the power of computing in the hands of the people of India. C-DAC thus continues to bring computers closer to millions of people for whom lack of English language skills still remains an obstacle.
C-DAC also invented LIPS (Language Independent Programme Subtitles/Dubbing) which is used by the Doordarshan. C-DAC's citizen ID card technology was used to make ID cards for voters.
The motto of C-DAC is "If anybody can do it, C-DAC should do it." (PTI)

Forty yrs of moon landing

G. V. Joshi

On July 20, 1969, the human race accomplished its single greatest technological achievement of the 20th century, when a human being first set foot on another celestial body, Earth's natural satellite "The Moon".

Neil A. Armstrong then took the "Small Step" into humanity's greater future when he stepped off the Lunar Module, named "Eagle," onto the surface of the Moon, from which he could look up and see Earth in the heavens as no one had done before him. "Buzz" Aldrin joined him soon afterwards.

He and Aldrin spent 21 hours on the lunar surface and collected 21-kg of lunar rocks. After their historic walks on the Moon, they successfully docked with the Command Module "Columbia," in which Michael Collins was patiently orbiting the Moon and returned to Earth safely, ending the successful Apollo XI launch and recovery Russians created history on October 4, 1957, when they launched the football size earth-orbiting satellite Sputnik I. This had a massive impact all over the world particularly America.

Sputnik I was followed by Sputnik II, which carried a dog named Laika into orbit. Americans got worried about the R-7 Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) that was used to launch Sputnik I and II. The R-7 was also capable of propelling a nuclear bomb from the USSR to any spot in the world, including USA.

The Sputnik launch led directly to the creation of National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in July 1958.

In November 1960, John F. Kennedy was elected President after a campaign that promised American superiority over the USSR( Soviet Union) in the fields of space exploration and missile defence or in short 'space race'.

On May 25, 1961, President Kennedy said, "I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and bringing him back safely to our Earth."

But Landing humans on the moon and getting them back safely to Earth again is easily said than done. At first a method of doing it had to be discussed in depth and evolved.

In 1916 a Russian mechanic called Yuri Kondratyuk had described how a small landing craft could leave a mother-ship in lunar orbit to ferry its crew to the surface and back - a technique later referred to as Lunar Orbit Rendezvous or LOR. The small landing craft could then be discarded, leaving a much smaller and lighter mother-ship to be propelled back to Earth.

Kondratyuk died in 1942. But two space scientists, Herman Oberth and an Englishman named Harry E Ross, had kept Kondratyuk's ideas alive in the intervening years. It took until June 1962, before NASA scientists were convinced that the LOR was going to be easier and economic than the alternative methods like landing a massive rocket on Moon and the like.. After much deliberations and in depth discussions it was finally decided that the Apollo program would consist of designing, constructing and proving space worthiness and safety of the following three components needed for LOR, before sending astronauts to Moon and getting them safely back : The conical Command Module where the crew ate and slept on its way to the moon and home; the Service Module, supplying electricity, water , maneuvering power and thrust to get home from lunar orbit, and; and the Lunar Module, or LM, a two-part, totally self-contained spacecraft that used its own rockets to land on and take off from the surface of the moon, and even served as its own launch pad.

Thus started the program from Projects Mercury, Gemini followed by Apollo 1 to Apollo 11 and then on to Apollo 17. Project Mercury and Gemini program clearly placed the United States in the lead over the Soviet Union in manned spaceflight. Apollo started in tragedy, when a fire on the launch pad in the Command Module of Apollo 1 claimed the lives of three astronauts on January 27, 1967, in a routine training exercise for what had been scheduled to be the first Apollo mission. There were no crafts named Apollo 2 or 3. Apollo 4 without any crew was launched November 9, 1967 and splashed down on the same day. The main purpose of this craft was to take the Apollo Command and Service Module (CSM) into Earth orbit.Apollo 5 and 6 were also without any crew. The primary objectives of these were to verify ascent and descent stages of the propulsion systems, restart options, spacecraft structure, LM staging and their performance while in orbit. Apollo 7, 8 and 9 with crew proved the space worthiness of the equipment to be used in final lunar landing. Apollo 10 came to within 15.6 km of the lunar surface during practice maneuvers. The Apollo 11 , which was launched on July 16, 1969, carried Neil Alden Armstrong, Michael Collins and Edwin Eugene 'Buzz' Aldrin, Jr. On July 20, Armstrong and Aldrin became the first humans to land on the Moon, while Collins orbited above.

The mission fulfilled President John F. Kennedy's goal of reaching the moon by the end of the 1960s. While Kennedy did not live to see the Apollo Program's success, he is often widely credited as the driving force behind the inception and funding of the program.

Following the success of Apollo 11, Apollos 12, 14, 15, 16 and 17 - went on to land on the moon. Apollo 13 had an accident but the astronauts were brought back to Earth safely. These six missions returned with almost 400 kilograms of lunar samples. Experiments on Moon included soil mechanics, meteoroids, seismic, heat flow, lunar ranging, magnetic fields, and solar wind experiments. The importance of Apollo program in the advancement of planetology is self-evident. Even if only six manned landing had been accomplished, the return of samples from another body in the solar system had established Apollo Program as a milestone in the history of science.

However, the materials returned by Apollo have not fulfilled the early hopes of the most optimistic scientists: that they would yield an understanding of the origin and evolution of the Moon, the Earth, and the Solar System.

But whatever its shortcomings, Apollo Program produced a store of scientific treasure. The lunar samples were the crown jewels of the scientific achievement of the Apollo missions. It seems probable that nothing like those samples would be available for many years to come.

Since than Japan, China and India have sent unmanned probes to Moon but another manned probe or establishing a human colony on Moon is not in sight. (PTI)

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10 yrs of Chandra Observatory

G V Joshi

The Chandra X-ray Observatory is a satellite borne telescope launched by National Astronautics and Space Administration (NASA) of the US through Space Shuttle on July 23, 1999. It has now completed ten years in orbit and is still going strong.Although Chandra was initially given an expected lifetime of 5 years. However based on the observatory's outstanding results, NASA extended its lifetime to 10 years on 4 September 2001. Physically Chandra could last much longer. A recent study performed at the Chandra X-ray Center indicated that the observatory could last at least 15 years.
Chandra Observatory is the third of NASA's four Great Observatories. The first was Hubble Space Telescope; second the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, launched in 1991; and latest is the Spitzer Space Telescope.
In 1976, Dr Riccardo Giacconi, Professor of physics and astronomy and University Professor at Johns Hopkins University called as "father of Xray astronomy", along with Dr Harvey Tananbaum of the Harvard- Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, USA, submitted a proposal to NASA t o initiate the study and design of a large X-ray telescope. Dr Tananbaum has been working in X-ray astronomy since his graduate days at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA.In 1977, work was begun on the project, which was then known as the Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility (AXAF). In 1998, AXAF was renamed as the Chandra X-ray Observatory. The name "Chandra" was selected as a result of contest, which attracted 6,000 entries from fifty states in the US and sixty-one countries.The winning name was decided by a final elite panel that included prominent scientists, a space science executive, and nationally recognized science reporters.In all, 59 people submitted the name "Chandra." In Jatila's words,"I propose the name of Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, who is famous for the Chandrasekhar Limit of 1.4 solar masses as the greatest mass possible for a white dwarf star. His name has not been used on any of the satellites.Chandra means moon in Sanskrit. I think this connotation, as well as being part of the name of a very prominent astrophysicist whose research on high energy astrophysical phenomena was crucial to our understanding of neutron stars and black holes, makes Chandra an appropriate name for the p roposed telescope." Chandra was assembled and tested by Northrop. Grumman Space Technology in Redondo Beach, California.X-rays were first observed and documented in 1895 by Wilhelm Conrad Rvntgen, a German scientist who found them quite by accident when experimenting with vacuum tubes. Although the powerful X-rays can penetrate the air for distances of at least a few meters, the Earth's atmosphere is thick enough to absorb all the Xrays from outer space. Therefore to detect X-rays from celestial objects, the X-ray detectors must be flown above most of the Earth's atmosp here.There are at present three methods of doing so, but the best method is to install a detector on a satellite which is placed in an orbit well above the Earth's atmosphere. Instruments on satellites are able to observe the full range of the X-rays.They can collect data for as long as the in struments continue to operate. The X-ray detector in the Vela 5B satellite remained functional for over ten years!
Chandra is one of the most sophisticated astronomical observatories ever flown in space. It features the world's most powerful X-ray telescope and a suite of high-resolution imaging and spectroscopy instruments.
The telescope's array of exquisitely polished and aligned mirrors allows scient ists to gather X-rays from celestial sources billions of light years away, revealing cosmic phenomena not visible to conventional optical telescopes. Since producing its first X-ray images in August 1999, Chandra has provided astronomers with a startling, new look at the high-energy universe of supernova remnants, pulsars, black holes and clouds of multi-million degree gas that comprise clusters of galaxies. It is truly a scientific and engineering triumph.Dr Chandrasekhar's most famous research was the astrophysical "Chandrasekhar Limit". The limit describes the limiting mass of about 1.44 solar masses above which a star (white dwarf) cannot exist in a stable state.The limit was first calculated by him in 1930 during his maiden voyage from India to Cambridge, England for his graduate studies. When Chandra first proposed this limit during his fellowship at Trinity College in the 1930s, it was obstinately opposed by Sir Arthur Eddington and much to Chan dra's frustration none of the established physicists like Bohr, Fowler, Pauli, and other physicists in Europe came to his rescue although they all agreed with his analysis at the time. This episode had a bitter impact on Chandrasekhar resulting in his move to the University of Chicago in the US and in his choice of moving to another research topic.
Dr Chandrasekhar born in 1910 passed away in 1995 after serving on the faculty at the University of Chicago for almost 60 years, winning the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on explaining the structure and evolution of stars. He was the nephew of Sir. C. V. Raman, another Nobel laur eate in Physics from India. (PTI)

Internet spoofing

Neeraj Dubey

Information security has become a very critical aspect of modern computing systems. With the global acceptance of the internet; virtually every computer in the world today is connected to every other. While this has created tremendous productivity and unprecedented opportunities in the world we live in, it has also created new risks for the users of these computers. The users, business and organization world wide have to live with a constant threat from hackers and attackers, who use a variety of techniques and tools in order to break into Computer systems, steal information, change sensitive data and cause havoc.

"Spoofing is an illegal practice of using someone else's domain name of e-mail address as the sender or reply to address on an e-mail note. This has been a common practice used by spammers and it is illegal as detailed in the Federal Can Spam Act of Jan - 2004. In spoofing (Fooling, deceiving), an attacker impersonates someone else. In the context of network security, a spoofing attack is a situation in which one person or program successfully masquerades as another by falsifying data and thereby gaining an illegitimate advantage."

A common misconception is that IP-Spoofing can be used to hide your IP-address while surfing the internet, chatting on-line, sending E-mail and so-forth. This is generally not true. Forging the source IP-address causes the responses to be mis-directed, meaning you cannot create a normal network connection. Internet security can be challenged due to various types of spoofing attacks i.e. a) IP- spoofing - In such attacks, attacker uses IP-address of another computer to acquire information or to gain access, b) In Web spoofing attacks, attackers tricks web browser into communicating with a different web server than the user intended, c) In E-mail spoofing attacker sends e-mail but makes it appear to come someone else.

IP-Spoofing is one of the most common forms of on-line camouflage. In IP-Spoofing, an attacker gains unauthorized access to a computer or a n/w by making it appear that a malicious message has come from a trusted machine by "Spoofing" the IP-address of that machine.

Computer system can be exploited for conducting fraudulent activities and for outright theft. Such criminal acts as accomplished by "automating" traditional methods of frauds and by inventing and using new methods that are constantly being created by enterprising criminal minds. Computer fraud and theft in most of the corporate world is being committed by company insiders. In addition to the use of technology to commit fraud, computer h/w and s/w resources may be vulnerable to theft.

Understanding how and why Spoofing and Frauds attacks are used, combined with a few simple prevention methods; can help protect your n/w from these malicious cloaking and cracking techniques. Implementation of efficient access control methodologies periodic auditing and firewall usage can, in most cases prevent IP-Spoofing and frauds from occurring or at least make it more easily detected.

(The author is Lecturer GCET Jammu)

Understanding how and why Spoofing and Frauds attacks are used, combined with a few simple prevention methods; can help protect your n/w from these malicious cloaking and cracking techniques. Implementation of efficient access control methodologies periodic auditing and firewall usage can, in most cases prevent IP-Spoofing and frauds from occurring or at least make it more easily detected.

10 Energy Saving Tips

L.P.SINGH

Happy New Year! Ringing in 2010 means pledging yourself to New Year Resolutions. Most of us have already made our New Year Resolutions and now we must stick to them. It is all too common to make resolutions and within weeks they are forgotten. This year, make a resolution along with the personal ones like-get fit, lose weight, give up smoking and drinking - to conserve energy at homes and in offices, which is need of the hour : To help you with that resolution, let me give you some conservation tips* Turn Out the Lights! - Turn off the lights burning in unused rooms. Replace your incandescent bulbs with equivalent compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs. CFLs last longer and use 75% less power. LED based lights are even more efficient
* Unplug or use power strips that can be turned off for appliances and electronic devices such as computers, chargers, printers, televisions, cable set top boxes, microwave ovens, DVD players and coffee makers, to avoid energy vampires. Energy vampires can be spotted by walking through your home at night with the lights off. If you see the "standby" lights and digital displays on various appliances and electronic devices, these devices are using power and act like vampires silently sucking away energy even when they are turned "off."
* Use a Power Bar with Timer - Use one to ensure unused appliances are completely shutdown. Buy Energy Star rated appliances
* Upgrade Your Old Refrigerator - A refrigerator purchased in 1980 uses four times the power a new Energy Star rated one. Purchase a thermometer to ensure the appliance is running only as cold as needed
* Clean Air conditioner Filter - Dirty A.C filters reduce required air flow and make the equipment work harder. A clean filter can help save five percent in heating/cooling costs. The same is true of dirty clothes dryer filters
* Take a Shower - A quick shower using a low-flow shower head will use only half the water required for a typical bath of 75 liters
* Wrap That Hot Water Heater - You can save ten percent of power required to operate an electric hot water heater by installing a tank insulating blanket. Insulate the hot water pipes exiting your hot water heater to further reduce energy loss
* Scale Back Appliances - Using small, specialized appliances like toaster ovens or electric tea kettles uses less energy that their larger counterparts. Only run dishwashers when there is a full load and select the energy-saving cycle.
* Heaters: Use a temperature controlled oil heater or a gas heater for space heating. Sit near the heater as possible in order to avoid the need to have both elements switched on together. Switch off the heater when leaving the room for any length of time. Curtains help to retain the heat in a room. Draw the curtains early in the evening.
* Wash Clothes in Cold Water - Eighty-five to ninety percent of the energy used by a washing machine is from heating the water it uses. Washing in cold water saves energy. Use an outdoors clothesline when it is possible.

E-reader A New World of Reading

Rakesh Bharti

"E- mail, E- gadgets, E- seva, E- com and it goes on and on and poor Darwin thought E was for Evolution" ~Anonymous
Man has not evolved much from Darwin days or for that matter from predator days at least in mind, but the machines definitely have. The evolution of technology continues at the speed of light where electronic media has evolved into computers which have evolved into notebooks which have evolved into palms. This combined with evolution of communication technology has resulted in everything available at your click when on move. If Darwin was born today he would have written an E-book called "Survival of the Smallest".
Think of rotten books torn and mauled with contents of fungi, words that have disappeared into the colour of brownie paper, you think of old books that was to be preserved and cherished for Centuries and that was to live longer than our life carried from our Generations of forefathers.
It will all change in matter of next few years the way the tapes have become extinct with the advent of MP3 and music on move has become universal buzzword, Books on the move -err E-book on the move will revolutionize our daily lives the same way mobile phones have become an integral part of our mind and heart.
Think of carrying the voluminous books and the umpteen office PDF files, technical manuals which need thousand turns every time you are on move etc. The digital revolution answers all your reading rumblings in the form of E-reader.
E-reader is an ultra slim, light-weight device designed specially to hold thousands of books in its memory. It displays each and every page of the book of your choice by a simple touch of a button. It's an electronic book which displays entire volume of E-books that you have downloaded from the Internet through your computer, page by page with a scroll function. The type of files that you can read are pdf, xhtml, jpeg, txt, mp3 which makes it simply the most versatile book that you can hold.
Let me tell you that E-readers are very user friendly and just require basic digital device (cell phone) handling knowledge. Imagine children in India carrying just one electronic reader to school instead of backbreaking school bags. E-readers will be an ideal fit for academia. Portability and easy access to books, journals etc., could result in students reading more. The built-in dictionary is a very handy tool. While reading, the student can take the curser to the word he/she wants defined and the meaning shows up at the bottom of the page. 'Text to Speech', when activated, reads your books aloud and will be useful for students who experience difficulty in reading and for students who generally tend to avoid reading their textbooks. Electronic readers are searchable and students can annotate text, highlight passages and write in the margins as they read along just as they would do on paper.With the amazingly simple operations, you can navigate effortlessly and sort the books by title, file name and size to retrieve the books that you want to read. E-reader allows you to personalize just about everything, from the colours and font to the line spacing and margins and page turn animations. If you prefer tapping to turn pages it can, and if you prefer a gentle swipe it'll do that, too. E-reader's cutting edge -no back light display - E-ink technology offers high paper-like contrast which makes it perfectly readable only under normal light. Thus, E-ink technology just differentiates between black and white to give paper like display with no angle distortion nor light distortion which gives same reading pleasure like a book unlike LCD palmtops. This Eye Cool display eliminates eye strain. Since you can't read without light, you experience the real feel of paper reading. Moreover, it is very handy and light weight with a very long Battery life. As the E-ink display technology does not require any power to maintain display a page, E-reader offers almost 8000 pages refresh, on a single charge.
I have no hesitation to say that electronic readers will become cheaper and prove to be a real game changer. In fact, there are a number of highly popular E-readers available on the market Kindle 2, Kindle DX, Sony Reader PRS-700 etc. Whether you are interested in the Classics or the latest bestseller in fiction, thousands of books are available freely in many websites. You can also buy and download premium books and updated text books, journals etc. Connect E-reader with USB cable to any host computer and drag and drop your files. That's it your new book is in the reader, ready to be displayed. A collection of books available in SD card, then just insert and read.
Let's think over it, it's the perfect time for a trial, as a pilot programme has already been started in the US in order to attain a goal of a paperless society or at least a society that uses less paper to save thousands of trees. Universities, colleges and schools in US are trying to consume less paper by using electronic readers without creating an unfavourable impact on the traditional classroom experience. In any event, the result of these pilot programmes will help in the advancement of electronic readers to adapt better to the world of education. ..

Internet in India

Dr Deepshikha Jamwal

Since the internet became popular, it is being used for many purposes. Through the help of the World Wide Web and websites, the internet has become very useful in many ways for the common man.
The first and most popular use of the internet is the email. Almost everyone today has an email account. Many users even have multiple accounts, with various service providers. Because these service providers are free, it is very easy to create accounts and use them. Using this medium, you can contact anyone in the world within a matter of a few seconds.
The second most popular use is to get information. The internet and the World Wide Web has made it easy for anyone to access information, and it can be of any type, as the internet is flooded with information.
Next we have business. World trade has seen a big boom with the help of the internet, as it has become easier for buyers and sellers to communicate. All kinds of business have taken shape over the internet as well besides trading. This also saves a lot of money, and this is the chosen medium today. Right from web designing to selling home products, all businesses are flourishing online.
Shopping is also a favourite especially in countries in the West. Today all consumers prefer to shop from the comfort of their homes. Almost anything can be bought with the use of the internet. People also use the internet to auction goods. There are many auction sites online, where anything can be sold.
The next big thing about the internet is entertainment. One will find all forms of entertainment from watching films to playing games online. The entertainment caters to the needs of all age groups. Almost anyone from any age group can find the right kind of entertainment for themselves. Today social networking communities have become an important part of the online community. Almost all users are members, and they use it for personal and business purposes.
Internet use keeps climbing, with video being the big driver in recent years. Google's You Tube, which started up in 2005, already accounts for about 10 percent of Internet traffic. According to an active survey being conducted by NiteCo , the average age of Internet users is 28.3037 years old as of October 8 2009. As of 2009, approximately 1.67 billion people worldwide use the Internet, according to studies by Miniwatts Marketing Group.
Internet users in India reached 54m ever users and 43m active users in March 2008. During the same period the number of active users rose to more than 45m million upto 2009 as per a recently released survey reports from the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI-IMRB).
The number of users accessing the Internet primarily for entertainment was around 9 percent. The research further showed that online transactions (e-commerce) were steadily gathering steam. The Young Men, Older Men and Working Women segments were the ones using it the most. These segments, along with the Non Working Women segment, were also using applications like jobs and dating sites in significant numbers.
The survey findings were:
- Time spent on the Internet increases with the increasing age of the user.
- School going kids spend an average of 322 minutes a week online.
- College-going students spend an average of 433 minutes a week.
- Older men spend an average of 580 minutes a week.
- Working women spend an average of 535 minutes online a week.
- Non-working women spend 334 minutes a week.
Among the study findings is that the Internet has now penetrated beyond the communication needs of the active user population and was no longer an avenue for exploring their curiosity. While email, chat and IM would continue to pull first-time users, the next round of growth would be driven by applications such as blogs, P2P, video-on-demand, online radio, online gaming and localized content.
The report estimated the number of school-going kids at 1.6 million and college-going students at 3.4 million.
As per the research the usage of internet is growing day by day as the world total internet usage is 202.90% and in others countries like Oceania/ Australia is 141.90% Latin America Caribbean is 391.30% North America 114.70% idle East is 490.10% Europe is 197.60% Asia 24070% and in Africa internet usage is 625.80%.
Utility of Internet
It's surprising that 47.5% of Claimed Internet users do not know how Internet can be a useful tool. Other barriers to usage include:
* Cost of access cyber cafe charges are high (11.7%)
* Lack of access points - no good cafe nearby (8.9%)
* Dial-up costs are too high (5.5%)
* Need guidance (5.2%)
This effect is noticeable even with just 2-5 Internet hours/week, and it rises substantially for those spending more that 10 hours/week, of who up to 15 percent report a decrease in social activities. Even more striking is the fact that Internet users spend much less time of talking on the phone to friends and family: the percentage reporting a decrease exceeds 25 percent - although it is unclear to what extent this represents a shift to e-mail even in communicating with friends and family, or a technical bottleneck due to a single phone line being pre-empted by Internet use.
The uses of the internet are highly versatile, and they will create a great deal of opportunities for anyone using them. It even helps with education, as there are many online tutors, and there are sites too which teach with better methods. Those who need extra coaching may use the help of this medium to get better results. The uses of the internet almost make life complete for everyone.

Now a Paper Battery

Dr. S. S. VERMA

Presently, battery takes up a huge amount of space and contributes to a large part of the device's weight. There is strong recent interest in ultrathin, flexible, safe energy storage devices to meet the various design and power needs of modern gadgets. To build such fully flexible and robust electrochemical devices, multiple components with specific electrochemical and interfacial properties need to be integrated into single units. Fuel cells and solar power have both been floated as promising solutions to the battery weight/capacity problem, but new research suggests that carbon nanotubes may eventually provide the best hope of implementing the flexible batteries and supercapacitors needed to shrink our gadgets even more. Researchers say that flexible paper batteries could meet the energy demands of the next generation of gadgets. A paper battery is a flexible, ultra-thin energy storage and production device formed by combining carbon nanotubes with a conventional sheet of cellulose-based paper. A paper battery acts as both a high-energy battery and supercapacitor, combining two components that are separate in traditional electronics. This combination allows the battery to provide both long-term, steady power production and bursts of energy. Non-toxic, flexible paper batteries have the potential to power the next generation of electronics, medical devices and hybrid vehicles, allowing for radical new designs and medical technologies.
Making of Paper battery
The devices are formed by combining cellulose with an infusion of aligned carbon nanotubes that are each approximately one millionth of a centimeter thick. The carbon is what gives the batteries their black color. These tiny filaments act like the electrodes found in a traditional battery, conducting electricity when the paper comes into contact with an ionic liquid solution. Ionic liquids contain no water, which means that there is nothing to freeze or evaporate in extreme environmental conditions. As a result, paper batteries can function between -75 and 1500C. A capacitor introduced into an organism could be implanted fully dry and then be gradually exposed to bodily fluids over time to generate voltage. Flow of electrical power or electrons in a paper battery is governed by the steps as:
* Batteries produce electrons through a chemical reaction between electrolyte and metal in the traditional battery.
* Chemical reaction in the paper battery is between electrolyte and carbon nanotubes.
* Electrons collect on the negative terminal of the battery and flow along a connected wire to the positive terminal
* Electrons must flow from the negative to the positive terminal for the chemical reaction to continue.
Developments
Widespread commercial deployment of paper batteries will rely on the development of more inexpensive manufacturing techniques for carbon nanotubes. Early prototypes of the device are able to produce 2.5 volts of electricity from a sample the size of a postage stamp. One method of manufacture, developed by scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and MIT, begins with growing the nanotubes on a silicon substrate and then impregnating the gaps in the matrix with cellulose. Once the matrix has dried, the material can be peeled off of the substrate, exposing one end of the carbon nanotubes to act as an electrode. When two sheets are combined, with the cellulose sides facing inwards, a supercapacitor is formed that can be activated by the addition of the ionic liquid. This liquid acts as an electrolyte and may include salt-laden solutions like human blood, sweat or urine. The high cellulose content (over 90%) and lack of toxic chemicals in paper batteries makes the device both biocompatible and environmentally friendly, especially when compared to the traditional lithium ion battery used in many present-day electronic devices and laptops.
Applications
As a result of the potentially transformative applications in electronics, aerospace, hybrid vehicles and medical science, however, numerous companies and organizations are pursuing the development of paper batteries. The paper-like quality of the battery combined with the structure of the nanotubes embedded within gives them their light weight and low cost, making them attractive for portable electronics, aircraft, automobiles, and toys (such as model aircraft), while their ability to use electrolytes in blood make them potentially useful for medical devices such as pacemakers. The medical uses are particularly attractive because they do not contain any toxic materials and can be biodegradable; a major drawback of chemical cells. In order to be commercially viable, they would like to be able to make them newspaper size; a size which, taken all together would be powerful enough to power a car.

iPad unveiled

Supti Dutta

The much-anticipated Apple’s tablet PC-cum-cellphone is here. It’s named iPad. The tech giant has unveiled a touch-screen, tablet-style computer at an event in San Francisco on Wednesday. It is another step toward the convergence between smartphones and mobile computers.
It's more than a smartphone, less than a notebook, but just the right personal device for everyday users. It redefines the tablet computer and threatens with obsolescence of electronic readers, digital photo frames and other mono-purpose gizmos.
The gadget has a 9.7-inch (24.6-centimeter) color screen and resembles an oversized iPhone. It is 0.5 inches (1.3 cms) thick, weighs 1.5 pounds (0.7 kgs) and comes with 16, 32, or 64 gigabytes (GB) of flash memory.
Apple has led the way in conditioning people to pay for applications, games, and other content for the iPhone and the iPod Touch. Now, it is to be seen what a notebook-sized version of iPad could do to revolutionaise the way we use technology.
There is little doubt that the new Apple tool will introduce new ways of interacting with the world around us, simplify the home entertainment experience, give a whole new gaming platform and make us fall in love with the printed word again.
People are saying that this iPad could try to do for newspapers what iTunes did for music and what the App Store did for mini-programs for smartphones. It will make us fall in love with the printed word again: Some industry experts believe the launch of the iPad could represent an 'iPod moment' for books, newspapers and magazines; in the same way the iPod changed the way we consumed music, so too could the iPad reinvigorate.
But no one thinks this device is the messiah for print.
Apple has reportedly been in talks with online news, magazine and book publishers and Wednesday’s event could include the launch of a version of iTunes for content generated by those outlets. Digitally frustrated newspapers or magazines may choose to focus on fee-for-service electronic readers. It could be there are some publishers feeling as though they have been buying into the new media ecosystem, the blogosphere, for 10 years and haven't gotten one thing out of it.
These days, publishers are placing bets on smartphone and e-reader platforms, which are entrusted to track paid readership of publications. News publishers are looking to Apple for a tablet that lets people browse and buy content in ways that expand on simply reading by adding interactive multimedia and reference features.
There’s a real opportunity for Apple to raise the bar here not only by making digital publications accessible to the mainstream reader, but also seamlessly interweaving online features, apps and streaming audio/video content to enhance the general reading experience.
This will not be the killer device just yet. But it will certainly point the way. Efforts to lure people into paying for content on an Apple tablet could be thwarted if the hardware comes with a high price and is coupled with monthly telecom service provider charges.
Will Microsoft lose the tablet market to Apple too? Whether Apple will be successful in the tablet market is yet to be seen, but with Apple’s tremendous track record of the iPhone (100% increase in units sold last year), the iTouch (also up) and Mac OS X computers (33% increase in units sold) resulting in an amazing $15.68 billion revenue quarter, Apple has a good chance of getting the tablet market right.
But Apple may not have the field to itself for long, as rival Microsoft is planning to get in on the tablet action. The difference is that Redmond will likely attack the market through hardware partners like Hewlett-Packard and Acer, rather than introduce a Microsoft-branded device. Indeed, CEO Steve Ballmer demonstrated a prototype HP tablet powered by Windows 7 earlier this month at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
The one thing everyone seems fixated on is the effect that these devices are having — or will have — on the book-publishing industry. Amazon’s Kindle is currently the leader in the e-book business, but it’s widely expected that will change soon.
In an attempt to forestall such threats, Amazon last week boosted the royalty rate it pays to authors and publishers who offer e-versions of their books for the Kindle. The new deal gives authors and publishers 70 percent of the price (provided the author/publisher meets certain criteria). That’s twice the previous rate the company was paying, and slightly above the 63-percent rate that Apple is allegedly providing.
Among other things, Amazon is clearly making a play to authors to convince them to go direct, and cut out the publisher middleman. But why stop with books? If Amazon is smart (which it clearly is), the company will use the Kindle as a distribution mechanism for all kinds of digital content — blogs, independent magazines, blooks (blog/books) and any other kind of individually-created media it can get its hands on.
Once the iPad enters the market, the fight will truly be on between Apple and Amazon: to sign up as many content creators and distributors as possible. The more exclusive relationships a tablet maker has with authors and content creators, the better platform it has to become not just the iPod of books but of all kinds of digital content. And then the disruption of the media and content industries will begin in earnest. (CNF)

Internet marketing

Anil Bhat

Internet marketing, also referred to as online marketing or E-marketing, is the marketing of products or services over the Internet. The Internet has brought many unique benefits to marketing including low costs in distributing information and media to a global audience. The interactive nature of Internet marketing, both in terms of instant response and in eliciting response, are unique qualities of the medium. Internet marketing ties together creative and technical aspects of the internet, including design, development, advertising and sales. Internet marketing methods include search engine marketing, display advertising, e-mail marketing, affiliate marketing, interactive advertising, blog marketing, and viral marketing. Internet marketing is the process of growing and promoting an organization using online media. Internet marketing does not simply mean 'building a website' or 'promoting a website'. Somewhere behind that website is a real organization with real goals. Internet marketing strategy includes all aspects of online advertising products, services, and websites, including market research, email marketing, and direct sales.
Search Engine Optimization:
It has been observed and proven by research that more & more businesses such as yours are seeing great results with online advertising. Millions of people search online each day for products, services & information. Google is the number one choice for all these searches done.
Between 85% to 90% of all web site traffic comes from the search engines and directories, use of those handy-dandy submission services that will submit your site to 980 search engines for a mere $19.95 won’t take care of this traffic. Just because your site is listed in the search engines won’t mean that your customers can find it. But only “search engine optimization and positioning” strategies that are designed to give the engines what they want and need in order to find your site among your competitors and other sites related to your category. Search engine optimization and positioning is challenging at best. It’s not a simple matter of adding a few tags that contain your important keywords. It is an art-and a science-since its is applying creative techniques to an in-depth study of the search engines and directories.
SEO Company is committed to meeting the search engine optimization & positioning needs of your web site and proposes a campaign plan. Meet your SEOP outsourcing needs thoroughly and professionally. The Scope of Work should include site optimization and allied web promotion & development activities, SE-friendly content writing, and submission and tracking to over all major and support Search Engines and Directories. On project completion your web site will be more accessible on the Internet in terms of Top rankings for specific keywords across the major search engines.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is an online marketing strategy used to increase a Web site's visibility to the millions of people who find information and services on the Internet. Search engine optimization can help position your firm among the top search results for a given query, which can dramatically increase traffic to your Web site and establish a Web presence for your practice.
Among other things, SEO involves optimizing the structure of your site and the text that appears on it, as well as obtaining links to your site from other sites, to help its popularity rating with search engines. With the number of Web sites on the Internet increasing at an exponential rate, gaining primary placements in search engine rankings allows you to market your firm in a very powerful and effective way.
Article Submissions
Effective structure and a well thought-out search engine marketing campaign can be the deciding factor in whether your Internet promotions succeed.
Writing your article and throwing your mission statement should be your aim.
You need to think up a mission statement that powerfully conveys your message to users is most crucial benefit to a potential client. Your mission statement should be clear and concise. If anyone wants more we can have number of options as well.
Blogging
Blogging is a great way to reach your target audience with your thoughts, opinions, and offerings on relevant topics.
Blogging makes sense from a marketing perspective. You'll be leveraging the shift from outbound to inbound marketing and interacting with your customers in new ways. A blog lets you meet your customers more directly than sending out brochures or an email campaign. It changes your website from a brochure that most people look at once to something that people interact with and come back to.
Social Networking
Communities creation to get more traffic is must for any social media activity
Create communities for your online presence and strive to exist in web world. And most important having online presence is not the ultimate target. What is important is having huge traffic and great page rank. There are lots of communities which drive traffic to your website. Finally traffic will produce business for you. Social Media marketing also engage the customers in generating traffic.

Plastic currency

G V Joshi

For a common man, soiled notes of rupee one, two, five and ten are an every day nuisance. Due to rising costs of day to day commodities like vegetables and fruits which can not be purchased from small venders by using a credit/debit card, even fifty rupee notes are getting soiled very soon. A lot of money is thus lost due to badly mutilated, torn notes, which even some banks refuse to exchange.
In addition these soiled notes carry bacteria and germs that can cause diseases like TB, pneumonia, peptic ulcers and gastroenteritis. Due to our dirty habit of using saliva to wet our fingers while counting a wad of notes, these germs enter our mouth and make some of us with poor immunity ill.
Reserve Bank of India has been carrying out experiments with plastic currency notes for some time. They are being tested in laboratories to see if they could withstand Indian hot and humid climate and the unusual ways in which not-so-educated and even educated people handle presently issued currency notes.
Plastic currency if handled carefully and correctly may offer a durable alternative. They are Eco-friendly because no one is going to throw plastic currency notes into garbage for cows to swallow and recyclers to make cheap pots and shoes out of them.
The performance of plastic currency notes is far better than paper notes. If they get soiled they can be washed. If left in pockets accidentally and washed, they do not develop wrinkles. Finally after the end of their useful life, they can be recycled and made into pots and bins.
As a birthday gift to the nation, in the year of Australian bicentennial (1988), the Government of Australia introduced ten dollar plastic currency notes for the first time in the whole world. It took them more than 20 years to bring out plastic currency notes.
Earlier many other small countries like Haiti, Costa Rica and the Isle of Man had experimented with plastic currency notes using Tyrek; a paper like material made of high-density polyethylene or polythene - the common plastic used in making carry bags. However, the experiments failed as the printing began to flake off very soon.
The technology in printing plastic notes involves highly sophisticated processes generally used in the manufacture of integrated circuits - chips - for all computers. Plastic sheets used in printing notes are much thinner than paper used in printing currency notes, and therefore, they could be printed in a much finer print. Letters only 0.25 mm high could be printed very easily. These are far, too fine to be duplicated by colour copying machines. Plastic sheets can also be made clear; another way to defeat colour copying machines. And finally many other security features could be incorporated in plastic sheets used in printing currency notes.
However, not until 1988, was a method found to produce long lasting plastic money that could be printed on the existing printing machines then in use for printing paper currency.
The notes are made by taking rolls of the biaxially - oriented polypropylene (BOPP) (another plastic) about 75 microns thick (0.075 mm). This greatly enhances the durability of the bank notes. This is a common plastic and is made in abundance in India.
The plastic sheets pass through a four step process that makes them opaque as a background for printing ink and also add a shadow mark similar to water mark in paper notes. The rolls are then sliced into sheets, which could be printed using the same press as for paper currency.
New inks that adhere firmly to plastic sheets were developed and used. A raised illustration or intaglio is printed under pressure using magnetic ink. The result is an image that can felt by fingers as well as detected magnetically. For the high denomination notes - a greater source of attraction for counterfeiters - there are additional security measures, known as an optically variable device.
It is an image formed by tiny ridges in ultra-fine aluminium foil that acts like diffraction grating scattering white light into its component seven colours as it happens with a compact disk (CD) is exposed to sunlight.
The effect is somewhat like a hologram found on share certificates and bonds and many other items these days. The image is clear, visible from either side of the note and it is far more difficult to copy than even a hologram. Finally the notes are numbered and, given a protective coat of transparent varnish.
This also reduces the development of static electric charge common with plastic sheets. And all this is done at a speed of 8,000 sheets an hour. One sheet contains 8 currency notes. The cost of making them is almost the same as paper notes, except for optically variable device used in higher denomination notes.
As of 2009, seven countries have converted fully to polymer banknotes: Australia, Bermuda, Brunei, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Romania, and Vietnam.
Paper currency was introduced in India in the 18th century when some parts of India were ruled by English East India Company (EICO). Among the earliest issues of paper rupees were those by the Bank of Hindustan (1770-1832), the General Bank of Bengal and Bihar (1773-75), the Bengal Bank (1784-91), amongst others.
Queen Victoria took over EICO in 1858. Currency notes carrying protraits of Victoria and George V were then issued. The Reserve Bank of India as formally inaugurated in 1935. The bank issued the first five rupee note bearing the portrait of George VI in 1938. Other high denomination noted followed soon. The George VI series continued till 1947 and thereafter till 1950 when post-independence notes were issued by Government of Independent India. What followed is known to most of us. (PTI)