New Scientist Special Report on India
NewScientist believes that India will be the next knoledge superpower.
Sounds very provocative, especially if you are not Indian, more so if you are American, Pakistani or Chinese! But that doesn't matter, because your opinion is just as valid as mine, as NewScientist's. No one know future for sure, but I for one tend to agree with the article.
India has resources, drive and environment to promote itself as the the-knowledge-work-destination, backoffice-of-the-world etc, and now that multinational corporates are willing to pay Indian engineers to do the thinking (research and development) as well, things might turn out a lot different in next decade or so. Its only a matter of time before succesfull and rich Indian firms, inspired by the profit-figures of the multinationals model their business and target wider markets. There's no stopping Indian economic growth.
But on the other hand, that positive outlook doesn't mean Indian villages are going to be nice and pretty like a Swiss couterpart - the divide will remain large for many decades to come, and as with everything else the ancient Indian society will take their time to evolve.
Anywhooo, at the moment, its looking good, its looking really good for an average middle class Indian.
Monday, February 21, 2005
A parent's primer to computer slang
Oversimplified as if kids are from some other planet and all parents are dummies who can do nothing better than a 9-5 paper-pushing or standing-around day-job!
1337$p34k z 0 7 7|-|47 |-|4Rd 2 734r|\| !!!!!!!
(translation for real dummies: leet speak is not that hard to learn!)
Oversimplified as if kids are from some other planet and all parents are dummies who can do nothing better than a 9-5 paper-pushing or standing-around day-job!
1337$p34k z 0 7 7|-|47 |-|4Rd 2 734r|\| !!!!!!!
(translation for real dummies: leet speak is not that hard to learn!)
Acer n30
I recently bought a Acer n30 PDA and here's a compilation of specifications, reviews, howto's, discussions and much more that I could find in the internet.
Official
*Acer n30
*Specifications
*Accessories
I recently bought a Acer n30 PDA and here's a compilation of specifications, reviews, howto's, discussions and much more that I could find in the internet.
Official
*
*
*
Thursday, February 17, 2005
Exclusive: NASA Researchers Claim Evidence of Present Life on Mars
Sensational indeed! But how could we verify this for sure? Sending someone there in a huge space suite in a fragile pod is not going to get them anywhere in a planet that big!
Slashdot thread
Sensational indeed! But how could we verify this for sure? Sending someone there in a huge space suite in a fragile pod is not going to get them anywhere in a planet that big!
Slashdot thread
Tuesday, February 15, 2005
Opinion Column by PC Magazine - Googlepedia: The End is Near
Good read!
Well, there is always two sides of a coin. Why would google want to host wikipedia pages without displaying any ads on them? Because MSN Search is pushing free Encarta content to entire web users? Or is it because Google trusts the wikepedia model and believes it will grow to a solid, proper knowledgebase, and more and its content will one day satisfy great lot of searches? Lets just keep speculating!
Good read!
Unfortunately, when you consistently look to be too generous, people get suspicious. You have to remember that this offer comes on the heels of the offer made to libraries by Google to digitize and host all the great books and documents in the world. Now this. Is Google trying to corner the all the world's information and then, once they have it all under their control, sell it back to us at a high fee?
Well, there is always two sides of a coin. Why would google want to host wikipedia pages without displaying any ads on them? Because MSN Search is pushing free Encarta content to entire web users? Or is it because Google trusts the wikepedia model and believes it will grow to a solid, proper knowledgebase, and more and its content will one day satisfy great lot of searches? Lets just keep speculating!
Tuesday, February 08, 2005
Top Blogs from Bloglines
Similar to blogsnow and boolgs, here is bloglines. If blogsnow focuses on whats going on in the blog-world, what is being discussed and what is hot and not, bloogz takes more statistical approach towards various blogs, which is most popular, most linked etc. BlogLines on the other hand, keeps track of the most used and visited rss feeds to various blogs, and to their credit, have been taken over by AskJeeves, another search engine - whats the matter with all these search engines and their fantasy with blogging? Well, we will have to wait and see how Yahoo and MSN responds to this!
Similar to blogsnow and boolgs, here is bloglines. If blogsnow focuses on whats going on in the blog-world, what is being discussed and what is hot and not, bloogz takes more statistical approach towards various blogs, which is most popular, most linked etc. BlogLines on the other hand, keeps track of the most used and visited rss feeds to various blogs, and to their credit, have been taken over by AskJeeves, another search engine - whats the matter with all these search engines and their fantasy with blogging? Well, we will have to wait and see how Yahoo and MSN responds to this!
Wednesday, February 02, 2005
Chip design break through | CNET News.com
A single crossbar latch consists of a three wires: a "latch" wire and two control, or clock, wires. The latch wire lies under the other two. The wires are connected by molecules, which transfer electrical impulses from one wire to the next. (In the latches used to perform calculations, it is a layer of a common acid made up of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen.)
In layman's terms, a series of electrical impulses will close the molecular switch between the latch wire and the first clock wire. The impulses will then open the switch between the latch wire and other clock wire. In digital terms, a computer interprets this action as a "0". Conversely, opening the first switch and closing the second becomes a "1."
Earlier, Kuekes had produced crossbar latches that could perform basic calculations, but they couldn't store partial results for later usage. The new crossbar latches, however, detailed in an article in the Journal of Applied Physics, can: They conceivably perform transistorlike functions.
A key attribute of the switches is that the junction between the wires can be as small as 2 nanometers. The equivalent junction in current transistors inside 90-nanometer chips is about 60 nanometers, meaning that far more crossbar latches can be put into the same space that now holds transistors. Traditional transistors, in fact, will never be able to hit these limits, Kuekes said.
"The three most important things are size, size and size," he said. "When you get down to around 15 nanometers, the physics of semiconductor transistors will not work."
Shrinking the electrical junctions in a chip also generally increases performance, but the switches in the experimental crossbar latches only flip at about a tenth of a second.
Just as important, chips made on crossbar latches could be cheap to manufacture. The wires are put into place through nano-imprint lithography. In this technique, a customized mold is placed into a film later; the imprints left by the mold become the templates for the wires.
The molecular switches, meanwhile, do not have to be placed individually at the juncture of the wires. Only wires at the junctions will carry a current.
"Essentially, all of the other molecules are sacrificed," Williams said.
Is it just another one of the possible revolutionary idea, or are we really going to see tiny handheld devices with hundreds of GHz processing power and terabytes of storrage in near future (3-6 years)? Anyhow, it does sound promising, and the media and the science circle seems to be upbeat - bless them all, I hope this is it!
A single crossbar latch consists of a three wires: a "latch" wire and two control, or clock, wires. The latch wire lies under the other two. The wires are connected by molecules, which transfer electrical impulses from one wire to the next. (In the latches used to perform calculations, it is a layer of a common acid made up of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen.)
In layman's terms, a series of electrical impulses will close the molecular switch between the latch wire and the first clock wire. The impulses will then open the switch between the latch wire and other clock wire. In digital terms, a computer interprets this action as a "0". Conversely, opening the first switch and closing the second becomes a "1."
Earlier, Kuekes had produced crossbar latches that could perform basic calculations, but they couldn't store partial results for later usage. The new crossbar latches, however, detailed in an article in the Journal of Applied Physics, can: They conceivably perform transistorlike functions.
A key attribute of the switches is that the junction between the wires can be as small as 2 nanometers. The equivalent junction in current transistors inside 90-nanometer chips is about 60 nanometers, meaning that far more crossbar latches can be put into the same space that now holds transistors. Traditional transistors, in fact, will never be able to hit these limits, Kuekes said.
"The three most important things are size, size and size," he said. "When you get down to around 15 nanometers, the physics of semiconductor transistors will not work."
Shrinking the electrical junctions in a chip also generally increases performance, but the switches in the experimental crossbar latches only flip at about a tenth of a second.
Just as important, chips made on crossbar latches could be cheap to manufacture. The wires are put into place through nano-imprint lithography. In this technique, a customized mold is placed into a film later; the imprints left by the mold become the templates for the wires.
The molecular switches, meanwhile, do not have to be placed individually at the juncture of the wires. Only wires at the junctions will carry a current.
"Essentially, all of the other molecules are sacrificed," Williams said.
Is it just another one of the possible revolutionary idea, or are we really going to see tiny handheld devices with hundreds of GHz processing power and terabytes of storrage in near future (3-6 years)? Anyhow, it does sound promising, and the media and the science circle seems to be upbeat - bless them all, I hope this is it!
Tuesday, February 01, 2005
BBC NEWS | Health | Tumour diary: The time has come
Evan Noble, BBC News Science writer is no more. He has been sharing his experiences in a blog since Aug 2002 when he was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumour.
He will be remembered for his blog, for he has taken the concept of blogs to a new level.
Evan Noble, BBC News Science writer is no more. He has been sharing his experiences in a blog since Aug 2002 when he was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumour.
He will be remembered for his blog, for he has taken the concept of blogs to a new level.
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