Games To Assuage Violent Urges

Creative musical games have been launched for both PS3 and MIcrosoft XBOX 360 which can be used to play music , learn music and evaluate ones music skills and perform along with a group. The same will help youngsters to concentrate on something creative and harmonical than compared to the normal violent games inducing violent behaviour in Kids.

Guitar Hero II is a music video game developed by Harmonix Music Systems and published by RedOctane.

Other softwares to create virtual music like Guitar Rig et al are also available so that you can make use of your desktop for doing something more worthwhile than just some routine din.

Spamming Continues To Hog Corporate Productivity

Total spam has crossed 10 trillion mark the same as the total number of mails floating on the internet. With Unified Communications tilting the balance of Communication towards email and VOIP the problem of Spam is all set to disconcert the smugness of Corporate Honchos with hoards of Green Bucks being lost per employee in lost productivity.

There are tools to avoid spammers but there are tools to hack these. But I think what people call spammers are just plain vanilla happy Marketers. When you market its sauve and decent, when others do the same it is spamming.

Maybe people can adopt stratgies to overcome spam as maintaining separtae e-Mails for critical and non critical accounts and not sharing the details of critical one with any web site. Apart from the normal filtering and blocking of domains.

Also habitual and useless spammer directory could be built on the lines of folksonomy, that anyone feeling strongly against a domain notifies the ICANN and based on some critical reportage the domains could be blocked by the ICANN.

OK Signing off,
Rajeev Vashisht.

Robots To Help Elders

Till now there have been robots who deliver mail and vacuum clean the floor, but their navigation has been controlled via pre-fed maps of the area's in which they work. This approach is difficult to programme domestic helps who have to encounter a terrain which is not constant. People place things here and there and the room map is not constant with use. Hense arises the need to programme the Robots with Sight. Efforts are being done in this quarter by trying to use a Web Camera to work as the sight for the Robot so that they can assist the elderly and those handicaped or sick.

More on this in later posts.

Propagation Diagrams In Website Development

I have visited a number of web site and seen that many changes made are not immediately visible in other parts of the website even if the change is critical. To avoid such stupid blunders found in best of websites, I propose a new web development tool called propagation diagram.

For every update operation in the website draw where it will effect the other parts of the website and decide if the change is critical, non critical or so. If critical the change should be made immediately and the web server cache should be also updated immediately. If non critical the change should be made in the database itself.

So are you adopting propagation diagrams today.

Zoho Office Available Online

To circumvent the problem of glitchy and expensive intternet connectivity in places like hotels, Airport, Taxis et al the Zoho office has gone offline using Google gears, the opensource browser plug in of google.

Now work offline with your office documents edit and save them with internet connectivity and sync them to online version at your convenienece and on the availability of internet connection.

Amazons E-Book reader

Amazon has launched an ultra thin 10 ounce E-Book reader. Retailing a tad high at 399 $ the piece can store equivalent of 200 books and comes with a free wi fi connectivity to download books. Best sellers can be bought at $9.99 only.

Amazon competes with sony in the field of E-Books.

CPU less Computer Model Launched By Dell

Dell has created a new Desktop which has all wireless connections between accessories and just one power cord. Also the main innovation is that there is no CPU unit in the PC ie you just have the Desktop Monitor , Keyboard and the mouse. Obviously the innovation in the desktop has been modelled after the Laptop and notepad sibling. Very nice to know that space can be saved in a reality hungry world. Also lot of complexity is reduced and anything simple is a better design. As they say miniaturisaion is the key to all luxury. Although contended by some.

By the way apple already has a model by the same type.

Technology Needs Time To traction and Adoption

Old habits die hard. Take the example of our own e-Books although versions and use have exsited for decades but adoption has been very slow. New versions of e-Books have been developed of late by companies like the Sony et al but use is limited due to reasons like high cost and inhibition on the part of the user to adopt new technology. Also new technologies are untested.

For example little have been said about the ill effects of computers. And you will find less literature in main stream media about the ill effects of Cellular phones. Customers are live Guinny pigs in this corporate led experimentation of technolgy on the people of Earth.

E-Books with adoption will tend to get less costly and more feature rich and would eventually be adopted to a wider degree by users. Innovative features like books coming with bundled offer of preloaded Best Sellers and trial subscriptions of magazines will make marketing of the product more easier.

Also BRIC economies will take a while before adopting the produt.

Indian Switch Companies

While most IT companies of the west seem to grow at snail pace, Indian companies are growing at breakneck growth rates of 40-130. Most comapnies with higher base are growing a Healthy 40% rate and showing healthy growth rate in net profit in spite of growing pressure on margins due to an appreciating rupee and emergant challenge from China and other growth oriented Asian economies, and hense the growth of Big Blues are paled in comparison of Indian Switch Comapnies.

It also shows that companies can be grown just on the basis of organic growth and not on inorganic growth. Tech Mahindra is a company although small but grew its revenue 130% and its employee base by 90% in one year. It shows that organic growth is possible , and rapid scaling makes sense. Other bigger companies like Infosys and TCS have shown high employee scaling of upto 40% a year, but are now planning for growth through acquisition as talent is difficult to find.

Thought Waves To Control Online Avatars

Technology is being developed to control Avatars through thought waves tapped via electrodes attached to the scalp. Although yet to be commericialised or fully exploited, the technology is yet to perfect in controlling the online avatar. Although it is better than the keyboard version of controls.

Also web cams are being used to detect user motion and control avatars online. Lot of research is being carried out lately in the field of thought control and soon we would have a technology which would enable complicated data transfer to computer memory via imagination and thinking. With more research the accuracy and bandwidth of such data transfer methods is only going to increase in the coming days.

Image Search Technology

Google image search searches only for images tagged with English on the net, but there are Zillions of photos on the net which are tagged in numerous other languages but can not be found by google since the meta data is in English.

http://www.panimages.org/ is a site which searches data by co-relating and translating the term in 350 online dictionaries and turning up almost 57 times on an average image results. Very handy for people of countries who uses language other than English or French.

It seaches for photos on the net and on flickr and shows them in two different panes . Try out a fun tool to try out.

Biometric Technology

Biometrics have been previously been used for ATM authentication and Laptop security, but now Germany in Europe is all set to use it for Credit Card less transactions. It is being used as a substitute to master card and the authentication is done directly by swiping the finger against the m/c. The chances of fraud due to theft et al are minimised to a great extent by this method and chance of a duplicate finger is 10 million to one. Highly improbable to hack.
Security methods are being developed at breakneck speed to keep the uneven minded hackers and online pirates at bay. US has developed a method by which secure credit card transactions can be done by ceating a one time credit card number for use with non-secure or non-participating e-commerce sites.
In India people are apprehensive of Credit Card products due to strong arm tactic used even by reputed banks like ICICI and HSBC under media scanner and court scrutiny. Recently Maharstra govt. has taken measures to ensure that agencies used by Banks do not hire con men and use gentle means to get their money back.

Now Technology for Disabled Children

A robot UD1 has been developed which allows children with cognitive disorders like Down's syndrome to cope with their early child mobility issues. This can be done by using a robot to move about. Other normal children who are more mobile, seeing whem a disabled child may develop complexes. It helps them stay safe while moving about as the robot is containing sensors which can detect obstacles and move in a safe distance from them by navigating properly.

Thats cool. Version UD2 would also let an adult control the robot apart from the child ( 7 months child can use it) and the automatic control which would enable parents to train the kids in complex movements leading to enhanced cognition.

Industrial Robots and Safety

Industrial Robots were so far harmful to human working in their vicinity. Like they didn't know that humans are frugal by nature and would accidently damage them.

Now germany has created a robot with 6 sensors in various parts of the arm which detects an obstacle like human and gently nudges the human as if to tell get out of my way. The robot is yet to get commercialised, but it makes the life of a Human Being more safe in Industrial settings. Robots have been a part of Industrial Workforce for decades doing dangerous work like welding et al.

Scratch Setting New Paradigms in Children Education

It is a tool developed by MIT to promote innovation and creative learning in kids of all aged 8 and the like. Used to create Animation,Movie,Music et al using graphical interfaces and tools. IN effect a graphical small apps development system to encourage creative thinking in children and reduce destructive thoughts and enable healthy growth.

There are featured projcets, Most viewed et al neatly categorised. Students are encouraged to download others projects and learn collectively and also form children communities.

Pedal powered Laptop

MIT university students have created a Laptop which uses 12 Volts and 30 watts power generated from a exercising cycle which generates upto 72 watts of problem. The laptop functions smoothly with the energy created by cycling.

This could reduce power requirements in your home as well as the total energy requirements from the conventional fossil fuel electricity generation.

Any such programmes will only result in better life for owners of technological products.

New Battery Coat

A new coat has been developed which can generate electricity from vibrations and movements while you walk and can charge mobile and I-Pod batteries on the go. Good energy conservation techniques which can also be used by soldiers to charge battery of communication equipment while on the battlefield.

Now it could also be used by males to avoid battery by passers by in India.

Robots To Play Muscical Instruments

Robots have been developed which can play Music. Robots can play upto four instruments have been developed. Soon you could see orchestra where the Music is arranged by robots and soon you could even have robots which sing perfect tunes.

Chat Based Search Cha Cha

ChaCha is a new search engine technology which uses chat based results and have been found to be unsuccessful because of prank chatters. Other approaches to Internet Search Engine technology have been like natural language processing which have largely been unsuccessful. I propose the following changes which could be successful in the market.

The idea is good, maybe instead of chat a results page should be displayed, where as historical questions and answers could be categorised and similar questions couldf be given ready made results pages. Also researc h shoiuld be done and output pages for most common search terms could be created in advance and updated as the search results may include more internet start - ups.

Fuel Cell Technology

A new technology has been developed which will reduce the dependence on fossil fuels like petrol and diesel. The technology uses industrial waste and uses bacteria to produce hydrogen. The process uses 1/10th of energy used by Hydrolosis of water and produces 1 lot more eletrical energy and hense is very efficient. The technology uses industrial waste for the purpose.

The bacteria produces protons and neutrons by consuming acetic acid which is present in t he waste.

Business Technological Idea's for Companies With Capital

1. A innovation in Cellular Phones could be Aromatic Phones which can be used for Aromatic Therapy and could be used for lifting a bad mood or depression.

2. If a phone is built with Biometric Identification built into chip then a bank of people who can use the phone can be built and could be used only by the authorised person even if it is stolen or lost.

3.MFD Phones are full of glitches, the problem could be solved by having separate chip for each functionality optimised for a function and a general purpose chip for concurrent use.

4. YOur Teastall worker and President of US using same service. Can't digest that. Need for premium services for premium phones. How could be that.
Having a service with extra bandwidth for premium customers who can pay more so that they can amplify the signal and use effects like reverb for business, and others for romantic talk or kinky talk. Also lovers could dedicate customised songs to each other and play radio jock and have loads of other fun.

5.If nano mechanical sound harvesting probes could be built they could be used for harvesting sound energy and converting into electical charge for use.
Normal vibrations from Radio , TV and Music system and other sources of high noise and vibration could be used to generate electricity by placing a probe machine near the source of vibration.

Also no more wars for oil.

Applications of Tactile Display

Recently I read an article on Tactile Graphical Display in Times and thought of two novel applications which could be used to improve HUman life and entertainment experience respectively,

1. A mobile for the blind with a tactile display and keys with braille keys. The tactile display could be used for feeling the messages, dialled numbers and Multimedia Messages.

2. A 3-D I-Pod where videos could have a degree of 3-dimensionality.

Apple Technology Pays Off

Apple Haapily JIngles its cash register with record topline and bottomline growth. Topline grew by 28% and profits soared 81% in the quarter ended september. Where it easily surpassed the indutry figures for the same which were 19% and 43%.

The game changers were 10.2 million i-pods sold, 1.11 million i-phones sold and 2.16 million of i-macs sold. Apple is a company which has immense scope for growth as it has recently launched leopard operating system. Apple continues to innovate and microsft blatantly and belatedly copies microsoft product features and ideas and stays ahead? Could it be because of bad marketing.

Leopard OS is lot better than Vista according to experts and also the process of reducing the prices did its own good on the fortune of Apple which is now a 160 billion valued company.

Voice Controlled Input : Alternate to using Mouse

For those who are handicapped there is good news a voice controlled input device has been created. You use various sounds like a, ow, aw its to move the cursor up down sideways et al on the screen. Also you can use these voice commands by varying pitch , quality, etc to make it move a particular distance or carry out certain actions.
The various things which can be done by using it are playing games, drawing sketches etc. The future of user interface is Thought Interface vai Brain Waves which is expected of a few years down.

Bio Modelling Technology

Is Nature the best. Taking cue from nature to be perfect some scientists have developed a submarine after studying the anatomy of Fish. They have developed a system by which slightest hydraulic movements can be detected from very far and can be used for underground navigation and collision detection system. It may also be used for guided stalking target demolishing missile.
Every technology has its good and evil sides. For example Nuclear Technology was developed for Civil Energy Generation and for good wars, but people use it to threaten neighbous and society at large.
Another example where biomodelling is being tried again assuming that nature is the best guide is brain simulation and AI applications. Although it is at its primitive stages with people not able to simulate even a second of Mouse Brain Activity.
After all aliens may not be god's and World could just be a MMOG or Simulation study with each component having perception ability. Is any study being made to find if nature is perfect, please post your comments freely.

Technological Toys

Toys are increasingly getting more and more technical in nature. There are dogs which remember your names and change there size on patting for 91 dollars US. There are Barbie dolls cum MP3 players. There is increasing inclination for the toys to get more and more high tech like remote controlled Cars et al.
Recently Australia recalled and prohibited import of Chinese toys because they were found to have used a chemical which metabolised into a deadly Date Rape chemical. Previously Mattel had recalled its toys.
There is increasing scope of better interactive and innovative toys with AI intelligence and Robotics developing at a breakneck speed.

Need For Relevant Advertisements

Google ads displayed are mostly adsense related or blogger related. I think no advet. product in market is up to the market. The user should be given an option to choose which advt.'s to display on their blogs. Most bloggers life is difficult and cumbersome sometimes even measly. But love of blogging makes them pursue it as a hobby or as Media Lighthouses.

Also I think some work should be done with Cyber Copyright so that whatever people publish becomes copyrighted automatically free of cost and Main media should encourage blogger to enter mainstream, by playing ethical. Also newspapers could offer subsidized advrt. space in newspaper to generate more support for alternate media.

The Open Source

Flickr and Google sports photos of various resolutions taken by professionals and amateurs to share their caretive artistic instincts with public. Flickr has over 1 billion photographs. Now scientists from University of Washington have developed a programme which collects all the photographs of a famous place and generates a 3d Model of it. Soon they think they will be able to compose the 3D model of cities altogether.

Cars have been developed which run without driver in Auto mode. These cars can be used in military and civilian applications like to assist handicapped drivers, and those on long drives at night.

A TV has been developed which can play content from USB devices like moble, flash memory and I-Pod or MP3 player.

AMD's Strategy

What the processor market shows is that Monopolies can be broken. 10 Years back no one would have believed that AMD would one day have 30% market share that too in a sophisticated market like Notebook processor. But it unshackled the clunky and agressive intel who once thought that it was invincible.
What AMD needs to focus on is branding and Marketing initiatives. It has some better than intel processor ranges and features but the consumer is shy to risk because of lack of product knowledge. AMD needs to invest more in creating product education and awareness. After all no one including intel is invincible, take the Nokia example with Battery fisco resulting in a sure dent in market share.
AMD could auger well by positioning its products differently than intel and go into JV with manufacturers from emerging economies who are now concentrating on SemiConductor reasearch and hardware.

Alacrity, Technology and Distribution

Media is a great business to be in but one thing is for sure, technology is changing the way business is done worldover. The print magazine for example have seen drastic reduction is readership and some have even closed down due to lack of patronage.

This requires that you rethink about your publication business today. The threat side includes online magazines and e-Books and Papers which are set to replace the way business is done. Also the best way out is to start a online presnse with advertising as a revenue model and slowly start with subscription model. Also you can earn though product referrals and tie up with PR agencies.

Social Networking A Fad

India has caught on with the social networking bug. Surely despite its various limitations one has the ability to network, make friends, gossip and collect meaningful info from the net. One can be abreast of latest trends and can give a legspace to their creative instincts and even get recognition and make moolah in the process.
Orkut is most popular in India followed by Facebook, Hi5 and My Space all in top 100 most favorite web sites with orkut at number 3 rank. It remains to be seen if the trend continues or it turns out to be just another fad.

Organic LCD's

After a while of monopoly profits, innovtion hits the LCD and Plasma TV market under the belt. The 3mm OLCDs being offered by Sony is in the Ultra Thin Flat TV's, They are good for sports and action movies watching as they involve good strength to display high speed frames.
Surely the cannibalisation of some of the sales of their existing products are surely on the anvil. Samsung are the world leaders in LCD's and Sony are the followers.

Conning Their Ways to Bank Online : The New Age Online Pirates

One Liyaqut Ali married 50 girls though online sites. Hense if you are tring to meet your soulmate via Jeevan saathi, Simply Marry or Bharat Matrimony web sites, be on your guide. Although these sites carry out a preliminary security drill on their subjects but it is by no means fool proof, hense you are advised to use detective servic to crack the nut.