Neonode's AirBar: Turn Any Laptop into A Touchscreen Laptop

Ever since Microsoft so heartily embraced finger-friendliness with Windows 8, accessory makers have been striving to figure out a compelling way to add touch capabilities to non-touchscreen displays, be it in the form of fancy styli paired with infrared receivers, gesture control scheme like Leap Motion, or touch-sensitive overlays that you plop on your laptop’s display. But sadly, every single solution has been either lacking in functionality or just plain overpriced.

Enter Neonode’s AirBar—potentially.

The AirBar’s a slim sensor that magnetically latches onto the bottom of your Chromebook or Windows laptop’s display and connects via USB. Once it’s hooked up—Neonode says it’s plug and play, with no extra drivers necessary—the device casts a beam of light across your screen, and you can poke, pinch, zoom, swipe and scroll around with your hand the way you would on a touchscreen PC.

Since the AirBar’s powered by light, rather than touch, you can use it to interact with your laptop in ways that traditional touchscreens don’t allow, such as with a glove or even chopsticks, as this video shows.

Unlike some of the other impromptu touchscreen solutions out there, AirBar won’t break the bank, either. You can preorder the sensor on the AirBar website right now for $50, though the only model available currently works with 15.6-inch laptops alone.

Square Root Day!

Math geeks and those who love them are probably still in withdrawal: Pi Day, the holiday that commemorates everyone’s favorite irrational number, has come and gone, and the next one won’t happen until March 14, 2017—an agonizing 11-plus months in the future.

But wait, It's 4/4/16. Isn’t today another major math-related holiday? Four times four, or 42, is 16, and since today’s date is 4/4/16, this is—wait for it—square root day! It happens every time this sort of configuration rolls around: the last square root day was March 3, 2009, or 3/3/09, and the next will happen on May 5, 2025, or 5/5/25. So go celebrate!

Or not, says Scientific American's Michael Lemonick: "Before you get too excited, though, you need to face a sad truth: square root day is a second-rate math holiday at best—it’s like trying to get your pulse pounding over Arbor Day, compared with, say, Christmas or Thanksgiving or any other self-respecting festival."

AC Power Analysis: Basics

Instantaneous Power

The formula for power is: P=V⋅I, Power= Voltage*Current. We call that, instantaneous power. Even when V and I are changing in time, P=V⋅I applies for each instant. It matters not if the V or I changes are sinusoidal, what their frequency is, or even if they are aperiodic. P=V⋅I, is something you can use always. There are no exceptions that I can think of.

You don’t need Ohm’s Law to use V⋅I, because V refers to the voltage at one-point relative to ground, and I refers to the current flowing past that point. But suppose you have a resistor R, and you want to calculate the power dissipated by it. Using Ohm’s Law, the voltage drop across R is V=I⋅R. In this case, V is the voltage drop between two points in a circuit. The power dissipated is (V)⋅I=(I⋅R)⋅I=I²⋅R. If you have a capacitance C instead of R, then you need to use the differential equation I=C dV/dt. If you have an inductance L, then you need to use the differential equation V=L dI/dt.

Sinusoidal Power

Let’s jump directly to sinusoidal waveforms such as we have in AC circuits. Let V and I be sinusoids of the form cos(ωt+ϕ). What happens to the instantaneous power? Well, P=V⋅I still applies, but now P varies with time, and how it varies depends on the phase angle of V relative to the phase angle of I. If the relative phase is zero, we say that voltage and current are “in phase”. That is depicted below.

Note that the frequency of V⋅I is twice the frequency of V or I, and that the value of V⋅I is zero twice in the cycle, and that the average of V⋅I is not zero.

Suppose V and I are not in phase? In this picture, I (dotted line) is shifted by an angle 90 degrees relative to V (blue). V⋅I is shown as red-green shaded areas; red means power flowing right (+) and green means minus power flowing left (-). Note that the areas of red and green are equal in this case, so they cancel. Power flows just as much to the left as to the right, so the net energy over the entire cycle is zero. What should we call this peculiar state? Referring to the entire cycle, we call it pure imaginary power (also called reactive power, also called VARs). Don’t be fooled, even in this case instantaneous V⋅I remains real.

Below, I is shifted only 45 degrees relative to V. We see that V⋅I is predominantly red, but green for part of the cycle.

We can now generalize to all possible phase shifts. We discuss averages for the entire cycle.

• Phase 0 is pure real power, phase 180 is pure real power flowing in the opposite direction.
• Phase 90 is pure imaginary power, phase 270 is pure imaginary power flowing in the opposite direction.
• Any other phase is a linear combination of nonzero real power and nonzero imaginary power.

Complex Power

In 1893, Charles Proteus Steinmetz published a paper that explained the great advantages of complex AC analysis. The other electrical geniuses of the day (including Nikola Tesla) were all using tedious integral calculus and expressions using definite integrals of cos⁡(ωt+ϕ), or the Euler form e^−jωt+ϕ. Steinmetz left them in his dust because he recognized the combination of fortuitous luck with coincidences of mathematics that were relatively obscure at the time. Namely:

• Manufacturers were already making AC generators in 1893 that generated sinusoidal voltages.
• The sinusoid is the only mathematical function that has the property that differentiation and integration return a function of the same form but shifted 90 degrees.

Steinmetz found that by restricting his equations to an integer number of whole cycles, and by replacing real quantities by complex ones, we obtain quasi-static equations that are hugely simplified relative to integral calculus. Simpler how? 

• DC P=V⋅I becomes AC S̅=V̅⋅I̅, where S̅ is complex power, usually written as S̅=P+jQ where P is real power and Q is imaginary power. (Actually, it should be S̅=V̅⋅I̅* but, I’m ignoring the sign of Q.)
• DC Ohm’s Law V=I⋅R becomes AC V̅=I̅⋅Z̅ where Z̅ is the complex impedance. Z̅ includes resistance, inductance, and capacitance.
• Differential equation terms in DC (like C dV/dt and L dI/dt ) become algebraic in AC.
• Series, parallel, Kirchhoff’s Laws, mesh analysis, matrix analysis: essentially all the tools and methods of DC circuit analysis become directly applicable to AC if we just use complex and whole cycles.

Next, think once again of the pictures from above with the red-green areas depicting V*I. Instead of time-varying instantaneous V*I, we will focus on just the whole cycle averages, P (as measured by an AC Watt meter) and Q (as measured by an AC VARs meter). P and Q will be constant in time, but they will vary as we change the phase shift. The meter readings versus ϕ are shown in the table.

Neutrinos -II

Doing astronomy with invisible particles

In the end, nature provided, and experiments performing scientists discovered, supported by calculations from theorists. First came decades of searching by many experiments, with important hints to encourage the chase.

Then, in 1998, the Super-Kamiokande experiment in Japan announced strong evidence that muon neutrinos produced in Earth’s atmosphere change to another type (now thought to be tauon neutrinos). The proof was seeing this happen for neutrinos that came from “below,” having traveled a long distance through Earth, but not for those from “above,” having traveled just the short distance through the atmosphere. Because the neutrino flux is (nearly) the same at different places on Earth, this allowed a “before” and “after” measurement.

View from the bottom of the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory acrylic vessel and PMT array. image credit: Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

In 2001 and 2002, the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory in Canada announced strong evidence that electron neutrinos produced in the core of the sun also change flavors. This time the proof was seeing that electron flavor neutrinos that disappeared then reappeared as other types (now thought to be a mix of muon and tauon neutrinos).

Each of those experiments saw about half as many neutrinos as expected from theoretical predictions. And, perhaps fittingly, Takaaki Kajita and Arthur McDonald each got half a Nobel Prize.

In both cases, quantum-mechanical effects, which normally operate only at microscopic distances, were observed on terrestrial and astronomical distance scales.

As the front page of The New York Times said in 1998, “Mass Found in Elusive Particle; Universe May Never Be the Same.” These clear indications of neutrino flavor change, since confirmed and measured in detail in laboratory experiments, show that neutrinos have mass and that these masses are different for different types of neutrino. Interestingly, we don’t yet know what the values of the masses are, though other experiments show that they must be about a million times smaller than the mass of an electron, and perhaps smaller.

That’s the headline. The rest of the story is that the mixing between different neutrino flavors is in fact quite large. You might think it’s bad news when predictions fail – for example, that we would never be able to observe neutrino flavor change – but this kind of failure is good, because we learn something new.

International society of neutrino hunters

Arthur B. McDonald, professor Emeritus at Queen’s University in Canada, speaks to reporters at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, October 6, 2015. McDonald and Japan’s Takaaki Kajita were co-winners of the 2015 Nobel Prize for Physics for their discovery that neutrinos, labelled nature’s most elusive particles, have mass, the award-giving body said on Tuesday. REUTERS/Lars Hagberg – RTS3AOV

Takaaki Kajita at a news conference after the announcement he’s won the Nobel Prize for Physics. Photo credit: Kato/Reuters

I’m delighted to see this recognition for my friends Taka and Art. I wish that several key people, both experiments performing scientists and theorists, who contributed in essential ways had been similarly recognized. It took many years to construct and operate those experiments, which themselves built on slow, difficult and largely unrewarding work going back decades, requiring the effort of hundreds of people. That includes major US participation in both Super-Kamiokande and the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory. So, congratulations to neutrinos, to Taka and Art, and to the many others who made this possible!

When I first started working on neutrinos, over 20 years ago, many people, including prominent scientists, told me I was wasting my time. Later, others urged me to work on something else, because “people who worked on neutrinos don’t get jobs.” And, even now, plenty of physicists and astronomers think we’re chasing something almost imaginary.

But we’re not. Neutrinos are real. They’re an essential part of physics, shedding light on the origin of mass, the particle-antiparticle asymmetry of the universe, and perhaps the existence of new forces that are too feeble to test with other particles. And they are an essential part of astronomy, revealing the highest-energy accelerators in the Universe, what’s inside the densest stars, and perhaps new and otherwise unseen astrophysical objects.

'5 Sigma' What's That?

Chances are, you heard this month about the discovery of a tiny fundamental physics particle that may be the long-sought Higgs boson. The phrase five-sigma was tossed about by scientists to describe the strength of the discovery. So, what does five-sigma mean?

In short, five-sigma corresponds to a p-value, or probability, of 3x10^-7, or about 1 in 3.5 million. This is not the probability that the Higgs boson does or doesn't exist; rather, it is the probability that if the particle does not exist, the data that CERN scientists collected in Geneva, Switzerland, would be at least as extreme as what they observed. "The reason that it's so annoying is that people want to hear declarative statements, like 'The probability that there's a Higgs is 99.9 percent,' but the real statement has an 'if' in there. There's a conditional. There's no way to remove the conditional," says Kyle Cranmer, a physicist at New York University and member of the ATLAS team, one of the two groups that announced the new particle results in Geneva on July 4.

Scientists use p-values to test the likelihood of hypotheses. In an experiment comparing some phenomenon A to phenomenon B, researchers construct two hypotheses: that "A and B are not correlated," which is known as the null hypothesis, and that “A and B are correlated,” which is known as the research hypothesis.

The researchers then assume the null hypothesis (because it's the most conservative supposition, intellectually) and calculate the probability of obtaining data as extreme or more extreme than what they observed, given that there is no relationship between A and B. This calculation, which yields the p-value, can be based on any of several different statistical tests. If the p-value is low, for example 0.01, this means that there is only a small chance (one percent for p=0.01) that the data would have been observed by chance without the correlation. Usually there is a pre-established threshold in a field of study for rejecting the null hypothesis and claiming that A and B are correlated. Values of p=0.05 and p=0.01 are very common in many scientific disciplines.

High-energy physics requires even lower p-values to announce evidence or discoveries. The threshold for "evidence of a particle," corresponds to p=0.003, and the standard for "discovery" is p=0.0000003.

The reason for such stringent standards is that several three-sigma events have later turned out to be statistical anomalies, and physicists are loath to declare discovery and later find out that the result was just a blip. One factor is the "look elsewhere effect:" when analyzing very wide energy intervals, it is likely that you will see a statistically improbable event at some particular energy level. As a concrete example, there is just under a one percent chance of flipping an ordinary coin 100 times and getting at least 66 heads. But if a thousand people flip identical coins 100 times each, it becomes likely that a few people will get at least 66 heads each; one of those events on its own should not be interpreted as evidence that the coins were somehow rigged.

So where do the sigmas come in? The Greek letter sigma is used to represent standard deviation. Standard deviation measures the distribution of data points around a mean, or average, and can be thought of as how "wide" the distribution of points or values is. A sample with a high standard deviation is more spread out—it has more variability, and a sample with a low standard deviation clusters more tightly around the mean. For example, a plot of dogs' heights would probably have a larger standard deviation than a plot of heights of dogs from a particular breed, even if that breed had the same average height as dogs in general.

For particle physics, the sigma used is the standard deviation arising from a normal distribution of data, familiar to us as a bell curve. In a perfect bell curve, 68% of the data is within one standard deviation of the mean, 95% is within two, and so on.

Graph of the Normal Distribution showing

3 Standard Deviation on either side of the Mean.

5 Sigma Observation corresponds to Data even further from Mean 

In the case of the results announced announced by CERN, the process was more complicated than simply taking the results from one experiment and measuring the deviation of the data from the expected background levels; data came from many different channels, and each one had a different expected background signal. In addition, there were uncertainties about the measurements from the detectors that had to be taken into account. Researchers used a complex formula to combine all of these variables and calculate a p-value. This value was then translated into a number of sigmas above the mean, because the number of collisions observed at the energy of the newly discovered particle was higher than the expected background.

This final point led to some confusion in the media about the p-value associated with five-sigma. In a normal distribution, data is symmetrically distributed on both sides of the mean. It is twice as likely for data to be in either the high or low tail than just the high tail, so some outlets reported that five-sigma corresponded to a p-value of 0.0000006, or 1 in 1.7 million, rather than the correct value of 0.0000003, or 1 in 3.5 million.

The excitement about the Higgs discovery led the two teams to announce their results before all the data had been analyzed. Going forward, after both teams' analyses are complete, the groups will combine their observations. Although the two experiments are based on similar physical principles, it is not trivial to combine their data in a meaningful way. If your wallet were filled with both U.S. dollars and Euros (or Swiss Francs if you were visiting CERN), you couldn't simply add the numbers on the bills to find out how much money you had; you would have to perform some conversions first. The groups will use what Cranmer calls "collaborative statistical modeling" to combine the results of the two experiments (ATLAS and CMS). This approach has already been used to perform "conversions" on data sets within each team's experiment. When complete, these analyses will convey a more accurate sense of the strength of the new evidence and determine whether the observed data is consistent with the Higgs boson physicists seek.

TATA to Make Debut in Robotics Industry with BRABO, A Industrial Robot

TAL Manufacturing Solutions, a Tata Group company, has designed its first ever India-made robot called ‘Tata Brabo’. Showcased at the 'Make in India' week in Mumbai, the robot will help micro, small and medium enterprises in building cost-effective robotic solutions for manufacturing purposes. Expected to launch in two months, the arm bot will be priced at ₹3 lakh and ₹6 lakh.

The robot is a Tata Motors innovation. It has been developed in-house by a team of six engineers, led by Anil Bhingurde, COO of TAL Manufacturing Solutions, the development cost of the robot is reported to be about ₹10 crore. The designing has been done at TAL, styling was done at Tata Elxi, and manufacturing of some parts at Tata AutoComp. Tata Capital, a housing finance company, provided the finance.

The robot will be developed for micro, small and medium enterprises. The enterprises will then use the robots for their manufacturing purposes. It has been reported that Brabo will be priced at ₹300,000 for 2 kilograms payload, and ₹600,000 for 10 kilograms payload.

The main advantage that Tata has is that the company will have the localized manufacturing of the robot and it can price the robots lower than the foreign players. The idea behind the making of the robot is to drive mechanization in the Indian markets by offering cheap and cost-effective solutions. It has also been reported that by manufacturing robots, TAL Manufacturing doesn't intend to compete with global robot manufacturing companies but plans to target the small initiatives in the Indian markets with affordable solutions.

In short, Brabo, which is completely designed, developed and financed in house by TATA, going to create sustainable environment for Robotics Industry in India. With the launch of Brabo, from next year, the demand of robots in the Indian market is expected to rise to 5,000 from 1,000, according to the International Federation of Robotics.

Volvo to Introduce First Truly Keyless Car This Year

By next year, Volvo wants to become the first manufacturer to sell cars without keys. Instead of a physical key or even a Bluetooth key fob, Volvo customers will use a "digital key" in a smartphone app to access (and share that access) to their cars. Good news to those who habitually misplace their car keys.

Car owners will be able to use the mobile app through Bluetooth connection to start their car, open the trunk, mess with the security system, or like with a key fob, simply have the car unlock as you approach it. The automaker envisions the technology will help enterprising owners enable ride sharing to make the most of their rides. They’ll be able to share digital keys with family members, co-workers, and other designated third parties via their mobile phones.

“Our innovative digital key technology has the potential to completely change how a Volvo can be accessed and shared. Instead of sitting idle in a parking lot the entire day, cars could be used more often and efficiently by whoever the owner wishes,” says Henrik Green, Volvo Cars’ vice president product strategy & vehicle line management.

Volvo won't be rolling this new tech out right away. The company will start a pilot program later this year with a ride-sharing fleet at the Gothenburg airport in Sweden before including it with some of its production cars in 2017 and the technology will be officially unveiled next week at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The automaker says a limited number of commercially available cars will be equipped with digital keys in 2017.

There's likely a lot of issues left to be sorted out (like what happens when your phone dies and you're out at dinner?). If that idea bothers you, don't worry — Volvo will still offer physical keys to those who request them.

Freedom251 Cheapest Smartphone of World; Is it Worth?

A working smartphone for ₹251!!! A Noida-based Ringing Bells on Thursday amazed the domestic smartphone market by launching the world's cheapest smartphone for just ₹251, roughly translating to less than $4. The company has brought the Freedom 251 smartphone a full-fledge usable smartphone to India and is selling it at an amount, which is lesser than a good fast food meal.

Cheap smartphones are nothing new. There are plenty of Android Smartphones priced under ₹3,000 in the market with few takers. In the past, Akash tablet-maker Datawind too grabbed eyeballs by only innovating on the price of its UbiSlate tablet and Pocket Surfer smartphone range. However, consumers soon lost interest because these cheapest devices never delivered as per expectations.

There are lot of doubts around the Freedom 251, Questions like How it possible for company to price a smartphone this cheap and whether smartphone will successfully deliver its promises which are made by company.

So, here are the answers to all the major questions raised by consumers.

Is the smartphone worth buying at Rs 251?

While the market is used to substandard unusable products at cheap prices, the Freedom 251 smartphone (surprisingly) delivers. The company accepted that the smartphone should ideally cost above ₹3,000. So, Ringing Bells claims to offer consumers a ₹3,000-like smartphone performance in this mobile retailing at ₹251.

The smartphone has better looks (even though made of plastic), good hardware and software support. The 4 inch touch screen phone has 1.3GHz processor and is powered by Android 5.1 operating system. (For full specifications click here)

Ringing Bells is offering a full-fledged smartphone which includes complimentary earphones and works fine for just ₹251. This phone can be definitely used by those who are still stuck on feature phones due to the high price of smartphones. The actual price of the device is somewhere between ₹3,000 and ₹4,000.

Who is subsidizing the price?

On the price of ₹251, Ringing Bells made it clear that 'price innovation' is borne by themselves and government has nothing to do with the price of the smartphone. So, the company is giving the subsidy not the Indian government.

So, how is the company going to make profit?

Ringing Bells president Ashok Chadha is primarily aiming to achieve this price point by making it a mass product and save from economies of scale. Also, once their platform is well established, Chadha will opt for alternative sources of income. He mentioned that the company intends to make very little profits from the Freedom 251 particularly.

The cost of making one unit of the smartphone is around ₹2,000. "By making in India, this price goes down by ₹400. Then we will sell online only. So, this pulls down the price by ₹400 further. We are sure that this smartphone will be in a lot of demand. We are assuming to save around ₹500 from this economy of scale. At last, we wait for our platform to grow, so, that we can make money from other services," explained Chadha at the launch event. The company is also aiming to introduce its own SIM card within a couple of years (which can be the main source of income/profits).

How to book one?

The company has stopped taking orders on the Freedom251.com website after receiving massive booking requests. Ringing Bells will start the booking process soon. To book one, consumers will have to visit www.freedom251.com, click on buy and follow the on-screen instructions. The booking period will close on February 22. Consumers can expect to get the smartphones by June 30 (latest).

What about after sales support?

Ringing Bells stated that they have over 650 service centers across India. The device comes with a 1 year warranty.

The Most Unstably Stable "Neutrino"

The smallest things in the universe

Atoms, despite the Greek name (“cannot be cut”), are not elementary particles, meaning they can be disassembled. An atom is a diffuse cloud of electrons surrounding a tiny, dense nucleus composed of protons and neutrons, which can be broken into up and down quarks.

Particle collider, which accelerate particles to near the speed of light and smash them together, help us discover new elementary particles. First, because of E = mc2, the energy in the collision can be converted into the mass of particles. Second, the higher the accelerator’s beam energy, the more finely we can resolve composite structures, just as we can see smaller things with X-rays than with visible light.

We haven’t been able to take apart electrons or quarks. These are elementary particles, forming the basic constituents of ordinary matter: the Lego bricks of the universe. Interestingly, there are many heavy cousins of familiar particles that exist only for fractions of a second, and thus are not part of ordinary matter. For example, for electrons these are the muon and tauon.

Elementary particles, of which neutrinos are one kind.

What’s a neutrino?

How is this elementary particle – the neutrino – different from all other elementary particles? It’s unique in that it’s both almost mass-less and almost non-interacting. Those features are different, though often conflated, hence we can call it introvert.

It’s a mystery why neutrinos are almost, but not quite, mass-less. We do know why they’re almost non-interacting, though: They don’t feel the electromagnetic or strong forces that bind nuclei and atoms, only the aptly named weak force (and gravity, but barely, because their masses are small).

Though neutrinos are not constituents of ordinary matter, they are everywhere around us – a trillion from the sun pass through your eyes every second. There are hundreds per every cubic centimeter left over from the Big Bang. Because they so rarely interact, it’s almost impossible to observe them, and you certainly don’t feel them.

Neutrinos have other weird aspects. They come in three types, called flavors – electron, muon and tauon neutrinos, corresponding to the three charged particles they pair with – and all of these seem to be stable, unlike the heavy cousins of the electron.

Because the three flavors of neutrinos are almost identical, there is the theoretical possibility that they could change into each other, which is another unusual aspect of these particles, one that can reveal new physics. This transformation requires three things: that neutrino masses are nonzero, are different for different types, and that neutrinos of definite flavor are quantum combinations of neutrinos of definite mass (this is called “neutrino mixing”).

For decades, it was generally expected that none of these conditions would be met. Not by neutrino physicists, though – we held out hope.

"Whisper from the Universe"- LIGO Detects Gravitational Waves

100 years after Einstein predicted the gravitational waves Scientist at LSC have successful to detect them. LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC) is a group of more than 1000 scientists worldwide who have joined together in the search for gravitational waves.

For the first time, Laser Intereferometer Gavitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) have detected ripples in the fabric of spacetime called gravitational waves, arriving at Earth generated by the collision of two black holes in the distant universe. The signals detected are extremely subtle which disturb the intereferometers by just fractions of the width of an atom. But the black hole merger was picked by two widely separated LIGO facilities in the US. This confirms a major prediction of Albert Einstein's 1915 general theory of relativity and opens an unprecedented new window to the cosmos.

In 1916, the year after correctly formulating the theory of general relativity, Albert Einstein predicted that, when anything with mass accelerates, it should make waves in space time, like a boat going donuts sends waves lapping towards shore. However, Einstein himself believed that any attempts to detect these “gravitational waves” would prove futile, as the effect that they have on their environment is miniscule.

According to Prof Danzman (Albert Einstein Institute) , this detection is the beautiful signature of the merger of two black holes. And also Prof Bernard Schutz from Cardiff University, UK says that the Gravitational waves go through everything and they hardly affected by what they pass through and its act like a perfect messenger. He added certain predictions saying that this information carried on the gravitational wave is exactly the same as when the system sent it out; and that is unusual in astronomy. We cannot see light from whole regions of our own galaxy because of the dust that is in the way, and we cannot see the early part of the Big Bang because the universe was opaque to light earlier than a certain time. But with detection of Gravitational waves it is risen the expectation to see the Big Bang itself. 

This is only the beginning of the field of gravitational wave astronomy. Gravitational waves ought to let astronomers get a better look at dark, distant, supermassive, fast moving, cataclysmic stuff using mass and movement instead of mere light. Scientists anticipate detecting other events including neutron stars in our galaxy, other black holes and supernova explosions.

Facebook's Free but Restricted Internet Service "Free Basics" Banned in India

India's telecoms regulator has blocked Facebook's Free Basics internet service after the country's national telecoms regulator ruled that the program and others like it violate the principles of net neutrality. The ruling was not directly aimed at Free Basics, but the general practice of zero-rated internet services, that let users access certain apps and websites without consuming their mobile data.

"No service provider shall offer or charge discriminatory tariffs for data services on the basis of content," ruled the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.

The decision from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) comes after a long battle between Facebook and the country's net neutrality advocates. Free Basics was blocked temporarily in India last December while the TRAI considered its case, but other services — like Airtel Zero — had previously been the subject of protests. But although Facebook's attempt to offer subsidized content wasn't the only such program in India, it was particularly visible.

After its temporary ban, the company started a campaign to try and win public support, reportedly spending nearly $45 million promoting Free Basics with billboards and newspaper advertisements. While Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg defending the program as free basic internet access to all, the critics of Free Basics and zero-rating in general argued that the practice creates an unfair marketplace. By subsidizing content, companies like Facebook get to pick and choose winners, creating incentives for customers to use certain services because they don't eat into their data. This in turn makes it harder for smaller players to compete and quashes innovation.

Even according to netizen in India, the Free Basics of Facebook doesn’t include web services which considered to be basic in India like government websites agriculture information etc. The people who live in cities and are aggressive users of the internet said: 'You can't dictate the terms, give free internet to villagers and then tell them how to use it'.

The World Wide Web Foundation, founded by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the web, welcomed the regulator's decision.

Program manager Renata Avila said, "The message is clear: We can't create a two-tier Internet - one for the haves, and one for the have-not."

"We must connect everyone to the full potential of the open Web; We call on companies and the government of India to work with citizens and civil society to explore new approaches to connect everyone as active users, whether through free data allowances, public access schemes or other innovative approaches.", he added further.

For More Information Read- "Should I support Facebook's Free Basics in India?"

A Review: IIT Bombay Entrepreneurship summit 2016

Tenth Edition of the Entrepreneurship Summit concluded with key note from Rana Kapoor of Yes Bank on last Sunday, 31st January at IIT Bombay. This two-day annual summit promises an amazing meeting ground for industry experts, business leaders, investors and entrepreneurs and of course, students, many of whom are aspiring entrepreneurs. It’s also the first ever event of its kind to receive patronage from the ‘Make in India’ initiative, as well as UNESCO.

The E-Summit is also the largest such event that is organized by a student body (E-Cell), and its theme this year was ‘The Global Mèlange’ to showcase the entrepreneurial ecosystems of Israel, the US, the UK, Singapore, and Australia – quite apt given that the entrepreneurial spirit is never tethered by geographical boundaries.

Panel discussions, Talk shows & Interactive sessions from the speakers all over the world brought entrepreneurial sparkle and investor energy. Sachin Bansal of Flipkart, Kunal Shah of Freecharge, Vani Kola from Kalaari Capital and Ashish Hemrajani Founder & CEO of Bookmyshow are some of the highlights of talk shows. Jim Beach faculty head of the school for startups got overwhelming response at his talk shows, and an interactive session ‘brainstorming’. The unique talk show hosted by TVF Pitchers added excitement to the event.

The Innovation Conclave witnessed participation from India’s top innovators, comprised of 15-minute long interactions. Anil Gupta, founder of the National Innovation Foundation, and Ramesh Raskar, Head of MIT Media Labs, were among those who gave insights into their ideation styles, work strategies and success stories. Srijan Pal Singh highlighted the opportunities in social entrepreneurship. The struggling story of Mansukhbhai Prajapati, founder of Mitticool and energetic talk on Mumbai’s Dabbawala by Pawan Agrawal added enthusiasm and inspiration in event.

Another major highlight was the second edition of ‘The Ten minute million Challenge’. Ten shortlisted startups got a chance to make a 10-minute pitch in front of a panel of 12 of India’s best angel investors, which was followed by an on-the-spot decision on financial backing.

Other crowd-puller events within the ambit of the E-Summit include the Job and Internship Fair which was open to all college students, and the Start-up Expo. There was also the finals of Asia’s largest Business Model competition on Day 1. Finalists had been chosen from more than 7,000 entries, and prizes worth ₹50 lakh.

Many events were organized to test the skills of young entrepreneur. Competitions like Crowd Pitch, Ideablaze, National BizQuiz, Apocalypse Management and Hackathon, all of which had already created quite a buzz. Teen Tycoons, a pitching platform for teenagers and school students. It was a revolutionary event, aimed at encouraging start-up ideas from all age groups. After all, Mark Zuckerberg was just 19 when he launched Facebook.

Digital Currency- "Bitcoin"

   As I have discussed in the previous blog 'Technological Transformation of Banking Sectors', about how the technological development enhanced and some of them listed also.In the continuation of the previous article it is also essential to discuss about 'Digital Currency' and 'Virtual Currency'.  Always their is a misconception about these two terms. Sometimes these are considered as same but it is not so. The Digital currencies can be used to facilitate payment for physical currencies in real life similar as traditional physical currencies where as virtual currencies are those which are not intended for use in real life and subjected to centralized authority. But digital currencies having decentralized authority. 

   The Virtual currencies and Cryptocurrencies are said to be types of digital currency only, but differs in function. The Bitcoin is an example of Digital currency. It is a form of Digital currency, created and held electronically,its growing category of money known as Cryptocurrency. It can be used to buy things electronically such as conventional dollars, euros or yen, which are also traded digitally. This currency is not physically printed instead it is created digitally, this technology is proposed by Satoshi Nakamoto. The idea behind was to produce a currency which will be  independent of any central authority, transferable electronically instantly. The Bitcoin is the result of mathematical calculations not due to any expensive metallic element. The software is open source, any one can check it.
    The invention of paper currencies over metal coins, gold is for convenience, but the invention of Digital currencies is something which is the result of technological advancements. With the use of long chain of software work this can be possible. It has some limitations being digital such as power requirements, software skills etc. But the innovation of the digital currency sets the height of technology and makes the country globally advanced.

Technological Transformation of Banking Sector

    The technologies have changed the banking industry from paper and branched based banks to digitized and networked banking services. It changed the accounting and management system of all banks. All the way the technology giving rewards are limitless. The development of technology in banking sector are listed below:

E- Banking- The use of Graphical User Interface (GUI) with software made the banking process faster and services can be delivered easily to the high end customers. Also Electronic Data Interchange is the software which can be used to transmit business transaction in a computer readable form.

Plastic money- Credit cards, Debit cards and Gift cards have made the banking industry more flexible than before. The customer can pay for any thing using the cards, in this case they do not have to go through the hassle of borrowing small money.

Rural banking- Mobile banking facilities is the boon for rural areas. People can deposit money on the account made by mobile company or banks which is opened for free. This money can withdrawn anytime anywhere comfortably. The earliest mobile banking services used SMS, a service known as SMS banking which further developed into mobile application as smartphones got introduced.

   Their are so many other uses of technology in the banking sector, such as self inquiry facility, remote banking, signature retrieval facilities, multilingual ATM's,multi-functional ATM's, Bio-metrics etc. Technology has became essential part of the business of banking. It is difficult to consider one without the other. Also for the banks it is now becoming easier to fulfill the customer needs. The technological growth played a vital role in the transformation of banking sector in terms of its transactions processing as well as for various other internal systems and processes by virtue of which day to day operations in banking has evolved substantially over the years.

India Is Reported To Have World’s First Vaccine For Zika Virus

In a breakthrough discovery Bharat Biotech, a vaccine and biotherapeutic products manufacturer based out of Hyderabad, has claimed to have created the vaccine to combat the rapidly spreading Zika virus outbreak. Zika virus is named after Zika forest of Uganda where it was first identified in Rhesus monkeys in 1947. The virus has recently made headlines all over the world as it is spreading rapidly and has reportedly no vaccines to combat it.

The virus is transmitted by the Aedes Aegypti mosquito family which causes a mild fever known as Zika fever. The virus has been found to be showing the same symptoms as those caused by Dengue fever and is treated only by taking rest. In the 1950’s the virus was confined to the equatorial belt of Africa and Asia. But since then it has spread to various other regions and as of today has reached pandemic levels.

According to World Health Organization, the virus is ‘spreading explosively’ and will infect 4 million people by the end of the year. In Brazil, the virus has been linked to children being born with small heads or microcephaly, but the diagnosis about that has been inconclusive. The virus has been reported in Colombia, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, México, Panamá, Paraguay, Suriname and Venezuela. A cluster of infections similar to what occurred in Brazil was also reported in French Polynesia in 2014. Most recently in Texas, the USA the first infection transmitted through sex has been reported.

Bharat Biotech CMD Krishna Ella said, “We believe we have an early mover advantage in developing the Zikavac and we are probably the first in the world to file for a global patent for Zika vaccine candidates. We have two candidate vaccines in development. One of them is an inactivated vaccine that has reached the stage of preclinical testing in animals”. The patent for the vaccine was filed by the company nine months ago, however, the efficacy of the vaccine still needs to be tested. None the less the discovery is essential to combat the virus and is a big inspiration for Indian budding scientists. The world has only recently started research on developing a vaccine after the outbreak came to limelight.

Dr. Ella has said that the company at best has the capacity to produce one million doses of vaccine per year. To scale up the delivery of the vaccine it needs intervention from the government, and for this, he has asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to help fast track the development of the vaccine. Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, a pediatrician, and Director General, ICMR has said that they will examine the vaccine from a scientific point of view and take it forward.

One-Glass Solution to Touch-Screen Technology

Consumers are demanding smartphones and other mobile devices to be as thin and lightweight as possible. The traditional structure of adding pro-cap touch to display to LCD, starts with separate LCD panel that is made up of two glass layers that contain liquid crystal material, top glass sheet covered with polarizer. Above that goes the pro-cap touch module. A protective cover glass is then placed on the top of touch panel so that the top electrodes are not exposed. This stacking up of the glass layer limited the designer from making slimmer and lighter displays.

A method that gaining momentum to solve this problem is “one-glass solution” (OGS). The basic idea is to replace the touch module glass by a thin layer of insulating material.

Sensor on Lens

Sensor on Lens

One approach to achieve OGS is “sensor on lens”. In this case, ITO layer is deposited on the back of the cover glass and pattern it to create the electrodes. Thin layer of insulator added to the bottom of that and then second ITO layer is deposited on the back of that, patterning it to create electrodes running at right angles to the first layer. This module then laminated to standard LCD panel.

The touch technology deposited in the cover glass using the sensor on lens approach, results in a separate touch module that can be sold to the LCD display assemblers.

On-cell Pro-cap

On-cell Approach

The other approach is called “on-cell” pro-cap. In this case, conductive layer of ITO is deposited directly onto the top of glass layer of LCD panel and then patterned into electrodes. A thin insulating layer is applied and then second ITO is deposited, electrodes patterned right angle to first layer. Finally top polarizing layer is applied on the top and display is completed by adding cover glass.

The on-cell enable LCD manufacturer to add these touch layers onto their own LCD panels during manufacturing process. The display assembler just have to purchase a cover glass to complete the display.

In-cell pro-cap

In-cell Approach

Some of the panel makers developing “in-cell” touch panels, where one of the conductive layer actually shares the same layer as the thin film transistors (TFTs) used to switch the display’s sub pixels on and off. Tis approach not only reduces the electromagnetic noise in the system, but also uses a single integrated controller for both the display and the touch system. This reduces part counts and can make the display component thinner, lighter, more energy efficient and more reliable.

What are AMOLED Displays?

OLED display stack is somewhat different from a LCD stack. It only requires one substrate (glass) layer as opposed to LCD’s two. OLED material is much thinner than LCD layer. As a result, the finished display can be half as thick as an LCD panel, saving weight and thickness which is important in smartphone design. A number of smartphones today use a form of active-matrix OLED display called super AMOLED.

Other than above differences OLEDs have same stack configuration as that of LCDs and both tend to have cover glasses for protection.

                                              <<Previous                4 of 4

Home

How Capacitive Touch Screen Works?

Projected Capacitance (Also known as P-cap or Pro-cap) is a solid-state technology. Instead of being based on electric resistance, it relies on electrical capacitance.

If the charge is applied to the conductor, it will hold the charge. And then second conductor is brought near it, second conductor will “steal” some of the charge from first one. Stealing a charge is same as when walk on carpet and try to touch any metallic thing you feel some spark at the tip of your finger. Here, metallic thing that you are trying to touch steals charge, which was built during walking on carpet. Pro-cap technology works on this basic principle.

Like resistive design, Pro- cap sensors uses two layers of transparent ITO conductors, separated by an insulator. The conductors on one layer run right angle to the conductors on other layer. The separated conductors are scanned in rapid sequence, so that all the possible intersections are measured many times per second.

When you touch the screen with your finger, it steals a little bit of the charge from each layer of the conductors at that point. The electrical charge involved is very tiny, which is why you don’t feel any shock or spark. This little change in the charge is enough to be detected by electronic devices. Because each conductor is checked separately, it is possible to identify multiple simultaneous touch points.

Pro-cap Touch Technology

Today’s projective capacitance technology relies on the fact that an electromagnetic field project above the plane of the conductive sensor layer. It allows to cover the touch module with sheet of thin glass or specially toughened Gorilla Glass, without losing the sensitivity of screen. It also increase the reliability of mobile.

No technology is without its challenges, so as the Pro-cap. The system of conductors used is susceptible to electrical noise from electromagnetic interference (EMI). Also touch screen won’t respond to non-conducting materials like finger nails.

In spite of all these shortcomings, Pro-cap technology has become dominant choice for the mobile devices.

<<Previous          3 of 4          Next>>

Home