6th sense technology - “Mistry” unveiled

The innovation “6^th sense technology” as Pranav Mistry calls it will allow you to make just one expression on knowing about it, and that would be ‘jaw-dropping’. A mind-blowing conception that has led to a new technology, which none would have thought would come true and that’s the linking of physical and digital world. To help you to understand this easily, the imagination in the movie “Minority report” when the actor just moves his hand and fingers across the digital images appearing on the wall to browse through information is going to become possible in reality.

Pranav Mistry, a student of MIT is the master mind of the 6^th sense technology. He and his team at MIT media lab has developed a 6^th sense device which comprises of a camera, projector, mirror, a pair of colour papers and a communication device like cell phone. When you wear this device and stand before a wall, you can draw an image in the air using your fingers and you can see the image that you are drawing, on the wall in front of you. Wear this device and walk out in your park, make a gesture of taking a picture with your fingers in front of a tree, guess what, the picture of the tree is stored in you device. Amazing, isn’t it?

You would have seen in the movie “Harry potter”, where in the wizard’s world videos appear in the newspapers. This can also be done with Pranav’s device. Wear the device, and start reading a newspaper, the device will scan the images and text in the newspaper and display videos related to the news on the newspaper held in your hand.

If you want to know the time, just draw a circle on your wrist using your fingers and a clock will appear at that position. If you are sitting bored and want to play a game, all you have to do is to hold a paper in your hand; the game will be screened on the paper. Use the same paper as your joystick and play the game. All this are not imagination, but is possible in the real world. Watch what more miraculous stuff this technology can do at http://www.ted.com/talks/pranav_mistry

The basic laboratory model of the 6^th sense device costs only 300$. The most shocking and appreciable thing is that Pranav is planning to make an open source publication of this new technology so that more people can use this technology to develop 6^th sense devices. His motive is to reduce the number of gadgets used for various tasks and use just one device that performs the operation of the entire lot, by linking the physical world and the digital world. I guess, the Matrix world is not too far now!!!

Don’t miss this presentation video on 6^th sense technology by Pranav: http://www.ted.com/talks/pranav_mistry_the_thrilling_potential_of_sixthsense_technology.html

Choose and compare your VoIP

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is becoming one of the cheapest and prominent mode of communication. The VoIP calls are so economical because there are VoIP providers who provide service at call rates as cheap as even 0.10$ per minute. To call a VoIP number from your machine, you have to first choose a VoIP provider and utilize their services on cost basis.

The VoIP providers in US who top the charts are:

• Future nine
• Call Centric
• Phone power
• Via Talk
• Xvoice
• Voipyourlife

 

Till now the question was as where can i find a VoIP provider. Now when you have a list of providers, the next step is to compare and choose the best VoIP. The call charges and plans varies with each provider, also depending upon the destination numbers. Puzzled up.

www.comparevoipproviderrates.com has done quite remarkable analysis on all VoIP providers and helps you to choose the best VoIP that suits your needs in easy steps:

• Connect to www.comparevoipproviderrates.com
• Enter the VoIP that you would like to connect to.
• List of VoIP providers who provide services to the destination number are listed.
• The call charges of each VoIP provider in the list is also displayed. This helps to easily choose as for which is the most economical option.
• For more details, use the USVOIP tab to view the list of best VoIP providers and their call plans and tariffs.The list is well designed such that even a new VoIP user can choose the best plan at first shot.

How many hits and visits

The success of a website to a great extent depends upon the number of visitors who consistently hit the page and follow it. But how is it possible to know who are visiting your website,how many hits they make, how frequently they visit and other such details? The following websites will help you to get this job done in ease.

 

Countmyvisitors.com:

• Easy to become a member by just submitting email id. Your blog page details to be provided during registration.
• Once registered,login anytime using email id and password.
• The number of hits to your page till date will be displayed.
• The “Statistics” shows the distinct count of ‘number of hits’ and ‘number of unique visitors’ who have hit your page.
• The graph display of the statistics makes it easy to compare hit ratio of a particular week. This option sounds unique and is of great use.
• Holds historical statistics of your web page, with the chronological order from last week up to last year.This option is not available in other sites.

Mypagerank.net:

• The best website to fetch hit and visitor statistics for any webpage.
• Registration or sign ups NOT required.
• Provides two options to view the hit and visitor statistics:
  • First option is to view the statistics on the mypagerank page itself, by entering the website address and the robotic check code.
  • Next option is to place the tool (free of cost) in your web page which will display the statistics every time the page is loaded.
• Provides 14 categories of data such as Google indexed pages, Yahoo indexed pages, Today’s unique visitors,Total unique visitor and so on.

The practice of keeping track of the number of visitors hitting your blog , will help you to identify the topics which are receiving higher response and thus focus more on them in future posts.

Not on lap’s top

Laptop - The name of the gadget suggests that this is something to be used on top of the lap. Yes, and that has been a practise since it has been an important part of everyone’s life. But have you ever thought if the name laptop was the right choice for this gadget? From mainframe computers which occupied almost a 10x10 room to the personal computer, then to desktop PC and to laptops and notebooks. The evolution sounds to be interesting. The amount of heat generated by this machine has almost been considerably reduced proportional to its size, but could not be eliminated. It still has the property of radiating heat energy over prolonged usage. With the increased usage of wireless networks, the laptop usually finds its seat on the comfort laps more than in fixed locations as desks or tables. So what are the consequences of placing the laptops on laps?

• Skin allergies- Laptops are inclined to produce more heat over continuous usage placing on the lap, as its heat radiation is compressed and allow it to warm the skin. This may potentially lead to skin allergies or even skin burns.
• Back ache - Few reports also state that the usage of laptops over the laps also leads to back ache. In a state of mind to adjust the body posture to view the screen better, the person forgets to sit erect with the laptop.
• Burns - Several accidents have been reported in recent times caused due to battery leakage indeed causing burns, when working in the laptop placed over the lap.
• Biggest fear “Infertility” - There has been a widespread fear that the heat generated from the laptop when placed on the lap, will traverse between the legs and affect the scrotal temperature, in turn reducing the sperm count. But there has been no approved study or research to prove this fact.

I was least bothered about placing the laptop on my laps until i saw the following statement in Apples laptop user guide – “Do not leave the bottom of your MacBook Pro in contact with your lap or any surface of your body for extended periods. Prolonged contact with your body could cause discomfort and potentially a burn.”

Is your lappy still on your lap or safe on a desk?

Read more on this:
http://ezinearticles.com/?Bad-Effects-on-Having-Laptop-on-Your-Lap&id=402338
http://www.qa-health.com/f7/

Blog template, which one to choose?

Think of a blog that appears in black and white with the text in the usual Arial and times new roman fonts. The reader will scroll the mouse straight to the right top corner to close the page and look for another one. The appearance of the page plays a major role in attracting web traffic. The simple way to make your blog attractive is by using templates which gives a standard appearance to all the pages of the blog. The basic and simple blog templates are available across various websites, through which one can preview the template and download it for free of cost. Few other websites provide yet more attractive blog templates from 3$ to 85$ which contains more number of flash features, images and other kind of striking features.

Checklist for selecting blog templates:

1. XML – the ready availability of XML source code along with template being downloaded eases the operation of applying the template to one’s blog.

2. Widgets – Templates which contain necessary or atleast two to three widgets can be preferred. Basic widgets like shout box, blog archive, share tool should be looked for in the template.

3. Columns – Choose the template which contains the number of columns as required for your blog. Two column and three column (Side-Main-Side) blogs are easily available.

4. Appearance – Choose the template which contains colours and fonts that well matches the blog content. Templates with less pictures and flash makes the page easy to load.

5. Compatibility – Compatibility of the template to the blogger site in which the blog posts are to be uploaded.

Best sites to choose blog templates:

1. http://freeskins.blogspot.com – Good range of 3 column templates

2. http://colorschemedesigner.com - online tool to choose appropriate colours for the template

3. http://www.ourblogtemplates.com - Best site to learn about XML structure of templates & editing templates

4. http://www.finalsense.com

5. http://www.blogsgonewild.net

6. http://www.bloggertemplatesfree.com

7. http://www.hobbitskull.com

Cease climate blame game

Global warming has been a serious issue for the past couple of years, an issue not discussed in a particular country but discussed and worried all over the world. But things have gone worse as the countries have begun to blame each other in the process of identifying and controlling the reasons for global warming. So what is this global warming and why are countries very concerned about it?

Global warming is the effect of heating up of earth caused due to the emission of polluting gases which highly contribute to the same. These gases trap heat within the earth’s atmosphere without and thus result in the temperature changes all over the globe. This is also known as the greenhouse effect. The countries which have been topping the charts in the emission of these GHG have been concentrating on blaming each other rather than on the measures to control it. In order to cease the blame game and pave a suitable channel to control the global warming, the United Nations has taken a serious step organizing a summit on the climate change. Delegates from close to 192 countries will be participating in this summit which will be held at Copenhagen from 6th to 18th December 2009.The idea is to set up a “Copenhagen protocol” through this summit, which will help the nations in a great deal to take command over the climate change issues. Various environment organization are anxiously awaiting for the Copenhagen summit, as they expect the blame game between the countries to cease and follow a common protocol to solve the issue.

Why is this issue in focus now and not before? The effect of the global warming has worsened such that the change in climate has become rapid in turn challenging the adaptability of living beings to survive. Moreover the serious effect of this on earth’s major ice sheets such as Antarctica and Greenland have led to the rise in sea levels which is predicted to lead to the existence of life on earth.

Read more on this:
http://www.erantis.com/events/denmark/copenhagen/
http://www.newscientist.com/special/copenhagen-climate-change-summit

Landlines are inevitable

Graham bell invented the telephone in 1876, with the intention of transmitting voice or other sounds telegraphically. The advances in technology proceeded to predict the usage of landline phones for transmitting human creatures on to other part of the world as portrayed in the movie “Matrix”. But will the landline phones exist till the technology progresses to achieve this and yet more predictions and innovations linked to it?

The usage of landline phones has been outcome by the invention and introduction of mobile phones in the market. The technology of carrying the phone as wherever you go and using it in any part of the world has made the mobile phones to deteriorate the usage of landline phones. The number of landline users in the world is 1.5 billion which is absolutely lesser compared to the 3.7 billion users of mobile phones. Most of the landline customers are in the process of dropping the landline phones and forwarding the calls to their personal mobile phone numbers to enjoin connectivity.

White noise is a disaster recovery exercise in which the landline phones of the area of protocol are disconnected and the telephonic mode of communication is brought to a halt. The “White noise” exercise was recently experimented at London and a detailed study was made on the effect of unavailability of landlines. A communication collapse was encountered as a result of the zero access to one of the primary modes of telegraphic communication. The major effect was in the mode of internet access which was directly or indirectly connected through landlines. It finally proved that the usage of landline phones is inevitable.

Read more on this:
http://www.beaumontenterprise.com
http://www.mylot.com/w/discussions/2151583.aspx


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Recession and now

Has the global economy well revived from the hard struck recession? If you say no, then this post will make you think twice.

The Australian economy has created almost 25000 jobs in the previous month and in December the unemployment rate is expected to go lower than 5.8%, the number which has been left unchanged since March 2009.

The IT giants have dusted their old display boards with the statement “Trespassers will be recruited”. The top IT giants have started recruiting experienced software professionals as the banking, insurance and automobile industries have remarkably recovered from the eclipse of recession. As a result of this the software arena is expecting more projects to pour in during the forthcoming quarters. It has been stated that more than half a million jobs are said to be available in the IT sector alone, across various MNCs from the start of November.

Europe, France and Germany have proved with their quarter2 GDP results that they too have revived from the worst struck recession since World Warr II. But the fact is that, the Euro zone nations lag from the rest of the world in the race of overcoming the recession.The Asia pacific countries which were comparatively least affected by recession, have also shown remarkable recovery with the interests rates going up and an overall growth rate of 0.6%.The United States department of Labor states that “On the last business day of September, the number of job openings inthe U.S. was little changed at 2.5 million”.

The overall data figures out that the global economy is showing good form of recovery from the recession. The global economy is expected to show a 5% growth in the forthcoming quarter and thus is in ways to eliminate the recession topics from the news patterns.

Read more on this:

http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/blog/eyeonasia/archives/2009/10/asia_to_lead_gl.html

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=apyDezq0ykuU

US to bid farewell to Afghan?

Will it be just no more troops to Afghan or will it be a decision for the US to bid farewell to Afghanistan?

The people in Afghanistan would have almost decided to drop the word PEACE from their dictionaries. The reason is because almost every citizen wakes up to the noise of bomb shelling or grenade firings in the land of Afghanistan since the early 1970s. One foreign army or the other have been setting their bases in this land since 1979 with the motive of helping the country in its war with Iraq. But its been more than two decades since the smoke from the explosives of various armies have diminished and paved way for peace.

The US army has set up its base in Afghan and has been consistently working to end up the war between the two nations. But since this army regime has lost a countable sum of soldiers in the afghan war and the setting up of troops has boosted up the cost factor of foreign policies, the US is taking up steps to almost end up its connection with this war. As a first step to this the US ambassador to Afghanistan, Mr.Eikenberry has urged the president of the USA for no more troops to Afghanistan. He has in fact warned to stop sending in troops and wants the corruption situation in the government to be tackled. But on the other hand, top US commander has asked for 40000 more soldiers to strengthen the base.

The US nationals are waiting for the decision on this, so that the money used in the war zones can be very well diverted to other needs of the hour including reviving from the recession. The civilians of the Afghanistan are waiting for the same decision in order to erase the word war from their daily routines and view a sunrise in peace after many decades.

More articles about this:

http://www.populistamerica.com/no_more_troops_to_afghanistan

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,26341276-23109,00.html

Surplus food

This photograph can be frequently seen alongside display boards ”Do not waste food”. This poignant photo won the pultizer prize in 1994. The photo depicts that the vulture is waiting for the child to die, and the child is indeed longing for a bit of food in order to survive. This photo has left lasting impressions on millions of people and have also urged many to take up the resolution of not to waste food.

Now there is yet another fact that will urge few more millions as not to waste food at any cost. A charity organization in Pakistan is feeding 40000 people a day, who have no means to pay for even one meal a day. The organization states that the situation has gone worse since the recession has struck, because more people are flooding into the food distribution centres as their wages cannot afford even a meal per day.

If its almost 40000 people affected by famine in one country, the number of people affected by famine all over the globe goes countless. Lot of organizations have come into action to take care of the food that goes wasted during parties or functions. They indeed hand over the wasted food to people who are waiting in queues to get one free meal a day, which is almost their only source of food.

The following links helps you to donate food to the famine affected people:

http://feedingamerica.org/

http://www.43things.com/things/view/2702480/donate-our-extra-food

http://www.givespot.com/donate/food.htm

Breakfast news

Make sure not to skip my breakfast whatever it costs. I took this decision after i happened to know quite few interesting and shocking facts about the side effects of skipping breakfast. If you are in the practise of skipping your breakfast regularly, take a look at this post and you will not dare to do it again.

The stomach produces an acid for digestion which makes the digestion of the food easier and simple. This acid is generated in the stomach regardless of whether you have consumed your food or not. If you have had your food at the right time, then the food mixes with the acid and gets digested as per body norms. In case if you had skipped your food, there is no companion for the acid to mix with and hence the acid stays in the stomach leading to acidity disorders, which in turn leads to ulcer and indirectly leads to other diseases including heart problems.

Researches have proved that skipping breakfast can make your body prone to 128 kinds of diseases ranging from ulcer to heart problems. The most interesting fact is that people who skip breakfast are more prone to weight gain. The body will be yearning for energy in the morning mainly through food, air and water. A person normally has his last course of food between 8 to 9 p.m. and the next chance for the body to gain energy through food is almost 10 to 12 hours after that. In other words the body is void of enough energy during that 10 hours and hence it should be supplied in large amounts at the next possible opportunity. This practise of supplying the body with enormous amount of energy early in the morning helps an individual to lead the day bright and energetic.

Eat your breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner as a beggar.


For more health tips:
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/
http://www.naturalpedia.com/
http://www.healblog.net/

War of the worlds

When your clock ticks 11:00 A.M. on 11th November, you can become a volunteer towards world peace. All you have to do is to observe 2 minutes silence and pray for those innocent lives that were lost in the ego clashes between countries in the name of world war season I and II. But why should you do it on 11th of November and not any Sunday. Because, the first season of world war ended on this particular day and hence it is observed as Armistice Day.

So when did the series begin. What was the reason of thousands of humans from different regions clashing against to become the most powerful nation on earth? Franz Ferdinand, the then archduke of Austria was assassinated on 28th June 1914 and this day in history marks the beginning of First World War. The war ended on 11th November 1918 killing 8,556,315, injuring 21,219,452 and leaving 7,750,945 missing or without identification.

The second series of the mass killer termed as “World war II” began on 1st September 1939 following German invasion of Poland and a series of other events such as declaration of war on Germany by France and Britain, Germany’s attack on USSR and more. To the Americans, the war started on December 7th 1941 following Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbour. But the war officially started in 1939. The war officially ended in 1945, but there are no specific dates for the same. The probable reasons for the end of war are Armistice on August 14 1945 and formal surrender of Japan on 2nd September 1945. The Second World War claimed more than 60 million lives. There is no steady count for that till date because the aftermath of this war was worse than its earlier version.

Courtesy:

http://www.firstworldwar.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II

Seat belt in Coldplay

I wanted to have a break from work at noon and logged on to youtube to watch the video of a song from the album “Coldplay”. The name of the track is "The scientist". The music was mild and sweet that trickled nostalgic feelings while listening to it. The song depicts the memories of a Romeo who has lost his Juliet in an accident. The video of the song has been framed in a unique manner as if it takes us to the flashback of the guy’s life, by screening every sequence in the reverse mode. Kudos to the choreography and the editing works . I was indulged in the romantic lyrics of the song, without making an effort to realise the prime motive of the song. At the end of the song, the accident as how the guy lost his love is shown and in that they portray the necessity of the seat belt. As they both happen to cruise happily in their car, their car crashes on to a hill and the guy stays alive, but for the girl who is thrown out of the car as she fails to wear her seat belt.

Even earlier i have seen a couple of videos that suggest the importance of seat belts while driving. But above all, when it comes to the realisation of not losing our life alone, but also not that of our loved ones, the message reaches straight to the heart and the brain. As per statistics, 63% of people killed in accidents are not wearing seat belts. When its just a belt around the waist and body, which is not gonna pain the skin, then i think its better to go for it than lazily avoid it. Click here to get the message in a lighter way.

Safe driving makes a journey – “Happy journey”.

Courtesy:
http://www.car-accidents.com/pages/seat_belts.html
http://www.youtube.com/