Nokia Morph Concept

Wow ! Haven't seen anything like this before ! amazing !

Nokia has just rolled out its Morph concept. Morph is a concept demonstrating some of the possibilities nanotechnologies might enable in future communication devices. Morph can sense its environment, is energy harvesting and self cleaning. Morph is a flexible two-piece device that can adapt its shape to different use modes. Nanotechnology enables to have adaptive materials yet rigid forms on demand.

See this video of Morph for more !

A Hug is all we need !

Sometimes, a hug is all what we need. Free hugs is a real life controversial story of Juan Mann, A man whos sole mission was to reach out and hug a stranger to brighten up their lives. In this age of social disconnectivity and lack of human contact, the effects of the Free Hugs campaign became phenomenal.As this symbol of human hope spread accross the city, police and officials ordered the Free Hugs campaign BANNED. What we then witness is the true spirit of humanity come together in what can only be described as awe inspiring.In the Spirit of the free hugs campaign, PASS THIS TO A FRIEND and HUG A STRANGER! After all, If you can reach just one person...

Kimayagar...Hats off !

Our humans need to understand the world around us has inspired some of human kinds greatest discoveries - from unleashing the fearsome power of an atom, to uncovering the nature of light itself, to revealing the forces that hold our entire universe together. This journey of understanding has been astonishing and gives us an idea about what a human intellect can do. But many times we hardly seem to know much about the people who were the force behind these discoveries - the greatest minds ! Yes frankly, how many of you would know about 'Maxwell'? Well, had he not been there, we wouldn't have had all the Wireless communication, mobile, cell phones that we see everywhere these days; nothing ! If J.J. Thompson had not discovered electron, There wouldn't have been electronics ! Just imagine the world around us if those people had not discovered those things ! Yet, how much do we know about them?..

Well, this is what KIMAYAGAR, a book written in marathi by Mr Achyut Godbole, does. The way the author has narrated the greatest discoveries in science is really commendable. The stories of all those great minds - Galileo, Newton, Einstein, Bohr, Fynmann, Heisenberg, Planck and many more. This book is really a treasure! I loved reading it. It was like reading a story book. The science had never felt so easier to me.

I believe, if you want to learn about some discovery(say transistor), First follow the history behind the discovery. See how the people who discovered those things came to know about it. The things look a far lot easier if you do so.

In the process, i also searched on net for these greatest discoveries in physics and found two of the best videos i have seen. One, 100 greatest discoveries in physics, a TV show that was aired on Discovery Channel and second, BBC Atom. I wish i had seen these videos earlier - maybe during my school , or during my junior college! Better late than never !!

Just to add, KIMAYAGAR has inspired me to start a science series in my school. The series will be an attempt to create interest about science and maths in student's mind. I will be showing such videos to them - the basic purpose being Creating Interest! Though i was not able to know about these things when i was in school/college, i feel this should not happen with others! I am trying my best in that regard ! Long way to go before i sleep!

Thats it !

The 'Lenna' Story

The above picture needs no introduction for people who at some point of time in their life have come across Image Compression. Yes, the famous 'Lenna' image! Ever wondered to know the story behind this image? Read on !

The lady in the picture is Lena Soderberg. The picture's history was described in the May 2001 newsletter of the IEEE Professional Communication Society, in an article by Jamie Hutchinson:-

“Alexander Sawchuk estimates that it was in June or July of 1973 when he, then an assistant professor of electrical engineering at the University of Southern California Signal and Image Processing Institute (SIPI), along with a graduate student and the SIPI lab manager, was hurriedly searching the lab for a good image to scan for a colleague's conference paper. They got tired of their stock of usual test images, dull stuff dating back to television standards work in the early 1960s. They wanted something glossy to ensure good output dynamic range, and they wanted a human face. Just then, somebody happened to walk in with a recent issue of Playboy.

The engineers tore away the top third of the centerfold so they could wrap it around the drum of their Muirhead wirephoto scanner, which they had outfitted with analog-to-digital converters (one each for the red, green, and blue channels) and a Hewlett Packard 2100 minicomputer. The Muirhead had a fixed resolution of 100 lines per inch and the engineers wanted a 512 × 512 image, so they limited the scan to the top 5.12 inches of the picture, effectively cropping it at the subject's shoulders.”

If you want to see the ORIGINAL Lenna image that appeared on the Playboy magazine - Click Here. WARNING this picture contains nudity.

David C. Munson, editor-in-chief, January 1996 IEEE Transactions on Image Processing, cited two reasons for the popularity of the image in research:-

“First, the image contains a nice mixture of detail, flat regions, shading, and texture that do a good job of testing various image processing algorithms. It is a good test image! Second, the Lena image is a picture of an attractive woman. It is not surprising that the (mostly male) image processing research community gravitated toward an image that they found attractive."

Lenna attended the 50th Anniversary IS&T conference in Boston held in May 1997.

Inspirational

Open Source India Week

Hardly a week is left when India will once again witness the force of open source revolution in different cities. Rechristened as Open Source India Week, the LinuxAsia event is living up to its new name. A week-long event will span across three cities -- Bengaluru (11-12 February), Mumbai (13 February) and Delhi (14-15 February 2008). The feeling of being one large community with a common goal is the basis of the movement. Keeping up with the philosophy, organizers of the event have announced that they are releasing 500 entry tickets (worth Rs 1,000) to the week-long event for free.

The free tickets will entitle registrants to get some privileged benefits which include, the keynote and star-speaker sessions, the Tech Tracks which are for IT developers and IT administrators. You will also be entitled to get access to the Expo. One of the most attractive features will be the FOSS Solutions for the disabled.

This year, once again, you will get a chance to brush shoulders with some of the celebrities of the open source movement including Brian Behlendorf, Klaus Knopper (Knoppix), David Axmark (MySQL), Paul Kangro(Novell), Louis Sourez Potts (OpenOffice) and Michael Shiloh (OpenMoko). Besides, more than 15 international and 60 Indian high-quality speakers will share their knowledge and experience at OSIW 2008!

So, you need to be there. Click here to register!