Stealth Fighter F-35 Lighting II takes to the sky

The fifth generation fighter F-35 (aka JSF) has successfully finished its first flight on 15th Dec 2006.

It houses the most powerful engine (Pratt & Whitney F135) ever used in a jet fighter - producing 40,000 pounds (177.9289 kN) of thrust.

The Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) is the most important fighter plane that the USAF (United States Air Force) plans to implement on its fleet. However its not the best. The F-22 Raptor has better features and combat ability. But it loses to the F-35 in its price tag.

While a F-35 costs $60 million, the F-22 costs $250 million. USAF has mentioned that the needs for the F-22 Raptor are limited as the country doesn't face the kind of threat that the F-22 is designed for.

Video : F-35 lighting II first flight

Official Web Site

Gizmag

Supersonic Private Jets

The wired.com portal has an interesting collection of news from the Aerospace Supersonic International...

The news is about the Supersonic Private Jets coming up in the near future.

Here is an excerpt from the blog for getting you inspired.

"A new generation of private jets could trigger a boom in luxury supersonic flight - without a sonic boom. Flying at up to Mach 1.8 these luxury private jets would cut the travel time between Seattle and Tokyo to about 5 hours, instead of 9.5 hours."

These private jets are Luxury and Speed redefined together... The list has the silent supersonic jet, the costliest jet ($80 million) and many others as well...

Feast your eyes on these speed angels in the link below and have a detailed read...

Wired.com

Interesting Theft

This is somewhat interesting but actually we should feel sorry for the person who is affected by this...

A person named Ben has lost his cell phone and the person who took that cell phone had taken it to his place and clicked some pictures.

Ben has synchronised his phone with flickr through the shozu service, so the photos taken via the cell phone has been delivered to Ben's Photostream in flickr. Though he has those photos it is not of much help.

Technology does have its own ups and downs.

Take a look at what Ben has to say and the photos that were taken. Also don't miss the comments - they have some great suggestions.

Ben's Flickr Photostream
Practicalist

Proud India in a space journey with ISRO

Happy Independence Day 2006 to all Indians. This is India's 59th Independence day...

Scott Carney of wired.com has written an article about his visit to the Indian Space Research Organisation and his reviews are wonderful and add to the already existing pride - of me being an INDIAN.

I have added some excerpts from the portal. Please take some time and read the full article and don't neglect.

"Indians pride themselves on their success in space.

Every launch resonates deeply in patriotic nerve centers and causes celebrations throughout the country. Some cities fire off so many fireworks the sky stays thick with smoke for hours. In other places, people pray for the success of the mission in temples and mosques. They may not know what's on board the rocket, but its liftoff certainly lends credibility to India.

After 11 consecutive successful launches, the most recent launch of India's Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle on July 10 had to be aborted when one of the engines failed. But these sorts of setbacks are par for the course in the space business -- and aren't confined to India. In 2003, a similar satellite launch by Brazil's space agency resulted in disaster when the rocket exploded on the launch pad, killing 21 technicians and briefly forcing the country to suspend its space program.

India is different. While the leaders of the free world imagine advanced weapons systems, scientists in India see space technology as a means to help the developing world."

Short facts:
a. India has successfully put 44 satellites into orbit.
b. ISRO operates on about one-twentieth of NASA's $16.5 billion annual budget.
c. "The two organizations (ISRO and NASA) have different research priorities," said the current chairman of ISRO, Madhavan Nair.
d. India stands shoulder to shoulder with programs in the United States - One satellite launched in 2001 performed so well it made analysts wonder if it would be used to spy on other nations.
e. D. Raghunandan, executive secretary of Delhi Science Forum says, "There may not be the impenetrable firewall that the U.S. wants, but there is pretty much a separation between the Defence Research & Development Organisation and ISRO."
f. "We can launch a remote-sensing satellite for half the price of anyone else," said Shridhara Murhi, executive director of Antrix, the commercial arm of ISRO.

ISRO programs:
a. Chandrayaan-1: an orbital space satellite designed to map the surface of the moon.
b. SCRAMJET: Hypersonic research program to develop a SCRAM jet engine.
c. Rocket science: Rocket Launches with PSLV (Polar Satellite Launching Vehicle) and GSLV (Geosynchronous Satellite Launching Vehicle) and a research on a new launch vehicle, the GSLV-III.
d. Miniature satellites: Building disposable multi-stage rockets
e. Remote sensing: search and rescue, detecting climatic shifts, uncovering archaeological ruins, managing fisheries and forests, and detecting water in the most barren areas of the planet.
f. Telemedicine: specialist doctors in the city are able to diagnose and treat illnesses in the remotest corners of the country from the comfort of their own hospitals.
g. Telecommunications: INSAT satellite program for transmitting television and media.

For full articles click the below links.

ISRO
India's Cut-Price Space Program
India Rolls Its Own Space Tech
India's Rocket Man Powers Up
Gallery: Inside the ISRO

Happy Birthday WWW

The world wide web celebrated its 15th birthday on the 6th August 2006.

On this day in the year 1991, Tim Berners Lee came up with a program to link to, and browse the web. The internet came into existence much earlier but his software aimed to allow links to be made to any information anywhere.

At this occasion let us look at some of the milestones of the WWW.
6 Aug 1991 - Tim Berners Lee found the WWW
12 Dec 1991 - First web server was found
22 Apr 1993 - Mosaic, the first web browser, released
Feb 1994 - Two students start Yahoo to offer a directory of other websites
13 Aug 1994 - Netscape browser launched
1 Jul 1995 - Amazon starts as an online book store
24 Aug 1995 - Internet explorer offered with windows 95
4 Sept 1995 - eBay starts operations as auctionweb
4 Jul 1996 - Hotmail launched on US Independence Day
Sept 1998 - Two students start Google at a garage in California
May 1999 - Napster started to share music files
4 Sept 2001 - Google awarded patent for its search algorithm
19 Aug 2004 - Google goes public with an IPO
Today - There are over 9 crore websites

Thank you, sir Tim Berners Lee.
Source: Times of India

Is your humour Masculine or Feminine

A research test was conducted by the scientists in which cartoons were shown to a group of men and women and their brains were put into scan.

These are the results...
In general women were skeptical and didn't expect the cartoons to be funny, when they did laugh they were surprised.
Men on the other hand expected to be amused by the cartoons, when they weren't they experienced disappointment.

Check out the entire report in the link below.

pnas.org

Once astronaut's spacesuit... Now a satellite

This is peculiar news. The used up spacesuits of the International space station are being used as satellites and they are now in orbit.

The spacesuit is the satellite -- "SuitSat" for short.

The Russians were the ones to get this idea spark in their heads.

"We've equipped a Russian Orlan spacesuit with three batteries, a radio transmitter, and internal sensors to measure temperature and battery power," says Bauer of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. "As SuitSat circles Earth, it will transmit its condition to the ground."

Read more in the link below.

NASA

How many emails are sent each day?

Ever thought about this question?

This is what the experts in yahoo have to say:

Email is second only to the telephone in terms of the number of worldwide users, but it's nearly impossible to figure exactly how many emails are sent each day.

VeriSign (the exclusive registry for .com and .net domains) estimates that there are about 2.25 billion email queries per day. However, because of caching, email queries represent only a fraction of the number of emails sent. And VeriSign doesn't track many huge email-producing domains, such as those that end in .edu. So 2.25 billion is far below the actual number of emails sent every day.

Read the full answer in the link below.

ask.yahoo.com

And the Important tools would be...

What do you think is the most important tool you use... Cell phone, pen or maybe the watch.

Forbes.com has come up with a list of 20 of the most important tools ever.

The top five in the list are as follows...

1 - The Knife
2 - The Abacus
3 - The Compass
4 - The Pencil
5 - The Harness

See in the link below the rest of the list.

Keep your fingers crossed for the most important tool of your's to be on the list.

Forbes

Will Jet Airways and Air Sahara become one?

For those of you unfamiliar with the happenings in the Indian aviation sector, here is something.

The two of the major private airways in India, Jet airways and Air Sahara are becoming one and have come to an agreement for a sum of Rs.2300 crore. In this agreement Air Sahara is coming under the Jet airways.

But the news is that the deal maybe under threat due to the pending clearance from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).

An extension has been made on both sides by the airliners, to March 24 2006 as the deadline for effecting the transaction.

Lets hope that the biggest aviation deal in Indian history happens.

Hindu

Airbus A350 + BMW - Airliner interiors redefined

The Boeing and Airbus are two of the biggest airliner manufacturers and they are each other's competitor. The Aircraft Interiors Expo 2006 exhibition is to be held next month and Airbus has a jaw dropper with the A350. This is the Airbus's answer to the Boeing 787.

Already the A380 interiors are spacious and extravagant, unlike any other airliner and now the Airbus company has another feather to add to its hat.

This is what the A350 chief engineer has to say:
“There are new lighting features and shaping in the cabin, we can project onto the ceiling whatever is appropriate for the mood required – for example the night sky or clouds etc."

View the pictures in the link.

Flight Global

Air India and Indian Airlines combine

India's state owned airlines - Air India and Indian (Recently changed from Indian Airlines) are to become one soon.

The two airlines are big in their own ways and both offer international flights to various destinations around the globe. Though Air India owns the jumbos, Indian is a good source of revenue to the state.

Proposals were made to merge both airlines and it is likely to take place within 2006-2007.

The merger would create a major airline with 125-130 aircrafts. This is due to the increased competition from the private airlines in the India's aviation market.

Now what will the new airline be called? "Air Indian" perhaps...

Forbes

Watch TV on the internet

Time Warner's America Online (AOL) has launched a internet TV service called In2TV Channel.

Currently it showcases the classic Warner Brothers TV shows.

The good news is that the shows are free online (aol.com). The channel is advertisement supported like the google services and many of the offerings by the biggies in the internet.

At present 30 shows are being showed and soon many are to follow. Remember this is "A Time Warner's Company" - the huge media empire.

Now go check out your favourite show in the internet TV.

Yahoo News

Ravi Varma - The unique Indian artist

I did not know much about Raja Ravi Varma except, that he was a artist and that he was famous among artists until I recently read this article in Reader's Digest.

An excerpt from the article:
NO OTHER Indian artist blazed as many trails as Raja Ravi Varma. He was the first Indian to master perspective, the first to use human models to depict Hindu gods and goddesses, the first to make his work available not just to the rich but to ordinary people too. The immense popularity of his work also made this deeply pious aristocrat the first Indian artist to become well known — before him painters were largely anonymous.

Read the full article and view his great paintings in the link.

Reader's Digest

Calcoolate in the web

Mathematical Calculations are part of our everyday life.

Calculating in the internet has become easy with the help of the search engines like google and yahoo giving out answers for the numbers and operators input into the search box.

Now a new web portal calcoolate.com has been launched with the AJAX functionality that makes it faster than google or yahoo calculations.

Moreover its got a calculation history which is very useful.

And its got options to calculate complex mathematical functions like sin and cos functions, etc.

Calcoolate

16 Gigs of data in a pen drive

Nowadays the floppy drives are out, CD's are soon to follow. The in thing is the external hard disk drives, and the flash drives are the most preferred - making fashion statements and compactable.

Iocell, a Korean company has created a flash drive that can be used to save 16 Giga Bytes of digital data.

The company has been producing its range of USB drives under the name "Celldisk" and the 16GB flash drive also comes under this name.

The pen drive is of the same size as the other drives and is USB 2 compliant.

Click the link below for a photo glimpse.

Gizmag

Airbus stops the industry's first wide bodied aircrafts

The Airbus company has announced that it is going to stop the production of the A300/A310 airliners from july of the next year.

The company is going through a change and there is high demand for the new airliners from airbus like the A321, A330 and A350.

The A300 was the first wide bodied twin engine ever brought to the airline industry. The A310 followed it with the first two man cockpit in a wide body. These two aircrafts were the boosters for the airbus company.

The employees (150 in number) of the A300/A310 program, who produced one aircraft per month are being shifted to other programs.

Read in the aero news network page link below for more info.

Aero News Network

Picture passwords to protect yourself from hackers

The alphanumerical Passwords are easy for hackers to crack in and get information from the protected areas.

In recent days there are some spyware programs that can detect your password, remember them and then send it to its programmer - who ofcourse is going to misuse it in his favour.

A group of researchers have come up with a solution. Their system that uses one clear and easily recognizable image and another that is a highly pixilated, unclear version of the original.

When creating a new password or changing an old one, the system provides the legitimate user with the clear image. But during the authentication phase, the system shows the user the unclear image, along with a number of decoy images.

The legitimate user who should now be familiar with the image will easily detect the unclear image but the hacker cannot.

Read the article in the link below for more information.

Discovery

Young children to young eagles

June 10th 2006 will be a special day for the 10,000 (approximately) children who will get to fly with a volunteered pilot in their aircraft.

The free flight program conducted by the EAA (Experimental Aircraft Association) offers children in the ages of 8 to 17 a chance to fly in aircrafts, gliders, helicopters and even hot air balloons and blimps. Better said simply given a chance to be airborne.

These activities are also part of the effort to fly 1.25 million Young Eagles by EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2006, "The World's Greatest Aviation Celebration," which takes place July 24-30 at Wittman Regional Airport at Oshkosh, Wisconsin.

The Young Eagles program's chairman is Harison Ford, a well known actor (air force one) and an aviator. Their effort has to be applauded for their consistency, for the association has been doing this from 1992.

Aero news network
Official web site

Hello office, I'll sign the documents from my vacation

It is very much possible now. Thanks to the Booker prize winning author Margaret Atwood and her team led by Matthew Gibson.

Usually writers have to travel far and to many places at a stretch for signing events to keep up the relationship between the authors and their readers. This difficulty is eliminated now with the invention of a gadget called "LONGPEN". It is a remote controlled pen operated by mechanical arms.

The user can be on one side and the longpen can be placed anywhere in the world. Once the user signs in the electronic pad, the same is transmitted to the device and the mechanical arms reproduce the signature in the paper.

In fact its developers say, longpen can not only sign in papers, but it can sign in hockey bats, and work is in progress for making it sign in basketballs.

Its about time that we start writing our examinations from the comfort of our home.

Yahoo News (Associated Press)
Official web site

And the AWARD goes to...

Yes, it is the time of the year when everybody is looking for their favorite Hollywood people to win the oscar awards and get recognised.

The 78th annual academy awards (OSCARS) took place yesterday and here are the winners.

Best Actor - Philip Seymour Hoffman in “Capote”
Best Actress - Reese Witherspoon in “Walk the Line”
Best Direction - Ang Lee for “Brokeback Mountain”
Best Motion Picture - “Crash”
Best Animated Film - “Wallace & Gromit in the Curse of the Were-Rabbit”
Best Foreign Language Film - “Tsotsi”
Best Visual Effects - “King Kong”
Best Makeup - “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”

A more detailed list is available in the official oscars site.
A more public expectation vs the oscar team is available in yahoo! movies.

Guess what? It's ok to be angry.

I read this article in The Hindu and found it interesting and useful. The article is about anger and why it is necessary.

Some tips on how to harvest the energy from anger are given in the article. The article says " Anger obviously has more power to it than you think."

Click on the link below to read it.

Hindu

To refine Google results

Everybody Googles nowadays.
Searching recently got the second rank for the most used application in the internet, next to (what else) Email.
So here is a link that gives you handy tips for better searching using Google.

Note: There is a standard help link in most of the internet services that we use. Take a look into it and you can find much more options and tips for searching (for that matter anything).

Canada.com

Discover the first Flyer in a Flash

Who were the first people to design and fly a successful practical airplane?
You know the answer, it is the Wright Brothers. Their successful 12 seconds flight sparked up the aviation industry.

This achievement is due to the Wright Flyer, the magnificent beauty for the aeronautical community.
The discovery channel's web portal has a nice interactive flash presentation of the Wright Flyer. A general view of the Flyer, a rotatable view and the innovations that led to the first flight are given in visuals. Also an extra section explains about the propellers in brief.

Note: It doesn't take much of your time.
Click below to go back to kill devil hills (1903) and see Orville Wright in the Flyer.

Discovery

Officer! My Aircraft has been stolen

I didn't know that people steal aircrafts from airports...

Here is a news about an aircraft stolen from the Tucson airport area in Arizona, USA.
A Cessna aircraft was stolen from its hangar on tuesday. The Police are on the lookout for the aircraft and the criminal.

Click the link below for more detailed news and the photo of the aircraft.
The police have given their contacts for report of any news about the stolen aircraft.

Aero News Network

Top Gun's F-14 Out of Service

Photo Courtesy: Wikipedia

This is kind of old news... But I came across it lately and can't resist writing about this...

The "Top Gun" airplane that Tom Cruise flew in...
Yes... the famous variable sweep wing fighter interceptor F-14 Tomcat is out of service from the US Navy. It had its last flight on February 8th 2006.
It has been replaced by the F-18 Hornet. The main reason for its replacement is due to high maintenance issues to keep it in operation.
The F-14 Tomcat was an icon in the US navy.People around the Aviation industry are unhappy due to this.

Yahoo News

Yahoo Toolbar V6.3

Here is something interesting and useful...

Have you used Mozilla firefox? the open source code browser?
If yes you will be knowing about tabbed browsing and how it is great for browsing the internet...

If not... you will know about tabbed browsing by reading this...

Also Microsoft's Internet Explorer 7 that is about to be released implements this tabbed browsing along with other browsers such as Opera...

Yahoo is a huge company in the internet business and they have many services other than just mail... (which many of us are not aware about)
One of their great offers is Yahoo Toolbar...
Today yahoo has introduced its toolbar V6.3 for Internet Explorer 5.5 and above... It now has tabbed browsing just like in firefox...

Its great... I checked it out and it feels good to use it...
Check it out in the link below...

Yahoo Toolbar

My Intro

Hello People,

Good day and Welcome to the world of alex nazy.
Thanks for visiting my blog.

I am ALEX from INDIA.

Here is my blog. Take a look. Hope it interests you.
I have many interests. So my blog will be a mixture of things that I come across in my life.

Happy Surfing. Adios Amigo.