Wednesday, August 30, 2006

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

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

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

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

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