Behind those Four-Walls of Prison

Its about a hypothetical situation that takes you inside the four-walls of a prison

"I know not whether Laws be right or whether Laws be wrong; all that we know who live in goal is that the wall is strong; and that each day is like a year, a year whose days are long." -Oscar Wilde

Now, this is more like a hypothetical situation and just out of no where. It was only yesterday that I was watching this movie: “The Shawshank Redemption” with my friend, when we sat to think…..”What if we were in prison?” And then it all started……

Life is full of uncertainties and truly so, and God forbid if we end up in a prison (for reasons which may be immaterial in this case) and say for a longer term. Given a choice what is that one thing (of course non-living) you would love to take that will allow you to spend your days in prison with some comfort. There may be lots of things that may come to your mind…….books, musical instrument, drawing materials, drinks, cigarettes, photo albums, TV, etc.

Since we are discussing something hypothetical, so CAN we say we would be able to survive there if we had the Internet? My discussion may not be relevant to a lot of “Citizens” of the world, but perhaps to the “Netizens” of this world. If we take the case of AO Members, can any of you really stay away from the Internet or the computer for more than a day? We may not be having any direct use of it; as in; we may not be programmers, but yes for any information we just rely on Internet. And yes indeed we have some of our aspirations that cannot be completed without the Internet. You want to write articles, essays, research papers, book reviews, etc you resort to the Internet. You want to play some games, download music, make travel plans, know places, learn about your favorite actor / actresses / musicians / role-models / authors / movies / courses / business etc you again look forward to the Internet.

Indeed it has become the part and parcel of your life; you even like deleting those junk mails. Study indicates that people are happy to see at least “few" mails in their inbox; though irrelevant. From this hypothetical situation we can derive the importance of something which may come as a blessing in disguise; if ever convicted to live a life of a prisoner. In real life also we seem to be confined within the four-walls of: ethics, religion, society, faith, truth, law, etc.

“Wherever any one is against his will, that is to him a prison.” -Epictetus

And we are able to cross these boundaries, because we have a virtual medium or platform, which won’t reveal any of our activities to the outside world, nor would reprimand us for trying to go outside the four-walls. And in the process does it promise you to make a happy man, or a more complete man?

Its’ your call to answer!

To read about The Shawshunk Redemption

Disclaimer
This article in no way reflects the views, opinions, thoughts or beliefs of any person, institution or organization related to the author and is the personal expression of the author.

Positive Strokes – Two, Four and Six

Introspecting the world of Two and Four Stroke Technology and looking forward to the future of the Six Stroke Engines

The Two Stroke Engine paved the way for the introduction of the Four Stroke Engine. The benefit has been on both fronts: increased mileage as well as reduced emission. As the prices of oil continually increase as also the emissions from millions of vehicles; would the Six Stroke Engine come as a savior?

The Six-Stroke Engine is a completely new development of the internal combustion engine. Termed six-stroke due to the radical hybridization of two- and four-stroke technology, the devices achieves increased torque and power output, better fuel economy, and cleaner burning with reduced emissions, longer service intervals, and considerably reduced tooling costs when compared with a conventional OHC four-stroke engine.

Six Strokes	Six Stroke Engine based on Ducati V-Twin	Engine Cutaway

To know more:
1. http://www.sixstroke.com/
2. http://www.jack-brabham-engines.com/

Also,
1. Thermodynamic Advantage
2. Construction & Market Size
3. Example: Yamaha SR500

Disclaimer
This article in no way reflects the views, opinions, thoughts or beliefs of any person, institution or organization related to the author and is the personal expression of the author.

100 Million and still going Stronger . . .

India has secured the "Fifth" position in the world for itself in terms of Telephone connections by crossing the "Hundred-Million" mark.

From various Excerpts . . .

India has crossed the 100 million mark in the number of telephone connections and has become the Fifth Largest Network in the World after China, US, Japan and Germany.

Here are the highlights:

1. Number of Telephone Connections now stands at 100.27 million. (Fixed Line: 46.61%; Mobile: 53.39%)
2. Teledensity: 9.13 (Rural: 1.70; Urban: 20.79)

According to Mr. Dayanidhi Maran, Minister of Communication and Information Technoloy, the government has set a modest target of 250 million telephones and a teledensity of 22 per cent by 2007. The government has set a target of 18 million Internet connections, 50 per cent of which would be broadband.

India's mobile services sector experienced unprecedented growth for the fiscal year ended March 31 this year, according to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) in Delhi. The mobile subscriber base grew by 55 percent during this period from 33.6 million to over 52.1 million, TRAI said.

Spurred by the high growth in the mobile services market, the government is now hoping to boost telecom equipment manufacturing in the country.

A number of multinational telecom equipment vendors including Nokia Corp in Espoo, Finland, and Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson in Stockholm have announced that they will make equipment in India. The Indian government is expecting an investment of about US$800 million in telecom manufacturing in India in the fiscal year ending March 31, 2006, Maran said.

Motorola Inc. in Schaumburg, Illinois, is planning to launch later this month a GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) handset priced at below US$40 phone, which is expected to give a boost to the market, said Maran, who added that the government is persuading Motorola to set up a manufacturing facility for these handsets in India. "For Motorola to produce a sub-$40 phone, they require low cost and efficient labor," Maran said. Motorola officials said last week in Bangalore that they were considering manufacturing in India, though no final decision had been taken.

The challenge before the government is to bridge the digital divide between the urban and rural areas. The two PSUs (BSNL & MTNL) have a combined market share of 51.39 per cent. To realize the dream of providing connectivity to the rural areas more private participation would be required say from Reliance, Tata and Bhartii.The government is also trying to get service providers to tap into India's rural market, and is planning some incentives, such as allowing operators to share infrastructure, Maran said.

It is also known that the mobile subscriber base corssed over the fixed line subscriber last September. Mobile telephony tariffs in India have come down by about 35 percent over the last one year, according to TRAI. "Lower ARPUs (average revenue per user) does not mean the service providers are losing money," said Maran. "India is a volume game”

Disclaimer
This article in no way reflects the views, opinions, thoughts or beliefs of any person, institution or organization related to the author and is the personal expression of the author.

Part III: When will Gates be Open ?

Open Source and Proprietary Softwares are two distinct domains and the recent move by Microsoft gives us an indication that they both will be converging soon in times to come

Finally some of the questions that were posed to Mr Gates in my previous articles i.e. Part I & II seem to have been answered in a way.

Excerpt

I wonder how this didn't make Slashdot.

Microsoft has announced that it will make the file formats (specifically, schemas) for Excel 2003, InfoPath 2003, Visio 2003, and Word 2003, available for free download under a non-restrictive, free licence. Here's the relevant part of the FAQ from the Office 2003 website.

Q. How do I get a license?
A. The license is available when you download the Office 2003 XML Reference Schemas from the Microsoft Download Center.

Q. Who can obtain a license?
A. The license is not restricted to particular individuals or entities. It is available for customers, governments, academics, hobbyists, and IT companies.

Q. How restrictive is your license?
A. The license for the Office 2003 Editions XML Reference Schema is patterned on licenses for various XML standards efforts and allows for broad industry use.

Q. How much does the license cost?
A. The license for the Office 2003 XML Reference Schemas is being made available free of charge.

Ostensibly, this is being done to get around new "open standards" restrictions being imposed by the state of Massachusetts, but other than this reason, the move defies logic. Microsoft already has a stranglehold on the Office Suite market, perhaps an even firmer one than Windows has on the Operating Systems one. This move will only make the OpenOffice.org project developers' life much easier. No more reverse-engineering of file formats in order to play well.

But by merely promoting an open standard, and committing to it remaining free "perpetually", is not going to generate revenue for Microsoft. Even most (if not all) users of OpenOffice, whether on Windows or non-Windows operating platforms, still save all of their files in Microsoft Office formats. How will this result in greater sales of MS Office, or in stanching the rise of OpenOffice?

Perhaps it's the exact reverse - Microsoft has estimated that OpenOffice is not an immediate threat to its market, so opening up the standard will make no difference to its revenue through increased adoption of OpenOffice. Besides, opening up the standard also earns Microsoft goodwill from corporate America and state governments; it also earns it brownie points in its battle with the Open Source community and their backers, chiefly IBM, Novell and Sun. Finally, such a move also strengthens its claim of promoting open standards.

Whatever the impact of this move on the players invoved, in the end, the customer always stands to gain - either from an improved OpenOffice, or simply better file formats based on feedback from the technological community.

And all I can say to Microsoft is - Humph! It's About Time!

Extended Reading:
1. Part II: When will Gates be Open ?
2. Part I: When will Gates be Open ?

Also, few Excerpts from the net:
1. Microsoft Opens up
2. Office Format: Not Open By My Definition.

Disclaimer
This article in no way reflects the views, opinions, thoughts or beliefs of any person, institution or organization related to the author and is the personal expression of the author.

Laptops, Mobiles, PDAs getting Alcoholic too . . .

Laptops mobile phones PDAs printers etc are candidates for a new fuel cell technology capable of delivering watts of power

Fuel Cell Technology is here to replace or at least stands as an alternative to the Lithium-ion cells. Fuel cells works by converting common high-energy fuels such as ethanol, methanol or hydrogen directly into electrical energy and benign by-products such as carbon dioxide and water. The technology is here to power consumer electronic devices without any loss of portability or functionality.

Comparing with the present day market leader, i.e. the Lithium-ion cells, fuel cells provides 8-10 hours of unplugged power supply and looking to go beyond 24 hours in future. Presently, they may be priced in and around $200 compared to $120 - $180 for present laptop batteries. There would be legal issues to it as well; the core fuel being flammable, and standardization as well as regulations have to be sought. It is especially important when carrying a fuel cell enabled consumer electronic device in an airplane. The challenge for this technology also includes the reduction in size and capability to operate in extreme climates.

Companies like Hitachi, Toshiba are already working to reduce the size; and future would see them on mobile phones or PDAs as well. Most of the prototypes being developed use direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) technology. Advances in fuel cell technology are being carried on. Materials and Energy Research Institute Tokyo have invented a fuel cell for laptops which is more compact and powerful than competing technologies. The direct borohydride fuel cell technology is seen as cheaper, more compact and this chemical compound is non-combustible, high in energy density, easily distributed, and convenient for consumer use. It should be on the market by early 2006. IBM and Sanyo Electric Co., Ltd. have tied up to provide fuel cell powered ThinkPad Notebooks. Though, they would be using hybrid system of a lithium-ion battery with fuel cell. Samsung, Casio, NEC are also powering their laptops with fuel cell.

Certainly, fuel cell seems to provide a promising alternative to power the seamless mobility of consumer electronic device users.

Disclaimer
This article in no way reflects the views, opinions, thoughts or beliefs of any person, institution or organization related to the author and is the personal expression of the author.