GLONASS - An Alternative to GPS

Today, GPS become a part of everyday life. Common people are using GPS devices for finding shortest route of their destinations to for keeping eye on their kids. Usually, people are unaware about the GPS system; how it works; to whom it belongs. Most common misconception is that GPS belongs to USA, but the fact is that GPS is a system and it is implemented as NAVSTAR by USA. This means the current GPS we are using is USA owned but soon we getting different alternative to NAVSTAR GPS system as Russia based GLONASS GPS system.

So, GLONASS (GLObal NAvigationSatellite System) is a satellite navigation system managed by Russia. Alike NAVSTAR, GLONASS is also provides real time position to military and civilian. Receiving the GPS signals at high latitudes are very difficult, in such cases GLONASS signals are useful. GLONASS have regional as well as full global coverage. GLONASS have same accuracy and precision as NAVSTAR. Many smart phones are NAVSTAR and GLONASS enabled.

Like Russia, other countries are developing their own positioning or navigation system. China is developing COMPASS or Beidou Navigation Satellite System which will be fully operational by 2020. European Union is building Galileo Positioning System which will be fully operational by 2019. India is developing two regional navigation systems - Indian Regional Navigational Satellite System (IRNSS) and GPS Aided GEO Augmented Navigation (GAGAN). Both systems are planned to be fully operational by 2014.

This means in near future we will get more option about getting location based information.

Comments and suggestions to justice Verma panel

Respected Sir,

Here are some comments and suggestions,

1. I strongly believe that castration is the perfect punishment for the rapist rather than hanging. He/she should know the value of the others life. In TOI news, doctors say "chemical castration is not practical" but as US, UK practicing the castration against rapist so we need to study whether they use chemical and/or surgical castration? But while using these we should take care of fundamental right about gender discrimination.

2. Even though, people are saying about more lady police for registering FIR, investigation etc so that woman/girl can have easy access to police station. But what is the problem with male police? Will they don't register FIR of a woman/girl which was raped? Do they have soft corner for rapist?  I think woman police is not only solution to the problem. Chargesheet plays crucial role in filing the case. We should give special training to registering proper FIR against rape, investigating the case, collecting more and more evidences. We should also take care of fake rape cases because there are many examples of fake rape case. We should not make a law against male. Experience about misuse of section 498A was terrible (SC says most of 498a cases are fake). 

Sometimes rape may be emotional not intentional that thing also be considered in investigation. Also, after that mistake, is there any possibility of reformation?

3. There should be a toll free number so that victim can call (if possible) for help at that number or if call is uncompleted they police can find the location and reach to the location using GPS and GIS technologies.

4. People are talking about surveillance camera but it is not feasible to install camera. Where should we install camera? in rush places or outskirts or only on selected urban areas? what about rural areas? (75% rape cases are from rural areas)

5. In rape cases we always consider rapist as a male but what about female rapist/ sexual harasser? I know the cases are few but we should also consider this in the amendment.

6. Special training programs should be arranged for women and girls. In that they should get training of what to do in such situation.

7. I believe that, "Prevention is better than cure". Ladies should take care about roaming at late night or no man's land. As we are living in the cultural country like India then we should also follow our culture about living, wearing, roaming, etc. But in this matter girls/women are stick to fundamental right. I want to say that if you (male or female) live out of box then you should be like that, you should be able to bear effects of that and you should not blame government or law.

India has no national game

In my earlier post, I wrote about national language of India. Today, I am writing about national game of India. In India, cricket is like a religion but hockey was considered as a national game. I am saying “considered” because hockey is NOT a national game of India. This is quite surprising; rather I say shocking because everybody learned in the school textbook that hockey is national game of India. Thanks to RTI (Right to Information) act and the girl who filed an RTI query.

VII^th class student, Aishwarya Parashar filed an RTI query requesting information on national anthem, symbol, game, bird, animal and flower. In the reply of this query, ministry of youth affairs and sports cleared that India has NO national game; this means hockey is not our national game.

Our school textbook claims that hockey is our national game. Such spreading of erroneous knowledge through the textbooks reminds me the funny sentence written on the T-shirt – “I was born intelligent but education ruined me”.

TV + Smart Box = Smart TV

When I was teenager, video game was the buzz word. I was very curious about video games and that is not because of game but my curiosity was about connecting the video games devices to television (TV). Attaching different kinds of devices added new dimension to TV, and that can be used for other purposes rather only watching TV programs. Over the past few years, TV technology hasn’t upgraded much, but now TV becomes a multi-faceted device named as Smart TV.

As we are in touch with the terms like smart card, smart phone, smart money, but what does smart means? Oxford dictionary says smart means neat, stylish, fashionable, clever or ingenious. I think all these terminologies defines smart TV because it is a television set with integrated network and web connectivity facilities to connect to the internet.

The operating system and inbuilt network connectivity facilities present in Smart TV that allows us to connect to the internet, also it allows us to install and run applications as like smart phone. The smart TV is not only a TV set, but also it integrates set-top box, LAN port, blu-ray player, game console, etc devices. These devices allow user to play games, to surf on Web, to communicate with people, to search and view movies, audios, videos, photos on the Web, cable TV channel, or storage device.

The companies like Samsung, Sony, LG, Lenovo, etc are selling smart TV, but they charge much. If you have already bought a TV which doesn’t have smart capabilities, even though don’t worry. Any type of TV (CRT or LCD or LED) can be converted into smart TV, you just need a smart box. Smart box or smart TV box is a small device which adds smart label (capabilities) to regular TV.

I think, smart box is a complete package like a computer. It has a processor, operating system, set-top box, internal storage, wireless mouse and keyboard, WiFi router, LAN port, USB ports, card reader, motion sensor remote control, and HDMI audio-video ports. Then why do we need a Netbook? The smart box currently available in the market provides an Android OS which allows us to access the wide range of apps through Google Play.

The companies like Akai, Amkette, Portronics, Kickstarter and Equiso are selling smart box in the market. Akai smart box cost Rs. 6590, Amkette’s EvoTV box cost around Rs. 10,000 and Portronics Limebox cosy Rs. 8500. 

So, enjoy the new dimension in the arena of television.

Future of Computing

Can you imagine your desktop or laptop without Hard disk? In current situation, absolutely not! But in near future, we will to say bye-bye to our hard disk. 

No doubt, hard disk plays crucial role as a secondary storage medium but technology is growing very fast. When I started my computer science study in 2000, I started with 10 GB hard disk. Now-a-days, it is in TBs. By technology advancement, not only storage capacity increased but also dimensions are decreased. 2X1 cm data (memory) card can store no of GB data.

In 21^st century, human’s life is very fast, we need instant things like instant coffee, instant food, instant money, etc. Human’s life become very easy with the use of ICT, but for that we need instance access to personal data and applications. If you don’t have access to your data, i.e. you don’t have your desktop PC or notebook with you then you are wedged to this situation. To thrash such situation, you have to keep your all data and applications in your pocket which is not good and feasible solution or you can keep your data and applications at some remote location and which can be accessed through internet. Currently, similar concept is implemented as thin client in our client/server model. In thin client, there is no hard disk attached to PC, all data will be stored in and accessed from central hard disk, i.e. server’s hard disk. This architecture saves not only the cost but also electrical energy.

World is shifting towards cloud computing. The cloud computing is a technology which allows you to store your data and applications over internet in a protected form. You can store everything like Softwares, Movies, Music, and Documents in the cloud (storage center). Now-a-days, cloud computing is not a regular practice, large organizations are using it, but in near future it will be a common practice. Currently, companies like Google, Microsoft, Amazon are providing the cloud computing on commercial as well as free basis (Google Drive, Microsoft SkyDrive)

In June 2011, Google has launched its next generation laptop named as Chromebook. The Chromebook will not have its own Hard Disk (only minimal space for secondary storage); all data will be stored in the Google’s cloud. This is the step towards using the cloud computing at personal level. Recently, IITs have launched world’s cheapest Tablet PC named as Aakash II. Tablet PC has very less internal and external storage so they will also alternatively use cloud computing technology. Cloud computing requires a Web connection to access the contents of cloud. In the country like India where we are struggling for a getting Web connection, that’s why it will take time to widespread use of cloud computing.

Nanotechnology will play crucial role in storage technology of computing. Currently magnetic technology will be replaced by nano-chips to store a large amount of data. In nano-chips, we can store ample amount of data with a very low cost.

DNA computing is a form of computing which uses DNA, biochemistry and molecular biology, instead of the traditional silicon-based computer technologies. DNA computing, or, more generally, biomolecular computing, is a fast developing interdisciplinary area. DNA has capabilities to transfer the data faster than electrons to have effective communication in computer system. These computers will be eco-friendly computers. The research and development in this area concerns theory, experiments and applications of DNA computing.

In future, we may have chemical based computer. Chemical computer also called reaction-diffusion computer, BZ computer (stands for Belousov–Zhabotinsky computer) or gooware computer. These computers will be based on a semi-solid chemical "soup" where data is represented by varying concentrations of chemicals. The computations are performed by naturally occurring chemical reactions. So far it is still in a very early experimental stage, but may have great potential for the computer industry.

Ultrabook is the slimmest version of laptop. These laptops are the very expensive in cost but they are very versatile, you can easily make them move. This kind of laptop will be popular in business but I think this will not good buy for common people.

Tablet PC (or simply tablet) is a small (not smallest) size handheld PC. By dimension, it lies between smart phone and Netbook. Tablet PC comes in 7” or 10” sizes. Tablet PC’s touch screen, GPS and motion sensor are the very attractive features to users. People loves touch experience (which is lacking in laptop and desktops). No doubt, tablet PC will be popular because of their low cost, but doubt about the usability of tablet PC. For miniature work or entertainment, it’s fine to use Tablet PC but if you want to work hard (say for 5 hours) then surely tablet PC will not good deal. Second thing that I experienced that you are getting that working feel like laptop because apps are in compact version. You have to rely on laptop or Netbook.

Netbook is a small size laptop which is low configured small screen laptop. Netbook is internet ready machine to easily access the Web. It has very less internal storage memory so we can keep our documents in cloud.

This is a snapshot of future computing but science also experienced magic which is called Eureka, so you can also expect some Eureka in computing also.

Which is the national language of India?

Most favorable answer would be Hindi, but this is not right. Actually, India has NO national language. India has national flower (Lotus), national animal (tiger), national bird (Peacock), but in Indian constitution, there is no provision of having national language, so, there is no national language for India by law.

Article 343 (1) talks about official languages of India. According to article 343 (1), Hindi and English are official languages of India.

Suresh Kachhadia has filed PIL about national language of India. Gujarat High Court has clarified that, Hindi is not the national language of India.

Different ways to shutdown Windows XP

Þ     Start → Shut Down (Turn Off Computer) → Shut Down

Þ     Start → u → u

Þ     Alt + F4 (on Desktop)→ u

Þ     Ctrl + Esc → u→ u

Þ     Window Button → u → u

Þ     Make a shortcut on Desktop and type shutdown -s -t 00 in the area where you are asked to specify the location of the program file. Now you can just double click this icon to turn off the computer.

Þ     Start →Run → Type “shutdown –s”

Þ     When working with any window, click on task bar by keeping window as it is →Alt + Spacebar → c → u

Þ     There is one more way to shutdown through task manager but not all task manager have ‘shutdown down’ option.

Can’t establish a reliable data connection to the server

I am using android based Samsung’s Galaxy Pop CDMA (SCH-I559) cell phone. I was eager to connect to internet to access the Web on my cell phone. But, whenever I was accessing the web based apps (Play store, gmail, etc) on my cell phone, it asked for a Gmail credentials. I gave my Gmail credentials but it gave the error message “Can’t establish a reliable data connection to the server”

 

On Web, I searched about this problem. Results show the only solution is that “you need to reset the phone”. The problem with resetting the phone is that, you lose all the data. I found the solution in that you will not lose the data.

Firstly, I want to tell you, why phone displays such error when you tried to use apps. When you start your android phone first time then you need to configure the account with Gmail address. If you ignore that configuration then you will get the above message when you access the apps.

Note: I think, this trick may work on all android phone

To rectify the problem, you just access Youtube app from your android phone (But you need your Google credential attached to Youtube.com account. For that, on computer you login on Gmail and then on another tab open Youtube.com. You need to signin with Google credentials). Now go to Youtube App and login with Google credentials.

After you have signed in via the Youtube app, exit the Youtube app (without closing the app; by pressing the Home button) and go to the main Android Settings menu. Then go to Accounts and sync. In Accounts and sync, you will see email id that you used to login in Youtube app; tap on that account. After the account has been brought up, check the checkbox for Sync Contacts or Sync Gmail, this will synchronies Google account.

 

Now, you can tap on Gmail or Play store app, it will automatically login in that app with Your Google account details.

It is very important to configure Google account, as per my experience. I have applied visible pattern to my cell phone. My little cousin drawn tried a lot wrong pattern and the visible pattern was trapped. I thought, I should have to update the phone’s firmware and I will lose my all data. There is one option, “Forgot pattern?”, but it ask Google credential but I thought it will not work because there is no data plan was activated on phone. But I entered the Google credentials and that was accepted and I got my phone’s desktop.

(Images are copied from Web just for explanation)