It is not possible to have a discussion with a large group like this. So it’s a dialogue, a conversation with two people. And we will, if you do not mind, treat it as such. Two friends are talking over together about their problems. They are real friends, not convenient friends, but friends who have known each other for some time, and they are walking, perhaps, in a wood, sitting on a bench, and talking over their intimate problems, as friends do. So this is not only a conversation between two people, you and the speaker, and it’s a dialogue, a friendly conversation, each one trying to penetrate into the problem as deeply as possible, and trying to find an answer to all their innumerable struggles, pain, anxieties and so on. So that’s what we are going to do this morning, two people talking over together and not asserting anything, neither one nor the other, two people who are concerned, deeply, with life, with all its complexities, with all its subtleties, its varieties, the craziness that goes on in themselves and outwardly. So we are together, like two people who have known each other for some time, friendly, going to have conversation together.The first question they ask each other:-1st Question: My son died three years ago, my husband four months later. I find it extremely hard to let go of the memory of their utter desperation. There must be a way, perhaps you may know it. I have come a long distance and found help in listening to your talks – could you speak about death and detachment, please.First of all, let us talk over together what does it mean to be attached and what is the difference between attachment and dependence. What is attachment? Why is one attached to a country, to a person, to some experience they’ve had, to some ideology, to some definite conclusion? Why do people do this throughout the world, depending upon their circumstances, upon their environment – social, moral and so on? This is the pattern man has repeated over and over and over again. I’ve had an experience, something that stirs me deeply, brings a colour to my life, gives a meaning, and that experience, which has gone, dead, and I hold on to the memory of it. Why do we do this, my friend asks me, and I’m talking over with my friend why human beings, wherever they live, cling to this in some form or another, to their land, their property, their wealth, their wives, their husbands and so on. Why? Please, we’re talking over together, my friend and I – you are the audience who is listening. Why do we cling, be attached? The word attachment comes from Latin ‘attaccare’, Italian, which means to put your grips into something and hold.Is it because in ourselves we are insufficient, inwardly? Is it because there is loneliness, there is a sense of to possess something, whether it’s a piece of furniture or a house or a person, to possess something, to say ‘It’s mine’ gives a great deal of pleasure. Is it that we human beings, you and I, have nothing deeper, more vital, and therefore we hold on to something very, very superficial, something that may pass away? We know it unconsciously, something is passing away – but we hold on. We may hold onto an illusion. The word ‘illusion’ means to play – the root meaning of that word is to play. And we play with illusions – they are very, very satisfactory. Or we invent a subtle form of ourselves at a different level. So we create all these things and hold on. Why? Is it that one is afraid to be nothing, to have nothing to hold on to? Is it because in possessing, holding, clinging to something, it gives us a great sense of security, a sense of well-being, because life is very uncertain, dangerous, incredibly brutal. You see the world is becoming more and more like a concentration camp.So why are we attached, each one of us, to something? And when we look at the different forms of attachment, see the consequences of it, that is, fear, anxiety, pain – to see it, and not allow time to end it. That is, I’m attached to my wife; and I see both intellectually and deeply that this attachment has many consequences – painful, desperate – and I see it all logically, I see it intellectually, rationally, and I can’t let it go because I am afraid to be alone, lonely. And I see all this, because my friend and I are fairly intelligent, we are both looking at it. And we say time will allow me to be free of this attachment, gradually I will understand, gradually I will let it go. That attitude of graduality is stupidity, because either I see the whole thing and end it immediately, or I’m foolish, because I like to cling to something, to a memory that is dead, gone. Right? So intelligence is to see the whole movement of attachment, the whole process of it, both the inward and outward, and the very perception of it is to end it. That is intelligence. Not to postpone, not to allow time to dullen the mind… the brain, because if one postpones, neglects, accepts, you are living in a pattern that is already over, that is in the memory of the past – memory – it is dead. And so the brain is living with something that is finished, with something that is past. And living in the past always dulls the quality, the vitality of the brain. Right?So we have examined, you and I, sitting on that bench in the forest, and now let’s examine what is detachment. Is detachment the opposite of attachment? If one pursues detachment and makes that another form of attachment, you are exactly the same thing as before. I hope this is clear. That is, if detachment from my attachment is its opposite, then there is conflict. Right? There is conflict between attachment and ‘I should be detached’. And then my whole attention or my energy is trying to be detached, and yet I know I’m attached. So there is conflict going on. So we have to find out what is the relationship, if there is any, between attachment and detachment. Or there is no relationship whatsoever. When there is an ending of attachment, there is no need to use the word ‘detachment’. There is the ending of it. But for most of us, our brain is conditioned to this process of the opposites.And one has to question if there is an opposite at all. At the physical level there are the opposites – tall, short, wide, broad, ugly, beautiful and so on. But psychologically, inwardly, is there an opposite at all, or only what is? And we invent the opposite in order to lever or get rid of the – get rid of what is. Right? I hope you and I sitting on that bench, are talking about this, and we understand each other. There is no authority between two friends. There is no assertion between two friends who have gone into this matter. So it is a mutual, co-operative understanding. It is not one is telling the other, they are both travelling together along the same path with the same intensity, with the same depth. So if that is clear between us two, that there is no relationship between attachment and detachment, there is only the ending of attachment and nothing else.Now is love attachment? I love my friend, I am attached to every evening to sit on the bench with him, talk over my problems. And I miss when we don’t meet with him, every day on the bench; sit down. So we are asking each other, is love attachment, to possess somebody, to hold onto somebody, whether it is the idea of god, whether it is the idea of liberation, freedom, whether it is the idea, concept, that in possession love grows. So we are questioning what is the relationship between attachment and love.My friend who is married and has had several marriages, and he’s rather wounded by all that. He’s rather unhappy. And he thinks that he still loves his present wife. And he says to me in our conversation, ‘I can’t lose her, I must hold on, because my life is empty without her.’ You know all this, don’t you? (Laughter) I can’t let her go. She wants to do something totally different from me, and it may lead her away from me. So I yield to her, I suppress my desire, my wanting something else, but I’ll accept her and follow her. But inwardly there is conflict all the time, between her and me. Right? You know all this, don’t you? It’s not a new story is it?So I have reduced the whole immensity of love, which is extraordinary, which I don’t understand, to something so trivial. That is, I’m attached, possessive, I don’t want to lose. If I lose I’m unhappy. And this I call love. So is it love? Please, don’t agree. Don’t say it is not. If it is not, that is the end. But most of us – my friend is afraid to look at it, look at the complexity of it. My friend wants to move away from the subject, because if he really sees that attachment is not love, then can he go to his wife and say, ‘I love you, but I’m not attached to you’? What would happen? She might throw a brick at me. (Laughter) Walk away, because her whole life is to be attached – to the furniture, to ideas, to children, to the husband. You follow? So then what is my relationship, who have seen that love is not attachment, is not jealousy, not ambition, competition. Then to me that’s a reality, not just a verbal structure. And what is my relationship to her who is quite different? Go on, sir, it’s your problem, not mine.She will not accept what to me is truth. And see, sir, see what is involved in this. How painful it all is. It’s nothing superficial. It touches the very core of one’s being. And what shall I do? Have patience? Patience, to be patient, doesn’t require time. Patience is not time. Whereas impatience has the quality of time in it. Think it over. Right? When I realise my wife is different from me, everything which I think is totally wrong, and I have to live in the same house and so on, do I have patience, knowing, for myself that patience is not a process of time? Do I realise that, that process, patience, which is putting up, allowing, time to resolve? I can’t do anything but perhaps some other day, another week, another year, we’ll settle everything. So I tolerate the situation. And is tolerance love? Go on, sir, think it out. To put up with something knowing it is ‘wrong’ – wrong in quotes – and say, ‘Well, time will gradually eliminate it’, which is, I’m really impatient to find a result. Right? So I put up with it. So what shall I do? Go on, sir. Divorce? Run away? Leave her my house, my goods, etc., and say goodbye, and disappear altogether?Or I’m asking, can my love, intense, can that bring about a change in her? Please, you’re asking these questions. Can I, who have understood this whole phenomena with all its depth, will that quality of love, compassion, intelligence, bring about a change in her? That is, if she’s at all sensitive, if she’s at all observant, listening to what I am saying, wants to understand each other, then there is a possibility of her changing. If she puts a ball, as most people do, then what am I to do? Go on, sir. Don’t look at me, look at your selves.You see, one of our peculiarities is that we want a definite answer, we want something settled, because then I’m free, then I can do what I want. So, as there is no definite answer to this question, it depends on the quality of your attention, your intelligence, your love.And the question my friend asks: my son and husband are dead. I’m attached to their memory. I’m getting more and more desperate, more and more depressed. I’m living in the past, and the present is always coloured by the past, so what am I to do? And the question my friend asks: let’s talk over the problem of death. You and the speaker sitting on that bench, with birds singing all round them, with thousand shadows and the river running down, swiftly, making sweet sound, and he raises this question. He says, I’m quite young, any moment an accident can happen, and there may be death, not only of my son and my husband, but also my own death. He says, ‘Let’s talk about it.’We’ve spent half an hour on half a question. You don’t mind? Let’s talk about death.From the ancient of times, historically, culturally, from all the paintings and statuary, man has always asked, ‘What happens after death?’ One has gathered a lot of experience, struggled to be moral, aesthetic, collected a lot of knowledge, gone into the depths of oneself. If death is the end, then what’s the point of all this? What’s the point of all this struggle, pain, experience, knowledge, wealth? And death is always waiting at the end of it. I may belong to one sect, accept certain costume because I belong to that sect, which is again an isolating process. And death is the common factor for all of us: for the guru, for the Pope, or the innumerable popes in the world. So that’s a fact. We all want to understand the significance, the depth of that extraordinary event, which is extraordinary. And what is the relationship between death and living? Please, I hope you’re following all this – I’m asking my friend – I hope you’re following what I am saying. He says, go ahead, I follow verbally, I understand this.Various civilisations throughout the world have tried to overcome death. They’ve said, life after is more important than now. So they prepared for death. And at present now, people say we must help our patients, our friends, to die happily. We never ask, what is important – before death, of the many years before death, or after death – which is important, which is essential? I’m asking my friend. Naturally he says, ‘Before dying’, the long years one has lived, maybe ten, fifteen, thirty, fifty, eighty, ninety – those long years before the ending. That is the period of living. That is far more significant than the ending of it. Why is it we are always asking, he and I, why don’t we ask this question? Not what is after, or help me to die happily, but what is my life that I have lived for eighty years? It has been one constant battle, with occasional lapse where there has been no pain, no struggle – something occasionally rarely happens. But the rest of my life has been struggle, struggle. And I’ve called that ‘living’. Right? That’s what we are all doing, not only my friend and I, but all human beings are that – struggling to have work, being unemployed, wanting more wealth, being oppressed, the tyranny of totalitarian states, and so on. It has been a vast jungle. That’s been my life. And I cling to that, to the struggle, to the pain, to the anxiety, to the loneliness – that’s all I have. Right? That has become all important.So I’m asking… we’re asking each other, what is it that dies? Now this becomes a rather complex question. My friend and I have time, it’s Sunday morning and no work, so we can sit down and go into it. Is it the individual that dies? Please enquire as a friend, who is it that dies? Apart from the biological ending of an organism, which has been ill-treated, it has had several diseases, illnesses. That inevitably comes to an end. You may find a new drug that will help man to live 150 years, but always at the end of 150 years, that extraordinary thing is there, waiting.Is my consciousness – the whole of it, with all its content – is it mine? That is, my consciousness is its content, the content is my belief, my dogmas, my superstitions, my attachment to my country, patriotism, fear, pain, pleasure, sorrow and so on, is the content of my consciousness, and yours. So both of us, sitting on that bench, recognise this fact, that the content makes up consciousness, without the content consciousness as we know it doesn’t exist. Right? So my friend and we see the logic of it, the rationality of it, and so on. We agree to that. Then, is this consciousness which I have clung to as mine, and my friend also clings to it, calling ourselves individuals, is that consciousness unlike other consciousness? Right? Please be clear on this point. That is, if you’re lucky to travel, observe, talk over with other people, you’ll find that they are similar to yours. They suffer, they are lonely, they have a thousand gods though you may have one god, they believe, they don’t believe, and so on. All most similar to yours, though on the periphery there may be varieties, on the outskirts of our consciousness. You may be tall, you may be short, you may be very clever, you may be scholarly, you’ve read a great deal, you’re capable, you’ve a certain technique, efficiency – it’s all on the periphery, on the outside. But inwardly we are similar. Right? This is a fact. Therefore our conditioning which says we are individual, separate souls, is not a fact. This is where my friend begins to squirm, because he doesn’t like the idea that he is not an individual. He can’t face the fact, because all his conditioning has been that. So I say to my friend, look at it, old chap, don’t run away from it, don’t resist it, look at it. Use your brains, not your sentiment, not your desire – just look at it, is that a fact or not? And he accepts it, vaguely.So, if our consciousness is similar to all mankind, then I am mankind. You understand? Please understand the depth and the beauty of this. If I am the mankind, the entire mankind, then what is it that dies? You understand? Either I contribute… Either I move away from that entire consciousness, which is me, I cleanse the whole of my being from that – right? – that I am not individual, that I am the whole of humanity. Then is there emptying of the consciousness, which is my belief, my anxiety, my pain, my blah, blah – all that? Is there ending to all that? If I end it, what importance is it? You follow? What importance is it or what value to humanity is it? I am the humanity, I am asking this question. What value, what significance has this when, after a great deal of intelligence, love, I observe this and in that observation there is the total ending of those contents. Has it any value? Value in the sense of moving humanity from it’s present condition. Right? You understand? Surely it has, has it not? One drop of clarity in a bucket of dirt, confusion, messy, that one drop begins to act.And the questioner, my friend says, I’m beginning to understand the nature of death. I see that the things I’m attached to, if I hold onto them, death has a grip on me. If I let them go, each day as they arise, I am living with death. You understand? Death is the ending, so I’m ending while living everything that I will lose when I die. Right? So, the question my friend asks, can I let go every day my accumulation, end it, so that I am living with death and therefore a freshness, not living in the past, in memories. Right? So from this arises a very complex question, what is immortality? One question, we’re still going on, sorry! What is immortality? That is, beyond mortality, beyond death.As we said the other day, where there is a cause, there is an end. There is an end to the effect and if the cause remains it creates another effect. It’s a constant chain. Right? And we are asking, is there a life without any causation? Please, you understand? I’m asking my friend, do you understand what I’m saying? We live with causes – you know, I don’t have to go into that. All our life is based on many, many causes. I love you because you give me something. I love you because you comfort me. I love you because I’m sexually fulfilling, and so on, so on, so on. That is a cause, and the effect is – the word I use is ‘love’ which it is not, and any motive I have is a causation. So I’m asking my friend, is it possible to live without any cause? Not belong to any cause in the sense, organised cause or in myself, to have no cause. Knowing if there is a causation there is an ending, which is time. Now we’re going to find out together if there is a life, daily living, in our daily relationship, in our daily activity, not some theoretical activity, actual – can one live without a cause? Look into it, my friend, don’t look to me but look at it, look at the question first. Knowing when I say, I love you because in return you give me something, in that relationship of causation there is always ending of that relationship. So we’re asking each other, is there a life without cause? See the beauty of it, sir, first, see the depth, see the vitality of that question, not the mere words. We said, love has no cause – obviously. If I love your because you give me something, it’s a merchandise, a thing of the market. So can I love you, can there be love, without wanting, nothing physically, nothing psychologically, inwardly, nothing in any form? So that is love, which has no cause, therefore it is infinite. You understand? Like intelligence, which has no cause, it is endless, timeless, so is compassion. Now if there is that quality in our life, the whole activity changes completely.Is that enough of that question? I hope our friend who put this question has understood.2nd Question: How do you pose a fundamental question? Is holding, looking, observing a question in the mind, a thought, is it a thought process?I’ll read that question. How do you pose a fundamental question? That’s what the questioner asks. And looking at it, observing it, holding it as a jewel in your hand, will that lead to a fundamental understanding of the problem, of the question? Or the understanding, the looking, a thought process? Right? Is that question clear?Sir, I have a problem, the problem is my death. What is the fundamental question I can put about death? Fundamental, deep question that is reality, not just superficial reaction. ‘My wife is dead, I’m unhappy, please answer how to get over my unhappiness’ – that’s a very superficial question. ‘Tell me how to be detached’. That’s very simple. But to put a fundamental question, which we rarely do. And does the fundamental question come out, happen, when there is an observation, listening to the question without any bias, without any direction? Or can thought find, discover the fundamental question? You understand now? My friend, I say, do you follow what I’m saying? He says, ‘Quite. Go on.’Have we ever observed without the word? Look at it, sir, go into it. Because the word has become all important to us – the capitalist, the dictatorship, the German, the French – the word. And do we observe, do he and I observe that our brain is caught in a network of words? Right? Are we aware of this? The word being time, thought, memory. Right? The word is the symbol, the word is the effect of a cause, and we live with words, which is, the movement of thought, expressing itself in symbols, words, but it is movement of a thought which lives with words. Right? Look at it.So the question is, can thought with its words and time, can it put a fundamental question? You understand? Thought being limited, broken up, and can such thought ask a fundamental question? Or, the questioner wants to know, my friend wants to know: fundamental question is not related to thought. Then my friend asks, how does this fundamental question arise? You’re following all this? Please look, exercise your brain, your energy, to find this out, not go off to sleep or all that.Does the fundamental question arise through pure observation? That is, to observe. To observe means not only with the optical eye, but observe means also listening, not only with the sensory ear but the inward ear, to listen, and to look, not translate what you look at into your own terminology, into your own words. If you translate it to suit you or look at it for your convenience, your observation then is limited. Therefore can you observe your wife, the tree, that extraordinary movement of water, those mountains – observe without the word, and listen without the word, and observe without any direction, that is, without any motive? Can you do that? That is, are you listening, I’m asking my friend, are you listening to what I’m saying? Or you can’t sustain a state of attention for some time, because then only you listen.So can you listen without the accompaniment of thought? Which is verbalising, making an abstraction of what you hear, what you see into an idea and pursue the idea. You understand? Can you observe so totally, completely? And if you so observe, what is the need for a fundamental question? What is the need of a question at all? Look, sir it’s like understanding envy. Let’s take envy. Look at envy, which most of us are, envious. I’m sure you’d all like to sit on the platform. (Laughter) And you know, this quality of envy – wanting more and more and more, power, position, reputation, well-known. Now envy: to look at the reaction called envy without the word. When you say, ‘I’m envious’ you are merely associating the present reaction to past memories of envy. Right? Past memory. Therefore you are not looking, observing that movement of envy in the present. Can you observe envy without any movement of the past, which is thought? And when you do so observe, it’s a totally new reaction and therefore it is something new which we have to observe. And when you observe the fundamental question may be, is there an end to it? Of course. Where there is a cause for your observation, there is an end to your observation. When you observe without a cause – you understand?Shall we do one more?3rd Question: I have lived in a forest, close to nature. There is no violence there, but the outer world is the real jungle. How am I to live in it without becoming part of its competition, brutality, violence and cruelty?First, how easy it is to live by yourself in a wood. I tell my friend I have done it, without any boast or anything, it is natural. I’ve done it, it’s very easy, because you’re not related to anybody, you look at the trees, the rivers, the plant, they invite you to look at them. The more you look at a tree, the more beautiful it becomes. The shadow, the leaves fluttering in the wind. It doesn’t demand anything of you. You are enjoying yourself, listening to the birds, to the sound of water, to the lovely clear morning. And one is tempted to live like that for ever. But you can’t. Even there, if you live in a forest, you’re related to somebody or something. You’re related to the man who brings you milk. So there is always – even though one is a hermit – you are always living in a certain kind of relationship with another. And if you are a neurotic saint, then it becomes very easy. Most saints are neurotic. And then they give you food, clothes and all the rest of it.So when one enters the world, the trouble begins. The world which human beings have created, not only the past generation upon generation, which has created this society, but also all of us are contributing to it. When you buy a stamp, when you post a letter, you are contributing to war. When you take the train, you are contributing to war. So you might say, I won’t take a train, I won’t post a letter, I won’t telephone, I won’t pay taxes, and so on. Taxes are rather difficult – the Government will be after you, if you have money. So what will you do? Withdraw completely, not write a letter, not travel? You understand, sir, this question has been put to the speaker, often. Say you are against war, peace and so on, but you’re contributing to it by travelling all over the world. So where shall I stop? You understand? Not write a letter, not travel, not do all the things that are contributory, that help war? Or do you ask a much more fundamental question, which is, why does war exist at all? Why has man, who is so-called civilised, so-called educated, why does he support killing another, another human being. So what is the fundamental question there? Is it nationality, is it this whole idea of isolation? – national isolation, individual isolation, communal isolation. When I put on a monk’s robe or a different kind of robe, I am isolating myself. So is isolation the cause of war? Obviously. When I say I’m British, you’re French, you’re this, you’re that, I’m isolating myself; I’ve a long tradition as a British or an Indian. If I am an Indian, I have a much more ancient tradition, which is isolating me. So any form of isolation must contribute to war, which war being not only killing each other but the conflict with each other. Right?Now seeing all that, which requires intelligence, not just a vague utopian idea, seeing that, the very perception of this fact that where there is isolation of any kind, belonging to one group against another group, one sect against another, one uniform of purple, yellow – isolating. These are the actual – contribute to isolation and therefore inevitable conflict. To perceive that, to see the truth of it, requires intelligence, not say ‘I agree with it’ and do nothing about it. But when I see the truth of it, that very perception is the action of intelligence. Right? So with that intelligence, I enter the world. Which is, that intelligence which has no cause, that love that has no cause, compassion obviously cannot have a cause, with that beauty, with that clarity, with that energy, I meet, I meet the world which is brutal. I act from that love. Or rather, that love that has no cause, acts. I may be a beggar, or very good technician, but the quality of that can never enter the world of ambition, brutality, violence.Now, my friend says, ‘I understand. I understand very clearly what you say, I have grasped intellectually what you have said, superficially.’ Now, how am I to capture it, how am I to hold it, as I hold breath, as I breathe, hold something so enormous? What is the method, what is the system that will help me? Of course, obviously when you follow a system, you are gone, finished. Because you want to achieve that state of real love, and you want to achieve because you’re unhappy, therefore you have a motive, therefore it’s not intelligence, therefore it’s not love. So when you have this perfume, then you can go through the world never that perfume losing its beauty.
J Krishnamurti
Thursday, May 08, 2008
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
Truth about Life
I found this quote very interesting and I would love to follow this and be one there is nothin comparable in this world than to enjoy the nature's beauty which is God's gift.
"When you look at this life of action—the growing tree, the bird on the wing, the flowing river, the movement of the clouds, of lightning, of machines, the action of the waves upon the shore—then you see, do you not, that life itself is action, endless action that has no beginning and no end. It is something that is everlastingly in movement, and it is the universe, God, bliss, reality. But we reduce the vast action of life to our own petty little action in life, and ask what we should do, or follow some book, some system. See what we have done, how petty, small, narrow, ugly, brutal our action is. Please do listen to this! I know as well as you that we have to live in this world, that we have to act within time and that it is no good saying: “Life is so vast, I will let it act, it will tell me what to do.” It won’t tell us what to do. So you and I have to see this extraordinary phenomenon of our mind reducing this action which is infinite, limitless, profound, to the pettiness of how to get a job, how to become a minister, whether to have sex or not—you know all the petty little struggles in life. So we are constantly reducing this enormous movement of life to action which is recognizable and made respectable by society. You see this, sirs, do you not—the action which is recognizable and within the field of time, and that action which knows no recognition and which is the endless movement of life."
- J Krishnamurti
"When you look at this life of action—the growing tree, the bird on the wing, the flowing river, the movement of the clouds, of lightning, of machines, the action of the waves upon the shore—then you see, do you not, that life itself is action, endless action that has no beginning and no end. It is something that is everlastingly in movement, and it is the universe, God, bliss, reality. But we reduce the vast action of life to our own petty little action in life, and ask what we should do, or follow some book, some system. See what we have done, how petty, small, narrow, ugly, brutal our action is. Please do listen to this! I know as well as you that we have to live in this world, that we have to act within time and that it is no good saying: “Life is so vast, I will let it act, it will tell me what to do.” It won’t tell us what to do. So you and I have to see this extraordinary phenomenon of our mind reducing this action which is infinite, limitless, profound, to the pettiness of how to get a job, how to become a minister, whether to have sex or not—you know all the petty little struggles in life. So we are constantly reducing this enormous movement of life to action which is recognizable and made respectable by society. You see this, sirs, do you not—the action which is recognizable and within the field of time, and that action which knows no recognition and which is the endless movement of life."
- J Krishnamurti
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
Innovaters - An article from BBC
Innovators shortlisted for award
Professor Sir Alec Jeffreys is based at the University of Leicester
The creator of DNA fingerprinting heads the shortlist for the prestigious Millennium Technology Prize.
Professor Alec Jeffreys is joined by Prof David Payne, co-inventor of an optical amplifier which transformed telecommunications, on the list.
Prof Payne's co-inventors, Prof Emmanual Desurvire and Dr Randy Giles, are also finalists.
Dr Andrew Viterbi, whose algorithm aids communications, and biomaterial pioneer Prof Robert Langer are also contenders.
The Millennium Technology Prize, a kind of unofficial Noble Prize for technology, is one of the most prestigious awards for innovation and is given every second year for a technology that "significantly improves the quality of human life, today and in the future".
The prize is awarded by the Technology Academy Finland, an independent foundation established by Finnish industry, in partnership with the Finnish government.
If nothing else, DNA has captured the public's imagination
Sir Alec Jeffreys
The winner of the prize receives 800,000 euros, while the creators of the other innovations will each be awarded 115,000 euros.
Previous recipients include Sir Tim Berners-Lee, creator of the world wide web, and Prof Shuji Nakamura, inventor of blue, green and white light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and the blue laser diode.
Continued development
Sir Alec, from the University of Leicester, UK, said being shortlisted was a great honour and "a great recognition for DNA technology and the way it has progressed over the last 24 years".
"If nothing else, DNA has captured the public's imagination; it's out there every single day in papers and on the television; and the technology has reached out and touched the lives of 20 million people," he told BBC News.
He added: "Every single time this has happened it's a drama for that person, in terms of a DNA test; whether it's a father learning about his son, an immigrant family being reunited or an innocent man being saved off death row."
Sir Alec's innovation has been described as a "Eureka" moment, when he looked at the X-ray of a DNA experiment he was working on in September 1984 and saw both similarities and differences in his technician's family DNA.
He said the only people not celebrating this honour were "criminals who were being caught thanks to DNA fingerprinting".
The current research focus, he explained, was to reduce the time lag between taking a DNA test and getting a result, or fingerprint.
"It can be as quick as a few hours, but we want to get it down to a second, to real time. Imagine the security possibilities if we could establish identity that quickly," he said.
Fibre solution
Prof Robert Langer, who is based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is a pioneer in biomaterials and has been shortlisted "for his inventions and development of innovative biomaterials for controlled drug release and tissue regeneration that have saved and improved the lives of millions of people".
Prof Payne's co-creation helped transform global communications
Italian-American engineer Andrew Viterbi has been shortlisted for his creation of an algorithm that makes billions of phone calls every day possible on mobile networks.
The Viterbi algorithm, said the Academy, was "the key building element in modern wireless and digital communications systems, touching lives of people everywhere".
Three scientists have been shortlisted for their work in developing technology which made possible the creation of a high-speed global fibre-optic network.
In the mid-1980s, Prof David Payne, and his team at Southampton University, was in competition with Dr Emmanuel Desurvire and Dr Randy Giles at Bell Labs to develop an optical amplifier that could solve the inadequacies of fibre optic cables of the day.
The two teams developed an optical amplifier, called an erbium-doped fibre amplifier, which was power efficient and enabled light to travel along cables without having to be transformed into an electrical signal and then resent with a new laser.
Keeping pace
Prof Payne was first to publish a paper about erbium-doped fibre amplifiers, but Dr Desurvire, now at Thales Research, and Dr Giles, now director of optical subsystems at Bell Labs, were first to make it a working tool.
The amplifier transformed the telecommunications industry and is now a vital part of the global optical fibre network that acts as a backbone to the net.
Prof Payne said he was proud and humbled by the way his amplifiers had helped the global roll-out of the internet and optical telecommunications.
He said fibre to the home was essential if Britain was going to compete with broadband take-up around the world.
"Sadly broadband speeds in this country aren't really broadband at all. I won't be happy until every home has a one gigabit per second connection," he told BBC News.
He added: "If we were able to afford to dig up the road in the 1980s to roll out cable TV then we can afford to do it again."
He said fibre networks needed to grow if they were to cope with demand for bandwidth in the future.
"Forward projections show that we will fill up the bandwidth of the existing backbone around 2015. What that means is that you have to put in as many fibres every year as the growth of the internet.
The winner of the Millennium Technology Prize will be announced on 11 June.
Professor Sir Alec Jeffreys is based at the University of Leicester
The creator of DNA fingerprinting heads the shortlist for the prestigious Millennium Technology Prize.
Professor Alec Jeffreys is joined by Prof David Payne, co-inventor of an optical amplifier which transformed telecommunications, on the list.
Prof Payne's co-inventors, Prof Emmanual Desurvire and Dr Randy Giles, are also finalists.
Dr Andrew Viterbi, whose algorithm aids communications, and biomaterial pioneer Prof Robert Langer are also contenders.
The Millennium Technology Prize, a kind of unofficial Noble Prize for technology, is one of the most prestigious awards for innovation and is given every second year for a technology that "significantly improves the quality of human life, today and in the future".
The prize is awarded by the Technology Academy Finland, an independent foundation established by Finnish industry, in partnership with the Finnish government.
If nothing else, DNA has captured the public's imagination
Sir Alec Jeffreys
The winner of the prize receives 800,000 euros, while the creators of the other innovations will each be awarded 115,000 euros.
Previous recipients include Sir Tim Berners-Lee, creator of the world wide web, and Prof Shuji Nakamura, inventor of blue, green and white light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and the blue laser diode.
Continued development
Sir Alec, from the University of Leicester, UK, said being shortlisted was a great honour and "a great recognition for DNA technology and the way it has progressed over the last 24 years".
"If nothing else, DNA has captured the public's imagination; it's out there every single day in papers and on the television; and the technology has reached out and touched the lives of 20 million people," he told BBC News.
He added: "Every single time this has happened it's a drama for that person, in terms of a DNA test; whether it's a father learning about his son, an immigrant family being reunited or an innocent man being saved off death row."
Sir Alec's innovation has been described as a "Eureka" moment, when he looked at the X-ray of a DNA experiment he was working on in September 1984 and saw both similarities and differences in his technician's family DNA.
He said the only people not celebrating this honour were "criminals who were being caught thanks to DNA fingerprinting".
The current research focus, he explained, was to reduce the time lag between taking a DNA test and getting a result, or fingerprint.
"It can be as quick as a few hours, but we want to get it down to a second, to real time. Imagine the security possibilities if we could establish identity that quickly," he said.
Fibre solution
Prof Robert Langer, who is based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is a pioneer in biomaterials and has been shortlisted "for his inventions and development of innovative biomaterials for controlled drug release and tissue regeneration that have saved and improved the lives of millions of people".
Prof Payne's co-creation helped transform global communications
Italian-American engineer Andrew Viterbi has been shortlisted for his creation of an algorithm that makes billions of phone calls every day possible on mobile networks.
The Viterbi algorithm, said the Academy, was "the key building element in modern wireless and digital communications systems, touching lives of people everywhere".
Three scientists have been shortlisted for their work in developing technology which made possible the creation of a high-speed global fibre-optic network.
In the mid-1980s, Prof David Payne, and his team at Southampton University, was in competition with Dr Emmanuel Desurvire and Dr Randy Giles at Bell Labs to develop an optical amplifier that could solve the inadequacies of fibre optic cables of the day.
The two teams developed an optical amplifier, called an erbium-doped fibre amplifier, which was power efficient and enabled light to travel along cables without having to be transformed into an electrical signal and then resent with a new laser.
Keeping pace
Prof Payne was first to publish a paper about erbium-doped fibre amplifiers, but Dr Desurvire, now at Thales Research, and Dr Giles, now director of optical subsystems at Bell Labs, were first to make it a working tool.
The amplifier transformed the telecommunications industry and is now a vital part of the global optical fibre network that acts as a backbone to the net.
Prof Payne said he was proud and humbled by the way his amplifiers had helped the global roll-out of the internet and optical telecommunications.
He said fibre to the home was essential if Britain was going to compete with broadband take-up around the world.
"Sadly broadband speeds in this country aren't really broadband at all. I won't be happy until every home has a one gigabit per second connection," he told BBC News.
He added: "If we were able to afford to dig up the road in the 1980s to roll out cable TV then we can afford to do it again."
He said fibre networks needed to grow if they were to cope with demand for bandwidth in the future.
"Forward projections show that we will fill up the bandwidth of the existing backbone around 2015. What that means is that you have to put in as many fibres every year as the growth of the internet.
The winner of the Millennium Technology Prize will be announced on 11 June.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Dikembe Mutumbo - One of whom I inspire
I have a great passion for basketball game and one person who has inspired me in the game of basketball is Dikembe Mutumbo. Not only is he one of the greatest center's in all time NBA basketball but also a great humanitarian. The world needs more humanitarians like him. Recently I came across this article in Houston Chronicles, I see God in such kind hearted humanitarians.
An article from Houston Chronicle - I want to preserve this for my life time.
They were going to hold a retirement party for Dikembe Mutombo tonight at Toyota Center.
Except he won't stop.
Last year when Yao Ming broke his leg, Mutombo picked his venerable body up off the bench and helped the Rockets hold their season together with a 20-12 record.
Last month, when Yao went down again with a stress fracture in his left foot, Mutombo, 41, stepped up once more, and the Rockets have remained in the hot playoff race with 12 wins in 15 games.
"He's done more for us than I would ever have expected," said coach Rick Adelman. "I can't think about next year. I'm sure he'll decide when it's time."
That time keeps getting pushed back over the horizon every time Mutumbo steps onto the court, blocks a shot, wags his finger, grabs a rebound and lopes down the floor with unbridled glee.
Senior citizenThe NBA's oldest player said back in training camp that this — his 17th — would be his final NBA season.
But now, with the Rockets and the NBA planning a halftime tribute during tonight's game against the Minnesota Timberwolves, he's not so sure.
"It is a celebration of Dikembe Mutombo's career as it's getting close to saying goodbye to the game," Mutombo said, laughing. "Am I putting it correctly or not?"
NBA commissioner David Stern and Rockets owner Leslie Alexander will honor the league's second-leading shot-blocker of all time and its foremost humanitarian. The Rockets will present Mutombo with an oil painting that depicts many of the key moments in his career, and Alexander will make a $500,000 donation to the Biamba Marie Mutombo Hospital and Research Center, the 300-bed hospital named after his late mother that he built in his hometown of Kinshasha, Democratic Republic of Congo. Each fan will be given a commemorative foam finger in honor of his trademark finger wag after a blocked shot.
"I think it's a good ceremony and a great effort on behalf of the Rockets organization to dedicate a special night for me and the (17) years of my career," Mutombo said. "It seems like a long journey.
"I'm feeling like I've been invited to another State of the Union. I didn't think the commissioner was going to come."
Neither did Mutombo think he would get to this point in the season and still be feeling the pull of his teammates, the front office and the game he loves to return for another season.
"People are trying to get me to say, 'OK, I'm coming back,' " Mutombo said. "I don't want to say that right now.
"I want to play this year and go home. If I change my mind, I'll let you know. At some point, I have to come to the decision that I'm going to walk away from this game. If it doesn't happen today or tomorrow, someday it has to happen."
After one season with New York in 2003-04, Mutombo was told by then-general manager and now head coach of the Knicks Isiah Thomas that the day had come, and that blunt message has driven him for the past four years.
Wounded by Thomas"It's still a wound," Mutombo said. "My wife and I still talk about it. It's still a bit sad to see the commissioner coming and all those people coming to celebrate the 17 years of my career and accomplishments and you look back and say that about (four) years ago, I had a guy tell me that I couldn't play basketball no more, to go to the beach and onto vacation. That's the same guy who's losing his job tomorrow.
"I never said nothing (to Thomas)," Mutombo said. "The last time we played at the Garden (Jan. 9), my wife asked me to go shake his hand, to just forgive him. I went and shook his hand and I told him, 'On behalf of my wife, I want to shake your hand and I forgive you for everything you've done to me.'
"He said, 'Tell your wife I said thank you so much.' That was the way to put it behind me.
"I think it helped me a lot. You might not be appreciated by everyone. But you have to fight your own war."
The Knicks traded his rights to Chicago in August 2004 and one month later he came to the Rockets, where he quickly became beloved.
"What can you get the man who could be the reincarnation of Mother Teresa," teammate Shane Battier said. "I don't think there is anything we could give him to signify how much we love him as a teammate and how much he means to the NBA. Honestly.
Hibernation over"What he is doing is miraculous. Almost an old bear waking up from hibernation after a long winter's sleep and coming out and running up and down the court like a young bear again. I don't really think anybody expected him to repeat his success after Yao went down last year."
In a league and sport where offense is the focus of most attention, Mutombo carved out his career at the other end of the floor.
"I want to be remembered as one of the greatest defensive players to ever play this game," he said. "Right now, as we talk about it, I see myself falling into that class with Bill Russell, Hakeem Olajuwon, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, (Patrick) Ewing, (Alonzo) Mourning, David Robinson, Gary Payton and all those guys that were considered being a stopper. I feel like I'm in that class.
"There will be kids coming into the NBA that want to follow the footsteps of Dikembe Mutombo — being a great shot-blocker and a great defender."
There might also be kids coming into the NBA in another year or two who get to learn from him firsthand.
"Knowing him and knowing his heart," Battier said, "it's going to be very, very, very difficult for him to sign his retirement papers when the time comes."
If it ever does.
An article from Houston Chronicle - I want to preserve this for my life time.
They were going to hold a retirement party for Dikembe Mutombo tonight at Toyota Center.
Except he won't stop.
Last year when Yao Ming broke his leg, Mutombo picked his venerable body up off the bench and helped the Rockets hold their season together with a 20-12 record.
Last month, when Yao went down again with a stress fracture in his left foot, Mutombo, 41, stepped up once more, and the Rockets have remained in the hot playoff race with 12 wins in 15 games.
"He's done more for us than I would ever have expected," said coach Rick Adelman. "I can't think about next year. I'm sure he'll decide when it's time."
That time keeps getting pushed back over the horizon every time Mutumbo steps onto the court, blocks a shot, wags his finger, grabs a rebound and lopes down the floor with unbridled glee.
Senior citizenThe NBA's oldest player said back in training camp that this — his 17th — would be his final NBA season.
But now, with the Rockets and the NBA planning a halftime tribute during tonight's game against the Minnesota Timberwolves, he's not so sure.
"It is a celebration of Dikembe Mutombo's career as it's getting close to saying goodbye to the game," Mutombo said, laughing. "Am I putting it correctly or not?"
NBA commissioner David Stern and Rockets owner Leslie Alexander will honor the league's second-leading shot-blocker of all time and its foremost humanitarian. The Rockets will present Mutombo with an oil painting that depicts many of the key moments in his career, and Alexander will make a $500,000 donation to the Biamba Marie Mutombo Hospital and Research Center, the 300-bed hospital named after his late mother that he built in his hometown of Kinshasha, Democratic Republic of Congo. Each fan will be given a commemorative foam finger in honor of his trademark finger wag after a blocked shot.
"I think it's a good ceremony and a great effort on behalf of the Rockets organization to dedicate a special night for me and the (17) years of my career," Mutombo said. "It seems like a long journey.
"I'm feeling like I've been invited to another State of the Union. I didn't think the commissioner was going to come."
Neither did Mutombo think he would get to this point in the season and still be feeling the pull of his teammates, the front office and the game he loves to return for another season.
"People are trying to get me to say, 'OK, I'm coming back,' " Mutombo said. "I don't want to say that right now.
"I want to play this year and go home. If I change my mind, I'll let you know. At some point, I have to come to the decision that I'm going to walk away from this game. If it doesn't happen today or tomorrow, someday it has to happen."
After one season with New York in 2003-04, Mutombo was told by then-general manager and now head coach of the Knicks Isiah Thomas that the day had come, and that blunt message has driven him for the past four years.
Wounded by Thomas"It's still a wound," Mutombo said. "My wife and I still talk about it. It's still a bit sad to see the commissioner coming and all those people coming to celebrate the 17 years of my career and accomplishments and you look back and say that about (four) years ago, I had a guy tell me that I couldn't play basketball no more, to go to the beach and onto vacation. That's the same guy who's losing his job tomorrow.
"I never said nothing (to Thomas)," Mutombo said. "The last time we played at the Garden (Jan. 9), my wife asked me to go shake his hand, to just forgive him. I went and shook his hand and I told him, 'On behalf of my wife, I want to shake your hand and I forgive you for everything you've done to me.'
"He said, 'Tell your wife I said thank you so much.' That was the way to put it behind me.
"I think it helped me a lot. You might not be appreciated by everyone. But you have to fight your own war."
The Knicks traded his rights to Chicago in August 2004 and one month later he came to the Rockets, where he quickly became beloved.
"What can you get the man who could be the reincarnation of Mother Teresa," teammate Shane Battier said. "I don't think there is anything we could give him to signify how much we love him as a teammate and how much he means to the NBA. Honestly.
Hibernation over"What he is doing is miraculous. Almost an old bear waking up from hibernation after a long winter's sleep and coming out and running up and down the court like a young bear again. I don't really think anybody expected him to repeat his success after Yao went down last year."
In a league and sport where offense is the focus of most attention, Mutombo carved out his career at the other end of the floor.
"I want to be remembered as one of the greatest defensive players to ever play this game," he said. "Right now, as we talk about it, I see myself falling into that class with Bill Russell, Hakeem Olajuwon, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, (Patrick) Ewing, (Alonzo) Mourning, David Robinson, Gary Payton and all those guys that were considered being a stopper. I feel like I'm in that class.
"There will be kids coming into the NBA that want to follow the footsteps of Dikembe Mutombo — being a great shot-blocker and a great defender."
There might also be kids coming into the NBA in another year or two who get to learn from him firsthand.
"Knowing him and knowing his heart," Battier said, "it's going to be very, very, very difficult for him to sign his retirement papers when the time comes."
If it ever does.
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
Nanomagnets 'could target cancer'
An artice from BBC.
The tiny magnetic particles are produced in bacteriaTiny magnets made by bacteria could be used to kill tumours, say researchers.
A team at the University of Edinburgh has developed a method of making the nanomagnets stronger, opening the way for their use in cancer treatment.
The bacteria-produced magnets are better than man-made versions because of their uniform size and shape, the Nature Nanotechnology study reported.
It is hoped one day the magnets could be guided to tumour sites and then activated to destroy cancerous cells.
The bacteria take up iron from their surroundings and turn it into a string of magnetic particles.
They use the chains of particles like a needle of a compass to orientate themselves and search for oxygen-rich environments.
For nanoparticles to be used in medicine you need them to be a very uniform size and shape and bacteria are very good for that
Dr Sarah Staniland, study leader
There has been a lot of interest in their potential application in medicine, but how useful they could be will depend on the strength of the magnets.
Scientists at Edinburgh University grew the bacteria in a mixture that contained more cobalt than iron.
The addition of cobalt in the nanomagnets made them 36-45% stronger.
This meant they stayed magnetised longer when taken out of a magnetic field.
'Exciting research'
The ability of the nanomagnets to remain magnetised opens the way for their use in killing tumour cells, the researchers said.
They could be guided to the site of a tumour magnetically.
Once there, applying an opposite magnetic field would cause the nanomagnets to heat up, destroying cells in the process.
They could also potentially be used to carry drugs directly to the cancerous tissue.
Study leader, Dr Sarah Staniland, a research fellow at the University of Edinburgh, said: "For nanoparticles to be used in medicine you need them to be a very uniform size and shape and bacteria are very good for that.
"This increases the scope for their use in cancer.
"You would move them with a normal magnetic field and then heat them with the opposing field."
Liz Baker, Cancer Research UK's science information officer, said: "Targeting treatments specifically to cancer cells is an exciting area of research, but in this case work is still at a very early stage.
"It will be interesting to see if further research into nanomagnets will provide us with a new and effective anti-cancer therapy."
The research was carried out alongside scientists at Daresbury Laboratory in the UK and the Institut Laue-Langevin in Grenoble, France.
The tiny magnetic particles are produced in bacteriaTiny magnets made by bacteria could be used to kill tumours, say researchers.
A team at the University of Edinburgh has developed a method of making the nanomagnets stronger, opening the way for their use in cancer treatment.
The bacteria-produced magnets are better than man-made versions because of their uniform size and shape, the Nature Nanotechnology study reported.
It is hoped one day the magnets could be guided to tumour sites and then activated to destroy cancerous cells.
The bacteria take up iron from their surroundings and turn it into a string of magnetic particles.
They use the chains of particles like a needle of a compass to orientate themselves and search for oxygen-rich environments.
For nanoparticles to be used in medicine you need them to be a very uniform size and shape and bacteria are very good for that
Dr Sarah Staniland, study leader
There has been a lot of interest in their potential application in medicine, but how useful they could be will depend on the strength of the magnets.
Scientists at Edinburgh University grew the bacteria in a mixture that contained more cobalt than iron.
The addition of cobalt in the nanomagnets made them 36-45% stronger.
This meant they stayed magnetised longer when taken out of a magnetic field.
'Exciting research'
The ability of the nanomagnets to remain magnetised opens the way for their use in killing tumour cells, the researchers said.
They could be guided to the site of a tumour magnetically.
Once there, applying an opposite magnetic field would cause the nanomagnets to heat up, destroying cells in the process.
They could also potentially be used to carry drugs directly to the cancerous tissue.
Study leader, Dr Sarah Staniland, a research fellow at the University of Edinburgh, said: "For nanoparticles to be used in medicine you need them to be a very uniform size and shape and bacteria are very good for that.
"This increases the scope for their use in cancer.
"You would move them with a normal magnetic field and then heat them with the opposing field."
Liz Baker, Cancer Research UK's science information officer, said: "Targeting treatments specifically to cancer cells is an exciting area of research, but in this case work is still at a very early stage.
"It will be interesting to see if further research into nanomagnets will provide us with a new and effective anti-cancer therapy."
The research was carried out alongside scientists at Daresbury Laboratory in the UK and the Institut Laue-Langevin in Grenoble, France.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Top tech influencers (Wish I can be one someday)
An article from BBC
The top tech influencers
Darren Waters
29 Jan 08, 09:28 GMT
The results are in, the votes have been counted and I can now reveal the top 45 most influential figures in technology over the last 150 years.
But before I do, I should point out that I was part of the panel that helped compile the list. And when I say “panel”, I mean I was invited to cast my votes alongside other tech journalists, including hacks from IT Pro and The Inquirer, ZDNet, among others.
We didn’t vote en masse, we all have individual votes from a long list of about 70 names, which contracted and swelled as we immediately struck out some names – eg Richard Branson – and added others, such as Don Estridge, who led the team behind the original IBM PC. We all gathered to discuss the names, but in truth there was minimal debate and I have no idea how the others voted.
Here’s the top 10:
Tim Berners-Lee – Founder of the modern-day World Wide WebSergey Brin – Co-founder of GoogleLarry Page – Co-founder of GoogleGuglielmo Marconi – Inventor of the Radiotelegraph systemJack Kilby – Inventor of the Integrated Circuit and CalculatorGordon Moore – Co-founder of IntelAlan Turing – played a major role in deciphering German Code in WWIIRobert Noyce – Co-founder of IntelWilliam Shockley – Co-Inventor of the TransistorDon Estridge – Led the development of the IBM computer
So who’s in and who’s out?
Microsoft’s Bill Gates is in. “Of course he is,” you say. But on the night there was a strong lobby from some journalists that his influence has not been that great on the technology industry. But he is not as high up in the list as Steve Jobs, for example. Right or wrong? And Mr Jobs is much higher in the list than his Apple partner Steve Wozniak, the engineering brains behind the first Apple computers.
Tim Berners-Lee is top of the pile – but was this more a reflection of a British voting panel? Certainly, he was the favoured candidate among dot.life readers when I first blogged about the poll.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is out. So what? Well, he made the long list.
There’s no Clive Sinclair, the British home computer pioneer.
George Boole, the father of modern computer arithmetic, is in. How many people would have thought of him immediately?
The inventor of the transistor, William Shockley, is at number 9 while Jack Kilby, the inventor of the integrated circuit is at number 5.
Interestingly, the inventor of Ethernet poll, Robert Mecalfe, polls higher than Vint Cerf, the co-creator of TCP/IP, the underlying architecture of the net.
Shawn Fanning, creator of Napster, makes the cut, and Philip Rosedale, creator of Second Life, doesn’t.
The whole exercise was organised by Intel. And two of the firm’s co-founders made the top 10 - Gordon Moore and Robert Noyce. And the whole list has been put in front of Sean Maloney, who passed comment.
"It’s fitting that the people who have influenced the internet turn up in the top three of the list,” said Sean Maloney, executive vice president of Intel. “This emphasises the way the world is heading and that the internet is our industry’s demand driver.”
Here’s the full list. Remember don’t blame me: I was just one of the judges!
The 45 most influential people in technology:1. Tim Berners-Lee2. Sergey Brin3. Larry Page4. Guglielmo Marconi5. Jack Kilby6. Gordon Moore7. Alan Turing8. Robert Noyce9. William Shockley10. Don Estridge11. Doug Engelbert12. Robert Metcalfe13. Vint Cerf14. Steve Jobs15. Andrew Grove16. Seymour Cray17. Pierre Omidyar18. Shawn Fanning19. Dennis Ritchie20. Ted Hoff21. Linus Torvalds22. Shuji Nakamura23. Dave Packard24. Jean Hoerni25. William Hewlett26. John Logie Baird27. George Boole28. Martin Cooper29. John Pinkerton30. Grace Hopper31. Bill Gates32. Herman Hollerith33. Thomas Watson34. Jeff Bezos35. Meg Whitman36. Ada Lovelace37. Nolan Bushnell38. Claude Shannon39. Charles Babbage40. John Chambers41. Philo Farnsworth42. Steve Wozniak43. Larry Ellison44. Michael Dell45. Maurice Wilkes
The top tech influencers
Darren Waters
29 Jan 08, 09:28 GMT
The results are in, the votes have been counted and I can now reveal the top 45 most influential figures in technology over the last 150 years.
But before I do, I should point out that I was part of the panel that helped compile the list. And when I say “panel”, I mean I was invited to cast my votes alongside other tech journalists, including hacks from IT Pro and The Inquirer, ZDNet, among others.
We didn’t vote en masse, we all have individual votes from a long list of about 70 names, which contracted and swelled as we immediately struck out some names – eg Richard Branson – and added others, such as Don Estridge, who led the team behind the original IBM PC. We all gathered to discuss the names, but in truth there was minimal debate and I have no idea how the others voted.
Here’s the top 10:
Tim Berners-Lee – Founder of the modern-day World Wide WebSergey Brin – Co-founder of GoogleLarry Page – Co-founder of GoogleGuglielmo Marconi – Inventor of the Radiotelegraph systemJack Kilby – Inventor of the Integrated Circuit and CalculatorGordon Moore – Co-founder of IntelAlan Turing – played a major role in deciphering German Code in WWIIRobert Noyce – Co-founder of IntelWilliam Shockley – Co-Inventor of the TransistorDon Estridge – Led the development of the IBM computer
So who’s in and who’s out?
Microsoft’s Bill Gates is in. “Of course he is,” you say. But on the night there was a strong lobby from some journalists that his influence has not been that great on the technology industry. But he is not as high up in the list as Steve Jobs, for example. Right or wrong? And Mr Jobs is much higher in the list than his Apple partner Steve Wozniak, the engineering brains behind the first Apple computers.
Tim Berners-Lee is top of the pile – but was this more a reflection of a British voting panel? Certainly, he was the favoured candidate among dot.life readers when I first blogged about the poll.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is out. So what? Well, he made the long list.
There’s no Clive Sinclair, the British home computer pioneer.
George Boole, the father of modern computer arithmetic, is in. How many people would have thought of him immediately?
The inventor of the transistor, William Shockley, is at number 9 while Jack Kilby, the inventor of the integrated circuit is at number 5.
Interestingly, the inventor of Ethernet poll, Robert Mecalfe, polls higher than Vint Cerf, the co-creator of TCP/IP, the underlying architecture of the net.
Shawn Fanning, creator of Napster, makes the cut, and Philip Rosedale, creator of Second Life, doesn’t.
The whole exercise was organised by Intel. And two of the firm’s co-founders made the top 10 - Gordon Moore and Robert Noyce. And the whole list has been put in front of Sean Maloney, who passed comment.
"It’s fitting that the people who have influenced the internet turn up in the top three of the list,” said Sean Maloney, executive vice president of Intel. “This emphasises the way the world is heading and that the internet is our industry’s demand driver.”
Here’s the full list. Remember don’t blame me: I was just one of the judges!
The 45 most influential people in technology:1. Tim Berners-Lee2. Sergey Brin3. Larry Page4. Guglielmo Marconi5. Jack Kilby6. Gordon Moore7. Alan Turing8. Robert Noyce9. William Shockley10. Don Estridge11. Doug Engelbert12. Robert Metcalfe13. Vint Cerf14. Steve Jobs15. Andrew Grove16. Seymour Cray17. Pierre Omidyar18. Shawn Fanning19. Dennis Ritchie20. Ted Hoff21. Linus Torvalds22. Shuji Nakamura23. Dave Packard24. Jean Hoerni25. William Hewlett26. John Logie Baird27. George Boole28. Martin Cooper29. John Pinkerton30. Grace Hopper31. Bill Gates32. Herman Hollerith33. Thomas Watson34. Jeff Bezos35. Meg Whitman36. Ada Lovelace37. Nolan Bushnell38. Claude Shannon39. Charles Babbage40. John Chambers41. Philo Farnsworth42. Steve Wozniak43. Larry Ellison44. Michael Dell45. Maurice Wilkes
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Getting there - nano world
An article from bbc
Getting more from Moore's Law
By Jonathan Fildes Science and technology reporter, BBC News
The silicon industry has already introduced new materials such as HafniumFor more than 40 years the silicon industry has delivered ever faster, cheaper chips.
The advances have underpinned everything from the rise of mobile phones to digital photography and portable music players.
Chip-makers have been able to deliver many of these advances by shrinking the components on a chip.
By making these building blocks, such as transistors, smaller they have become faster and firms have been able to pack more of them into the same area.
But according to many industry insiders this miniaturisation cannot continue forever.
MOORE'S LAW
The number of transistors it is possible to squeeze in to a chip for a fixed cost doubles every two years
First outlined by Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel
Published in Electronics Magazine on 19 April, 1965
"The consensus in the industry is that we can do that shrink for about another ten years and then after that we have to figure out new ways to bring higher capability to our chips," said Professor Stanley Williams of Hewlett Packard.
Even Gordon Moore, the founder of Intel and the man that gave his name to the law that dictates the industry's progression, admits that it can only go on for a few more years.
"Moore's Law should continue for at least another decade," he recently told the BBC News website. "That's about as far as I can see."
Tiny tubes
As a result, researchers around the world are engaged in efforts to allow the industry to continue delivering the advances that computer users have come to expect.
Key areas include advanced fabrication techniques, building new components and finding new materials to augment silicon.
Already new materials are creeping into modern chips.
As components have shrunk critical elements of the transistors, known as gate dielectrics, do not perform as well allowing currents passing through the transistors to leak, reducing the effectiveness of the chip.
To overcome this, companies have replaced the gate dielectrics, previously made from silicon dioxide, with an oxide based on the metal hafnium.
The material's development and integration into working components has been described by Dr Moore as "the biggest change in transistor technology" since the late 1960s.
But IBM researchers are working on materials that they believe offer even bigger advances.
"Carbon nanotubes are a step beyond [hafnium]," explained Dr Phaedon Avouris of the company.
'Superior' design
CARBON NANOTUBES
Sheets of carbon atoms folded into a cylinder
Unusual strength and electrical properties
Promise to revolutionise electronics, computers, chemistry and materials scienceCarbon nanotubes are tiny straw-like molecules less than 2 nanometres (billionths of a metre) in diameter, 50,000 times thinner than a strand of a human hair.
"They are a more drastic change but still preserve the basic architecture of field effect transistors."
These transistors are the basic building blocks of most silicon chips.
Dr Avouris believes they can be used to replace a critical element of the chip, known as the channel.
Today this is commonly made of silicon and is the area of the transistor through which electrons flow.
Chip makers are constantly battling to make the channel length in transistors smaller and smaller, to increase the performance of the devices.
Carbon nanotube's small size and "superior" electrical properties should be able to deliver this, said Dr Avouris.
Crucially, he also believes the molecules can be integrated with traditional silicon manufacturing processes, meaning the technology would more likely be accepted by an industry that has spent billions perfecting manufacturing techniques.
The team have already shown off working transistors and are currently working on optimising their production and integration into working devices.
Tiny improvement
Professor Williams, at Hewlett Packard is also working on technology that could be incorporated into the future generations of chips.
As well as exploring optical computing - using particles of light instead of electrons to significantly increase the speed of today's computers - he is building new electronic components for chips called memristors.
Nano chip developer
Multi-core chips
Multi-core 'myth' He says it would be the "fourth" basic element to build circuits with, after capacitors, resistors and inductors.
"Now we have this type of device we have a broader palette with which to paint our circuits," said Professor Williams.
Professor Williams and his team have shown that by putting two of these devices together - a configuration called a crossbar latch - it could do the job of a transistor.
"A cross bar latch has the type of functionality you want from a transistor but it's working with very different physics," he explained.
Crucially, these devices can also be made much smaller than a transistor.
"And as they get smaller they get better," he said.
Professor Williams and his team are currently making prototype hybrid circuits - built of memristors and transistors - in a fabrication plant in North America.
"We want to keep the functional equivalent of Moore's Law going for many decades into the future," said Professor Williams.
Getting more from Moore's Law
By Jonathan Fildes Science and technology reporter, BBC News
The silicon industry has already introduced new materials such as HafniumFor more than 40 years the silicon industry has delivered ever faster, cheaper chips.
The advances have underpinned everything from the rise of mobile phones to digital photography and portable music players.
Chip-makers have been able to deliver many of these advances by shrinking the components on a chip.
By making these building blocks, such as transistors, smaller they have become faster and firms have been able to pack more of them into the same area.
But according to many industry insiders this miniaturisation cannot continue forever.
MOORE'S LAW
The number of transistors it is possible to squeeze in to a chip for a fixed cost doubles every two years
First outlined by Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel
Published in Electronics Magazine on 19 April, 1965
"The consensus in the industry is that we can do that shrink for about another ten years and then after that we have to figure out new ways to bring higher capability to our chips," said Professor Stanley Williams of Hewlett Packard.
Even Gordon Moore, the founder of Intel and the man that gave his name to the law that dictates the industry's progression, admits that it can only go on for a few more years.
"Moore's Law should continue for at least another decade," he recently told the BBC News website. "That's about as far as I can see."
Tiny tubes
As a result, researchers around the world are engaged in efforts to allow the industry to continue delivering the advances that computer users have come to expect.
Key areas include advanced fabrication techniques, building new components and finding new materials to augment silicon.
Already new materials are creeping into modern chips.
As components have shrunk critical elements of the transistors, known as gate dielectrics, do not perform as well allowing currents passing through the transistors to leak, reducing the effectiveness of the chip.
To overcome this, companies have replaced the gate dielectrics, previously made from silicon dioxide, with an oxide based on the metal hafnium.
The material's development and integration into working components has been described by Dr Moore as "the biggest change in transistor technology" since the late 1960s.
But IBM researchers are working on materials that they believe offer even bigger advances.
"Carbon nanotubes are a step beyond [hafnium]," explained Dr Phaedon Avouris of the company.
'Superior' design
CARBON NANOTUBES
Sheets of carbon atoms folded into a cylinder
Unusual strength and electrical properties
Promise to revolutionise electronics, computers, chemistry and materials scienceCarbon nanotubes are tiny straw-like molecules less than 2 nanometres (billionths of a metre) in diameter, 50,000 times thinner than a strand of a human hair.
"They are a more drastic change but still preserve the basic architecture of field effect transistors."
These transistors are the basic building blocks of most silicon chips.
Dr Avouris believes they can be used to replace a critical element of the chip, known as the channel.
Today this is commonly made of silicon and is the area of the transistor through which electrons flow.
Chip makers are constantly battling to make the channel length in transistors smaller and smaller, to increase the performance of the devices.
Carbon nanotube's small size and "superior" electrical properties should be able to deliver this, said Dr Avouris.
Crucially, he also believes the molecules can be integrated with traditional silicon manufacturing processes, meaning the technology would more likely be accepted by an industry that has spent billions perfecting manufacturing techniques.
The team have already shown off working transistors and are currently working on optimising their production and integration into working devices.
Tiny improvement
Professor Williams, at Hewlett Packard is also working on technology that could be incorporated into the future generations of chips.
As well as exploring optical computing - using particles of light instead of electrons to significantly increase the speed of today's computers - he is building new electronic components for chips called memristors.
Nano chip developer
Multi-core chips
Multi-core 'myth' He says it would be the "fourth" basic element to build circuits with, after capacitors, resistors and inductors.
"Now we have this type of device we have a broader palette with which to paint our circuits," said Professor Williams.
Professor Williams and his team have shown that by putting two of these devices together - a configuration called a crossbar latch - it could do the job of a transistor.
"A cross bar latch has the type of functionality you want from a transistor but it's working with very different physics," he explained.
Crucially, these devices can also be made much smaller than a transistor.
"And as they get smaller they get better," he said.
Professor Williams and his team are currently making prototype hybrid circuits - built of memristors and transistors - in a fabrication plant in North America.
"We want to keep the functional equivalent of Moore's Law going for many decades into the future," said Professor Williams.
Tuesday, November 06, 2007
Internet IP addresses closing the limits
Article on BBC
Warning over net address limits
Vint Cerf is one of the founding fathers of the netInternet Service Providers urgently need to roll out the next generation of net addresses for online devices, internet pioneer Vint Cerf has said.
Every device that goes online is allocated a unique IP address but the pool of numbers is finite and due to run out around 2010.
A new system, called IPv6, has been awaiting roll out for 10 years.
Unless IPv6 is switched on in the coming years, some devices might not be able to go online, Mr Cerf has warned.
Mr Cerf, who played a key role in the development of the protocols which underpin the global net, said: "There is a risk of not being able to get online."
He added: "The rate of consumption of available remaining IPv4 numbers appears to be on track to run out in 2010/11."
Mr Cerf is about to step down as chairman of Icann, the body which oversees the net, and is also Google's chief internet evangelist.
Potential shortage
The current system, called IPv4 provides four billion addresses but the explosion in the number of devices which go online has led to the potential shortage.
Although IPv6 was standardised 10 years ago it has not been rolled out at speed.
While modern computers, servers, routers and other online devices are able to use IPv6, internet service providers have yet to implement the system.
"The reason they haven't - which is quite understandable - is that customers haven't asked for it yet," said Mr Cerf, adding, "my job, whether with my Icann hat on or not, is to persuade them to ask for it.
To be clear - if we finally exhaust the IPv4 pool it doesn't mean the internet stops working
Vint Cerf
"If you don't ask for it, then when you most want it you won't have it."
IPv6 will create 340 trillion trillion trillion separate addresses, enough to satisfy demand for decades to come.
"To be clear - if we finally exhaust the IPv4 pool it doesn't mean the internet stops working. But people wanting an IPv4 address won't get one.
"If there is an internet that does not support IPv6, not getting an IPv4 address means not getting on the net."
He added: "The appreciation of the importance of getting IPv6 into operation is very much more visible than before.
"I'm anticipating in 2008 a substantial increase of use of IPv6, introduced in parallel with IPv4."
One complicating factor is that IPv6 and IPv4 are not compatible so ISPs will have to run the two systems in parallel - adding to costs.
In Asia, governments in China, Korea and Japan have begun to lead roll out of IPv6 and the European Union is reviewing methods to encourage adoption.
Warning over net address limits
Vint Cerf is one of the founding fathers of the netInternet Service Providers urgently need to roll out the next generation of net addresses for online devices, internet pioneer Vint Cerf has said.
Every device that goes online is allocated a unique IP address but the pool of numbers is finite and due to run out around 2010.
A new system, called IPv6, has been awaiting roll out for 10 years.
Unless IPv6 is switched on in the coming years, some devices might not be able to go online, Mr Cerf has warned.
Mr Cerf, who played a key role in the development of the protocols which underpin the global net, said: "There is a risk of not being able to get online."
He added: "The rate of consumption of available remaining IPv4 numbers appears to be on track to run out in 2010/11."
Mr Cerf is about to step down as chairman of Icann, the body which oversees the net, and is also Google's chief internet evangelist.
Potential shortage
The current system, called IPv4 provides four billion addresses but the explosion in the number of devices which go online has led to the potential shortage.
Although IPv6 was standardised 10 years ago it has not been rolled out at speed.
While modern computers, servers, routers and other online devices are able to use IPv6, internet service providers have yet to implement the system.
"The reason they haven't - which is quite understandable - is that customers haven't asked for it yet," said Mr Cerf, adding, "my job, whether with my Icann hat on or not, is to persuade them to ask for it.
To be clear - if we finally exhaust the IPv4 pool it doesn't mean the internet stops working
Vint Cerf
"If you don't ask for it, then when you most want it you won't have it."
IPv6 will create 340 trillion trillion trillion separate addresses, enough to satisfy demand for decades to come.
"To be clear - if we finally exhaust the IPv4 pool it doesn't mean the internet stops working. But people wanting an IPv4 address won't get one.
"If there is an internet that does not support IPv6, not getting an IPv4 address means not getting on the net."
He added: "The appreciation of the importance of getting IPv6 into operation is very much more visible than before.
"I'm anticipating in 2008 a substantial increase of use of IPv6, introduced in parallel with IPv4."
One complicating factor is that IPv6 and IPv4 are not compatible so ISPs will have to run the two systems in parallel - adding to costs.
In Asia, governments in China, Korea and Japan have begun to lead roll out of IPv6 and the European Union is reviewing methods to encourage adoption.
Google keeps rocking huh ...
An article from BBC
Google has launched an open operating system for mobile phones, called Android. It has also formed an Open Handset Alliance with 33 partners, promising "better, cheaper" mobile phones.
What is Android?
Android is a series of software tools built by Google designed to power a next generation of mobile phone handsets.
The tools are based on Linux - and so are open source and free to use. It means any one can develop software for the platform and that Android itself can be tailored for individual phones, networks and potentially users.
What is the Open Handset Alliance?
Thirty four companies, including Google, have formed an alliance to promote Android and to develop features and handsets to take advantage of the platform.
Companies include handset manufacturers such as LG, HTC, Motorola and Samsung, chip firms such as Qualcomm and mobile networks like T-Mobile and China Mobile.
What is different about Android?
Google is stressing the open nature of the platform. Operating systems on current phones - such as Windows Mobile, RIM, Symbian and Palm - are proprietorial and have to be licensed for use. Google believes it will be easier and quicker to develop new applications for Android than the other systems.
What kinds of features and phones will we see?
That is the big question. Google and its partners believe that the new phones will make the internet experience on a mobile "better than on a PC".
But they have given little details about how this will be achieved, except to say Android includes an advanced web browser.
Most mobile web experiences are hampered by the limitations of the browser and screen resolution of the handset.
But devices such as the Apple iPhone and Nokia N800 - which are not powered by Android - are already showing the potential for a PC-like experience on a mobile device.
Google and partners have said the new phones will be able to take make web experiences, such as video, sharing content and social networking, much easier on a handset.
The first phones are not due until the second half of 2008 but developers will be able to get a look at the Android tools from next week.
Will my current phone work with Android?
No. You will have to buy a new phone that is running the Android platform.
Does that mean current phones are obsolete?
Not at all. Rival platform systems, such as Symbian, Palm, Windows Mobile and Blackberry, will continue to exist on an ever expanding array of devices. The companies behind all these platforms say they are also working on more accessible web experiences on future devices.
What has the reaction been to Google's big jump into mobiles?
Mixed. Analysts are emphasising the impressive partners Google has secured. But it is clear that none of the handset partners in the alliance are ditching deals with existing platforms in favour of Android. Google's system will be part of the mix.
Forrester analyst Charlie Golvin wrote: "Paradoxically, Android will increase complexity for developers initially since it represents yet another platform to support."
Technology writer Om Malik has described the move as a "massive PR move, with nothing to show for it right now".
He added: "The partners - with the exception of HTC and T-Mobile - are companies who are, in cricketing parlance, on the backfoot. Motorola, for instance is not exactly a bastion of handset excellence."
What are the business implications of the Google deal?
It is clear that Linux - the open source operating system - is going to be a big player in the mobile space. Android is based on Linux and there are other Linux-based mobile OSes in existence, such as OpenMoko, LiMo and Qtopia.
ABI Research predicts that Mobile Linux will be the fastest growing smartphone operating system over the next five years.
Linux-based smartphones will account for about 31% of such devices by 2012, the analysts have reported.
Why is Google doing this?
There are more people with mobile phones with access to the net right now than there are PCs with online connections.
This is a massive potential market for Google - and every other online firm - that is yet to be tapped and developed.
Improving the mobile web for all is a rising tide that will float all boats, including the Google battleship.
More people online means more people using Google's services, which means more advertising revenue for the firm.
Google has launched an open operating system for mobile phones, called Android. It has also formed an Open Handset Alliance with 33 partners, promising "better, cheaper" mobile phones.
What is Android?
Android is a series of software tools built by Google designed to power a next generation of mobile phone handsets.
The tools are based on Linux - and so are open source and free to use. It means any one can develop software for the platform and that Android itself can be tailored for individual phones, networks and potentially users.
What is the Open Handset Alliance?
Thirty four companies, including Google, have formed an alliance to promote Android and to develop features and handsets to take advantage of the platform.
Companies include handset manufacturers such as LG, HTC, Motorola and Samsung, chip firms such as Qualcomm and mobile networks like T-Mobile and China Mobile.
What is different about Android?
Google is stressing the open nature of the platform. Operating systems on current phones - such as Windows Mobile, RIM, Symbian and Palm - are proprietorial and have to be licensed for use. Google believes it will be easier and quicker to develop new applications for Android than the other systems.
What kinds of features and phones will we see?
That is the big question. Google and its partners believe that the new phones will make the internet experience on a mobile "better than on a PC".
But they have given little details about how this will be achieved, except to say Android includes an advanced web browser.
Most mobile web experiences are hampered by the limitations of the browser and screen resolution of the handset.
But devices such as the Apple iPhone and Nokia N800 - which are not powered by Android - are already showing the potential for a PC-like experience on a mobile device.
Google and partners have said the new phones will be able to take make web experiences, such as video, sharing content and social networking, much easier on a handset.
The first phones are not due until the second half of 2008 but developers will be able to get a look at the Android tools from next week.
Will my current phone work with Android?
No. You will have to buy a new phone that is running the Android platform.
Does that mean current phones are obsolete?
Not at all. Rival platform systems, such as Symbian, Palm, Windows Mobile and Blackberry, will continue to exist on an ever expanding array of devices. The companies behind all these platforms say they are also working on more accessible web experiences on future devices.
What has the reaction been to Google's big jump into mobiles?
Mixed. Analysts are emphasising the impressive partners Google has secured. But it is clear that none of the handset partners in the alliance are ditching deals with existing platforms in favour of Android. Google's system will be part of the mix.
Forrester analyst Charlie Golvin wrote: "Paradoxically, Android will increase complexity for developers initially since it represents yet another platform to support."
Technology writer Om Malik has described the move as a "massive PR move, with nothing to show for it right now".
He added: "The partners - with the exception of HTC and T-Mobile - are companies who are, in cricketing parlance, on the backfoot. Motorola, for instance is not exactly a bastion of handset excellence."
What are the business implications of the Google deal?
It is clear that Linux - the open source operating system - is going to be a big player in the mobile space. Android is based on Linux and there are other Linux-based mobile OSes in existence, such as OpenMoko, LiMo and Qtopia.
ABI Research predicts that Mobile Linux will be the fastest growing smartphone operating system over the next five years.
Linux-based smartphones will account for about 31% of such devices by 2012, the analysts have reported.
Why is Google doing this?
There are more people with mobile phones with access to the net right now than there are PCs with online connections.
This is a massive potential market for Google - and every other online firm - that is yet to be tapped and developed.
Improving the mobile web for all is a rising tide that will float all boats, including the Google battleship.
More people online means more people using Google's services, which means more advertising revenue for the firm.
Friday, November 02, 2007
PS3 network enters record books
An article from BBC.
PS3 network enters record books
Protein folding is critical to most biological functionsA project that harnesses the spare processing power of Sony's PlayStation 3 (PS3) to help understand the cause of diseases has entered the record books.
Guinness World Records has recognised folding@home (FAH) as the world's most powerful distributed computing network.
FAH has signed up nearly 700,000 PS3s to examine how the shape of proteins affect diseases such as Alzheimer's.
The network has more than one petaflop of computing power - the equivalent of 1,000 trillion calculations per second.
"To have folding@home recognized by Guinness World Records as the most powerful distributed computing network ever is a reflection of the extraordinary worldwide participation by gamers and consumers around the world and for that we are very grateful," said Professor Vijay Pande of Stanford University and a leader of the FAH project.
Disease link
Distributed computing is a method for solving large complex problems by dividing them between many computers.
CELL SPECS
256 billion calculations per second
2.5MB of on-chip memory
Able to shuttle data to and from off-chip memory at speeds up to 100 gigabytes per second,
234 million transistors
The Cell's hard sell They harness the idle processing power of computers to crunch small packets of data, which are then fed back over the internet to a central computer.
The technique has been used by several groups to study everything from how malaria spreads to searching for new cancer drugs.
One of the most high profile projects is seti@home, which uses computer cycles to search through thousands of hours of radio telescope signals for signs of extra-terrestrial intelligence.
FAH uses distributed computing to examine protein folding and how it maybe linked to diseases.
Proteins that do not fold correctly have been implicated in diseases such as Alzheimer's, Huntingdon's, BSE and many cancers.
Speed test
Until March this year, FAH only ran on PCs.
The program had around 200,000 computers participating in the program, the equivalent of about 250 teraflops (trillion calculations per second).
The addition of 670,000 PS3s has taken the computing power of the network to more than one petaflop.
By comparison BlueGene L, which tops the list of most powerful supercomputers, has a top speed of just 280.6 teraflops.
The boost is in part because of the PS3's powerful processor, known as the "cell", which runs up to 10 times faster than current PC chips.
"It is clear that none of this would be even remotely possible without the power of PS3, it has increased our research capabilities by leaps and bounds," said Prof Pande.
PS3 network enters record books
Protein folding is critical to most biological functionsA project that harnesses the spare processing power of Sony's PlayStation 3 (PS3) to help understand the cause of diseases has entered the record books.
Guinness World Records has recognised folding@home (FAH) as the world's most powerful distributed computing network.
FAH has signed up nearly 700,000 PS3s to examine how the shape of proteins affect diseases such as Alzheimer's.
The network has more than one petaflop of computing power - the equivalent of 1,000 trillion calculations per second.
"To have folding@home recognized by Guinness World Records as the most powerful distributed computing network ever is a reflection of the extraordinary worldwide participation by gamers and consumers around the world and for that we are very grateful," said Professor Vijay Pande of Stanford University and a leader of the FAH project.
Disease link
Distributed computing is a method for solving large complex problems by dividing them between many computers.
CELL SPECS
256 billion calculations per second
2.5MB of on-chip memory
Able to shuttle data to and from off-chip memory at speeds up to 100 gigabytes per second,
234 million transistors
The Cell's hard sell They harness the idle processing power of computers to crunch small packets of data, which are then fed back over the internet to a central computer.
The technique has been used by several groups to study everything from how malaria spreads to searching for new cancer drugs.
One of the most high profile projects is seti@home, which uses computer cycles to search through thousands of hours of radio telescope signals for signs of extra-terrestrial intelligence.
FAH uses distributed computing to examine protein folding and how it maybe linked to diseases.
Proteins that do not fold correctly have been implicated in diseases such as Alzheimer's, Huntingdon's, BSE and many cancers.
Speed test
Until March this year, FAH only ran on PCs.
The program had around 200,000 computers participating in the program, the equivalent of about 250 teraflops (trillion calculations per second).
The addition of 670,000 PS3s has taken the computing power of the network to more than one petaflop.
By comparison BlueGene L, which tops the list of most powerful supercomputers, has a top speed of just 280.6 teraflops.
The boost is in part because of the PS3's powerful processor, known as the "cell", which runs up to 10 times faster than current PC chips.
"It is clear that none of this would be even remotely possible without the power of PS3, it has increased our research capabilities by leaps and bounds," said Prof Pande.
Monday, October 01, 2007
Innovation at its best
Article from BBC
Ultra-thin TV to hit the market
Sony hopes the screen will re-invigorate its fortunesAn ultra-thin television brighter and crisper than current generation screens will go on sale from Sony in December.
The TV uses organic light-emitting diodes (OLED) to produce the image, resulting in a screen only 3mm thick.
OLED screens are more energy efficient than LCD panels as they do not need a backlight to boost brightness.
But it is difficult and expensive to make large screens using the technology. Sony's first OLED TV costs £850 and has an 11in display.
OLED screens are brighter than LCD panels and also have better contrast ratio - resulting in sharper pictures.
The diodes emit a brilliant white light when attached to an electricity supply and are also being developed for use as replacements to traditional light bulbs.
Colour display
Different organic materials produce different colours and are combined to produce a colour display.
Sony has hailed the new television as a signal of its returning strength as a technology innovator.
"Some people have said attractive products are slow to come at Sony despite its technological strength," said Sony president Ryoji Chubachi at a news conference at its Tokyo headquarters.
I do believe this is a type of technology with very high potential
Katsumi Ihara, Sony
He added: "I want this world's first OLED TV to be the symbol of the revival of Sony's technological prowess.
"I want this to be the flag under which we charge forward to turn the fortunes around."
Other firms are also working on OLED screens - Samsung has shown off a 40-inch TV using the technology - but Sony is the first to market.
"I don't think OLED TVs will replace LCD TVs overnight. But I do believe this is a type of technology with very high potential, something that will come after LCD TVs," said Sony executive deputy president Katsumi Ihara.
The new TV goes on sale in Japan on 1 December. There are no plans for a global launch as yet.
The OLED TV has a lifespan of about 30,000 hours of viewing - half that of Sony's LCD televisions.
Ultra-thin TV to hit the market
Sony hopes the screen will re-invigorate its fortunesAn ultra-thin television brighter and crisper than current generation screens will go on sale from Sony in December.
The TV uses organic light-emitting diodes (OLED) to produce the image, resulting in a screen only 3mm thick.
OLED screens are more energy efficient than LCD panels as they do not need a backlight to boost brightness.
But it is difficult and expensive to make large screens using the technology. Sony's first OLED TV costs £850 and has an 11in display.
OLED screens are brighter than LCD panels and also have better contrast ratio - resulting in sharper pictures.
The diodes emit a brilliant white light when attached to an electricity supply and are also being developed for use as replacements to traditional light bulbs.
Colour display
Different organic materials produce different colours and are combined to produce a colour display.
Sony has hailed the new television as a signal of its returning strength as a technology innovator.
"Some people have said attractive products are slow to come at Sony despite its technological strength," said Sony president Ryoji Chubachi at a news conference at its Tokyo headquarters.
I do believe this is a type of technology with very high potential
Katsumi Ihara, Sony
He added: "I want this world's first OLED TV to be the symbol of the revival of Sony's technological prowess.
"I want this to be the flag under which we charge forward to turn the fortunes around."
Other firms are also working on OLED screens - Samsung has shown off a 40-inch TV using the technology - but Sony is the first to market.
"I don't think OLED TVs will replace LCD TVs overnight. But I do believe this is a type of technology with very high potential, something that will come after LCD TVs," said Sony executive deputy president Katsumi Ihara.
The new TV goes on sale in Japan on 1 December. There are no plans for a global launch as yet.
The OLED TV has a lifespan of about 30,000 hours of viewing - half that of Sony's LCD televisions.
Sunday, September 02, 2007
GSLV Launched successfully
Article from "The Hindu" leading Indian newspaper
Another milestone: GSLV-F04 lifts off from the Sriharikota spaceport on Sunday. It put into orbit ISRO’s latest communication satellite INSAT-4CR.
SRIHARIKOTA: The launch of the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle, GSLV-F04, from here on Sunday turned out to be “a sweet success,” with the launch vehicle injecting the communication satellite, INSAT-4CR, in its pre-determined orbit.
This was the heaviest satellite to be launched by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), with the INSAT-4CR tilting the scales at 2,130 kg.
It was a remarkable comeback for the ISRO after the failure of the GSLV on July 10, 2006. What added to the success of the latest mission is that it was the third consecutive successful mission this year.
On January 10, the PSLV put in orbit a spacecraft that was brought back to the earth, and on April 23, a pared down version of the PSLV put in orbit Italian satellite Agile.“A fantastic job”
ISRO Chairman G. Madhavan Nair said the ISRO team had done “a fantastic job” after the failure of the GSLV mission in 2006, and appreciated “the precision with which this mission had performed the job.”
Dr. B.N. Suresh, Director, Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Thiruvananthapuram, described the launch as “a sweet success.”
It showed that the GSLV was a robust vehicle, whose systems performed as expected.
As Mr. Nair described it, “from all points of view, it was a highly dramatic mission.”
The vehicle was scheduled to lift off on September 1. But the heavy downpour on August 26 played spoilsport.
“Every night, clouds would come in from somewhere. … There will be lightning. We lost 40 hours in the countdown sequence.” So the launch was postponed to 4.21 p.m. on September 2.
But 15 seconds before lift-off at 4.21 p.m., there was a problem. The signal related to the readiness of the upper, cryogenic stage did not reach the computer, which takes over the entire launch sequence 12 minutes before lift-off.
So the computer halted the launch. After the problem was addressed, the launch was re-scheduled for 6.20 p.m.
In the twilight hour, the GSLV-F04 shot off from its second launch pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre and rode a ball of flame. All the three stages ignited and jettisoned into the Bay of Bengal on time. Seventeen minutes after lift-off, INSAT-4CR was injected into the geosynchronous transfer orbit at a velocity of 37,000 km an hour.Signal drop-outs
The were other heartbreaking moments. There were signal drop-outs from the tracking stations at Brunei and Biak in Indonesia, and the ISRO lost track of the vehicle. This happened on and off for three and a half minutes. But at the end of 17 minutes, jubilation filled Sriharikota.
While G. Ravindranath was the Mission Director, N. Jayachandran Nair was the Vehicle Director. Prahalada Rao was the Satellite Director.Pat for scientists
PTI reports from New Delhi:
President Pratibha Patil, Vice-President Mohd. Hamid Ansari, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee on Sunday congratulated space scientists on the successful launch of communications satellite INSAT-4CR.
Ms. Patil congratulated Indian Space Research Organisation and the scientists involved in the launch of the satellite.
This successful launch further validates the immense economic and strategic importance of the country’s space programme, Mr. Ansari said.
Mr. Singh also congratulated ISRO on successful launch of GSLV-F04, which placed into orbit a communications satellite that is expected to augment Direct-to-Home television service.
Mr. Chatterjee said the successful launch “proves the point that the GSLV is a reliable vehicle.” It also underscores the self-reliance of the country’s space programme, the Speaker said. — PTI
Another milestone: GSLV-F04 lifts off from the Sriharikota spaceport on Sunday. It put into orbit ISRO’s latest communication satellite INSAT-4CR.
SRIHARIKOTA: The launch of the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle, GSLV-F04, from here on Sunday turned out to be “a sweet success,” with the launch vehicle injecting the communication satellite, INSAT-4CR, in its pre-determined orbit.
This was the heaviest satellite to be launched by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), with the INSAT-4CR tilting the scales at 2,130 kg.
It was a remarkable comeback for the ISRO after the failure of the GSLV on July 10, 2006. What added to the success of the latest mission is that it was the third consecutive successful mission this year.
On January 10, the PSLV put in orbit a spacecraft that was brought back to the earth, and on April 23, a pared down version of the PSLV put in orbit Italian satellite Agile.“A fantastic job”
ISRO Chairman G. Madhavan Nair said the ISRO team had done “a fantastic job” after the failure of the GSLV mission in 2006, and appreciated “the precision with which this mission had performed the job.”
Dr. B.N. Suresh, Director, Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Thiruvananthapuram, described the launch as “a sweet success.”
It showed that the GSLV was a robust vehicle, whose systems performed as expected.
As Mr. Nair described it, “from all points of view, it was a highly dramatic mission.”
The vehicle was scheduled to lift off on September 1. But the heavy downpour on August 26 played spoilsport.
“Every night, clouds would come in from somewhere. … There will be lightning. We lost 40 hours in the countdown sequence.” So the launch was postponed to 4.21 p.m. on September 2.
But 15 seconds before lift-off at 4.21 p.m., there was a problem. The signal related to the readiness of the upper, cryogenic stage did not reach the computer, which takes over the entire launch sequence 12 minutes before lift-off.
So the computer halted the launch. After the problem was addressed, the launch was re-scheduled for 6.20 p.m.
In the twilight hour, the GSLV-F04 shot off from its second launch pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre and rode a ball of flame. All the three stages ignited and jettisoned into the Bay of Bengal on time. Seventeen minutes after lift-off, INSAT-4CR was injected into the geosynchronous transfer orbit at a velocity of 37,000 km an hour.Signal drop-outs
The were other heartbreaking moments. There were signal drop-outs from the tracking stations at Brunei and Biak in Indonesia, and the ISRO lost track of the vehicle. This happened on and off for three and a half minutes. But at the end of 17 minutes, jubilation filled Sriharikota.
While G. Ravindranath was the Mission Director, N. Jayachandran Nair was the Vehicle Director. Prahalada Rao was the Satellite Director.Pat for scientists
PTI reports from New Delhi:
President Pratibha Patil, Vice-President Mohd. Hamid Ansari, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee on Sunday congratulated space scientists on the successful launch of communications satellite INSAT-4CR.
Ms. Patil congratulated Indian Space Research Organisation and the scientists involved in the launch of the satellite.
This successful launch further validates the immense economic and strategic importance of the country’s space programme, Mr. Ansari said.
Mr. Singh also congratulated ISRO on successful launch of GSLV-F04, which placed into orbit a communications satellite that is expected to augment Direct-to-Home television service.
Mr. Chatterjee said the successful launch “proves the point that the GSLV is a reliable vehicle.” It also underscores the self-reliance of the country’s space programme, the Speaker said. — PTI
Sunday, August 12, 2007
An Eyeopener ...
This is something about conserving old buildings in India. I was talking to my friend who is an architect and she mentioned so many things about the conservational aspects, which was really an eye opener for me and thought I should include it in my information depo. Well am really not sure how this is working in other parts of the world, coz I am not an expert in architectural field :) ( I am sure it is the same)
One of the most unique and valid point which made me think was, how can we conserve old buildings, whether it may be of historical importance or not? Well here is the answer... In countries like India which is high in population, when people tend to construct more new buildings it makes the country more congested (which already is), this results in more environmental calamities. When I say environmental calamities it includes many aspects and would like to mention a few .. for example, if we start constructing new buildings we are going to destroy/eradicate more nature (which includes trees, plants, air flow etc etc), and this causes lots of pollution and as a matter of fact, recently the whole world is talking about Global Warming.
So in order to avoid all the above, her solution or rather her suggestion was to renovate the existing old buildings. By doing this we can achieve three things 1. preserve old buildings and save more space in the country and allow the nature to be at peace. 2. If the old building is of historical importance we don't loose the history/culture (it is always something pleasant to visit a place which has some historical importance). 3. I correlated her thoughts about preserving old buildings with Global Warming, I strongly believe that this will help us save the nature.
When I talked to her it was really an eye opener and I decided to renovate one or two old buildings and preserve it and at the same time help the community to save the nature. So you all can think about it.
Adios..
One of the most unique and valid point which made me think was, how can we conserve old buildings, whether it may be of historical importance or not? Well here is the answer... In countries like India which is high in population, when people tend to construct more new buildings it makes the country more congested (which already is), this results in more environmental calamities. When I say environmental calamities it includes many aspects and would like to mention a few .. for example, if we start constructing new buildings we are going to destroy/eradicate more nature (which includes trees, plants, air flow etc etc), and this causes lots of pollution and as a matter of fact, recently the whole world is talking about Global Warming.
So in order to avoid all the above, her solution or rather her suggestion was to renovate the existing old buildings. By doing this we can achieve three things 1. preserve old buildings and save more space in the country and allow the nature to be at peace. 2. If the old building is of historical importance we don't loose the history/culture (it is always something pleasant to visit a place which has some historical importance). 3. I correlated her thoughts about preserving old buildings with Global Warming, I strongly believe that this will help us save the nature.
When I talked to her it was really an eye opener and I decided to renovate one or two old buildings and preserve it and at the same time help the community to save the nature. So you all can think about it.
Adios..
Friday, August 10, 2007
Best in show: emerging technology
An article from BBC
Here the BBC News website gives a brief rundown of the most innovative and eye-catching.
BYU-BYU
Byu-Byu users blow on to the screen
This aims to add another dimension, namely wind, to communication via video screens.
The system consists of fine-meshed screens that let air pass through them but also display images projected on to them.
The screens are also fitted with 64 sensors that bend when blown upon. Light bounced off tiny mirrors attached to the rear of the sensors lets the system work out where someone is blowing on the screen and how hard.
Sitting beyond the sensors behind are banks of small fans that can send strong or gentle breezes back through any section of the screen.
Masahiro Furukawa, one of the creators of Byu-Byu, said it added a tactile element to video communication. He said it could be used to blow out candles on a birthday cake thousands of miles away or play games such as virtual air hockey.
The name of the project, Byu-Byu, is an onomatopoeic Japanese phrase used to describe a howling wind.
FREQTRIC
Users have a tiny electric current running through their body
This interface aims to add another dimension to computer gaming and musical performances by making success depend on touching other players or artists.
At the heart of Freqtric are game controllers that, via a steel plate on their underside, trickle a small electric current through a player's body.
Sensors in the controller spot when this current is disrupted when they are touched by another player.
Tetsuaki Baba, creator of Freqtric and a student in the graduate school of design at Kyushu University, said touch could be put to different uses in a game. Shooting an opponent, for example, could be made to depend on touching them, he said.
How soft or hard someone is touched can also be sensed to add another, more subtle, aspect to game playing.
Mr Baba added that multiple Freqtric controllers could be used.
Tests of the system have involved four or five people becoming living instruments who, when touched, trigger a particular note or sound to be played.
GRAVITY GRABBER
The system allows people to feel the weight of virtual objects
This system makes use of the discovery that squashing and rolling the sensitive pads on the ends of a person's index finger and thumb can give a realistic impression of weight.
Post-graduate student Kouta Minamizawa and colleagues, from the Information Physics and Computing department at the University of Tokyo, aimed to exploit this using a lightweight, wearable ring fitted with tiny motors that pull on a narrow band of cloth.
Those using this system slip these rings onto their index finger and thumb with the band stretched across the tip of the digit. They get a sense of the weight of virtual objects when the tiny motors pull the band tight around the pad of the finger or slip the band from side-to-side.
The system can be used to represent single bulky objects like bottles when they are empty or have a liquid sloshing around inside them. It can even give the impression of several separate objects rattling round inside virtual containers.
Mr Minamizawa said it could be used in games to give players a more realistic sense of what their character was holding or doing.
SOAP
Moving the skin around the hull moves an onscreen cursor
This handy gadget aims to be a replacement for the mouse and other interface devices for people using wall-based displays or sitting a long way from a screen.
The gadget, about the same size as a bar of soap, has a loose outer skin that can move freely around a deformable inner hull.
Inside the hull is an optical sensor, taken from a computer mouse, that can work out how far the slippery fabric has moved or detect when it is moved by pressure being applied to the outer hull.
On screen cursors can be moved by sliding the fabric skin around the hard hull.
By squeezing and releasing the hull, the device can be used to click an onscreen button or pull a virtual trigger.
Patrick Baudisch from Microsoft Research who created the device said prototypes had been tested with large wall-based displays, media centres on TVs typically controlled from a couch and interactive games.
STRING WALKER
The system can be used to stroll through virtual worlds
This system aims to make simulations much more immersive by letting people walk through the virtual environment while staying in the same place.
The String Walker uses a broad turntable in the middle of which are two shoes each one of which has four strings attached to it.
Those using the walker put on the shoes and take steps as if they were strolling around. The tight strings are moved to cancel out the step and keep the person in the centre of the turntable but move them on a pace in the virtual world.
Touch sensors in the heels of the shoes work out which foot is being moved.
The turntable can handle sidestepping or walking round corners and rotates to keep the walking person always facing the same way, although their view in the virtual world may have shifted.
Developed by Hiroo Iwata and colleagues from the University of Tsukuba, the system could find an initial use in training simulators for safety courses or for the military.
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Printable version
Here the BBC News website gives a brief rundown of the most innovative and eye-catching.
BYU-BYU
Byu-Byu users blow on to the screen
This aims to add another dimension, namely wind, to communication via video screens.
The system consists of fine-meshed screens that let air pass through them but also display images projected on to them.
The screens are also fitted with 64 sensors that bend when blown upon. Light bounced off tiny mirrors attached to the rear of the sensors lets the system work out where someone is blowing on the screen and how hard.
Sitting beyond the sensors behind are banks of small fans that can send strong or gentle breezes back through any section of the screen.
Masahiro Furukawa, one of the creators of Byu-Byu, said it added a tactile element to video communication. He said it could be used to blow out candles on a birthday cake thousands of miles away or play games such as virtual air hockey.
The name of the project, Byu-Byu, is an onomatopoeic Japanese phrase used to describe a howling wind.
FREQTRIC
Users have a tiny electric current running through their body
This interface aims to add another dimension to computer gaming and musical performances by making success depend on touching other players or artists.
At the heart of Freqtric are game controllers that, via a steel plate on their underside, trickle a small electric current through a player's body.
Sensors in the controller spot when this current is disrupted when they are touched by another player.
Tetsuaki Baba, creator of Freqtric and a student in the graduate school of design at Kyushu University, said touch could be put to different uses in a game. Shooting an opponent, for example, could be made to depend on touching them, he said.
How soft or hard someone is touched can also be sensed to add another, more subtle, aspect to game playing.
Mr Baba added that multiple Freqtric controllers could be used.
Tests of the system have involved four or five people becoming living instruments who, when touched, trigger a particular note or sound to be played.
GRAVITY GRABBER
The system allows people to feel the weight of virtual objects
This system makes use of the discovery that squashing and rolling the sensitive pads on the ends of a person's index finger and thumb can give a realistic impression of weight.
Post-graduate student Kouta Minamizawa and colleagues, from the Information Physics and Computing department at the University of Tokyo, aimed to exploit this using a lightweight, wearable ring fitted with tiny motors that pull on a narrow band of cloth.
Those using this system slip these rings onto their index finger and thumb with the band stretched across the tip of the digit. They get a sense of the weight of virtual objects when the tiny motors pull the band tight around the pad of the finger or slip the band from side-to-side.
The system can be used to represent single bulky objects like bottles when they are empty or have a liquid sloshing around inside them. It can even give the impression of several separate objects rattling round inside virtual containers.
Mr Minamizawa said it could be used in games to give players a more realistic sense of what their character was holding or doing.
SOAP
Moving the skin around the hull moves an onscreen cursor
This handy gadget aims to be a replacement for the mouse and other interface devices for people using wall-based displays or sitting a long way from a screen.
The gadget, about the same size as a bar of soap, has a loose outer skin that can move freely around a deformable inner hull.
Inside the hull is an optical sensor, taken from a computer mouse, that can work out how far the slippery fabric has moved or detect when it is moved by pressure being applied to the outer hull.
On screen cursors can be moved by sliding the fabric skin around the hard hull.
By squeezing and releasing the hull, the device can be used to click an onscreen button or pull a virtual trigger.
Patrick Baudisch from Microsoft Research who created the device said prototypes had been tested with large wall-based displays, media centres on TVs typically controlled from a couch and interactive games.
STRING WALKER
The system can be used to stroll through virtual worlds
This system aims to make simulations much more immersive by letting people walk through the virtual environment while staying in the same place.
The String Walker uses a broad turntable in the middle of which are two shoes each one of which has four strings attached to it.
Those using the walker put on the shoes and take steps as if they were strolling around. The tight strings are moved to cancel out the step and keep the person in the centre of the turntable but move them on a pace in the virtual world.
Touch sensors in the heels of the shoes work out which foot is being moved.
The turntable can handle sidestepping or walking round corners and rotates to keep the walking person always facing the same way, although their view in the virtual world may have shifted.
Developed by Hiroo Iwata and colleagues from the University of Tsukuba, the system could find an initial use in training simulators for safety courses or for the military.
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Printable version
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
India Moves Beyond the Back Office
India Moves Beyond the Back Office
Boston Consulting's Sirkin and Bhattacharya say India has all the ingredients to emerge as a 21st Century manufacturing hub
by Harold L. Sirkin and Arindam Bhattacharya
In today's global economy, the division of labor between China and India couldn't be clearer: China makes things; India does things.
Beneath the surface, however, this has started to change. Driven by its vast domestic market and an abundance of relatively low-cost workers with advanced technical skills, India is becoming an important and potentially world-class manufacturing hub, according to a recent report by the Boston Consulting Group and Knowledge@Wharton.
It has several hurdles to overcome first, the most significant of which is the country's notoriously substandard infrastructure: shabby airports, potholed roads, clogged ports, and insufficient electric power.
Plagued by Power Shortages
This latter problem is especially acute. According to the Ministry of Power, peak demand during the fiscal year ended Mar. 31, 2006 exceeded supply by approximately 11.6%. Ravi Aron, a senior fellow at the Mack Center for Technological Innovation at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, notes that overpriced and unreliable energy supplies have forced many Indian businesses to invest in their own generators. About three-fifths of all Indian manufacturing depends on such power, compared to less than a fourth in China. "This is an additional capital investment that shows up on the balance sheet," Aron notes. "Insulating yourself from India in India is an expensive business."
Acknowledging the problem, Indian Finance Minister P. Chidambaram told us last fall, during Boston Consulting Group's first-ever global partners meeting in that country, that India will have to spend an estimated $150 billion over the next seven to eight years to bring infrastructure up to par. The importance of this can't be overstated. If the efforts are successful, India should be able to boost its annual gross domestic product growth rate from the current 8% to 9% per year to a sustainable 9% to 10% per annum.
More and more multinationals are aware of India's vast potential and have been setting up operations in the country. Ford (F), Hyundai, and Suzuki all export significant numbers of cars manufactured in India. LG, Motorola (MOT), and Nokia (NOK) either manufacture handsets in India or have plans to start, with a sizable share of production being exported. ABB, Schneider Electric (SU), Honeywell (HON), and Siemens (SI) have Indian plants that manufacture electrical products for both the domestic and export markets.
Less Dependence on Home Economy
A number of globally competitive Indian companies also are making their mark. Over the past five or six years, many Indian firms have restructured their manufacturing operations and have implemented world-class practices. Moser Baer has established itself as a global manufacturer of CDs, DVDs, and other data-storage media. Indian pharmaceutical companies, many of which already meet demanding U.S. Food & Drug Administration manufacturing standards, are entering the global market in increasing numbers. And Indian auto parts manufacturers are becoming prominent institutions in the global supply chain.
As Wharton Management Professor Saikat Chaudhuri points out, until recently, global manufacturing in India has been driven strictly by domestic demand. But the dependence of the manufacturing sector on the domestic economy, the Wharton expert notes, is starting to fade. Toyota (TM), for example, is building transmissions for its global manufacturing operations in a factory near Bangalore. Hyundai Automotive Group has designated its Indian manufacturing plant as the only Hyundai facility worldwide that will make small cars, marking a major shift in manufacturing operations from South Korea to India.
While the services sector has been red-hot for some time, India's manufacturing competitiveness is a recent phenomenon—and rests on its ability to do technologically advanced, high-end manufacturing at comparatively low cost. This is possible when you graduate an estimated 400,000 engineers per year, second only to China.
A Simple Business Equation
Consider the rapidly growing auto parts industry, which has emerged as a major supplier to many leading multinationals.
Bharat Forge—the largest chassis manufacturer in the world—is the dominant figure here, but by no means the only player. More than a dozen Indian automotive parts manufacturers already have been awarded the prestigious Deming Prize, the Japanese quality award presented by the Union of Japanese Scientists & Engineers. Prize winners include Sona Koyo Steering Systems, brake manufacturer Sundaram-Clayton, and TVS Motor. (The latter two are both part of the TVS group.)
For many multinationals, the business equation is really quite simple. As Sachin Nandgaonkar, a colleague of ours in BCG's New Delhi office, puts it: "If I can have Japanese quality at a much lower cost, then why not?"
Service Sector as Model
Besides auto parts, telecom equipment, and pharmaceuticals, India has the potential to be competitive in a variety of other skill-intensive industries, such as fabricated metal products, high-end chemicals, consumer electronics, and computer hardware.
Between 1990 and 2005, manufacturing's contribution to the Indian economy remained more or less stagnant, rising marginally from 25% to 27% of gross domestic product.
Over the same period, the service sector's share of GDP rose from 37% to 52%. In 2005, manufacturing exports, according to BCG estimates, were just 6% of GDP, compared to China's 35%. The point is: There's much room for growth. But the more important point, perhaps, is that the service sector provides the model.
Leveraging Brainpower
Indian manufacturing, if it is to prosper in the global marketplace, will be knowledge-based. India's service providers have been moving up the value chain for some time now. Gone are the days when Indian companies were merely an extension of the back office. Today, Indian companies are providing customers with "knowledge process" outsourcing (KPO), services requiring specialized expertise, judgment, and discretion.
That's the road less traveled that Indian manufacturers would be wise to take as well: leveraging their technical skills and brainpower to seek competitive advantage. All that stands in the way is the road well traveled: an inadequate and antiquated infrastructure that can't sustain a modern manufacturing powerhouse.
Sirkin is a senior vice-president and director of Boston Consulting Group, based in the firm's Chicago office. Bhattacharaya is a BCG vice-president and director in the company's New Delhi office. For more on this topic, see the recently published BCG/Knowledge@Wharton report, "What's Next for India: Beyond the Back Office," available at www.bcg.com under "Publications."
Sirkin is a senior vice-president and director of Boston Consulting Group, based in the firm's Chicago office. Bhattacharaya is a BCG vice-president and director in the company's New Delhi office. For more on this topic, see the recently published BCG/Knowledge@Wharton report, "What's Next for India: Beyond the Back Office," available at www.bcg.com under "Publications.".
Boston Consulting's Sirkin and Bhattacharya say India has all the ingredients to emerge as a 21st Century manufacturing hub
by Harold L. Sirkin and Arindam Bhattacharya
In today's global economy, the division of labor between China and India couldn't be clearer: China makes things; India does things.
Beneath the surface, however, this has started to change. Driven by its vast domestic market and an abundance of relatively low-cost workers with advanced technical skills, India is becoming an important and potentially world-class manufacturing hub, according to a recent report by the Boston Consulting Group and Knowledge@Wharton.
It has several hurdles to overcome first, the most significant of which is the country's notoriously substandard infrastructure: shabby airports, potholed roads, clogged ports, and insufficient electric power.
Plagued by Power Shortages
This latter problem is especially acute. According to the Ministry of Power, peak demand during the fiscal year ended Mar. 31, 2006 exceeded supply by approximately 11.6%. Ravi Aron, a senior fellow at the Mack Center for Technological Innovation at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, notes that overpriced and unreliable energy supplies have forced many Indian businesses to invest in their own generators. About three-fifths of all Indian manufacturing depends on such power, compared to less than a fourth in China. "This is an additional capital investment that shows up on the balance sheet," Aron notes. "Insulating yourself from India in India is an expensive business."
Acknowledging the problem, Indian Finance Minister P. Chidambaram told us last fall, during Boston Consulting Group's first-ever global partners meeting in that country, that India will have to spend an estimated $150 billion over the next seven to eight years to bring infrastructure up to par. The importance of this can't be overstated. If the efforts are successful, India should be able to boost its annual gross domestic product growth rate from the current 8% to 9% per year to a sustainable 9% to 10% per annum.
More and more multinationals are aware of India's vast potential and have been setting up operations in the country. Ford (F), Hyundai, and Suzuki all export significant numbers of cars manufactured in India. LG, Motorola (MOT), and Nokia (NOK) either manufacture handsets in India or have plans to start, with a sizable share of production being exported. ABB, Schneider Electric (SU), Honeywell (HON), and Siemens (SI) have Indian plants that manufacture electrical products for both the domestic and export markets.
Less Dependence on Home Economy
A number of globally competitive Indian companies also are making their mark. Over the past five or six years, many Indian firms have restructured their manufacturing operations and have implemented world-class practices. Moser Baer has established itself as a global manufacturer of CDs, DVDs, and other data-storage media. Indian pharmaceutical companies, many of which already meet demanding U.S. Food & Drug Administration manufacturing standards, are entering the global market in increasing numbers. And Indian auto parts manufacturers are becoming prominent institutions in the global supply chain.
As Wharton Management Professor Saikat Chaudhuri points out, until recently, global manufacturing in India has been driven strictly by domestic demand. But the dependence of the manufacturing sector on the domestic economy, the Wharton expert notes, is starting to fade. Toyota (TM), for example, is building transmissions for its global manufacturing operations in a factory near Bangalore. Hyundai Automotive Group has designated its Indian manufacturing plant as the only Hyundai facility worldwide that will make small cars, marking a major shift in manufacturing operations from South Korea to India.
While the services sector has been red-hot for some time, India's manufacturing competitiveness is a recent phenomenon—and rests on its ability to do technologically advanced, high-end manufacturing at comparatively low cost. This is possible when you graduate an estimated 400,000 engineers per year, second only to China.
A Simple Business Equation
Consider the rapidly growing auto parts industry, which has emerged as a major supplier to many leading multinationals.
Bharat Forge—the largest chassis manufacturer in the world—is the dominant figure here, but by no means the only player. More than a dozen Indian automotive parts manufacturers already have been awarded the prestigious Deming Prize, the Japanese quality award presented by the Union of Japanese Scientists & Engineers. Prize winners include Sona Koyo Steering Systems, brake manufacturer Sundaram-Clayton, and TVS Motor. (The latter two are both part of the TVS group.)
For many multinationals, the business equation is really quite simple. As Sachin Nandgaonkar, a colleague of ours in BCG's New Delhi office, puts it: "If I can have Japanese quality at a much lower cost, then why not?"
Service Sector as Model
Besides auto parts, telecom equipment, and pharmaceuticals, India has the potential to be competitive in a variety of other skill-intensive industries, such as fabricated metal products, high-end chemicals, consumer electronics, and computer hardware.
Between 1990 and 2005, manufacturing's contribution to the Indian economy remained more or less stagnant, rising marginally from 25% to 27% of gross domestic product.
Over the same period, the service sector's share of GDP rose from 37% to 52%. In 2005, manufacturing exports, according to BCG estimates, were just 6% of GDP, compared to China's 35%. The point is: There's much room for growth. But the more important point, perhaps, is that the service sector provides the model.
Leveraging Brainpower
Indian manufacturing, if it is to prosper in the global marketplace, will be knowledge-based. India's service providers have been moving up the value chain for some time now. Gone are the days when Indian companies were merely an extension of the back office. Today, Indian companies are providing customers with "knowledge process" outsourcing (KPO), services requiring specialized expertise, judgment, and discretion.
That's the road less traveled that Indian manufacturers would be wise to take as well: leveraging their technical skills and brainpower to seek competitive advantage. All that stands in the way is the road well traveled: an inadequate and antiquated infrastructure that can't sustain a modern manufacturing powerhouse.
Sirkin is a senior vice-president and director of Boston Consulting Group, based in the firm's Chicago office. Bhattacharaya is a BCG vice-president and director in the company's New Delhi office. For more on this topic, see the recently published BCG/Knowledge@Wharton report, "What's Next for India: Beyond the Back Office," available at www.bcg.com under "Publications."
Sirkin is a senior vice-president and director of Boston Consulting Group, based in the firm's Chicago office. Bhattacharaya is a BCG vice-president and director in the company's New Delhi office. For more on this topic, see the recently published BCG/Knowledge@Wharton report, "What's Next for India: Beyond the Back Office," available at www.bcg.com under "Publications.".
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Be-Confident
How to Be Confident
We are all human and have flaws. Even if your physical appearance, intellectual ability, or social skills aren't what you wish they were, that doesn't have to stop you from being confident. Here's how to believe in yourself.
Steps
Make a list of special talents you have, or of things you do that are good—morally or otherwise. Focusing on your attributes helps distract you from those parts of yourself that you think are flawed. It doesn't have to be a specific skill or activity, either; it can be an approach or an attitude that you champion through life. Do you always stay calm, cool and collected, even in harried situations? Are you very patient with people? Do you always see the humorous side of things? Are you always there for your friends?
Find your passion.
Whether it's baton twirling, martial arts, classic cars, or basket weaving, you will feel confident pursuing that endeavor by recognizing what you enjoy doing the most. More importantly, you'll be enjoying your progress.
Choose a role model, whether someone close to you, or someone famous. Think of the qualities, that the role model displays, whether physical, emotional, moral, and/or spiritual. Work towards acquiring those.
Accept compliments gracefully. Don't roll your eyes and say, "Yeah, right", or shrug it off. Take it to heart and respond positively ("Thank you" and a smile works well).
know that you have important things to say and do. When you feel strongly about something,
speak loudly and clearly and make eye contact with people. Be yourself.
Take care of yourself. Eat healthy and get enough exercise. Don't abuse your body, don't overload it, and don't deny it of the things it needs. At the same time, don't obsess. Buying all the moisturizers, creams and conditioners will not bring you closer to who you want to be. Those things are only band-aids and make up. Confidence comes from within. Take the time to reflect on your life and do some emotional maintenance. In order to be confident, you must value yourself and understand that your well-being is important.
Stick up for yourself. If people put you down (and not in a good-natured, joking way), then let them know that their opinion of you is not held by everyone--most of all yourself. This may, at first, be hard to do. But once you stick up for yourself a few times, your confidence builds and you get more adept at it.
Celebrate your individuality. If you know you've got something special or different, then embrace it—don't hide it! That's diversity! You may wish that you were taller, or shorter, skinnier, stronger, whatever the case may be. But you need to realize that, if you were like everyone else, then you wouldn't be who you are. "What am I?" you ask; the answer's easy: You're a unique individual who is capable and growing and learning.
Take action. It is surprising at how powerful the simple step of taking action can be. And the action you take need not be something extravagant or grand. It could be something as simple as tackling a task that you have been procrastinating, such as writing a letter or tidying up that corner of the garage that has been out of control for the last several months. It could also be something as interesting as taking a class in yoga, art, interior design, anything that interests you that you haven't done yet. Whether large or small, action brings with it exhilaration, enthusiasm, and the confidence that other things can be done as well.
Tips
Try not to compare yourself so much with other people. It is a wasteful pursuit and you could be doing something better with your time and energy. Know what you, personally, want and expect from yourself, and focus on attaining those things. The things that you want and expect from yourself shouldn't have anything to do with how you measure up to others.
Consider attending leadership classes. Learn to take control of things. If you are in school, then consider running for a social position, such as a president of a club. The ability to lead others and respond to others' behavior under your leadership will help to bring you self confidence.
Listen to your inner monologue—your inner voice. In situations where you believe you lack confidence, realize that your inner voice is telling you negative things. You need to retrain that inner voice to be positive in those situations. If you need help, find someone who can help you do that.
Warnings
Don't put yourself down. Everyone is different and has a valuable contribution to make to a diverse society. You are important for the person you are.
Don't stop yourself from doing what you want to do.
Remember that there is a fine line between confidence and arrogance. Be careful not to portray a pompous or cocky attitude.
Never excuse your virtues. For example, don't say, "Sorry for being here on time" when your friend is not ready.
We are all human and have flaws. Even if your physical appearance, intellectual ability, or social skills aren't what you wish they were, that doesn't have to stop you from being confident. Here's how to believe in yourself.
Steps
Make a list of special talents you have, or of things you do that are good—morally or otherwise. Focusing on your attributes helps distract you from those parts of yourself that you think are flawed. It doesn't have to be a specific skill or activity, either; it can be an approach or an attitude that you champion through life. Do you always stay calm, cool and collected, even in harried situations? Are you very patient with people? Do you always see the humorous side of things? Are you always there for your friends?
Find your passion.
Whether it's baton twirling, martial arts, classic cars, or basket weaving, you will feel confident pursuing that endeavor by recognizing what you enjoy doing the most. More importantly, you'll be enjoying your progress.
Choose a role model, whether someone close to you, or someone famous. Think of the qualities, that the role model displays, whether physical, emotional, moral, and/or spiritual. Work towards acquiring those.
Accept compliments gracefully. Don't roll your eyes and say, "Yeah, right", or shrug it off. Take it to heart and respond positively ("Thank you" and a smile works well).
know that you have important things to say and do. When you feel strongly about something,
speak loudly and clearly and make eye contact with people. Be yourself.
Take care of yourself. Eat healthy and get enough exercise. Don't abuse your body, don't overload it, and don't deny it of the things it needs. At the same time, don't obsess. Buying all the moisturizers, creams and conditioners will not bring you closer to who you want to be. Those things are only band-aids and make up. Confidence comes from within. Take the time to reflect on your life and do some emotional maintenance. In order to be confident, you must value yourself and understand that your well-being is important.
Stick up for yourself. If people put you down (and not in a good-natured, joking way), then let them know that their opinion of you is not held by everyone--most of all yourself. This may, at first, be hard to do. But once you stick up for yourself a few times, your confidence builds and you get more adept at it.
Celebrate your individuality. If you know you've got something special or different, then embrace it—don't hide it! That's diversity! You may wish that you were taller, or shorter, skinnier, stronger, whatever the case may be. But you need to realize that, if you were like everyone else, then you wouldn't be who you are. "What am I?" you ask; the answer's easy: You're a unique individual who is capable and growing and learning.
Take action. It is surprising at how powerful the simple step of taking action can be. And the action you take need not be something extravagant or grand. It could be something as simple as tackling a task that you have been procrastinating, such as writing a letter or tidying up that corner of the garage that has been out of control for the last several months. It could also be something as interesting as taking a class in yoga, art, interior design, anything that interests you that you haven't done yet. Whether large or small, action brings with it exhilaration, enthusiasm, and the confidence that other things can be done as well.
Tips
Try not to compare yourself so much with other people. It is a wasteful pursuit and you could be doing something better with your time and energy. Know what you, personally, want and expect from yourself, and focus on attaining those things. The things that you want and expect from yourself shouldn't have anything to do with how you measure up to others.
Consider attending leadership classes. Learn to take control of things. If you are in school, then consider running for a social position, such as a president of a club. The ability to lead others and respond to others' behavior under your leadership will help to bring you self confidence.
Listen to your inner monologue—your inner voice. In situations where you believe you lack confidence, realize that your inner voice is telling you negative things. You need to retrain that inner voice to be positive in those situations. If you need help, find someone who can help you do that.
Warnings
Don't put yourself down. Everyone is different and has a valuable contribution to make to a diverse society. You are important for the person you are.
Don't stop yourself from doing what you want to do.
Remember that there is a fine line between confidence and arrogance. Be careful not to portray a pompous or cocky attitude.
Never excuse your virtues. For example, don't say, "Sorry for being here on time" when your friend is not ready.
Thursday, March 08, 2007
Article on IT by Amartya Sen
I.T. AND INDIA [1]
Amartya Sen
1
Some admirations come from near, others from very far. My respect and reverence for the IT industry in general and the extraordinarily dynamic and triumphant Indian IT industry in particular have come, by necessity, from some distance, since I am a dabbler in things far away from IT services and software. When the invitation came to attend this year's NASSCOM meeting and the leadership forum, I thought that this either indicated some mixing up of my identity ("wake up, wake up," I wanted to say, "I teach non-IT subjects at a university!"), or alternatively, it reflected generous interest of NASSCOM leaders to reach out (or as my students say, "hang out") beyond their principality.
Of the two possibilities, identity confusion is the more exciting. My late friend Isaiah Berlin, the philosopher, recounted to me his exciting experiences when he was invited to a musical gathering under the mistaken impression that he was Irving Berlin, the musical composer, rather than Isaiah Berlin, the political philosopher. Apparently, the assembled gathering was somewhat disappointed by Isaiah Berlin's inability to respond to repeated requests to provide some insights into the melodies from Annie Get Your Gun or Call Me Madam. And, of course, Sen is a more common name than Berlin , offering more opportunity of identity confounding. Indeed, I was once asked in a gathering of very energetic and very globally minded Ugandan students - this happened at the Makerere College in Kampala - whether I, Amartya Sen, was any relation of Sun Yat Sen. I had to tell my interlocutor, "No, but we are trying hard."
It is, however, the second possibility - not identity confusion - on which I want to speak this afternoon, that is about the possibility of the IT industry to reach out beyond its principality. I want to talk not, of course, about my being here at this NASSCOM meeting, but about the case for the IT industry to bring its influences somewhat beyond what can be seen as its traditional domain.
Of course, the idea of what counts as "traditional" is hard to articulate in the case of a field of enterprise as new as information technology. Indeed, a little over a century ago, in 1885, when the Indian National Congress had its first meeting in Bombay, which was attended by among others Jamsetji Tata (he would establish his new "Swadeshi mills" next year), Jamsetji would have been, I imagine, a little puzzled if he were told that the enterprise he was pioneering would soon include a huge operation in software and IT - indeed the largest in the country (my friend Ramadorai, who heads it, is here). The importance of information has, of course, been acknowledged over many millennia, but the ideas of IT technology and software are quintessential contributions of contemporary modernity - not something with any ageless recognition. Indeed, the entire idea of a National Association of Software and Service Companies (that is, NASSCOM) would have appeared quite mysterious to the pioneering industrial leader of India. As it happens, the domain of IT is still evolving, and I would like to argue for taking an even broader view than has already got established.
My point is not that the IT industry should do something for the country at large, for that it does anyway. It already makes enormous contributions: it generates significant incomes for a great many Indians; it has encouraged attention to technical excellence as a general requirement across the board; it has established exacting standards of economic success in the country; it has encouraged many bright students to go technical rather than merely contemplative; and it has inspired Indian industrialists to face the world economy as a potentially big participant, not a tiny little bit-player. My point, rather, is that it can do even more, indeed in some ways, much more. This is partly because the reach of information is so wide and all-inclusive, but also because the prosperity and commanding stature of the IT leaders and activists give them voice, power and ability to help the direction of Indian economic and social development.
2
Let me begin by asking a question that no one here will, I think, ask (because everyone I meet here seems so polite and well-behaved): why should the Indian IT industry have any sense of obligation to do things - more things - for India, more than what happens automatically from its normal operations (as a by-product of business success, rather than as a deliberated goal to be advanced, among other demands and necessities)? Why assume there is any obligation at all for IT to do anything other than minding its own business?
I think part of the answer lies in reciprocity. The country has made huge contributions, even though they are not often clearly recognised, to help the development and flowering of the IT industry in India, and it is not silly to ask what in return the IT might do for India .
But how has the country helped? Perhaps most immediately, the IT sector has benefitted from the visionary move, originally championed by Jawaharlal Nehru, to develop centres of excellent technical education in India, such as the IITs, to be followed by the Institutes of Management and other initiatives, aimed at enhancing the quality and reach of Indian professional and specialized education. Despite Nehru's moving rhetoric in favour of literacy for all (which was plentifully present even in his celebrated speech on the eve of independence on 14th August 1947 - the speech on India 's "tryst with destiny"), he in fact did shockingly little for literacy. I would suggest that Jawaharlal Nehru did not really think through how to ensure the practical realization of his goal of literacy for all, in which he did believe with sincerity and conviction, but not with any sense of practicality. It was, however, entirely different as far as technical education is concerned - here Nehru's sense of ways and means nicely supplemented his fervent passion. India was not only the first poor country in the world to choose a robustly democratic from of governance, it also was the first country with grinding poverty to give priority to the development of technical skill and the state-of-art education in technology. And from this the IT sector has benefited a lot, since the entire industry is so dependent on the availability, quality and reach of technical education.
However, IT's links with India 's past goes back much further than that. The nature of Indian society and traditions have tended to support the pursuit of specialized excellence in general and the development of IT in particular. There has been a historic respect for distinctive skills, seeing it even as a social contribution in itself. Indeed, even the nasty caste system, which has so afflicted the possibility of social equity in India, has tended greatly to rely on - and exploit - the traditional reverence for specialized skill, which, in its regimented form, has been used to add to the barriers of societal stratification. There is a tradition here that can be taken in many different directions, and it is a matter of much satisfaction that the IT industry's use of the same respect is remarkably positive and potentially open and inclusive. I will come back to that question of inclusiveness later on (it is an important subject on which there is a case for more deliberation and action), but before that let me comment on a few other connections, since they are often missed, between the success of IT in India and some particular features of India's past.
Going well beyond respect for specialized skill, there is also a general attitude of openness in India to influences from far and near - of admiring excellence no matter where it is produced. This is particularly important since the IT success of India did draw initially, as indeed was inevitable, on what was going on with much accomplishment abroad. The experiences of the Silicon valley, in particular, was very important for the yearning of skilled and discerning Indians to learn from others - and then to make good use of it. While many Indians have a deep preference for what we can see as total local immersion and even succumb to evidently strong temptations to denigrate things happening abroad (and this attitude rears its ugly head from time to time in contemporary Indian politics as well), there has also been for thousand of years a very robust tradition here of admiring, using and learning from excellence anywhere in the world.
The IT technical experts may not readily perceive that there is a remarkable similarity between (1) their own valuational commitment to learn what they can from anywhere which has good ideas to offer, and (2) the open and welcoming attitude to departures originating elsewhere which Rabindranath Tagore articulated with compelling clarity in a letter to a friend (in a letter to Charlie Andrews in fact) in the 1920s, at the height of our struggle of for national independence:
Whatever we understand and enjoy in human products instantly becomes ours, wherever they might have their origin. I am proud of my humanity when I can acknowledge the poets and artists of other countries as my own. Let me feel with unalloyed gladness that the all the great glories of man are mine. Therefore it hurts me deeply when the cry of rejection rings loud against the West in my country with the clamour that Western education can only injure us.
It is, of course, to the credit of Western centres of excellence in education and practice that they were so welcoming to learners from abroad (I think America and Europe do not always get enough recognition for its liberal priorities in this field, despite their narrow-minded national and local priorities in other areas), but it is also important to see that the interest and initiative of bright Indians to learn from abroad for domestic use was strongly founded on an open-minded willingness to comprehend, as Tagore put it, that "whatever we understand and enjoy in human products instantly becomes ours, wherever they might have their origin."
I want to point to one further connection between the development and achievements of Indian IT and the Indian intellectual traditions on which Indian IT draws. I don't refer here only to the love of mathematics that has inspired so many young Indians throughout history, and which is important in many different ways, for the efficacy IT operations. The general maths-friendliness of Indian intellectuals is relevant here: according to some accounts, the mathematician Bhaskara even tried to convince his daughter Lilavati that if she came to master mathematical puzzles then she would be highly popular when she went to parties, which seems to me be, to say the least, a little doubtful. But aside from being fascinated by maths, Indian intellectuals have also typically been very excited about arguments in general: it is a subject on which I have even indulged in writing a book (incidentally, in my last trip to Mumbai I was very impressed to be offered a cut-price pirated edition of my book, The Argumentative Indian, by a street vendor near the airport, who also had the exquisite taste of explaining to me that this book was "quite good" - and from him, also "very cheap").
IT is a hugely interactive operation and in many ways Indian IT has depended on what we can call TI, that is, "talkative Indians." It is not hard to see how a tradition of being thrilled by intellectual altercations tend to do a lot to prepare someone to the challenges of IT interactions.
3
Given what the country has done for Indian IT, it is not silly to ask: what specially can the IT industry do for India (other than what happens automatically without any deliberate pursuit of non-business ends)? This seems to me to be right, but I would also like to emphasize that historical reciprocity is not the only - perhaps not even the most important - reason for being interested in the social obligations of the IT industry. Many considerations arise there.
There is, of course, the elementary issue of the obligation of those who "make it" vis-a-vis those who do not manage quite so well, which is a very basic ethical demand that, it can be argued, society places upon us. This raises immediately the question what any prosperous group may owe to others not so well placed. This is not only a reflective demand for social deliberation - part of what Immanuel Kant called a "categorical imperative" - but it is also a part of enlightened business operation. There is, as it happens, a very well established tradition in a part of Indian business to do just that, particularly well exemplified by the Tatas for example, through various socially valuable activities such as building hospitals, research centres and other social institutions of high distinction. I am impressed to see that many of the major IT leaders seem to be very seized of this challenge.
If that possible role is obvious enough, there is some need to understand better other roles in which the IT industry can make a very big difference in India. As it happens the key to the success of IT, namely accessability, systematization and use of information is also very central to social evaluation and societal change. There is, in fact, a very foundational connection between information and social obligation, since the moral - and of course the political - need to pay attention to others depends greatly on our knowledge and information about them.
Indeed, already in the 1770s (more than two hundred years ago), that remarkable Scottish philosopher, David Hume, had noted the importance of increased intercourse in expanding the reach of our sense of justice. He had put the issue thus (in his chapter "Of Justice," in An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals):
....again suppose that several distinct societies maintain a kind of intercourse for mutual convenience and advantage, the boundaries of justice still grow larger, in proportion to the largeness of men's views, and the force of their mutual connexions. History, experience, reason sufficiently instruct us in this natural progress of human sentiments, and in the gradual enlargement of our regards to justice, in proportion as we become acquainted with the extensive utility of that virtue.
Negligence of suffering of others is sustainable, given human interest in justice and equity, only when we know little about that suffering. More information in itself goes a long way to breaking that chain of apathy and indifference.
This foundational connection also gives the information industry a huge opportunity to help India by trying to make its contribution to the systematization, digestion and dissemination of diverse clusters of information in India about the lives of the underdogs of society - those who do not have realistic opportunity of getting basic schooling, essential health care, elementary nutritional entitlements, and rudimentary equality across the barriers of class and gender. This can also be said about problems of underdeveloped physical infrastructure (water, electricity, roads, etc.), as well as social infrastructure, that restrain the broad mass of Indians from moving ahead. There are particular causal connections also here: an enterprise that hugely depends on the excellence of education for its success - as the IT sector clearly does - has good reason to consider its broad responsibility to Indian education in general.
I do not know enough about the IT operations to see whether all this can be turned into a business proposition as well. But my point is that even if it cannot be so transformed, it is something that the IT sector has good reason to consider doing. Can there be a group initiative in any of these fields? Can NASSCOM itself play a catalytic role here? Informational issues are thoroughly rampant in morality and politics, and in many direct and indirect ways, the preoccupation of the IT enterprise links closely with the foundations of political and moral assessment and adjudication.
Even though in this presentation I am mainly concentrating on domestic issues, I should mention in passing that the role of information and informed understanding can also be very large in the pursuit of global peace and in defeating ill-reasoned violence. When we consider how many of the brutalities in the world today are linked with ignorant hostility to cultures and practices abroad, we can appreciate the contribution of informational limitation, among other causal factors, in cross-border belligerence. I could have talked about that too, in developing some ideas presented in my last book (Identity and Violence), but given my time limits I will resist that temptation.
4
I return now to the domestic scene. In emphasizing the role of the moral domain for the IT sector to feel some responsibility towards making India a more equitable country, I do not want to give the impression that there is not also a prudential case for going in that direction. One of the huge obstacles to the domestic development of the IT sector is the size of the local market, which is still quite small, despite all the recent expansions. Indian IT has done very well in making excellent use of the global market, but competition there is likely to be increasingly fierce. Other countries are trying to learn from the experience not only of America and Europe but also from India , and while India has some peculiar advantages in the IT field (which I have already discussed), the barriers may well be gradually removed in many countries - indeed even in many poor countries - in the world. China, which has a much larger domestic market already and will continue to expand that market very fast, is not as vulnerable as we may be, in this particular respect.
As it happens, one of the reasons for the larger domestic reach of IT in China is its much wider base of good basic schooling. So, what is an issue of equity, on one side, is also a matter of central importance for prudential reasoning about domestic economic expansion, on the other. The same goes for a much wider base of elementary health care in China, though this, as it happens, has been going through some turmoil since the Chinese economic reforms of 1979 which effectively abolished free health care for all, through insisting on privately purchased health insurance. It is a subject on which I have written elsewhere, so I will not go further into it here, other than noting that the Chinese authorities are quite receptive now of critical scrutiny of the present system of health care that China has ended up having. This, in fact, is in sharp contrast with the past when we had made similar criticisms earlier, and I do know that very serious critical scrutiny is currently going on in Beijing on this, in a very constructive way. I expect major changes to happen in China in a more inclusive direction before long.
Excessive reliance on private health care in India for the most elementary problems of ill-health and disease (resulting mostly from the limited size, reach and operational efficiency of public health facilities) is similarly a barrier to the availability and entitlement to health care for all Indians, and this obstacle urgently needs removing. These are all subjects on which the IT sector is well placed to provide considerable enlightenment and guidance. As it happens, the IT sector itself will indirectly benefit (for reasons I have already outlined) from playing a constructive and deliberated role in widening the base of social and physical infrastructure. But the more immediate - and also the more foundational - reason relates, I think, to demands from the moral domain to which the IT sector has reasons to respond. This is so, I have argued, for a variety of reasons, varying from Indian IT's unequal current success and its debt to India's traditions and priorities, on one side, to - and this is often unrecognised but happens to be extremely important - the central role of information in moral reasoning, on the other. There is indeed, I would argue, something of a socially connected obligation here, the recognition of which could make a huge difference to the future of India.
Amartya Sen
1
Some admirations come from near, others from very far. My respect and reverence for the IT industry in general and the extraordinarily dynamic and triumphant Indian IT industry in particular have come, by necessity, from some distance, since I am a dabbler in things far away from IT services and software. When the invitation came to attend this year's NASSCOM meeting and the leadership forum, I thought that this either indicated some mixing up of my identity ("wake up, wake up," I wanted to say, "I teach non-IT subjects at a university!"), or alternatively, it reflected generous interest of NASSCOM leaders to reach out (or as my students say, "hang out") beyond their principality.
Of the two possibilities, identity confusion is the more exciting. My late friend Isaiah Berlin, the philosopher, recounted to me his exciting experiences when he was invited to a musical gathering under the mistaken impression that he was Irving Berlin, the musical composer, rather than Isaiah Berlin, the political philosopher. Apparently, the assembled gathering was somewhat disappointed by Isaiah Berlin's inability to respond to repeated requests to provide some insights into the melodies from Annie Get Your Gun or Call Me Madam. And, of course, Sen is a more common name than Berlin , offering more opportunity of identity confounding. Indeed, I was once asked in a gathering of very energetic and very globally minded Ugandan students - this happened at the Makerere College in Kampala - whether I, Amartya Sen, was any relation of Sun Yat Sen. I had to tell my interlocutor, "No, but we are trying hard."
It is, however, the second possibility - not identity confusion - on which I want to speak this afternoon, that is about the possibility of the IT industry to reach out beyond its principality. I want to talk not, of course, about my being here at this NASSCOM meeting, but about the case for the IT industry to bring its influences somewhat beyond what can be seen as its traditional domain.
Of course, the idea of what counts as "traditional" is hard to articulate in the case of a field of enterprise as new as information technology. Indeed, a little over a century ago, in 1885, when the Indian National Congress had its first meeting in Bombay, which was attended by among others Jamsetji Tata (he would establish his new "Swadeshi mills" next year), Jamsetji would have been, I imagine, a little puzzled if he were told that the enterprise he was pioneering would soon include a huge operation in software and IT - indeed the largest in the country (my friend Ramadorai, who heads it, is here). The importance of information has, of course, been acknowledged over many millennia, but the ideas of IT technology and software are quintessential contributions of contemporary modernity - not something with any ageless recognition. Indeed, the entire idea of a National Association of Software and Service Companies (that is, NASSCOM) would have appeared quite mysterious to the pioneering industrial leader of India. As it happens, the domain of IT is still evolving, and I would like to argue for taking an even broader view than has already got established.
My point is not that the IT industry should do something for the country at large, for that it does anyway. It already makes enormous contributions: it generates significant incomes for a great many Indians; it has encouraged attention to technical excellence as a general requirement across the board; it has established exacting standards of economic success in the country; it has encouraged many bright students to go technical rather than merely contemplative; and it has inspired Indian industrialists to face the world economy as a potentially big participant, not a tiny little bit-player. My point, rather, is that it can do even more, indeed in some ways, much more. This is partly because the reach of information is so wide and all-inclusive, but also because the prosperity and commanding stature of the IT leaders and activists give them voice, power and ability to help the direction of Indian economic and social development.
2
Let me begin by asking a question that no one here will, I think, ask (because everyone I meet here seems so polite and well-behaved): why should the Indian IT industry have any sense of obligation to do things - more things - for India, more than what happens automatically from its normal operations (as a by-product of business success, rather than as a deliberated goal to be advanced, among other demands and necessities)? Why assume there is any obligation at all for IT to do anything other than minding its own business?
I think part of the answer lies in reciprocity. The country has made huge contributions, even though they are not often clearly recognised, to help the development and flowering of the IT industry in India, and it is not silly to ask what in return the IT might do for India .
But how has the country helped? Perhaps most immediately, the IT sector has benefitted from the visionary move, originally championed by Jawaharlal Nehru, to develop centres of excellent technical education in India, such as the IITs, to be followed by the Institutes of Management and other initiatives, aimed at enhancing the quality and reach of Indian professional and specialized education. Despite Nehru's moving rhetoric in favour of literacy for all (which was plentifully present even in his celebrated speech on the eve of independence on 14th August 1947 - the speech on India 's "tryst with destiny"), he in fact did shockingly little for literacy. I would suggest that Jawaharlal Nehru did not really think through how to ensure the practical realization of his goal of literacy for all, in which he did believe with sincerity and conviction, but not with any sense of practicality. It was, however, entirely different as far as technical education is concerned - here Nehru's sense of ways and means nicely supplemented his fervent passion. India was not only the first poor country in the world to choose a robustly democratic from of governance, it also was the first country with grinding poverty to give priority to the development of technical skill and the state-of-art education in technology. And from this the IT sector has benefited a lot, since the entire industry is so dependent on the availability, quality and reach of technical education.
However, IT's links with India 's past goes back much further than that. The nature of Indian society and traditions have tended to support the pursuit of specialized excellence in general and the development of IT in particular. There has been a historic respect for distinctive skills, seeing it even as a social contribution in itself. Indeed, even the nasty caste system, which has so afflicted the possibility of social equity in India, has tended greatly to rely on - and exploit - the traditional reverence for specialized skill, which, in its regimented form, has been used to add to the barriers of societal stratification. There is a tradition here that can be taken in many different directions, and it is a matter of much satisfaction that the IT industry's use of the same respect is remarkably positive and potentially open and inclusive. I will come back to that question of inclusiveness later on (it is an important subject on which there is a case for more deliberation and action), but before that let me comment on a few other connections, since they are often missed, between the success of IT in India and some particular features of India's past.
Going well beyond respect for specialized skill, there is also a general attitude of openness in India to influences from far and near - of admiring excellence no matter where it is produced. This is particularly important since the IT success of India did draw initially, as indeed was inevitable, on what was going on with much accomplishment abroad. The experiences of the Silicon valley, in particular, was very important for the yearning of skilled and discerning Indians to learn from others - and then to make good use of it. While many Indians have a deep preference for what we can see as total local immersion and even succumb to evidently strong temptations to denigrate things happening abroad (and this attitude rears its ugly head from time to time in contemporary Indian politics as well), there has also been for thousand of years a very robust tradition here of admiring, using and learning from excellence anywhere in the world.
The IT technical experts may not readily perceive that there is a remarkable similarity between (1) their own valuational commitment to learn what they can from anywhere which has good ideas to offer, and (2) the open and welcoming attitude to departures originating elsewhere which Rabindranath Tagore articulated with compelling clarity in a letter to a friend (in a letter to Charlie Andrews in fact) in the 1920s, at the height of our struggle of for national independence:
Whatever we understand and enjoy in human products instantly becomes ours, wherever they might have their origin. I am proud of my humanity when I can acknowledge the poets and artists of other countries as my own. Let me feel with unalloyed gladness that the all the great glories of man are mine. Therefore it hurts me deeply when the cry of rejection rings loud against the West in my country with the clamour that Western education can only injure us.
It is, of course, to the credit of Western centres of excellence in education and practice that they were so welcoming to learners from abroad (I think America and Europe do not always get enough recognition for its liberal priorities in this field, despite their narrow-minded national and local priorities in other areas), but it is also important to see that the interest and initiative of bright Indians to learn from abroad for domestic use was strongly founded on an open-minded willingness to comprehend, as Tagore put it, that "whatever we understand and enjoy in human products instantly becomes ours, wherever they might have their origin."
I want to point to one further connection between the development and achievements of Indian IT and the Indian intellectual traditions on which Indian IT draws. I don't refer here only to the love of mathematics that has inspired so many young Indians throughout history, and which is important in many different ways, for the efficacy IT operations. The general maths-friendliness of Indian intellectuals is relevant here: according to some accounts, the mathematician Bhaskara even tried to convince his daughter Lilavati that if she came to master mathematical puzzles then she would be highly popular when she went to parties, which seems to me be, to say the least, a little doubtful. But aside from being fascinated by maths, Indian intellectuals have also typically been very excited about arguments in general: it is a subject on which I have even indulged in writing a book (incidentally, in my last trip to Mumbai I was very impressed to be offered a cut-price pirated edition of my book, The Argumentative Indian, by a street vendor near the airport, who also had the exquisite taste of explaining to me that this book was "quite good" - and from him, also "very cheap").
IT is a hugely interactive operation and in many ways Indian IT has depended on what we can call TI, that is, "talkative Indians." It is not hard to see how a tradition of being thrilled by intellectual altercations tend to do a lot to prepare someone to the challenges of IT interactions.
3
Given what the country has done for Indian IT, it is not silly to ask: what specially can the IT industry do for India (other than what happens automatically without any deliberate pursuit of non-business ends)? This seems to me to be right, but I would also like to emphasize that historical reciprocity is not the only - perhaps not even the most important - reason for being interested in the social obligations of the IT industry. Many considerations arise there.
There is, of course, the elementary issue of the obligation of those who "make it" vis-a-vis those who do not manage quite so well, which is a very basic ethical demand that, it can be argued, society places upon us. This raises immediately the question what any prosperous group may owe to others not so well placed. This is not only a reflective demand for social deliberation - part of what Immanuel Kant called a "categorical imperative" - but it is also a part of enlightened business operation. There is, as it happens, a very well established tradition in a part of Indian business to do just that, particularly well exemplified by the Tatas for example, through various socially valuable activities such as building hospitals, research centres and other social institutions of high distinction. I am impressed to see that many of the major IT leaders seem to be very seized of this challenge.
If that possible role is obvious enough, there is some need to understand better other roles in which the IT industry can make a very big difference in India. As it happens the key to the success of IT, namely accessability, systematization and use of information is also very central to social evaluation and societal change. There is, in fact, a very foundational connection between information and social obligation, since the moral - and of course the political - need to pay attention to others depends greatly on our knowledge and information about them.
Indeed, already in the 1770s (more than two hundred years ago), that remarkable Scottish philosopher, David Hume, had noted the importance of increased intercourse in expanding the reach of our sense of justice. He had put the issue thus (in his chapter "Of Justice," in An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals):
....again suppose that several distinct societies maintain a kind of intercourse for mutual convenience and advantage, the boundaries of justice still grow larger, in proportion to the largeness of men's views, and the force of their mutual connexions. History, experience, reason sufficiently instruct us in this natural progress of human sentiments, and in the gradual enlargement of our regards to justice, in proportion as we become acquainted with the extensive utility of that virtue.
Negligence of suffering of others is sustainable, given human interest in justice and equity, only when we know little about that suffering. More information in itself goes a long way to breaking that chain of apathy and indifference.
This foundational connection also gives the information industry a huge opportunity to help India by trying to make its contribution to the systematization, digestion and dissemination of diverse clusters of information in India about the lives of the underdogs of society - those who do not have realistic opportunity of getting basic schooling, essential health care, elementary nutritional entitlements, and rudimentary equality across the barriers of class and gender. This can also be said about problems of underdeveloped physical infrastructure (water, electricity, roads, etc.), as well as social infrastructure, that restrain the broad mass of Indians from moving ahead. There are particular causal connections also here: an enterprise that hugely depends on the excellence of education for its success - as the IT sector clearly does - has good reason to consider its broad responsibility to Indian education in general.
I do not know enough about the IT operations to see whether all this can be turned into a business proposition as well. But my point is that even if it cannot be so transformed, it is something that the IT sector has good reason to consider doing. Can there be a group initiative in any of these fields? Can NASSCOM itself play a catalytic role here? Informational issues are thoroughly rampant in morality and politics, and in many direct and indirect ways, the preoccupation of the IT enterprise links closely with the foundations of political and moral assessment and adjudication.
Even though in this presentation I am mainly concentrating on domestic issues, I should mention in passing that the role of information and informed understanding can also be very large in the pursuit of global peace and in defeating ill-reasoned violence. When we consider how many of the brutalities in the world today are linked with ignorant hostility to cultures and practices abroad, we can appreciate the contribution of informational limitation, among other causal factors, in cross-border belligerence. I could have talked about that too, in developing some ideas presented in my last book (Identity and Violence), but given my time limits I will resist that temptation.
4
I return now to the domestic scene. In emphasizing the role of the moral domain for the IT sector to feel some responsibility towards making India a more equitable country, I do not want to give the impression that there is not also a prudential case for going in that direction. One of the huge obstacles to the domestic development of the IT sector is the size of the local market, which is still quite small, despite all the recent expansions. Indian IT has done very well in making excellent use of the global market, but competition there is likely to be increasingly fierce. Other countries are trying to learn from the experience not only of America and Europe but also from India , and while India has some peculiar advantages in the IT field (which I have already discussed), the barriers may well be gradually removed in many countries - indeed even in many poor countries - in the world. China, which has a much larger domestic market already and will continue to expand that market very fast, is not as vulnerable as we may be, in this particular respect.
As it happens, one of the reasons for the larger domestic reach of IT in China is its much wider base of good basic schooling. So, what is an issue of equity, on one side, is also a matter of central importance for prudential reasoning about domestic economic expansion, on the other. The same goes for a much wider base of elementary health care in China, though this, as it happens, has been going through some turmoil since the Chinese economic reforms of 1979 which effectively abolished free health care for all, through insisting on privately purchased health insurance. It is a subject on which I have written elsewhere, so I will not go further into it here, other than noting that the Chinese authorities are quite receptive now of critical scrutiny of the present system of health care that China has ended up having. This, in fact, is in sharp contrast with the past when we had made similar criticisms earlier, and I do know that very serious critical scrutiny is currently going on in Beijing on this, in a very constructive way. I expect major changes to happen in China in a more inclusive direction before long.
Excessive reliance on private health care in India for the most elementary problems of ill-health and disease (resulting mostly from the limited size, reach and operational efficiency of public health facilities) is similarly a barrier to the availability and entitlement to health care for all Indians, and this obstacle urgently needs removing. These are all subjects on which the IT sector is well placed to provide considerable enlightenment and guidance. As it happens, the IT sector itself will indirectly benefit (for reasons I have already outlined) from playing a constructive and deliberated role in widening the base of social and physical infrastructure. But the more immediate - and also the more foundational - reason relates, I think, to demands from the moral domain to which the IT sector has reasons to respond. This is so, I have argued, for a variety of reasons, varying from Indian IT's unequal current success and its debt to India's traditions and priorities, on one side, to - and this is often unrecognised but happens to be extremely important - the central role of information in moral reasoning, on the other. There is indeed, I would argue, something of a socially connected obligation here, the recognition of which could make a huge difference to the future of India.
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