This is from wikihow.com
How do you deal with criticism? The first reaction for many of us is to defend ourselves, or worse yet to lash back. And yet, while criticism can be taken as hurtful and demoralizing, it can also be viewed in a positive way: it is honesty, and it can spur us to do better. It’s an opportunity to improve and build up our true talents.
[edit] StepsStop your first reaction. If your first reaction is to lash back at the person giving the criticism, or to become defensive, take a minute before reacting at all. Take a deep breath, and give it a little thought. For example, let a critical email sit in your in-box for at least an hour before replying. Or walk away from someone instead of saying something you’ll regret later. That cooling off time allows you to give it a little more thought beyond your initial reaction. It allows logic to step in, past the emotion. This is not a criticism against emotion, but when it’s a negative emotion, sometimes it can cause more harm than good. So let your emotions run their course, and then respond when you feel calmer.
Turn a negative into a positive. One of the keys to success in anything you do is the ability to find the positive in things that most people see as a negative. Sickness forces you to stop your exercise program? That’s a welcome rest. Tired of your job? That’s a time to rediscover what’s important and to look for a better job. Super typhoon ruined all your possessions? This allows you to realize that your stuff isn’t important, and to be thankful that your loved ones are still alive and safe. You can do the same thing with criticism: find the positive in it. Sure, it may be rude and mean, but in most criticism, you can find a nugget of gold: honest feedback and a suggestion for improvement.
See it as an opportunity to improve — and without that constant improvement, we are just sitting still. Improvement is a good thing. For example, this criticism: “You write about the same things over and over and your blog posts are boring and stale", can be read: “I need to increase the variety of my posts and find new ways of looking at old things.” That’s just one example of course — you can do that with just about any criticism. Sometimes it’s just someone having a bad day, but many times there’s at least a grain of truth in the criticism.
Thank the critic. Even if someone is harsh and rude, thank them. They might have been having a bad day, or maybe they’re just a negative person in general. But even so, your attitude of gratitude will probably catch them off-guard. Thanking a critic can actually win a few of them over. All because of a simple act of saying thank you for the criticism. It’s unexpected, and often appreciated. And even if the critic doesn’t take your “thank you” in a good way, it’s still good to do — for yourself. It’s a way of reminding yourself that the criticism was a good thing for you, a way of keeping yourself humble.
Learn from the criticism. After seeing criticism in a positive light, and thanking the critic, don’t just move on and go back to business as usual. Actually try to improve. That’s a difficult concept for some people, because they often think that they’re right no matter what. But no one is always right. You, in fact, may be wrong, and the critic may be right. So see if there’s something you can change to make yourself better. And then make that change. Actually strive to do better. You'll end up being glad you made the extra effort.
Be the better person. Too many times we take criticism as a personal attack, as an insult to who we are. But it’s not. Well, perhaps sometimes it is, but we don’t have to take it that way. Take it as a criticism of your actions, not your person. If you do that, you can detach yourself from the criticism emotionally and see what should be done. But the way that many of us handle the criticisms that we see as personal attacks is by attacking back. “I’m not going to let someone talk to me that way.” Especially if this criticism is made in public, such as in the comments of a blog or on a forum. You have to defend yourself, and attack the attacker … right? Wrong. By attacking the attacker, you are stooping to his level. Even if the person was mean or rude, you don’t have to be the same way. You don’t have to commit the same sins. Be the better person.
Stay calm and positive. If you can rise above the petty insults and attacks, and respond in a calm and positive manner to the meat of the criticism, you will be the better person. And guess what? There are two amazing benefits of this:
Others will admire you and think better of you for rising above the attack. Especially if you remain positive and actually take the criticism well.
You will feel better about yourself. By participating in personal attacks, we dirty ourselves. But if we can stay above that level, we feel good about who we are. And that’s the most important benefit of all.
Rise above the criticism. How do you stay above the attacks and be the better person? By removing yourself from the criticism, and looking only at the actions criticized. By seeing the positive in the criticism, and trying to improve. By thanking the critic. And by responding with a positive attitude. A quick example:
Someone criticizes something you have written by saying, “You’re an idiot. I don’t understand what x has to do with y.” A good typical response should be to ignore the first sentence. And second, to say something like, “Thanks for giving me an opportunity to clarify that. I don’t think I made it as clear as I should have. What x has to do with y is … blah blah. Thanks for the great question!” And by ignoring the insult, taking it as an opportunity to clarify, thanking the critic, using the opportunity to explain your point further, and staying positive, you have accepted the criticism with grace and appreciation. And in doing so, remained the better person, and you will feel great about yourself.
Friday, October 10, 2008
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Next step in the internet world
An article from BBC
'Slow' light to speed up the net
A huge increase in the speed of the internet could be produced by slowing parts of it down, say researchers.
Applying the brakes could be the "metamaterials" that may make it possible to create invisibility cloaks.
The net's speed limit comes about not in transporting information, but in routing it to its various destinations.
Metamaterials could replace the bulky and slow electronics that do the routing, paving the way for lightning fast speeds.
Dividing light
High-speed telecommunications routes include fibre-optic cables that span vast distances, carrying different streams of information in different channels—each with its own frequency of light.
As data nears the end of its journey, these frequencies must be separated and sent to their destinations.
The separation is accomplished with bulky equipment that spreads the closely spaced frequencies in the pulses into different detectors.
The ability to slow the light could be a tremendous force for telecoms
Xiang Zhang
The light must then be converted into electrical signals which are stored, routed, and turned back into optical signals with lasers. The conversion, besides adding significant cost and complexity, also slows down the data transmission.
"It limits the speed of the whole process to the speed of your electronics," says Dr Chris Stevens from the department of engineering sciences at the University of Oxford.
"The light and the fibres can quite cheerfully sustain a couple of terahertz, but your electronics can't do more than a few gigahertz."
It is at this point that the metamaterials prove most useful. If the light signals could be slowed sufficiently during the switching process, there would be no need for the electrical conversion step.
Hurry up and wait
The optical properties of metamaterials are accomplished by design—which is why they are touted for use in cloaking—and they can be engineered to deliberately slow light down.
The effect could be used to store light signals, with different delays for different frequencies, in a so-called "all optical network".
"The ability to slow the light could be a tremendous force for telecoms that is sure to enhance speed and efficiency," says Professor Xiang Zhang, the University of California researcher who demonstrated cloaking earlier this week.
The design of the metamaterials gives them their properties
The metamaterials could be engineered to accomplish the frequency spreading step as well, working much like a prism that splits white light into a rainbow.
"With these materials, you could imagine something more like a single chip with the metamaterial handling the routing—all the capability of one of these big filtering systems, but the size of your fingernail," says Dr Stevens.
Professor Ortwin Hess of the University of Surrey says that the jumps in speed will become increasingly necessary as more people use bandwidth-intensive video-on-demand services such as the BBC iPlayer.
"We're living with what was put into the system before the telecoms bubble burst in 2000," Prof Hess says. "There needs to be more clever ideas so that the existing infrastructure can be used in a different way."
'Slow' light to speed up the net
A huge increase in the speed of the internet could be produced by slowing parts of it down, say researchers.
Applying the brakes could be the "metamaterials" that may make it possible to create invisibility cloaks.
The net's speed limit comes about not in transporting information, but in routing it to its various destinations.
Metamaterials could replace the bulky and slow electronics that do the routing, paving the way for lightning fast speeds.
Dividing light
High-speed telecommunications routes include fibre-optic cables that span vast distances, carrying different streams of information in different channels—each with its own frequency of light.
As data nears the end of its journey, these frequencies must be separated and sent to their destinations.
The separation is accomplished with bulky equipment that spreads the closely spaced frequencies in the pulses into different detectors.
The ability to slow the light could be a tremendous force for telecoms
Xiang Zhang
The light must then be converted into electrical signals which are stored, routed, and turned back into optical signals with lasers. The conversion, besides adding significant cost and complexity, also slows down the data transmission.
"It limits the speed of the whole process to the speed of your electronics," says Dr Chris Stevens from the department of engineering sciences at the University of Oxford.
"The light and the fibres can quite cheerfully sustain a couple of terahertz, but your electronics can't do more than a few gigahertz."
It is at this point that the metamaterials prove most useful. If the light signals could be slowed sufficiently during the switching process, there would be no need for the electrical conversion step.
Hurry up and wait
The optical properties of metamaterials are accomplished by design—which is why they are touted for use in cloaking—and they can be engineered to deliberately slow light down.
The effect could be used to store light signals, with different delays for different frequencies, in a so-called "all optical network".
"The ability to slow the light could be a tremendous force for telecoms that is sure to enhance speed and efficiency," says Professor Xiang Zhang, the University of California researcher who demonstrated cloaking earlier this week.
The design of the metamaterials gives them their properties
The metamaterials could be engineered to accomplish the frequency spreading step as well, working much like a prism that splits white light into a rainbow.
"With these materials, you could imagine something more like a single chip with the metamaterial handling the routing—all the capability of one of these big filtering systems, but the size of your fingernail," says Dr Stevens.
Professor Ortwin Hess of the University of Surrey says that the jumps in speed will become increasingly necessary as more people use bandwidth-intensive video-on-demand services such as the BBC iPlayer.
"We're living with what was put into the system before the telecoms bubble burst in 2000," Prof Hess says. "There needs to be more clever ideas so that the existing infrastructure can be used in a different way."
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
How Orbits work
Source : http://my.execpc.com/~culp/space/orbit.html
SPACE EXPLORATION MERIT BADGE
How Orbits Work
What an Orbit Really Is
The drawings at the right simplify the physics of orbiting Earth. We see Earth with a huge, tall mountain rising from it. The mountain, as Isaac Newton first envisioned, has a cannon at the top. When the cannon is fired, the cannonball follows its ballistic arc, falling as a result of Earth's gravity, and it hits Earth some distance away from the mountain. If we put more gunpowder in the cannon, the next time it's fired, the cannonball goes halfway around the planet before it hits the ground. With still more gunpowder, the cannonball goes so far that it never touches down at all. It falls completely around Earth. It has achieved orbit.
If you were riding along with the cannonball, you would feel as if you were falling. The condition is called free fall. You'd find yourself falling at the same rate as the cannonball, which would appear to be floating there (falling) beside you. You'd never hit the ground. Notice that the cannonball has not escaped Earth's gravity, which is very much present -- it is causing the mass to fall. It just happens to be balanced out by the speed provided by the cannon.
Getting Into Orbit
The cannonball provides us with a pretty good analogy. It makes it clear that to get a spacecraft into orbit you need to
Raise It Up (the mountain) to a high enough altitude so that Earth's atmosphere isn't going to slow it down too much. In practical terms you don't generally want to be less than about 100 miles above the surface of the Earth. At that altitude, the atmosphere is so thin that it doesn't present much frictional drag to slow you down.
Accelerate It until it is going so fast that as it falls, it just falls completely around the planet.
The required speed for a particular altitude A can be found from the formula
where A is in miles and v comes out in miles per hour. So for example the shuttle, orbiting at 200 miles up travels at
At that speed, it takes about 90 minutes to complete one orbit (an hour and a half to go all the way around the Earth!).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If we place a satellite way up - at an altitude of 22,284 miles, then to stay in orbit, the satellite should travel at
At that speed, you can show that it takes 24 hours to orbit the Earth. But since the Earth is rotating once every 24 hours, the satellite is going around the Earth at the same exact rate that the Earth is turning. The satellite stays above the same point on the Earth, or looking at it from the Earth's surface, the satellite stays in the same place in the sky. This is called a "geostationary" orbit, since the satellite seems to be stationary - it looks like it doesn't move! This is great if you have to point your satellite dish to pick up a signal from this satellite. Point it once and you're done.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Apogee Kick
How does a satellite get from low earth orbit (where the shuttle lets go of it) to geosynchronous orbit?
Elliptical Orbits: most orbits are not perfectly circular. All orbits are ellipses (flattened circles) with a high point (apogee) and a low point (perigee).
At apogee, when the satellite is farthest from the earth, it is going the slowest - it's ready to fall back toward the earth.
As the satellite falls it gains speed, and "overshoots" the earth, swinging quickly through perigee, then gaining altitude back toward apogee.
The satellite doesn't stay in orbit at the apogee distance because it isn't going fast enough when it reaches that point. It doesn't stay in orbit at the perigee distance because it's picked up so much speed by that point that it starts climbing again.
Transfer Orbit:
If we speed the satellite up while it's in low circular earth orbit it will go into elliptical orbit, heading up to apogee.
If we do nothing else, it will stay in this elliptical orbit, going from apogee to perigee and back again.
BUT, if we fire a rocket motor when the satellite's at apogee, and speed it up to the required circular orbit speed, it will stay at that altitude in circular orbit. Firing a rocket motor at apogee is called "apogee kick", and the motor is called the "apogee kick motor".
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gimme More! Orbital Mechanics Web Page an outstanding reference!
Back to Space Exploration Home Page
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Questions
Your questions and comments regarding this page are welcome. You can e-mail Randy Culp for inquiries, suggestions, new ideas or just to chat.
Updated 20 March 2004
SPACE EXPLORATION MERIT BADGE
How Orbits Work
What an Orbit Really Is
The drawings at the right simplify the physics of orbiting Earth. We see Earth with a huge, tall mountain rising from it. The mountain, as Isaac Newton first envisioned, has a cannon at the top. When the cannon is fired, the cannonball follows its ballistic arc, falling as a result of Earth's gravity, and it hits Earth some distance away from the mountain. If we put more gunpowder in the cannon, the next time it's fired, the cannonball goes halfway around the planet before it hits the ground. With still more gunpowder, the cannonball goes so far that it never touches down at all. It falls completely around Earth. It has achieved orbit.
If you were riding along with the cannonball, you would feel as if you were falling. The condition is called free fall. You'd find yourself falling at the same rate as the cannonball, which would appear to be floating there (falling) beside you. You'd never hit the ground. Notice that the cannonball has not escaped Earth's gravity, which is very much present -- it is causing the mass to fall. It just happens to be balanced out by the speed provided by the cannon.
Getting Into Orbit
The cannonball provides us with a pretty good analogy. It makes it clear that to get a spacecraft into orbit you need to
Raise It Up (the mountain) to a high enough altitude so that Earth's atmosphere isn't going to slow it down too much. In practical terms you don't generally want to be less than about 100 miles above the surface of the Earth. At that altitude, the atmosphere is so thin that it doesn't present much frictional drag to slow you down.
Accelerate It until it is going so fast that as it falls, it just falls completely around the planet.
The required speed for a particular altitude A can be found from the formula
where A is in miles and v comes out in miles per hour. So for example the shuttle, orbiting at 200 miles up travels at
At that speed, it takes about 90 minutes to complete one orbit (an hour and a half to go all the way around the Earth!).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If we place a satellite way up - at an altitude of 22,284 miles, then to stay in orbit, the satellite should travel at
At that speed, you can show that it takes 24 hours to orbit the Earth. But since the Earth is rotating once every 24 hours, the satellite is going around the Earth at the same exact rate that the Earth is turning. The satellite stays above the same point on the Earth, or looking at it from the Earth's surface, the satellite stays in the same place in the sky. This is called a "geostationary" orbit, since the satellite seems to be stationary - it looks like it doesn't move! This is great if you have to point your satellite dish to pick up a signal from this satellite. Point it once and you're done.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Apogee Kick
How does a satellite get from low earth orbit (where the shuttle lets go of it) to geosynchronous orbit?
Elliptical Orbits: most orbits are not perfectly circular. All orbits are ellipses (flattened circles) with a high point (apogee) and a low point (perigee).
At apogee, when the satellite is farthest from the earth, it is going the slowest - it's ready to fall back toward the earth.
As the satellite falls it gains speed, and "overshoots" the earth, swinging quickly through perigee, then gaining altitude back toward apogee.
The satellite doesn't stay in orbit at the apogee distance because it isn't going fast enough when it reaches that point. It doesn't stay in orbit at the perigee distance because it's picked up so much speed by that point that it starts climbing again.
Transfer Orbit:
If we speed the satellite up while it's in low circular earth orbit it will go into elliptical orbit, heading up to apogee.
If we do nothing else, it will stay in this elliptical orbit, going from apogee to perigee and back again.
BUT, if we fire a rocket motor when the satellite's at apogee, and speed it up to the required circular orbit speed, it will stay at that altitude in circular orbit. Firing a rocket motor at apogee is called "apogee kick", and the motor is called the "apogee kick motor".
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gimme More! Orbital Mechanics Web Page an outstanding reference!
Back to Space Exploration Home Page
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Questions
Your questions and comments regarding this page are welcome. You can e-mail Randy Culp for inquiries, suggestions, new ideas or just to chat.
Updated 20 March 2004
Thursday, June 05, 2008
Ms Software meet Mr. Hardware
Article from Wired.
June 5, 1833: Ms. Software, Meet Mr. Hardware
By Randy Alfred 10 hours ago
Ada Byron, daughter of Lord Byron, devised a way to calculate Bernoulli numbers using Charles Babbage's analytical engine. It's widely considered the first computer program.Image: Ada Picture Gallery
1833: Ada Byron meets Charles Babbage. He designed an early computer, and she would write the first computer program.
Ada's father was the poet Lord Byron, but her parents separated when she was a month old. Her famous -- and poetically wild -- father went to Greece, and she never knew him.
Ada was 15 when she met the Cambridge mathematics professor Babbage 175 years ago today. Babbage had already received funding from Parliament to build a "difference engine" that could do mathematical calculations. While that project was still unfinished, he conceived in 1834 a new and broader idea: an "analytical engine" that "could not only foresee but could act on that foresight."
In 1835, Ada married William King, who inherited the title Earl of Lovelace in 1838, making her Countess of Lovelace. They had three children, but Ada's family and social responsibilities did not keep her from continuing her study of advanced mathematics.
Babbage, meanwhile, gave a seminar on the analytic engine in Turin, Italy, in 1841. Countess Ada translated the article about the presentation and showed it to Babbage. He was apparently better at conceiving things than explaining them (unheard of in a mathematician, eh?) and suggested that Ada expand the article with her own notes.
When published in 1843, those notes ran three times as long as the original article. Ada predicted that a computing machine could compose music, draw graphics and find application, so to speak, in business and science.
She also wrote a plan for the analytical engine to calculate Bernoulli numbers. It's now considered the first computer program. The countess originated the idea of a loop in a program, which she likened to a "snake biting its tail."
Ada was also a friend to novelist Charles Dickens, scientist Michael Faraday, inventor Charles Wheatstone and David Brewster, creator of the kaleidoscope. She was an opium addict who had numerous affairs and gambled away a lot of her family fortune. She died of cancer in 1852, two weeks shy of her 37th birthday.
The countess of Lovelace has attained recent fame through Betty Toole's 1992 edition of her correspondence, Ada, The Enchantress of Numbers and Lynn Hershman-Leeson's 1997 film Conceiving Ada, starring Tilda Swinton.
The U.S. Department of Defense named a computer language "Ada" in her honor
June 5, 1833: Ms. Software, Meet Mr. Hardware
By Randy Alfred 10 hours ago
Ada Byron, daughter of Lord Byron, devised a way to calculate Bernoulli numbers using Charles Babbage's analytical engine. It's widely considered the first computer program.Image: Ada Picture Gallery
1833: Ada Byron meets Charles Babbage. He designed an early computer, and she would write the first computer program.
Ada's father was the poet Lord Byron, but her parents separated when she was a month old. Her famous -- and poetically wild -- father went to Greece, and she never knew him.
Ada was 15 when she met the Cambridge mathematics professor Babbage 175 years ago today. Babbage had already received funding from Parliament to build a "difference engine" that could do mathematical calculations. While that project was still unfinished, he conceived in 1834 a new and broader idea: an "analytical engine" that "could not only foresee but could act on that foresight."
In 1835, Ada married William King, who inherited the title Earl of Lovelace in 1838, making her Countess of Lovelace. They had three children, but Ada's family and social responsibilities did not keep her from continuing her study of advanced mathematics.
Babbage, meanwhile, gave a seminar on the analytic engine in Turin, Italy, in 1841. Countess Ada translated the article about the presentation and showed it to Babbage. He was apparently better at conceiving things than explaining them (unheard of in a mathematician, eh?) and suggested that Ada expand the article with her own notes.
When published in 1843, those notes ran three times as long as the original article. Ada predicted that a computing machine could compose music, draw graphics and find application, so to speak, in business and science.
She also wrote a plan for the analytical engine to calculate Bernoulli numbers. It's now considered the first computer program. The countess originated the idea of a loop in a program, which she likened to a "snake biting its tail."
Ada was also a friend to novelist Charles Dickens, scientist Michael Faraday, inventor Charles Wheatstone and David Brewster, creator of the kaleidoscope. She was an opium addict who had numerous affairs and gambled away a lot of her family fortune. She died of cancer in 1852, two weeks shy of her 37th birthday.
The countess of Lovelace has attained recent fame through Betty Toole's 1992 edition of her correspondence, Ada, The Enchantress of Numbers and Lynn Hershman-Leeson's 1997 film Conceiving Ada, starring Tilda Swinton.
The U.S. Department of Defense named a computer language "Ada" in her honor
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Google once again rocks!!!!!!!
Man am I just falling in love with Google innovative ideas
Google reaches out to developers
By Maggie Shiels Technology reporter, BBC News, San Francisco
Google's Vic Gundotra said he wanted to move the web forward
For Google the future is about beefing up the browser and its bottom line.
This honest explanation of what motivates the search giant was given at Google IO, its developers conference being held in San Francisco.
One of the "reasons we invest in moving the web forward is if it benefits Google economically," admitted Vic Gundotra, engineering vice president.
But he also stressed: "The more money Google makes, the more it pours back into open source projects."
High on the agenda at IO was Android, Google's open source software platform being designed for smart phones.
A demo at the conference revealed some new applications for its Android mobile operating system.
These include a way to unlock phones by drawing a specific shape on the touch screen, a compass tool that automatically orientates maps when a user looks at photographic images of a city, a magnifying tool to zoom in on web content and a mobile version of the video game Pac Man.
The Android touchscreen is reminiscent of the iPhone
The phone being used at the conference relied on fingertip touch but Andy Rubin, who is overseeing the project, said Android could also be tailored to work with a tracking ball.
The first phones powered by Android are due out in the second half of this year.
With about three billion mobile phones already on the market, some analysts believe Google could make about $5 billion annually within five years.
'Key goals'
Google's engineering head Mr Gundotra played down any notion that Android is set to take on the iPhone even though it looks and acts a lot like Apple's phone.
"I wouldn't say that at all. I think the iPhone is just a world-class device with a great web browser that delivers in many respects on one of Google's key goals; to bring the web to the mobile device."
"I am a very avid user of Apple products. I buy everything they make. We wish every mobile phone was as good as the iPhone. Apple demonstrates there is plenty of opportunity to go around."
A demo of Pacman on the Android platform was shown
Many of the developers at IO had come to hear about Google's App Engine, which was launched six weeks ago as one of a host of development platforms aimed at encouraging developers to put the browser ahead of the desktop.
Ten thousand people signed up for beta testing while another 150,000 went onto a waiting list.
The reason so many developers want to work with the engine is because it uses the same infrastructure that Google uses for many of its applications.
Create something
During a conference presentation, Kevin Gibbs, the technical lead for the project, announced to cheers and applause that the engine would now be open to everyone and there was no waiting list.
Google hopes Earth in a browser will be as popular as Google Maps
"You can log in immediately and start using it, so please create something and let us know what you think."
Google also unveiled a rough draft pricing plan which will be finalised and become effective later in the year.
Under the new structure, developers start with a free quota of 500MB and enough computer processing power and bandwidth for about five million page views per month.
Mr Gibbs estimated that an application which received a total of 10 million page views would cost the developer about $40 (£20) a month.
The web has won
As a company known primarily for search, Google is trying to extend its reach and lure developers away from designing applications for the desktop and opt for the web instead.
"We want to accelerate the capability of the browser," Mr Gundotra said during his keynote speech to developers.
Google employees are on hand to demonstrate the browser is the dominant force
"The web is maturing at an amazing rate and it's getting better and better. I don't think there's any question that in terms of the question 'What has become the dominant platform?', the web has won."
Demonstrating the power of the web and the browser, Google said its Google Earth 3D visualisation software could now be embedded on web sites using a simple plug-in.
Google Earth technical lead Paul Rademacher said he expected it to be popular with property sites, where people can get 3D views of houses, and on travel sites where consumers can see the view from a hotel room.
"Now inside a web page, you'll be able to fly through San Francisco or see a 3D model of a cabin with exactly the view out the window of the mountains."
Google reaches out to developers
By Maggie Shiels Technology reporter, BBC News, San Francisco
Google's Vic Gundotra said he wanted to move the web forward
For Google the future is about beefing up the browser and its bottom line.
This honest explanation of what motivates the search giant was given at Google IO, its developers conference being held in San Francisco.
One of the "reasons we invest in moving the web forward is if it benefits Google economically," admitted Vic Gundotra, engineering vice president.
But he also stressed: "The more money Google makes, the more it pours back into open source projects."
High on the agenda at IO was Android, Google's open source software platform being designed for smart phones.
A demo at the conference revealed some new applications for its Android mobile operating system.
These include a way to unlock phones by drawing a specific shape on the touch screen, a compass tool that automatically orientates maps when a user looks at photographic images of a city, a magnifying tool to zoom in on web content and a mobile version of the video game Pac Man.
The Android touchscreen is reminiscent of the iPhone
The phone being used at the conference relied on fingertip touch but Andy Rubin, who is overseeing the project, said Android could also be tailored to work with a tracking ball.
The first phones powered by Android are due out in the second half of this year.
With about three billion mobile phones already on the market, some analysts believe Google could make about $5 billion annually within five years.
'Key goals'
Google's engineering head Mr Gundotra played down any notion that Android is set to take on the iPhone even though it looks and acts a lot like Apple's phone.
"I wouldn't say that at all. I think the iPhone is just a world-class device with a great web browser that delivers in many respects on one of Google's key goals; to bring the web to the mobile device."
"I am a very avid user of Apple products. I buy everything they make. We wish every mobile phone was as good as the iPhone. Apple demonstrates there is plenty of opportunity to go around."
A demo of Pacman on the Android platform was shown
Many of the developers at IO had come to hear about Google's App Engine, which was launched six weeks ago as one of a host of development platforms aimed at encouraging developers to put the browser ahead of the desktop.
Ten thousand people signed up for beta testing while another 150,000 went onto a waiting list.
The reason so many developers want to work with the engine is because it uses the same infrastructure that Google uses for many of its applications.
Create something
During a conference presentation, Kevin Gibbs, the technical lead for the project, announced to cheers and applause that the engine would now be open to everyone and there was no waiting list.
Google hopes Earth in a browser will be as popular as Google Maps
"You can log in immediately and start using it, so please create something and let us know what you think."
Google also unveiled a rough draft pricing plan which will be finalised and become effective later in the year.
Under the new structure, developers start with a free quota of 500MB and enough computer processing power and bandwidth for about five million page views per month.
Mr Gibbs estimated that an application which received a total of 10 million page views would cost the developer about $40 (£20) a month.
The web has won
As a company known primarily for search, Google is trying to extend its reach and lure developers away from designing applications for the desktop and opt for the web instead.
"We want to accelerate the capability of the browser," Mr Gundotra said during his keynote speech to developers.
Google employees are on hand to demonstrate the browser is the dominant force
"The web is maturing at an amazing rate and it's getting better and better. I don't think there's any question that in terms of the question 'What has become the dominant platform?', the web has won."
Demonstrating the power of the web and the browser, Google said its Google Earth 3D visualisation software could now be embedded on web sites using a simple plug-in.
Google Earth technical lead Paul Rademacher said he expected it to be popular with property sites, where people can get 3D views of houses, and on travel sites where consumers can see the view from a hotel room.
"Now inside a web page, you'll be able to fly through San Francisco or see a 3D model of a cabin with exactly the view out the window of the mountains."
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Mission to Mars
An article from BBC.
Mars probe set for risky landing
Extreme Mars challenge: Entry, descent and landing
An American spacecraft is about to attempt a perilous landing on the surface of Mars.
Nasa's Phoenix lander is due to touch down on Monday in the far north of the Red Planet, after a 423-million-mile journey from Earth.
The probe is equipped with a robotic arm to dig for water ice thought to be buried beneath the surface.
Scientists say the mission should give the clearest indication yet of whether Mars could once have harboured life.
The final seven minutes of the probe's ten-month journey is regarded as the riskiest part of the mission.
The main goal of the mission is to get below the surface of Mars to where we are almost certain there is water
Dr Tom Pike
Phoenix Diary: Mission to Mars
After it enters the top of the Martian atmosphere at nearly 5.7km/s (13,000 mph), the probe must perform a series of manoeuvres to come safely to rest.
It will release a parachute, use pulsed thrusters to slow to a fast walking speed, then come to a halt on three legs.
If all goes to plan, the Phoenix lander will reach the surface of Mars at 0053 BST (1953 EDT) on 26 May.
Nasa controllers will know in about 15 minutes whether the attempt has been successful.
Phoenix will land further north than previous missions
David Catling from the University of Bristol is a co-investigator on the mission. He said the landing phase would be one of the most exciting and tense parts of the journey, with so much riding on Phoenix's safe descent.
"Everyone involved is on tenterhooks and eager to start this unique exploration," he said.
If all goes to plan, Phoenix will begin a three-month mission to search for ice beneath the Martian surface.
It will use a robotic arm to dig through the protective topsoil layer and lift samples of both soil and ice to its deck for scientific analysis.
Building blocks
Dr Tom Pike of Imperial College, London, is part of the British team involved in the project.
"The main goal of the mission is to get below the surface of Mars to where we are almost certain there is water," he told BBC News.
"The orbiters that are around Mars have already surveyed in great detail the area in which we are landing and we know that there is ice - solid water - 10cm, or maybe even less, below the surface.
"Water, of course, is of critical importance because it is one of the building blocks - one of the essential habitats we need - for life."
Landing on Mars is a notoriously tricky business. Of the 11 missions that have tried to land probes on Mars since 1971 - only five have succeeded.
Phoenix carries seven science instruments
Phoenix is an apt name for the current mission, as it rose from the ashes of two previous failures.
In September 1999, the Mars Climate Orbiter spacecraft crashed into the Red Planet following a navigation error caused when technicians mixed up "English" (imperial) and metric units.
A few months later, another Nasa spacecraft, the Mars Polar Lander (MPL), was lost near the planet's South Pole.
Phoenix uses hardware from an identical twin of MPL, the Mars Surveyor 2001 Lander, which was cancelled following the two consecutive failures.
The probe was launched on 4 August 2007 on a Delta II rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
Mars probe set for risky landing
Extreme Mars challenge: Entry, descent and landing
An American spacecraft is about to attempt a perilous landing on the surface of Mars.
Nasa's Phoenix lander is due to touch down on Monday in the far north of the Red Planet, after a 423-million-mile journey from Earth.
The probe is equipped with a robotic arm to dig for water ice thought to be buried beneath the surface.
Scientists say the mission should give the clearest indication yet of whether Mars could once have harboured life.
The final seven minutes of the probe's ten-month journey is regarded as the riskiest part of the mission.
The main goal of the mission is to get below the surface of Mars to where we are almost certain there is water
Dr Tom Pike
Phoenix Diary: Mission to Mars
After it enters the top of the Martian atmosphere at nearly 5.7km/s (13,000 mph), the probe must perform a series of manoeuvres to come safely to rest.
It will release a parachute, use pulsed thrusters to slow to a fast walking speed, then come to a halt on three legs.
If all goes to plan, the Phoenix lander will reach the surface of Mars at 0053 BST (1953 EDT) on 26 May.
Nasa controllers will know in about 15 minutes whether the attempt has been successful.
Phoenix will land further north than previous missions
David Catling from the University of Bristol is a co-investigator on the mission. He said the landing phase would be one of the most exciting and tense parts of the journey, with so much riding on Phoenix's safe descent.
"Everyone involved is on tenterhooks and eager to start this unique exploration," he said.
If all goes to plan, Phoenix will begin a three-month mission to search for ice beneath the Martian surface.
It will use a robotic arm to dig through the protective topsoil layer and lift samples of both soil and ice to its deck for scientific analysis.
Building blocks
Dr Tom Pike of Imperial College, London, is part of the British team involved in the project.
"The main goal of the mission is to get below the surface of Mars to where we are almost certain there is water," he told BBC News.
"The orbiters that are around Mars have already surveyed in great detail the area in which we are landing and we know that there is ice - solid water - 10cm, or maybe even less, below the surface.
"Water, of course, is of critical importance because it is one of the building blocks - one of the essential habitats we need - for life."
Landing on Mars is a notoriously tricky business. Of the 11 missions that have tried to land probes on Mars since 1971 - only five have succeeded.
Phoenix carries seven science instruments
Phoenix is an apt name for the current mission, as it rose from the ashes of two previous failures.
In September 1999, the Mars Climate Orbiter spacecraft crashed into the Red Planet following a navigation error caused when technicians mixed up "English" (imperial) and metric units.
A few months later, another Nasa spacecraft, the Mars Polar Lander (MPL), was lost near the planet's South Pole.
Phoenix uses hardware from an identical twin of MPL, the Mars Surveyor 2001 Lander, which was cancelled following the two consecutive failures.
The probe was launched on 4 August 2007 on a Delta II rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
Thursday, May 08, 2008
J Krishnamurti again....
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
J Krishnamurti
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
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