Technology Effect

Even as staunch experimentalists disbelieve it, the use of information and communication technologies to do a laboratory experiment independent of a student's location is fast becoming a reality. In short, virtual reality technologies are revolutionizing the educational system. Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham is launching a series of workshops on their newly developed Virtual Labs. These labs were developed under the research grant from the National Mission on Education through ICT, Ministry of HRD. Amrita is a partner in the National Mission project on Virtual laboratories coordinated by IIT Delhi in partnership with 10 other institutes including IITs (Kanpur, Kharaghpur, Bombay, Madras, Roorkee, Guwahati), IIIT Hyderabad, NIT Suratkal, COE Pune and Dayalbagh University. The objective of this national mission project is multi-faceted — to provide high quality personalized and interactive knowledge modules over the internet, intranet and through satellite communicat...

The day is not far off when anyone can find out everything about you with the help of just a snapshot. The technology is still in the nascent stage, but artificial intelligence applied to face recognition may change the Internet and our lives Let's say you see this pretty face in a crowd, in a newspaper or a magazine, and want to know more about who the person is. You scan her image, crop it to just her face, go to a visual search engine and hit ‘Enter'. Within seconds, you know everything about her. You get more pictures of her, some of them from her Facebook account and almost instantly, you've put a name to her face. Does this excite you or scare you? If you've been using Picasa or Facebook over the last few months, you would've realised how Picasa automatically identifies faces and asks you to tag them. If you've been using digital cameras, you would know how the machine knows to identify a human in the frame and throws just the right ...

ensselaer Polytechnic Institute researchers are pioneering a new study in which they have developed a type of nanomaterial that could spark a new generation of Lithium ion batteries for electric automobiles, laptop computers, mobile phones, and other devices. Called ‘nanoscoop’, it can withstand extremely high rates of charge and discharge, thanks to its unique material composition, structure, and size. Professor Nikhil Koratkar and his team demonstrated how a nanoscoop electrode could be charged and discharged at a rate 40 to 60 times faster than conventional battery over 100 continuous charge/discharge cycles. “Charging my laptop or cell phone in a few minutes, rather than an hour, sounds pretty good to me,” said Mr. Koratkar. “Moreover, this technology could potentially be ramped up to suit the demanding needs of batteries for electric automobiles. Due to their nanoscale size, our nanoscoops can soak and release Li at high rates far more effectively than the m...

Mumbai: Security and systems management solutions provider Symantec on Wednesday announced the launch of a new solution that, it said, would help organizations better understand and manage their increasing unstructured data. The solution, Symantec Data Insight Storage , will help improve data governance in organizations, the company said.. PUnstructured data growth is one of the biggest challenges facing organizations today and it has a direct impact on their profitability. The new solution will help improve data governance in organizations through insights into ownership, usage and lifecycle of unstructured data," Symantec Director (Systems Engineering) Anand Naik said in release here. This solution would help IT managers have greater visibility of data and align data management with the overall business goals of the organization, he said. e.

Amazon has taken its first step toward creating an app store for devices that run on the Android operating system. It has thrown open a portal wherein interested developers can submit their apps for Android-based devices. The next would be starting a full fledged store that is scheduled to come up sometime later this year. Amazon proven expertise in the business of selling will make it a strong case for both app developers and customers. The company will put a price tag to the apps and recommend on which apps to purchase. Amazon will also test the apps before putting them into the store. Amazon will share the remunerations on the apps with the developers. As per the Amazon's developer license agreement, Amazon will pay the developer 70 percent of the purchase price or 20 percent of the list price for sale of an app. "Amazon's innovative marketing and merchandising features are designed to help customers find and discover relevant products from our vast se...

  Hyderabad: Quick Heal, an Internet security tools provider, has introduced a new technology called Laptop Tracker that helps to track and recover lost laptops. The technology works on the premise that every laptop or PC has a Media Access Control ID (MAC ID) - the physical address of the device. When the stolen devices are connected to the Internet, its IP location can be found using the physical address number. To use the services of the Laptop Tracker technology, one needs to register into its website known as www.trackmylaptop.net. All one needs to do there is key in the physical address number of the laptop or PC. The solution from the Pune-based company is open for everyone. However those of who are using its anti-virus solution do not have to fill the MAC IDs. The technology would help the cyber crime departments and law enforcement departments of the country and the company is in talks with them to deploy the technology.

Android Honeycomb, much awaited version of Android OS is launched in CES 2011. Honey Comb version is Android 3.0 designed specially for Tablet PC. Year 2011 being Tablet Year, Google has launched its next update of  Open Source Operating System Android 3.0. They have released Sneak Peak Video of the Android OS. Google recently released 2.3 version of Android named as Gingerbread, and had a preview of Android Tablet from Motorola running HoneyComb which features Google Maps 5.0. Honeycomb is the next version of the Android platform, designed from the ground up for devices with larger screen sizes, particularly tablets. We’ve spent a lot of time refining the user experience in Honeycomb, and we’ve developed a brand new, truly virtual and holographic user interface. Many of Android’s existing features will really shine on Honeycomb: refined multi-tasking, elegant notifications, access to over 100,000 apps on Android Market, home screen customization with a new...