Oxygen found on Saturn’s moon Rhea

Bangalore: A chip with the size of a small grain of rice, which could go underneath the skin of a human and stay there for a lifetime, a chip which could be your identity, which goes with you wherever you go, created much controversy at its very inception. Yes, we are talking about biochips and the hullabaloo it bought along with it. Considered the 'mark of the beast' by many, a full-fledged project of biochip implantation is still a scientist's dream as it lies inside the vicious circle of moral debate.Microchip implants and mind control related to cybernetics is an area discussed way back in 1948 in a book by Norbert Weiner. From then till now, theories have been formulated and materialized into the real tangible entity of biochip. GeneChip, one of the first commercial biochips, contained thousands of individual DNA sensors for use in sensing defects or to understand single nucleotide polymorphisms to put it technically in tumor suppressor genes and genes related to breast cancer. But it gained wide approval as a device which can be installed inside pet animals by injecting through a small hypodermic needle and make it easy for owners to track them down.

While biochips promised immense help in the field of medical diagnosis, it was tarnished with much negative publicity as it was projected as a device which is inserted inside human to track his actions and haunt him down. Now we really don't like being followed, do we? EPIC's Hoofnagle once said the technology carries the same privacy concerns as a national ID card. "Human identification systems are tools that have historically been used for social control," he said. Hoofnagle also expressed concern that the biochips might be "spoofed," allowing anyone to access data on the chip or monitor people without them knowing it. "It sounds like it's an easy technology to invade," he said. So what about bio chips is really concerning us?When it comes to the use of biochips on humans, it works a little bit differently.

The chip is implanted in a way where it is able to bind with your DNA. Many government agencies have been working with biochips which can be used for identification purposes. When we think of this as an invasion of privacy, we should also look at the positive side of the technology. This would be a great use to find missing children, if this technology goes as far as an implant at birth, those who have been kidnapped or missing, can be easily found.

This type of implantable chip is being researched by defense departments in India and abroad in hopes to be used for soldiers, to monitor their location and relay health information if the soldier gets wounded in battle. This would be a great way to get medical data relayed of what the doctors may be dealing with before the patient ever gets to the hospital. Not only that, a biochip will make it easier to find that wounded soldier.

But there are certain areas which always lack definite explanations. You can't value human life and you can limit his identity. It questions our morality when it comes to cloning humans and similarly we find it weird when we get 'tagged' by some minute chip. Whatever lies in the future for biochips, its implantation in humans still pricks our conscience.

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Spit and get your DNA test in minutes

Bangalore: The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) has organized a technofest in which Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB) - a part of CSIR - has put up a stall where the human DNA is processed within minutes. All what you have to do is spit in a container and in minutes the sample is processed in a small machine."Our stall is getting a lot of visitors. We are giving those visitors their DNA in a small vial which can be preserved," said Samir Brahmachari, Director, CSIR.

CSIR labs have been successful in isolating proteins enzymes which can be usedby the leather processing industry in order to bring down the pollution levels. Enzymes like Protease, amylase and lipase can be used by the leather industry and can bring down the use of lime and sulphite. The two chemicals are responsible for 60-65 percent pollution in the leather processing units.

The technology was developed by CSIR.
Apart from this, several drugs discovered by CSIR labs were also on display. The Institute of Microbial Technology lab, a part of CSIR, has developed a clot buster drug. ''The present set of clot busters available in the market have been discovered by foreign labs. This is the first indigenous clot buster. Similarly, we have also discovered an immuno-inhibitor which will prove beneficial in transplant cases. This will further bring down the cost of immune suppressants in the country,'' said Girish Sahni, Director, IMT, Chandigarh.  

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IPv6 task force units will be in place soon

All the committees and working groups forming part of the IPv6 Task Force that will oversee the country's transition to a ‘new' global web-address protocol are expected to be in place by this month-end.

Deadlines have been set for different stakeholders to prepare themselves for the major change, and a road map spelling out the details of the migration from Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) to Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) was officially released in July.

Version 4 of the protocol, which has so far been dominantly used on the Internet, is made up of a set of numbers that help to identify web addresses, besides facilitating communication from one point to the other. As the Internet grew phenomenally, the sets of numbers that could be used as digital addresses started getting exhausted, making it imperative that a new and expanded system with the potential for a tremendously larger number of unique addresses be deployed to keep it going. The world will run out of IPv4 addresses in a matter of months, experts say.

It is, however, not as if the IPv4 system would be shut down to make way for the new one. Both systems will co-exist; the future will however belong to the IPv6 system which has slowly been gaining global acceptance in recent years. Meanwhile, various techniques will be used to facilitate communication between the two. Isolated IPv6 networks will also have to communicate with each other using the IPv4 networks till they gain ground.

The National IPv6 Deployment Road Map detailed the creation of the Task Force which was to have several committees and working groups to pave the way for this transition, a major technical challenge for infrastructure and service providers in the country besides the government itself. It will be very difficult, “if not impossible,” to acquire new IPv4 addresses after mid-2012.

The Task Force was to be made up of officials from the Departments of Telecommunications and Information Technology, organisations such as the National Internet Exchange of India, the Education and Research Network and the National Informatics Centre, as well as various other Central and State government departments and agencies, and representatives of telecom and Internet service providers, educational institutions, industry associations, equipment vendors and content providers, software vendors and cable TV industry representatives, apart from the IPv6 Forum.

Though the extent of progress achieved by the big Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to get themselves ready for the transition seemed to vary, R.M. Agarwal, Deputy Director-General, Telecommunication Engineering Centre, expressed confidence in their being able to meet the December, 2011 deadline.He told The Hindu that preparatory to the change, the ISPs were also ‘taking care' of issues like acquiring enough IPv6 address blocks, resources that are apportioned internationally to networks in different regions of the world.

While some of the big ISPs were already in a position to offer IPv6 connectivity, the small and medium ISPs were not prepared for transition “because they are dependent on their upstream larger service providers in the chain,” the report had said. They would follow suit once the large service providers migrated to IPv6. All important Central government Ministries appointed nodal officers to get set for the transition, Mr. Agarwal said. All Central and State government Ministries and Departments, including its public sector units, are expected to switch over to IPv6 by March 2012.The road map had suggested that a national centre of excellence, ‘Indian IPv6 Centre for Innovation,' be created to take over the activities of the Task Force in the long run. A separate ‘Transition Pipe,' which will channel traffic from one IPv6 network to another, has been suggested, especially by the ISPs. “The working group concerned will take up this issue with all stakeholders,” Mr. Agarwal said.  

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Social networking made easy

You attend an international conference, network with people from different places, and return home, your pocket full of business cards.

Now you want to take it a step further and ‘connect' with your new-found contacts on Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, Flickr and the umpteen other websites in this age of social networking. Imagine the hassles involved.

You will have to key in all the names in the search boxes of the many social networking sites that exist and then narrow down to the right person before clicking the friend request button. How many times did you wish you could ‘connect' a little more effortlessly, perhaps at the click of button?Well then, it's time to look at Poken, a trendy device fast catching up with gadget freaks.

Simply put, Poken is a social business card conceived to accommodate the growing contact details of people in this age of social media networking. In other words, as one blogger Amy Palko put it, it makes it easier for you to link your online profiles with people you meet offline.Produced by a Swiss-based company Poken S.A., each device, mostly animated toons, comes with a palm that ‘high fours' the other Poken devices to exchange their contact cards by holding them about 0.5 inches apart.Once the data transfer through the proprietary short range high frequency, wireless communication Near Field Communication technology is complete, the palms glow green. Apart from supporting the usual telephone, URL(s), location and email addresses, a Poken contact card could be configured to more than 40 social networking sites. Orkut, India's biggest social networking site, does not figure on the list.

“Although Orkut is not supported with the device initially, it can be configured later,” says Naidu Darapaneni, founder-CEO of meraevents.com, the authorised reseller for Indian market.
Palm is the heart
The palm is the heart of the device. Ensconced in this palm is a USB connector that, when plugged into a computer, connects a user to his/her Poken profile on the Poken web site. Depending on how the device is configured, the contacts can be either synced automatically (in an auto mode) or manually added. Each time a contact makes any changes to his/her profile, the details are automatically updated in your Poken contacts. Further, Poken can also be used to facilitate business networking, Mr. Naudi points out.The device holds up to 64/120 contacts (depending on the model) at a time.

“MNCs like BMW and IBM have used the devices for networking. Even some users at our website, meraevents.com, have used Poken at conferences.”
Though the product is a boon to the social media frenzy, it should be remembered that Poken will take off only when it becomes more popular. Both users will require the devices to connect through Poken.

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Software to stop you writing e-mails when drunk

London: A new software can now stop you writing e-mails or posting messages when you are drunk. The Social Media Sobriety Test poses a series of simple problems that are intended to be fiendishly difficult to complete when intoxicated.

The test is designed to prevent alcohol-related posting to social media sites like
Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr.It also stops people from using custom sites like Foursquare or blogs and web-basede-mail accounts such as gmail or hotmail, the Daily Mail reported.

If the inebriated user fails one of the simple tests, a message can be posted on their Facebook or Twitter page that tells their friends that they are "too drunk to post right now".

Developed by web security firm Webroot, the test's tagline is "Nothing good happens online after 1 a.m." And it is free to download.Users are able to personalise it to choose which sites to block and then select the hours of the day when they are most likely to have enjoyed a few drinks.If you want to access social media sites during these times, you will have to pass a randomly selected sobriety test such as 'drag your mouse in a straight line', 'type the alphabet backwards', or 'follow the finger'.

A Webroot spokesman said: "We saw an opportunity to remind people to be responsible on social networks, and to be humorous while talking about Internet security."

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Dell enters Indian smartphone market

US computer-maker Dell made its entry into the highly competitive Indian smartphone market today with the launch of two high-end 3G-enabled handsets, priced at Rs 10,999 and 16,990 respectively.The company is targeting both high and low-end users with the two smartphones, dubbed XCD28 (Rs 10,999) and XCD35 (Rs 16,990), it said here.

“With today’s launch, we extend (our) pioneering edge to the smartphones market... as starting with the XCD series, we look to offer technology solutions to a much larger audience,” Dell India General Manager Consumer & SMB Mahesh Bhalla said.

“India is one of the fastest growing global markets for mobile devices, as well as personal computers,” Dell Inc Vice-President Worldwide Business Development & Strategy Farooq Butt said.

Other foreign companies that are already present in the Indian smartphone market are HTC, Nokia, Acer and Blackberry, but domestic companies are also trying to corner a slice of the pie through aggressive pricing of models.      

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Google announces ‘Instant Previews’ search feature

People searching on Google will soon be able to see previews of websites before clicking on them.

The “Instant Previews” feature, announced on Tuesday, is meant to help people bypass websites that are either irrelevant or simply too visually cluttered for their tastes.It works for Google web searches, as well as searches for news, video and local businesses.

After clicking on an icon of a magnifying glass, people will see a picture of the website in the white space to the right of the search results within a tenth of a second.Although the preview photo will vary in size, just as Google Inc.’s image results do, Google designed the previews so that they’ll never eclipse the search results and clutter the page.Google will also show a box above the picture zooming in on the section of the website where the search terms appear.

The search terms will be highlighted in that box.While someone looks at a picture of a website, Google will load visual previews for other search results in the background so that people can quickly compare websites by rolling the cursor over the results on the page.The feature is a follow-up to Instant Search, a feature Google unveiled in September that updates search results as people continue typing.

Last week, Google said that people who own an iPhone or a smart phone running Google’s Android software can use Instant Search too.Google claims that people who use Instant Previews are five per cent more likely to feel satisfied with the website they choose.Google will roll out Instant Previews in 40 languages over the coming days.

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Top 5 laptops buzzing the market

Bangalore: The working life of consumers is changing and it results in a fast rate of growing laptop market. The sales of laptops are increasing these days because of the need for "anytime anywhere" access to information. According to a top official of HCL Info Systems, in the whole PC market, the market share of laptops would be 35-40 percent in the next two years.

In this ever growing laptop market where new models are arriving every other day, the most common question that consumer faces is - "What laptop should I buy?" Here is a list of top five laptops that excel in their specific category and are creating a buzz in the laptop market.Apple MacBook Pro Spring 2010
With the iconic unibody aluminum construction and a large glass multitouch trackpad, Apple Mac book pro spring 2010 offers major internal changes, including an optional Intel Core i7 CPU, making it a very serious portable powerhouse. It has 4GB, 1066MHz DDR3 RAM and 500GB hard disk.

The device is equipped with Nvidia GeForce GT330M discrete graphics and runs on OS X 10.6.2 Snow Leopard operating system.

The laptop comes with stereo speakers, headphone/microphone jacks, 2 USB 2.0, FireWire 800, SD card reader, Ethernet, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Apple MacBook Pro Spring 2010 is available in different price ranges starting from 57,000 to 1,00,000.

Lenovo IdePad Y560
The IdeaPad Y560 that comes with an orange strip around its screen and a glossy surface layering the laptop's display screen has the same dark coffee brown color scheme as the earlier Lenovo IdeaPad Y550 and IdeaPad Y450 laptops. It has a 15.6-inch glossy LED-backlit screen with a max resolution of 1366x768 pixels. Built around an Intel HM55 chipset, this multimedia powerhouse runs off an Intel Core i5-430M CPU.The laptop has 4 GB DDR3 RAM (max 8 GB), a 500 GB hard drive and the discrete graphics is courtesy an ATI Radeon HD 5730. The new Y560 also includes the familiar SlideNav navigation and costs 51, 190.
HP Envy 17
HP Envy 17 manages to surpass last year's original 13- and 15-inch versions by coming in at much more reasonable prices. It comes with latest Intel Core i7/i5 processors, ATI Radeon graphics 17 inch display, up to 2 terabytes storage, up to 8GB RAM, long battery life of up to 6 hours, etc.
The Envy 17 includes a Blu-ray drive, both HDMI and DisplayPort outputs, and a USB 3.0 port, which is the biggest selling point for the Envy's ports and connections collection. The device comes with stereo speakers, headphone/microphone jacks, Ethernet, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, and is available at around 60,000.
Dell Studio 15
Part of Dell's premium Studio laptop series, Dell Studio 15 is a 15-inch home entertainment laptop with extensive features. The laptop has an Intel Core i5-450M processor and discrete ATI Radeon HD 5470 graphics. It weighs 2.6-kg with a standard six-cell battery onboard. It has a 15.6-inch widescreen LED-backlit display with a 1366x768 resolution - upgradeable to full-HD 1920x1080. The screen's bezel has a 2MP webcam.

The laptop has 4GB DDR3 RAM and 500GB hard drive. It comes with a 64-bit Windows 7 Home Premium operating system and has an 8x slot-loading DVD writer (upgradeable to a Blu-ray BD-ROM) and includes three USB ports - one of them doubles up as an eSATA port. HDMI, Gigabit ethernet, FireWire, VGA ports, ExpressCard slot, multicard reader, headphone and microphone jacks are placed around the Dell Studio 15 laptop's edge. The Dell Studio 15 costs 48,400 (approx).
Sony-VAIO VPCZ136GG/B

The Sony-VAIO VPCZ136GG/B has a 1600x900 TFT colour display. In one sentence, this 13.1 inch laptop is, in places, fast with Intel Core i5 and loaded with HDMI, USB X 3. The laptop has 6GB Ram, 128GB FLASH HDD (64 GB x 2), Wifi, Bluetooth and Nvidia 1GB Graphics, and it runs on Windows 7 Professional.

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Watching Weather by Doppler Weather Radar (DWR)

The Doppler Weather Radar (DWR) is a computerised Radar which scans the atmosphere.

Look around the skyline of Secunderabad and you will notice the addition of a white dome that stands out for its size and shape.

This is the newly inaugurated Doppler Weather Radar (DWR) at the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) Begumpet making ours the second city after Delhi to be equipped with this advanced facility in the first phase of modernisation of IMD.

Simply put a Doppler Weather Radar (DWR) is a computerised Radar which scans the atmosphere round the clock and relays information about the presence of clouds, their location, intensit, height within the range of 500 Km radius in and around Hyderabad. Information about general weather such as wind velocity, movement of clouds within a range of 250 Km and the rate of rainfall within an effective range of 150 Km is also recorded.

The radar makes it possible to ascertain the development and movement of thunderstorms and heavy rainfall zones.

This in turn helps provide aviation warnings, agro-meteorological advise for the benefit of the farming community in the State, climatology data that is required for maintaining a data base.

Big dome

“The large dome called a Radome is 11.8 m in diameter and shields the sensitive Radar Antenna. It is made of foam sandwiched fibre glass to allow the passage of radio waves,” says Y.K. Reddy, Scientist, IMD.

The observatory is kept open for school children/public on IMD Formation Day (January 15), National Science Day (February 28) and Word Meteorological Day ( March 23). 

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