Famous Scientist ( Vijay P. Bhatkar )

-: Vijay P. Bhatkar :-

Vijay P. Bhatkar

Dr Vijay Pandurang Bhatkar (born 11 October 1946) is an IT computer scientist from India. He is best known as an architect of the PARAM series of Supercomputers, GIST multilingual technology and Education-To-Home  mission.

 He is widely recognized for his noteworthy contributions in bringing ICT to the masses through a series of path-breaking initiatives. He is also credited with the creation of several national institutions, notably amongst them being the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing, – India’s national initiative in Supercomputing; the Electronics Research & Development Centre (ER&DC), Trivandrum – India’s largest R&D Centre in application oriented R&D in electronics; the ETH Research Laboratory, Pune for launching Education-To-Home mission; the International Institute of Information Technology I2IT, Pune – India’s largest Post-Graduate Institute for advanced education in IT; and the India International Multiversity (IIMv) – an educational initiative for promoting the concept of integral education.

Bhatkar was born on 11 October 1946 at Muramba, Akola, Maharashtra . He obtained his Bachelor of Engineering degree from Nagpur University in 1965, his Master of Engineering in from M.S. University, Baroda, in 1968, and his Doctor of Philosophy degree in Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi IIT Delhi , in 1972.
He has served as a Member of the Scientific Advisory Committee to the Cabinet of Government of India Government of India.

He was also a Member of several IT Task Forcesconstituted by the Prime Minister in 1998 to propel India as IT superpower. He was invited to address The Royal Society Royal society in 2003. He led the Indian delegation to South Africa to formulate Indo-SA initiative in Advanced Computing. He is a member of the Indo-Russian Long Term Programme (ILTP) in Science & Technology. He has also been a member of Indo-Hungarian and Indo-French Joint Commissions.

For his contributions to IT in India, he was conferred with the PADMASHRI award in 2000, one of the highest civilian recognitions by the Government of India, the Maharashtra Bhushan Award 1999-2000, the highest recognition of Government of Maharashtra..

He is also conferred with several social and spiritual awards, amongst them being Saraswati Award, Vidarbha Gaurav Award, Pune Citadel Award, Vidarbha Bhushan Award, Punya-Bhushan Award, and Gratitude Award. He is a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery (2009)

Google Nexus 7 3G could arrive in weeks

The tablet was released in July but sources have revealed that the hardware manufacturer is already currently working on a 3G variant to be released imminently.

Asus, which partnered with Google to make the Nexus 7 tablet, is reportedly gearing up production for a launch in approximately six weeks time.

The popular 7-inch tablet was launched to glowing reviews and soon sold out at some American retailers.

It was the first Android tablet to come with Jelly Bean, the latest version of Google's mobile operating system.

Aggressively priced from £160 it was designed to loosen Apple's grip on the tablet market. It's nearest competitor is the Kindle Fire, which is only available to American buyers.

It has an Nvidia Tegra 3 quad-core processor, and a 1.2-megapixel camera, and is available with 8 or 16GB of storage.

The lack of 3G support was one of the only criticisms levelled at the tablet by reviewers.

There are not expected to be any other hardware changes to the Nexus 7, with the inclusion of 3G the only addition to the new tablet

The 3G model is likely to be more expensive than the Wi-Fi only model although the exact release date and price are currently unknown.

Apple is expected to launch a smaller, cheaper version of the iPad next month which will compete with the Nexus 7.

With Amazon expected to release a new version of the Kindle Fire this week , the move by Google would ensure that it stays dominant in the market.

Micromax launches A25 Smarty for Rs. 3,999

Soon after announcing the A87 Superfone Ninja 4, Micromax has announced yet another dual-SIM capable affordable Android smartphone. The device called the Micromax A25 Smarty is priced as low as Rs. 3,999 and it runs Android 2.3 Gingerbread.

It surely might be the most affordable Android smartphone till date. In terms of specifications the device is powered by a 1GHz processor, it has a 2.8-inch display with 240x320 pixels resolution, a 1.3 megapixel fixed focus camera on the back, 256MB of RAM and a 1,280 mAh battery which is rated for up to 4 hours of talk time and up to 180 hours of standby.

After a long time have we seen a Micromax smartphone which is not included in the company’s Superfone line-up. This new device sure is quite affordable but we are yet to see whether it will be a better options compared to the much robust Nokia phones in this price range. This device will be available with online retailer Saholic starting today.

Motorola unveils 3 RAZR Android phones

Google Inc's Motorola Mobility on Wednesday unveiled three smartphones to help it compete with bigger rivals Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics Co for the holiday shopping season.

Verizon Wireless, the biggest U.S. mobile provider, will sell all three devices - the Droid Razr HD, the Droid Razr Maxx HD and the Droid Razr M, the companies said.

The smartphones will use Google's Android software. Motorola showed off the phones at a press event in New York, its first big media gathering since Google bought Motorola in May.

Together the devices would be Motorola's "big family launch" for this holiday season, Motorola Mobility Chief Executive Dennis Woodside said.

The executive said the phones would go on sale at 30 other carriers around the world besides Verizon Wireless, which has an exclusive U.S. deal with Motorola for the devices. 

Google has disclosed little about its plans for Motorola, which it bought primarily to use the company's rich portfolio of patents to defend itself in legal battles with rivals. It will keep Motorola as a separate subsidiary so that other Android phone makers, such as Samsung, do not assume Motorola will have an advantage in accessing Android technology.

Woodside said the Razr brand -- lauded in 2005 as iconic but became unfashionable a few years later and then was resurrected by Motorola last year -- will again be a key part of Motorola's strategy going forward.

Famous Scientist ( Carlo Amoretti )

-: Carlo Amoretti :-

Carlo Amoretti

Carlo Amoretti (16 March 1741, Oneglia, now part of Imperia – 23 March 1816) was an ecclesiastic, scholar, writer, and scientist. He entered the Augustinian order in 1757. To further his studies he went to Pavia and Parma where he also taught ecclesiastical law.

Amoretti was an Encyclopedist whose mind encompassed theology, physics, geology, paleography, geography, and art history. He translated scientific works, published or republished many rare books and manuscripts noteworthy of these being the extant codex of Antonio Pigafetta's relation of the first circumnavigation of the world by Ferdinand Magellan's fleet.

Amoretti, having fallen from the graces of the ecclesiastical order at Parma, was forced to relocate to Milan around 1771. Here he became an active member of the scientific community. He was editor of the first scientific magazine published in Milan under the title—from 1775 until 1777--Scelta di opuscoli interessanti tradotti da varie lingue renamed in 1778 Opuscoli scelti until 1803, and further renamed in 1804 as Nuovi opusculi scelti.

He became a conservator, officially called "Dottori del Collegio Ambrosiano", in 1797 of the Biblioteca Ambrosiana (Ambrosian Library) at Milan which is said to be the first public library in Europe having first opened its door to the public in 1609. It was as conservator at the library that the world of exploration history was turned on its head by this paleographer. James Alexander Robertson wrongly identified him as the "prefect" or officer in charge of the Ambrosiana library, an error repeated by a few who have referred to Amoretti although as far as can be ascertained not one has detected prior to this article that Amoretti is the first to assert the Limasawa=Mazaua equation. Filipino religious historiographer Miguel A. Bernad mistakenly identified Amoretti as curator of the library.

In 1797 Amoretti discovered at the Biblioteca the lost Italian manuscript of Pigafetta on Magellan's voyage, considered by most Magellan scholars as the oldest of four extant manuscripts and the most complete, although there is consensus among paleographic scholars this and all surviving codices are mere copies of an original or originals now deemed forever lost. The three other extant manuscripts are all in French of which two are conserved at the Bibliothèque Nationale, MSS 5650 and 24224, the last, viewed as the most "princely" of all, is conserved at the Beinecke Library of the Yale University Library, in the United States.

Famous Scientist ( Gajendra Pal Singh Raghava )

-: Gajendra Pal Singh Raghava :-

Gajendra Pal Singh Raghava

Gajendra Pal Singh Raghava is a bio-informatician and head of the Bioinformatics Centre at the Institute of Microbial Technology (IMTECH).

Raghava was born in village Nagla Karan, Buland Shahr (UP), India in 1963. He did his B.Sc./M.Sc. from N.A.S. College, Meerut, UP in 1982. His major subjects were Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics. He did his M.Sc in Physics with specialization in electronics from N.A.S. College, Meerut, UP in 1984. He did his M.Tech from Indian Institute of Technology (I.I.T.), New Delhi in 1986.

In 1996 he received a doctorate in bioinformatics from Institute of Microbial Technology and Panjab University, Chandigarh. His thesis was on "Computer Aided Prediction of Protein Conformation from Amino Acid Sequences of Biotechnological Relevance".

He joined the Institute of Microbial Technology, Chandigarh in 1986 as a computer scientist and developer. He become head of the Bioinformatics Centre in 1994. He is also coordinator of the distributed information centre supported by DBT under the BTISNET programme, where his primary duty is to build and maintain infrastructure required for protein modeling and engineering.

He worked as a postdoctoral fellow at Oxford university as well as at the European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI) at Cambridge for two years (1996–98). During this period he learned and developed a number of web servers for application in computational biology, particularly in protein modelling.

He developed a method for calculating concentration of antibodies and antigens from ELISA data, and he a prediction method for protein secondary structure prediction. In 1999 he established his research group at IMTECH with emphasis on protein structure prediction and genome annotation. In 2001, his group also focused on "Computer aided vaccine design" with emphasis on subunit vaccine design.

Since 2006, his group is trying to integrate bioinformatics, chemoinformatics, pharmaco-informatics and clinical informatics in order to develop a single plate form for designing drugs in silico.

He is an adherent of public domain software or open source software, and his group both uses and develops free software for academic use. Recently his group have initiated a web portal Computational Resource for Drug Discovery (CRDD) under Open Source Drug Discovery .

New Toshiba Excite X10 Tablet First Look

The Toshiba Excite X10 is billed as the thinnest, lightest tablet on the market and will run Android Ice Cream Sandwich on release. We had a first look hands on at CES 2012 in Las Vegas.

iPhone 5 vs Nokia Lumia 920 vs Samsung Galaxy Slll:

In 2016, phonemakers will ship a billion smartphones, according to research firm NPD DisplaySearch. That will be one smartphone for nearly every sixth person on the planet. The pot of gold at the end of that particular rainbow is pretty gigantic, and it is little wonder that vicious battles are being fought in courtrooms and markets around the world. It is into this ultimate war for tech dominance that the iPhone 5 has been delivered.

True to form, Apple delivered yet another competent iteration of its money-spinning device. But the 'reality distortion field' mastered by the late Steve Jobs is starting to wear off. Look closer (in a manner of speaking, of course), and what we have is a device physically sleeker than its predecessor, but not all that different fundamentally.

While it is true that smartphones have matured as a product category and we are mostly going to see incremental changes as opposed to defining innovations ( touchscreen, apps, retina display, Siri, etc.), there is something more at work here.

If the iPhone 5 has failed to elicit the glowing universal admiration the product line is used to, it is because it has been born into a world with more competent rivals than any of its predecessors. It has in fact been shaped by competition perhaps more than any other Apple device. In other words, after years of leading and shaping the industry, Apple is playing catch up in the handsets category, the arc of its domination appearing to plateau.

The larger screen is a direct response to the success of Samsung's Android phones with large screens. Jobs believed that 3.5 inch (diagonally) was the optimum size for a smartphone. Samsung's flagship Galaxy 3 smartphone sports a 4.8-inch screen. It sold 20 million units in three months of launch. Now iPhone has a 4-inch screen, and a 16:9 aspect ratio.

If there is one decision that was forced on Apple, this is it. Apple has always stuck with compatible aspect ratios and resolutions on its iPhones and iPads for a reason — the vast array of apps in its appstore should work seamlessly across devices and iterations. For the first time, some 700,000 apps made for iOS will appear letterboxed (with black bars at the edges) on Apple's latest device, not an experience the company is known to tolerate.

Apple's decision to do away with Google Maps as standard maps solution in iOS and opt for a proprietary solution is in parts driven by its worsening rivalry with Google. But it is also born out of a desire to take control of the maps experience. Nokia, for instance, has been getting attention for its maps and offline navigation suite, thanks to its $8.1-billion acquisition of Navteq.

Datawind launches 4 new 7-inch UbiSlate tablets at Rs 2,999 onwards

New Delhi: Aakash tablet maker Datawind has launched four new low-cost tablets under the Ubislate range - UbiSlate 7Ri, UbiSlate 7R+, UbiSlate 7Ci, and UbiSlate 7C+ - in India. These models will be available at a price ranging from Rs 2,999 to Rs 4,499.

These new UbiSlate tablets have a 7-inch screen with a resolution of 800x480 pixels, and run Android 4.0.3 operating system. The new tablets are powered by a Cortex A8 1 GHz processor and 512MB RAM. The embedded HD video co-processor is claimed to deliver high quality video content.

The UbiSlate 7Ri and UbiSlate 7R+ have a resistive touchscreen, while the UbiSlate 7Ci and UbiSlate 7C+ feature a capacitive touchscreen.

These tablets have an internal memory of 4GB. The new UbiSlate tablets also have a front VGA camera.

Other features include USB port, G-Sensor, and WiFi.

10 technologies that come straight from the future.

10 technologies that come straight from the future.

Sony Xperia Miro available for Rs 14,499

Sony's latest entry level Android smartphone comes with a 3.5 inch display, 800 MHz processor and Android ICS goodness.

Japanese consumer electronics and mobile phone brand Sony had announced the launch of its new range of Android smartphones including Sony Tipo and Sony Miro in the month of June. While Tipo was launched in India a couple of days ago, the slightly more expensive Sony Xperia Miro has also been made available for purchase in India. The Sony Xperia Miro comes with a price tag of Rs 14,499 and is available on online shopping websites such as Snapdeal.com.

Sony Xperia Miro comes with a 3.5 inch display as compared to the 3.2 inch one found on the Tipo. While the processor remains the same on both devices, an 800 MHz Qualcomm MSM7225A processor with 512 MB RAM, and 3 GB internal memory that is expandable up to 32 GB via microSD card.

The phone will have Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich operating system pre-installed. Along with that there will be a 5 megapixel rear camera that can record VGA resolution videos at 30 frames per second. Along with that the Miro will also feature a VGA front camera for video calling, which was missing in the Tipo.

Although the device will gradually be made available in four different color combinations that include black, black/pink, white/silver and white/gold, the only color that is currently available is a combination of white and silver.

Facebook works to remove fake accounts from its network

Facebook is the largest social networking website with more than 800 million users worldwide. In spite of such huge numbers, the fact is a lot of Facebook accounts are fake. Official figures from Facebook say as many as 8.7 per cent or 83 million accounts on the network are bogus. About 4.8 percent of them are duplicate, 2.4 percent are user-misclassified accounts and 1.5 percent are “undesirable” accounts.

According to Facebook India business manager Pavan Varma, the social networking website is making “huge efforts” to reduce these numbers and prevent misuse of such identities. The official further reveals in case a dubious account is found, Facebook will ask the user to provide his/her identification details. Accounts that use a generic name instead of a proper name, use images of celebrities/cartoon characters as profile image, or do not have “enough friends,” may come under the Facebook scanner, says Varma.

"It could even be that Facebook comes back to you saying, could you help us identify yourself if you don't have enough friends, because we don't want fake identities. We are worried about the experience we deliver...It's not about protecting our brand identity so much," he said.

The Facebook official also acknowledged malware and other methods were used to create fake accounts and Likes. Varma further said advertisers should not only focus on numbers.  "How does an advertiser today treat a Facebook page? It is treated as a place where they just come with a number of people who are there. But that is a wrong way of doing it," he stressed.

It's notable the social networking website has put in place several ways to ensure it only has authentic users. Facebook allows users to verify their phone numbers and also report accounts that seem bogus. To know more about how to report a violation, visit Facebook Help Center.  

Lenovo launches new ultrabook as ThinkPad

International Business Machines ( IBM) and then acquired by Chinese PC manufacturer Lenovo, ThinkPad has come a long way, and remained a favourite among users in the fast-changing technology landscape.

ThinkPad brand is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. Over the last 20 years, a little more than 60 million ThinkPad units have been sold. To commemorate two decades of the ThinkPad brand, Lenovo today announced the launch of Ultrabook ThinkPad X1 Carbon, one of the lightest business laptops from the company.

Amar Babu, managing director, Lenovo India, said, “We are extremely proud to celebrate 20 years of continuous innovation with the ThinkPad. Lenovo India has seen phenomenal growth overall, as well as in the commercial business, where we have sustained leadership consistently for two quarters.”

With the launch of the ThinkPad X1 Carbon, we are confident of continuing this rich legacy and offering performance users a product that will help them accomplish their professional and business goals.”

The ThinkPad X1 comes with carbon fiber, and is powered by the latest third generation Intel Core processor. It weighs less than three pounds and packs a high resolution 14-inch display into a 13-inch laptop design while also offering a multi-gesture glass surface touchpad, HD face-tracking camera, dual array microphones and Dolby-tuned audio for crisp and clear sound.

“With ThinkPad turning 20 this year, it stands among the few fortunate brands to achieve an iconic stature, with loyal fans that are passionate about each generation of ThinkPad products,” said Rahul Agarwal, executive director, commercial business segment, Lenovo India.

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Speech features on Windows Phone 7.5

Go hands-free to talk, text, and search on the next release of Windows Phone. With truly modern communications built into your smartphone, all you need is your voice to respond to text messages, get directions, or find mobile apps, people, and media. Coming Fall 2011, Windows Phone 7.5 brings you hundreds of new features—like Speech—to connect and share with the people who matter most.

 Find out how to use the speech features on your Windows Phone:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsphone/en-US/howto/wp7/basics/use-speech-on-my...