P.I.N.G. Issue 9.0 by P.I.N.G.

from the editors’ desk

Dr Rajesh B. Ingle Branch Counsellor

Editors

Chaitrali Joshi 92chaitralisj@ieee.org

Jai Chhatre 173jaee@ieee.org

P.I.N.G. (PICT IEEE Newsletter Group) has made its impact not just in PICT or IEEE Pune Section, but also in IEEE India Council and IEEE Head office level. Last IEEE India Council meeting was held at Kochi, Kerala during Indicon 2012 Conference and the P.I.N.G. Issue 8.1 was presented. P.I.N.G. was well received and appreciated by IEEE India council members. The meeting was also attended by Dr Peter Skaecker, IEEE 2013 President and other officials from the IEEE Head office. We are seeing a very good response from various cross sections of the technical community, encouraging words from visiting teams at PICT and also at various IEEE events. This newsletter provides platform for all including student members to showcase their talent, views and further strengthen IEEE activities.

Rahul Baijal rahulbaijal@ieee.org

Design Courtesy

Riddhi Kedia riddhikedia@ieee.org

Tanvi Oka tanvioka@ieee.org

The PICT IEEE Student Branch (PISB) was established in the Pune Institute of Computer Technology (PICT) in the year 1988. Looking towards its Silver Jubilee, PISB has spawned into the largest professional technical society in the Institute, fostering an interest in technical acumen and providing a platform for a holistic dialogue between its members and the industry. Along with its legacy of conducting high quality technical events, PISB has also brought about a wave of change in the perception of students in the Institute encouraging them to access the industry’s most essential technologies and tools, thus creating a pool of dedicated industry-oriented professionals towards a sound career. Issue 9.0 is released to commemorate Credenz Tech Dayz’13 (CTD), an annual technical fest of PISB held in the month of February. CTD is a series of technical seminars held by eminent industry experts introducing the latest in the world of technology. Topics in CTD are well acclaimed for their ingenuity and draw a large and enthusiastic audience from institutions far and wide. The PICT IEEE Newsletter Group (P.I.N.G.) is the official newsletter of PISB, published biannually to coincide with the two foremost technical events of PISB, Credenz and Credenz Tech Dayz. The overwhelming reception that P.I.N.G. Issue 8.1 garnered at the Credenz’12 and the All India IEEE Student’s Congress’12, Bengaluru, has been awe-inspiring. P.I.N.G.’s success goes to the people who help shape the magazine. It draws out the best in technical literature, innovative ideas and a strong conviction is what goes into publishing it. A special mention to the junior team who persevered with the editorial board in the making of this issue; their innovation is a testament to this magazine’s success. As is synonymous with a new issue, this issue features a new concept in the form of a special section on the Consumer Electronics Show’13, authored as an editorial feature. It focuses on the socio-economic impact of the products featured at CES’13 and emphasises on the technologies that have been instrumental in making our world as it is now.

I have been associated with PICT IEEE Student Branch for around 25 years and amazing to see the contributions of this student branch. PISB has been the largest student branch in the world for three years consecutively. It has organised various prestigious events like IAISC 2005 (IEEE All India Student Congress 2005) Creating awareness program, and IEEE ACE 2003. It has started organising Impetus and Concepts in 1989 and established Credenz as a prestigious annual event, which is organised each year. Various IEEE stalwarts have visited this student branch, including IEEE presidents. Dr W. Cleon Anderson, Dr Batrand Mayor, Dr Shingo Nishikawa, Dr Bhumip Kashbnis, Dr Koichi Asatani, Dr Rajiv Joshi to name a few. PISB has helped IEEE R10 to launch R10 newsletter. PISB is also helping IEEE Pune section to come out with its newletter. IEEE Pune section has acknowledged this contribution by felicitating Dimple Shah, Jai Chhatre, Pooja Bhurke, Kshitiz Dange and Rahul Baijal during AGM 2012 in presence of Dr John Walz, President, IEEE Computer Society 2012. Vashishtha Adtani from PISB received Member-Get-A-Member Award and $1000 to IEEE Pune Section. WIE Student Chapter is also formed at PISB which is headed by Aditi Tatti. I hope to see the formation of more such units and special interest groups (SIGs). Staying technically current is very important. We at PISB (PICT IEEE Student Branch) organise CTD (Credenz Tech Dayz) by inviting experts and organising interactive sessions in selected areas. On 12th January 2013, in association with IEEE Computer Society Pune Chapter, we organized a distinguished lecture on ‘Technology Circuit Co-Design for Nano-Scale Era’ by Dr Rajiv V. Joshi, Fellow IEEE, who is currently working as a Research Scientist at IBM, T.J. Watson Research Center, NY. He is the Associate Editor for the IEEE Trans on VLSI. The talk was focused on technology and important circuit co-design techniques for nano-scale VLSI circuits. This talk consisted of pros and cons, analysis on technology from power perspective and various techniques to exploit lower power. This talk also reviews the methodology to capture such effects and describes all the power components. On behalf of IEEE Computer Society Pune chapter and the IEEE Pune Section, I wish the PISB as well this newsletter all success. I congratulate the P.I.N.G. Editorial Board for their commendable efforts.

In conclusion, we thank our contributing authors for their insightful articles and welcome them to CTD’13. 1 P.I.N.G. ISSUE 9.0. FEBRUARY 2013

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the editorial feature Speaking what we Spectate Some of the more prominent mobiles supporting this feature are Nexus 4, Nokia Lumia 920 and it is rumored that Samsung Galaxy S4 will also flaunt it. These and many other devices can be charged by being placed on platforms having wireless charging capabilites. Advancements continue in this frontier, with companies eyeballing technologies where one can put a transmitter in a room and charge your devices a few feet away. Making the vision clearer Entertainment has always been an integral part of our lives and technical developments have done nothing but made it better and more attractive. The CES’13 saw bigger, better and brighter TVs and tablets with the introduction of Ultra High Definition (UHD) resolution.

The CES- able future Showcasing the latest and the best from the tech-world.

t is an undeniable fact that today’s world innovations and technologies are driven by the need of consumers. To platform these devices was an idea brought to being in 1967 through CES.

Having comprehended the importance of the CES platform, this year CES saw many eye catching and ground breaking showcases. Here are some of the ones that caught our eye:

Initially a spinoff of the Chicago Music Show, the CES, acronym for Consumer Electronic Show, is a tech-driven trade show for showcasing the next and best that companies or individuals have to offer. It is sufficient to say that it has come far from its days as only an event, with tech-enthusiasts flying from all corners of the globe to witness the revolution of technology.

No long a wired world? Ever since technology has become an irrefutable part of our daily lives, the next big question arose. What should be done about the clustered mesh of chargers and internet wires? In the recently held CES convention, more than 130 cell phones with wireless charging abilities were introduced, all certified by Qi –the global standard of wireless charging. Surprisingly, the effeciency of Witricity Undoubtedly, it has lead to the introduction of (wireless electrictity) is about 70% of what we get some of the most fascinating and widely used while using our cords upto 5-watts and this can only products in history, the prominent ones being be expected to rise. The technology implemented VCR, the Camcorder, CDs and DVDs, OLED TV, is quite straightforward – it requires two coils: a the Xbox and Digital Audio Technology. The CES transmitter and a reciever. An AC current is passed is singlehandedly responsible for many creative through the transmitter coil, generating a magnetic gadgets being Kickstarted, an Internet based field. This induces a voltage in the reciever coil, company for private funding, one of largest being hence charging it. Electromagnetic Induction 101 of Oculus Rift, which was introduced in CES 2013. at its best! 3 P.I.N.G. Issue 9.0. February 2013

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resolution will require more storage. As a result, users might face storage issues for the playback of 4K and 8K videos. Furthermore, the bandwidth required for its transmission through the internet is improbable with the current LTE systems. In the race to bring the consumer the most appealing and charismatic technologies, the launch of the UHD resolution has surely made it possible for the consumer to have the closest thing to a 3D theatre in their very own living room. The Virtual World Gamers have always expected more ‘life’ from their games, for their virtual personas to perform the same actions that they can. Kickstarted in CES, the Oculus Rift, a gaming Virtual Reality simulator, might just be the end to these gamers woes.The Rift provides an immersive environment for the user, enabling them to move around and experience the game in a manner that no other stereoscopic 3D scheme can currently provide. It runs on 1280x800 resolution @ 60 fps, which most would argue is too less for a realistic effect.

It’s developers, Oculus LLC, are working on integrating this Head Mounted Device (HMD) with a full HD resolution, and trying to provide power supply through any standard USB charger, since the present model consumes slightly more. For traversing in this seemingly real world, Oculus also provides a 3-axis Adjacency Reality Tracer which The 4K UHD has a resolution of 3840 x 2160 flawlessly runs supported games at 250 Hz. For a pixels (8.3 megapixels), approximately four times more physical look and reducing latency issues, the that of full HD 1080p. Consequently, the clarity of the videos being watched increases tremendously, giving the humans a view better than the naked eye itself. Sony presented its wide screened 4K resolution TV which made the small details more evident and the pixels less visible while Panasonic gathered a massive crowd by flaunting off its monstrous 20 inch 4K resolution tablet. The 8K UHD resolution was also showcased which has a pixel density of 7680 x 4320 (33.2 megapixels). Naturally, maintaining such a high quality PICTIEEE.ORG/PING

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expertspeak Insights from the Industry software corrects it using its pixel shader. As of now, we can only wait and watch at this marvelous technology’s development, with its first consumer version expected to come out this year. A potential future could even be a combination of Google’s Project Glass and The Rift. Digitalized Health The human health was one of the arenas where technology had failed to make its mark. Bringing advanced and complex machines to hospitals, it still couldn’t be part of man’s daily life. But this year, the CES saw an increase of many health related gadgets, the most arresting one being The Fitbit Flex. The Fitbit Flex is the company’s first health wristband. You can set goals, track your activity through steps taken, calories burnt, distance travelled, sleep trends, workouts, and a lot more. You can sync it with your computer via any low powered Bluetooth 4.0 and monitor your performance and progress. A new feature is that it is now compatible with the iOS and some of the android smartphones as well.

better display of the user’s stats. Still the rubbercoated Fitbit flex proves to be a better body gadget by proving to be more user friendly, light weight and by having an analog display. Technology is surely making its way into the human’s wearable technical life. This tech landmarks the improving technologies in gadgets which will help humans to supervise their health more efficiently and integrate fitness-technology into our lives. The Microprocessing Battle This year’s CES also showcased two of the largest SoC (System on Chips) going to battle with each other –Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 600/800 and nVIDIA’s Tegra 4. Both of these chips act as a platform for usage in smartphones and tablets. nVIDIA has always been the leader in its GPUs, packing 72 cores in Tegra 4. On the contrary, Snapdragon focuses more on their CPUs leading to faster processing speed. In the clock-speed task, Snapdragon gave an output of 2.3 GHz, whereas Tegra stood at 1.9 Ghz. Their main challenge, however, still stands in their ability to play Ultra HD (4K) videos flawlessly. Moreover, in terms of power consumption, Snapdragon has announced that it will consume 50% less battery life, whereas nVIDIA has failed to make any comments on this. Regardless of the result, the ensuing clash should be worth a watch for the supremacy of the title of ‘The Fastest Microprocessor’.

Our Take on CES CES has always been a benchmark for trendsetting tech and innovative gizmos, and this year was certainly no disappointment. This year CES In this wristband, the user can set his/her own displayed striking and remarkable technologies to goals and scrutinize daily progress. It uses lithium- tech-addicts and we can only expect this massively polymer battery which gives the user around 5-7 gratifying platform to get bigger, broader and better! days of battery life. It proves to be better at tracking sleep as it has auto-enabled sleep mode. A striking -The Editorial Team new feature is the silent alarm which vibrates on the user’s wrist at morning, acting as a wake up alarm.

So where does Mozilla fit in? Mozilla is a global non-profit project that dedicates itself to putting Liberating the web of its language individuals in control while also help shape the constraints. future of the web for the public good. Today the echnology empowers people. Technology Mozilla Project has an impressive range of software frees people. Technology inspires people. including one of the world's most popular browsers, Technology broadens horizons. Or maybe Mozilla Firefox. Not only this, the Mozilla Project is not? Today most of the people that stand to gain one of the best examples in the FOSS World of both from technology are non-native English speakers. ‘Internationalization and Localization’. The question stands if the barrier of language hinders the use of technology can technology still Today Mozilla Project offers most of its products in make the same claims? Today as technology tries over 70 languages thanks to the tireless efforts of to proliferate and tries to ease everyday life it is the community of developers who developed imperative that the technology that promises this the software to support internationalization and panacea be brought to them in a language that they the localization community which helped modify are most comfortable and using which they can and adapt the product for different locales. The aim of the project is to serve the greater community extract the most from it. which encompasses the users belonging to an Is it necessary that people who would like to use impressively extensive array of language groups. computers first learn English? Is ignorance of The Project also lists one of its goals as the English enough reason to deny a person access localization of mozilla.org products into any world to technology? This problem especially comes to language. the fore in developing countries where majority of the education is in regional languages. This So, now that you an aware individual would you combined with low literacy rates blocks their access too like to contribute and have an impact on the to information and communications technologies approximately 450 million people who use Mozilla (ICTs), especially for the rural poor and women who everyday? You can contribute too in various ways! do not have equal access to education. A need is For starters you could introduce people to Mozilla hence felt for answering these troubling questions. software in their own language and empower them The answer to this problem lies in localization and to make a difference! Or you can also join the internationalization commonly referred to as l10n localization efforts at Mozilla and be part of the community! Pitch in and get counted! and i18n.

Let us first try to understand what localization means. Essentially localization is the process of

Fitbit’s competition, Nike Fuelbands, provides a 5 P.I.N.G. Issue 9.0. February 2013

Mozilla in your Language

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taking a product and making it linguistically and culturally appropriate to the target locale where it is used. On the other hand internationalization is the process of producing products that can be easily adapted to different locales, basically make localization easier. That is have ‘One code base for the world’. Today Internet has taken the role of an enabler bringing technology to the doorsteps of people. In view of this it becomes imperative that the gateways of Internet are localized so that maximum number of people can leverage the internet.

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-Gautam Akiwate Mozilla India FEBRUARY 2013 P.I.N.G. ISSUE 9.0. 6

CNT Computer Chip

At IBM’s Watson Research Center, NY, the world’s best physicists, chemists, and nano-engineers are trying to create the first high-density, self-assembling CNT computer chip process.

have unique electronic and mechanical properties which can be used in numerous applications, such as field-emission displays, nanocomposite materials, nanosensors, and logic elements. These materials are on the leading-edge of electronic fabrication, and are expected to play a major role in the next generation of miniaturized electronics. 2. Multi-wall Nanotubes (MWNT) Multi-wall nanotubes can appear either in the form of a coaxial assembly of SWNT similar to a coaxial cable, or as a single sheet of graphite rolled into the shape of a scroll. The diameters of MWNT are typically in the range of 5 nm to 50 nm. The interlayer distance in MWNT is close to the distance between graphene layers in graphite. MWNT are easier to produce in high volume quantities than SWNT. However, the structure of MWNT is less well understood because of its greater complexity and variety. Regions of structural imperfection may diminish its desirable material properties.

Carbon nanotubes - Wonder material Miniature tubes that grip the future together!

Carbon Nanotube is a tube-shaped material, made of carbon, having a diameter measuring on the nanometer scale. A nanometer is one-billionth of a meter, or about one ten-thousandth of the thickness of a human hair. The graphite layer appears somewhat like a rolled-up chicken wire with a continuous unbroken hexagonal mesh and carbon molecules at the apexes of the hexagons.

advances in catalysis and continuous growth processes are making CNTs more commercially viable. Carbon Nanotubes can be categorized by their structures:

1. Single-wall Nanotubes (SWNT) Single-wall nanotubes (SWNT) are tubes of graphite that are normally capped at the ends. They have a Techniques have been developed to produce single cylindrical wall. The structure of a SWNT nanotubes in sizeable quantities, including arc can be visualized as a layer of graphite, a single discharge, laser ablation, high-pressure carbon atom thick, called graphene, which is rolled into monoxide disproportionation (HiPco), and a seamless cylinder. Most SWNT typically have a chemical vapor deposition (CVD). Most of these diameter of close to 1 nm. The tube length, however, processes take place in vacuum or with process can be many thousands of times longer. SWNT are gases. CVD growth of CNTs can occur in vacuum more pliable yet harder to make than MWNT. They or at atmospheric pressure. Large quantities of can be twisted, flattened, and bent into small circles nanotubes can be synthesized by these methods; or around sharp bends without breaking. SWNT 7 P.I.N.G. Issue 9.0. February 2013

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3. Double-wall Nanotubes (DWNT) Double-wall nanotubes (DWNT) are an important sub-segment of MWNT. These materials combine similar morphology and other properties of SWNT, while significantly improving their resistance to chemicals. This property is especially important when functionality is required to add new properties to the nanotube. Since DWNT are a synthetic blend of both SWNT and MWNT, they exhibit the electrical and thermal stability of the latter and the flexibility of the former. Because they are developed for highly specific applications, SWNT that have been functionalized are more susceptible to breakage. Creating any structural imperfections can modify their mechanical and electrical properties. However, with DWNT, only the outer wall is modified, thereby preserving the intrinsic properties. Also, research has shown that DWNT have better thermal and chemical stability than SWNT. DWNT can be applied to gas sensors and dielectrics, and to technically-demanding applications like fieldemission displays, nanocomposite materials, and nanosensors.

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Structural and mechanical applications Carbon nanotubes are the strongest and stiffest materials yet discovered in terms of tensile strength and elastic modulus respectively. This strength results from the covalent bonds formed between the individual carbon atoms. In 2000, a multiwalled carbon nanotube was tested to have a tensile strength of 63 gigapascals (GPa). (For illustration, this translates into the ability to endure tension of a weight equivalent to 6422 kg (14,158 lbs) on a cable with cross-section of 1 sq.mm). Because of the high mechanical strength of carbon nanotubes, research is being made into weaving them into clothes to create stab-proof and bulletproof clothing. The nanotubes would effectively stop the bullet from penetrating the body, although the bullet’s kinetic energy would likely cause broken bones and internal bleeding. Multi-walled nanotubes exhibit a striking telescoping property whereby an inner nanotube core may slide, almost without friction, within its outer nanotube shell, thus creating an atomically perfect linear or rotational bearing. This is one of the first true examples of molecular nanotechnology, the precise positioning of atoms to create useful machines. Already, this property has been utilized to create the world’s smallest rotational motor. Future applications such as a gigahertz mechanical oscillator are also envisaged.

-Dr Tirthajyoti Sarkar Fairchild Semiconductor Pune FEBRUARY 2013 P.I.N.G. ISSUE 9.0. 8

P.I.N.G. Featured Article

Neo4j -The Graph Database An insight on the swift functioning open source database that replaces the conventionally used tables by graphs.

eo4j is a high-performance NOSQL graph database. It is designed to store and traverse a network of related information. It provides elasticity to work with an object-oriented, flexible network structure rather than with strict and static tables without compromising the benefits of a fully transactional, enterprise-strength capable database. Neo4j works best when dataset contains entities which can most naturally be represented as a graph like a social network, organisational hierarchy etc.

LIKES Spiderman’. Neo4j stores data in multiple files and relies on the underlying file system to handle this efficiently. Neo4j can be embedded in an application, run as a standalone server or deployed on several machines to achieve high functionality. Neo4j can be embedded directly in a server application by including the appropriate Java libraries.

Graph Databases in Social Networking Traditional databases store data in tables with a Neo4j is more suitable for social networking sites fixed and static schema. In contrast, Neo4j stores or social networking platforms where relationships data using nodes, relationships (imagine a line between people objects can most naturally be connecting the nodes) and properties. These represented as graphs. Social networking sites like three are the fundamental building blocks of a Facebook use GraphDB. Neo4j graph. Nodes (entities, objects or vertices), relationships (links or connections or edges in Featuresa graph) are characterised by properties. We can 1. Transaction Management, ACID transaction associate a list of properties with each node and capabilities of an RDBMS or conventional define a relation between them. Their properties databases. are limited to Java primitives (int, byte, float, etc.), 2. Scalability up to a billion nodes and relationships strings, or an array of primitives and strings. on a single machine. Relationships are typed, allowing us to express 3. High availability for multiple platforms. things like ‘Person A KNOWS Person B’, ‘Person 4. High speed querying using graph traversal. A IS_FRIENDS_WITH Person C’ or ‘Person A 5. Bindings for a number of languages including 9 P.I.N.G. Issue 9.0. February 2013

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Java, Python, Jython, Ruby, and Clojure. Their recommendation is to access it using a REST interface. 6. Disk-based, native storage manager completely optimized for storing graph structures for maximum performance and scalability. SSD ready. 7. Current implementation is built to handle a large graph that doesn’t fit in memory with durability. It’s not a cache; it’s a fully persistent transactional store. 8. Neo4j traverses depths of 1000 levels and beyond in milliseconds. That is many orders of magnitude faster than relational systems.

of a previous traversal, or can be queried based on its properties. It may also be retrieved by using the integer ID of the node generated by Neo4j. In this latter case, an application needs some way to map a real world value, such as a username to a node ID. Neo4j currently supports tight integration with Lucene for this purpose, with support for ACID transactions on operations that touch both Neo4j and Lucene.

Scalability Neo4j is designed to run on one machine. Although a single machine can scale up to a billion nodes and relationships, it contains no built-in support to scale Transaction to multiple machines. That is not to say we can’t Neo4j supports configurable ACID transactions, scale it to multiple machines, it just means that our similar to a traditional RDBMS. This allows a client application must create its own sharding layer, and to update a section of the graph in an isolated be smart enough to cleanly divide the data, which environment and hiding changes from other is a challenge, as graph databases generally store processes until the transaction is completed. If randomly connected webs of data. If the data is not multiple transactions try to modify the same data, cleanly shardable and instead is duplicated across the Neo4j kernel will try to synchronize them. If multiple machines, then the sharding layer must interdependencies between the transactions would be smart enough to coordinate Neo4j transactions, cause a deadlock, these will be detected and a as Neo4j transactions are currently bound to a corresponding exception will be thrown. single machine. All modifications to Neo4j data must be wrapped in transactions. Any completed transactions to the Neo4j is available in a GPLv3 Community Edition graph are persistent. which is a free Software license. Advanced and Enterprise Editions available under AGPLv3 Querying license. The graph database storage excels while storing richly-connected data. Querying is performed -Saurabh Jain Associate Software Engineer through traversals, which can perform millions of Symantec Corp. “joins” per second. Neo4J requires us to provide a starting node before we can perform any queries or traversals. The starting node can be the result PICTIEEE.ORG/PING

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our mentor speaks Imparting words of wisdom For instance, a customer maybe happy about the food quality and price at a restaurant, but at the same time be unsatisfied with its service and location. Hence detecting topics is the first step in retrieving more detailed information and thereafter performing sentiment analysis on the extracted topics. This is helpful for users who are not only interested in the overall sentiment of a review and its topical information, but also the opinions towards the topics discovered.

Sentiment Analysis Get to know how the social networking sites understand ‘What’s on your mind?’

hen you log into some social networking websites, sometimes a message might popup saying ‘You are very happy today!’ This is a fascinating new tool called Sentiment Analysis– a rapidly growing area that deals with automatically extracting opinions, emotions or attitudes from unstructured data, and hence understanding sentiments. It is essentially born from Information Retrieval. It is also rightly called Opinion Mining or Subjective Analysis. These opinions are a much needed fodder for the people centric market, forming authentic feedback for businesses about their products and services. It provides them with many opportunities and an insight to dealing with market competition.

and discussion forums. It is the need of the day to study the natural reaction of people to new products, social events etc. which they comment on, on a regular basis rather than taking few sample feedbacks from selected customers, as it is done traditionally. Recent surveys have revealed that opinion-rich resources like online reviews have a greater economic impact on both- consumers and companies, compared to the traditional media. Many applications could benefit greatly from this, including entertainment and product review mining, product reputation analysis, spam filtering and also in tracking sentiments towards various events. Information extraction systems have been built to extract facts associated with terrorist incidents, disease outbreaks, plane crashes,vehicle Web 2.0 presents a wealth of information. People are launches, management succession, joint ventures, active on social networking sites, blog spots, chats, corporate acquisitions, and job and seminar and review websites. Knowingly or unknowingly, announcements. people express their opinion through comments 11 P.I.N.G. Issue 9.0. February 2013

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Initially, the presence of words expressing positive or negative sentiments is examined. These are used for making data repositories like SentiWordNet and Sentiful, where dictionaries are marked with scores- pos,neg, obj (for positive, negative and objective respectively). But the language poses different challenges in such systems because instead of writing ‘The movie was good’, could write ‘The movie wasn’t as expected’. In such cases, it is necessary to study the sentence and accordingly extract its meaning. Apart from this, there might be other sorts of challenges like spelling mistakes, slang words like ‘sup’ or ‘hiya’, dramatic words like ‘Yummmyy’ or ‘Cuutttee’ etc. Comments can sometimes be domain dependent, like the adjective ‘complicated’ may have negative orientation as in ‘complicated role’ in one sentence, but conveys positive sentiment as ‘complicated plot’ in another. People also tend to be sarcastic at times, like ‘You sing so well, I suggest you to sing in the bathroom’.

from aspecial dictionary as seeds, for sentimentcarrying base components and applied patterns of compound formations. Scholars Hatzivassiloglou and McKeown assumed that using the given set of adjectives with predetermined orientation labels (i.e. positive or negative) and the pairs of adjectives joined using the conjunctions- ‘and’, ‘or’, ‘but’, it is possible to predict the orientation of two words in a sentence as in ‘A beautiful and fresh flower’ is positive while ‘A good story but poor screenplay’ has negative orientation. Intensity of the sentiment is also considered by researchers. So when I say ‘The movie was nice’ and you say ‘The movie was awesome’, your sentiments carry a higher positive value. A number of approaches exist to study underlying affective state or grammatical alternatives. These include KeyWord Spotting, Rule-Based Modeling, Semantic Trees, Latent Semantic Analysis, Transformation based Learning, World-knowledge-Modeling, KeyPhrase-Spotting, and Bayesian Networks.

As the data is large, it becomes necessary to classify it for efficiency. Few models used for classification are Naïve Bayes, Maximum Entropy, SVM and Committee-based classifiers. ChienLiang Liuet al. explored and designed a mobile system for movie rating and review summarization in which semantic orientation of comments, the limitation of small display capability of cellular devices, and system response time are considered. Natural-Language Processing (NLP) and Popular sentiment analysis search engines are Information Retrieval (IR) uses the Bag-of- Sentiment140, Tweetfeel, Opinioncrawl, Trackur, words model of simplification. In this, text data Twendz and Senitiment metrics. is treated as a collection of words, disregarding grammar and even word order. Thereafter a form It is evident that such a study of the user’s response of Vector Space Modeling (VSM) came into being, to minute aspects can add up to significant data, where given unstructured data (which may be a essential to judge the review and response of the sentence, paragraph or a document) is converted user. A potential technique to predict futuristic to a structured form that contains vector of words trends for events, products and application, it and their relationship with the documents. Later would surely help reduce the rift between users and the Bag of n-grams, and Bag of character n-grams manufacturers. feature selection methods were devised and it -Jayashree Jagdale was observed that they lead to the best results. Assistant Professor, IT Department Pune Institute of Computer Technology Alena Neviarouskaya, a reputed Postdoctoral Researcher, et al. defined WordNet using words PICTIEEE.ORG/PING

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technocrats speak Intelligentsia on the rise

The Gibson Robot Guitar

The IBM Watson

A rhythmic confluence of technology and music.

f you ask any professional Rock/Blues guitarist about his favourite guitarists you would certainly come across names such as Slash (Guns n Roses), Eric Clapton (Cream), Buckethead (also Guns n Roses), Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin), Mark– Knopfler (Dire Straits) or amongst the more recent ones like Chad (Nickelback). What connects these fantastic guitarists apart from their mercurial level of playing is the guitar with which they play-The Gibson Guitar. The Gibson guitars have been the choice of weapon for all these performers par excellence since decades. To make guitar playing an even more surreal experience, Gibson has blended technology into their fine artistry to manufacture the masterpiece called as The Gibson Robot Guitar. For any musical instrument, the most irksome task for the musician is that of tuning the instrument according to the scales/symphonies/ragas required. The Gibson Robot Guitar eliminates all these tedious tasks and makes guitar playing quite hassle-free by making use of an on-board computer which automatically tunes itself according to the requirements of the user. Though, certainly not the first of its kind, The Gibson Robot Guitar is still widely regarded as “the most modern, unique, and un-invasive self-tuning model available, because it does not employ cams or cantilevers throughout the body of the guitar”. The tuning system comprises of piezo saddles along with tuning bridges which transmit each pitch of a string to a microprocessor. The microprocessor analyses the signal and then sends them to the respective tuners (connected to individual servo motors), who upon receiving the signal, tighten or loosen the required strain on the strings, thus 13 P.I.N.G. Issue 9.0. February 2013

completing the entire process of tuning within a time period of few seconds. It also contains a Master Control Knob which sends signals and power to the neck of the guitar PCB, thus, connecting the tuner to the neck of the instrument. Essentially you are changing guitars with just a turn of a knob! The most amazing thing is to see the strings change colour from red to yellow to green as they tune.

content of Wikipedia. The Watson supercomputer processes at a rate of 80 teraflops (trillion floating-point operations per An Artificial Intelligence machine that is second). To replicate a high-functioning human’s smart enough to put you in Jeopardy! ability to answer questions, Watson accesses 90 servers and processes the 200 million pages of information against six million logic rules. It uses uick Jeopardy! thousands of proven language analysis algorithms Clue : It doesn’t have a brain like a human, simultaneously to find the correct answer. yet it thinks. You ask, it answers. The prominent features of Watson are: Answer : The IBM Watson Computer. 1. Apache UIMA (Unstructured Information Management Architecture) frameworks, We live in an age of progressively smarter machines. infrastructure and other elements required for the In recent years, engineers have ventured into areas analysis of unstructured data. from voice recognition to robotics, from internet to 2. SUSE Enterprise Linux Server 11, the fastest search engines, the idea once seemed impossible available Power7 processor operating system. to humans. It was a simple idea that kicked off 3. 2,880 processor cores. Each Power 750 server the very foundation of something which seems so uses a 3.5 GHz POWER7 eight core processor, with sophisticated once it is built. A similar idea struck four threads per core. IBM Research manager, Charles Lickel, when 4. 15 terabytes of RAM. he saw Ken Jennings play Jeopardy!, a popular 5. 500 gigabytes of preprocessed information. trivia TV show. Intrigued by the quiz show as a 6. IBM’s Deep QA software, which is designed for possible challenge for IBM, he formed a team of information retrieval which incorporates natural 15 people to work on designing a computer that language processing and machine learning.

To showcase its abilities, in 2011, Watson challenged two highest-ranked players Brad Rutter and Ken Jennings on Jeopardy! and beat them in a practice round, receiving $1 million.

Also after the tuning, you can see a jaw dropping number of settings on the MCK panel which lets you record and adjust your tuning and also save your own tunes by connecting it to the PC!! Although many puritans may quibble about the automatic tuning, the high price and taking the analogue “charm” away from the instrument, the Robot Guitar delivers the goods whenever it plays. The Robot Guitar is, inarguably, here to stay. It’s only a matter of time till the überband The Beatles’ words ‘As My Guitar Gently Weeps’ becomes a handheld reality… -Hrusheekesh Warpe Pune Institute of Computer Technology Pune

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Although the human is still superior at the complex task of comprehension, its machine learning capability allows Watson to examine its mistakes and rectify them to perform better in the future. could play Jeopardy!, which was named after IBM’s The IBM Watson computer is one of the biggest first president, Thomas J. Watson, The Watson achievements in the field of AI, the goal of computer. constructing a computer capable of interacting in natural human terms, answering questions that The IBM Watson computer is a supercomputer humans ask and justifying its answers is now developed in IBM that was designed to answer turning into a quick reality! questions. It combines Artificial Intelligence (AI) and sophisticated analytical software for optimal performance as a “question answering” machine. -Sudipto Chatterjee Pune Institute of Computer Technology Watson had access to 200 million pages of Pune structured and unstructured content consuming four terabytes of disk storage, including the entire PICTIEEE.ORG/PING

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Green Electronics Researchers at the University of Maryland, College Park have printed transparent transistors on transparent paper. The finished device is flexible, up to 84% transparent and in theory this could be the first step towards green, paper-based electronics.

Goal line Technology The picture perfect judgement of football!

ootball is the world’s most popular sport. It seems hard to believe that something which draws such a massive global audience is merely about twenty two individuals passing a ball around on grass. This immense global following has forced the authorities to scrutinize every aspect of the game. One such highly controversial area under scrutiny is that of the invasion of football by modern technology.

goal in the case of such goal-mouth scrambles.

Such incidents have cropped up regularly in football, one of the most notable instances being that which occurred in the 2010 FIFA World Cup, which was held in South Africa. In a vital second round match, Germany met England, and barged ahead with two goals. England pulled one back and aiming to draw the score, midfielder Frank Lampard hit an outrageous shot, which cannoned Goal line technology is the result of the growing off the crossbar, bounced on the goal line, and need to verify whether the ball has crossed the goal came out. The goal was disallowed. However,

GoalRef operates on the principle of electromagnetic induction. It involves the simple procedure of implanting a microchip within a standard football, coupled with magnetic coils on the inside. In order to detect the presence of the ball, an electromagnetic field is set up within the goal, generally of low intensity. If all the panels of the ball cross the goal line, then a goal alert is immediately transmitted to the officials, using a scrambled radio signal, which causes a message, indicating the legality of the goal, to be displayed on their watches. There is virtually no time lag in this process, thus ensuring that the pace and flow of the game is not affected.

ball crossing the line.

Pros The entire notification process takes less than a tenth of a second. Another major advantage is that GoalRef’s sensors can be implanted in just about any ball, thus making the whole system cheap and simple to manufacture compared to the pricey Hawk-Eye system.

Cons A minimum of twenty five per cent of the ball must be visible for Hawk-Eye to operate correctly. Hence if the ball went over the line in a melee of bodies after a goalmouth scramble, the field of view of most of the cameras would be severely impaired, and the system would not be able to make a conclusive call. Also, the need to install expensive high-speed cameras and black netting makes this technology unrealistic at the grassroots level.

Cons The cons of this system are associated more with the lack of visual delights for the viewer, as the system is mainly accessible only to the referee.

line or not, in the shortest period of time as possible. Footballing laws clearly stipulate that a goal can only be declared legal if the ball has completely crossed the line. However, given the fast pace of football, coupled with the intense pressure of the game, linesmen cannot correctly verify whether or not the ball has completely crossed the line from a distance. Also, often their view is entirely hindered by the melee of players who inevitably surround the 15 P.I.N.G. Issue 9.0. February 2013

television replays clearly showed that the ball had crossed the line, and thus, exposed the dire need for goal line technology. England went on to lose the match and were thus knocked out of the tournament. Numerous technology systems were tested by FIFA, before eventually the two best ones were determined. These two systems are GoalRef and Hawk-Eye. PICTIEEE.ORG/PING

Hawk-Eye was first developed in 1999 and is most popularly used in cricket and tennis, often accompanied with great controversy. It applies trigonometry, such that the super-high-speed cameras shooting at 500 frames per second (20 times faster than a normal camera) track the path of the ball. The major benefit, commercially, accrued from Hawk-Eye lies in the numerous resultant side-applications that can be derived from the technology’s highly accurate ball tracking ability. Hawk-Eye not only tracks the path of a moving object, but is also capable of predicting the motion of an object, based on a tracking algorithm. Such tracking is possible even if the field of view of certain cameras is blocked, thus ensuring greater accuracy. Hawk-Eye’s application to football involves placing six cameras for each goal mouth around the stadium, which will track the movement of the ball in great detail. The system is near real-time and referees will be notified on their encrypted watch in less than one second from the PICTIEEE.ORG/PING

Pros The whole process takes less than a second, and is accurate to within 3.6 mm. The cameras are able to provide a visual display of the ball’s path. The balltracking isn’t limited to use on the goal-line either, this system is a great fit for TV by showing the path of free-kicks, volleys etc. These exciting and potentially lucrative add-ons make this the system favoured by the English Premier League, the world’s most competitive, popular and commercially viable league.

In spite of the oft-levelled criticism that it interrupts the flow of the game and reduces the human element and charm that is pivotal to football, in July 2012, FIFA announced that it would introduce Goal-Line technology at the 2012 FIFA Club World Cup in Japan. Hawk-Eye technology was employed at the Toyota Stadium, while GoalRef was used at the International Stadium Yokohama. The football spectrum will undoubtedly evolve into a manner that can neither be predicted nor calculated. Regardless, as does any machine, we can only hope it will make this heart-stopping game an unprejudiced and unbiased sport. After that, may the best team win.

-Somdeep Dey Pune Institute of Computer Technology Pune

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BlackBerry 10 OS

BlackBerry has taken the wraps off the BlackBerry 10 operating system, and the Z10 and Q10 smartphones. Also, RIM is no more. The company is now called BlackBerry.

Ubuntu Smartphone A distinctive open source OS for smartphones which makes the fine line between a phone and a PC disappear!

anonical Ltd.(the makers of Ubuntu Linux distribution) made an official debut in the arena of smartphones with a demonstration of the interface in London in January 2013. The dream of all linux enthusiasts to have a full fledged Linux OS for their phones, could finally become a reality. Canonical had attempted to enter the smartphone race by introducing Ubuntu for Android last year. Infact, the two concepts look so similar, many might think they are the same. The fundamental difference lies in the fact that Ubuntu for Android was just a layer made to run alongside the actual Android OS of the phone. Ubuntu for smartphones, on the other hand is, a completely independent OS for your phone.

developers. Whether GTK toolkit can be used for development, is not sure yet. Python GTK (pyGTK) is being extensively used in application development in Ubuntu, has not been confirmed for development. No word from Canonical on GTK using C/C++ for Ubuntu phones. Docking: This feature will make or break it for Ubuntu. Ubuntu phones can transform into PCs by docking them with just a mouse, keyboard and monitor. This will require extremely high end RAM and lots of processing power. The idea of integrating phones and PC into one came up with Ubuntu for Android. It won’t thrill the hardcore gamer, but for the average user, its a fantastic idea. The duality between PCs and phones would finally be over.

Android Upgradable: For those of you, who recently bought an Android Excellent UI: Another top class Ubuntu UI, packed with the phone, but want to enjoy Ubuntu, all Android trademark unity user interface. It has the same old devices can upgrade to Ubuntu. launcher, which has some of the more important/ basic applications (modifiable according to The idea of having an Ubuntu smart phone is only user needs). Canonical plan on making the OS a proposition for now. In fact, a disappointing twist compatible with phone as well as PC, with minimal for all linux enthusiasts, you won’t be buying this changes for touch screen of course. It will also have phone till late 2013 or even 2014. But the good all 4 edge swipe, thumb gestures for fast switching news is that it will be available for Samsung Galaxy between applications while multitasking (Quite Nexus users by February. It will be a daunting task for Canonical to compete against Google’s like the one in Windows 8 tabs). Android or Apple’s iOS, and with Mozilla’s Firefox OS coming up very soon, the smartphone market Ubuntu One: Ubuntu One is Canonical’s own Cloud service (free could become really competitive in 2013. of cost upto 5GB). It will be available on Ubuntu phones. Application Development: Ubuntu Smartphones will support HTML5, and applications can also be designed using QML (QT Meta Language), a popular language amongst 17 P.I.N.G. Issue 9.0. February 2013

-Arijit Pande Pune Institute of Computer Technology Pune

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SABRE - A reusable The key to the engines's performance is a small, spacecraft light and powerful heat exchanger, designed to cool A Synergistic Air-Breathing Rocket Engine that makes space expedition easier on the pockets!

OCKETS! as soon as we hear this word, all we think about is space, NASA or a space launch. They are presently our only means of getting into space and so their high fuel inefficiency has to be borne. Unlike jet engines which combine atmospheric oxygen with the fuel to obtain thrust, rockets must work in vaccuum and hence need to carry their own oxygen with them. This increases their weight tremendously and hence rockets need extremely high amounts of thrust to fuel-off the rocket. In order to produce such a large thrust, most of the rocket's fuel is expelled right at the start of the launch. To solve this problem, Reaction Engines, a small British firm has brought out a hightech hybrid jet-rocket engine called the SABRE.

Basically, it would operate as a light-weight engine at low altitudes and speeds. At higher altitudes and speeds it would use its internal oxygen and act as a rocket. By bringing out such a concept of a rocket with lower oxygen needs, the aerospace firms now plans to build the first reusable rocket which cannot take flight into space and then glide back to land on any runway as the large disposable one-time use fuel tank would be avoided. Hence it could undertake a flight every couple of days, slashing the cost of space flights. PICTIEEE.ORG/PING

the incoming air, which would be heated to about 1000 degrees celcius by friction acting on it. This heat exchanger will bring down the temperature of the heated air to -150 degrees celcius. This is assisted by the bypass ramjet system. It is present in the form of a ring around the air prec o o l e r. T h e s y s t e m is designed to prevent the air that brushes past the engine to not enter it and hence prevent the drag. This helps avoid liquefaction as less liquid hydrogen is boiled off and improve the efficiency of the engine tremendously. Hence, this would also reduce the otherwise required heavy-duty construction of the rocket to prevent the engine from melting, helping to save its precious weight. SABRE has survived close scrutiny by the European Space Agency, performing well in the extensive ground tests. It could also be used for earthbound applications like an air-breathing military aircraft owing to the design of its compact and ultra-light heat exchangers. While the other applications where it could make an impact are still being discovered, Sabre definitely has a long way to go!

-Sidhesh Badrinarayan Pune Institute of Computer Technology Pune

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Google

The prime reason the Google home page is so bare is due to the fact that the founders didn’t know HTML and just wanted a quick interface. In fact it was noted that the submit button was a long time coming and hitting the RETURN key was the only way to burst Google into life.

recently, messages were being sent in clear WhatsApp Security Until text. Anyone using the same WiFi network could sniff the packets and read messages. This gave attackers ability to launch a session hijacking attack. However, currently messages are being sent encrypted for iOS and Android. The encryption hatsApp is something you probably use algorithm it uses has been reverse engineered, right now ,or have atleast heard of. It especially for iOS devices. Overall verdict is that is a cross platform IM application for the current encryption mechanisms used does not smartphones that handles a few billion messages follow normal standards. every day. That is approximately more than 50,000 messages sent every second. However, As it uses phone’s IMEI number or MAC address it comes packed with its own set of drawbacks, as its password, someone in physical contact with being criticized for its security issues, mainly the phone can easily access it. Someone sharing the cryptographic standards and the way it handles same WiFi network can easily find out the MAC address of iOS device with sniffing. All an attacker users’ personal data. has to know is the victim’s mobile number and Like most of the popular IM clients, such as the phone’s MAC or IMEI to enter into a script. YAHOO! and Gtalk , WhatsApp implements a Then they can send and receive messages from the modified version of XMPP i.e. eXtensible Messaging compromised account. and Presence Protocol. On installing this app, it creates the user’s account on WhatsApp’s server. Its API, reverse engineered by an open source project called ‘WhatsAPI’, is coded Its username, or technically known in both PHP and Python and can be as ‘Jabber ID’ is concatenation of integrated with web apps. It can be the user’s country code and their used to send WhatsApp messages mobile number. to any number supporting it. This app uploads your contacts to An interesting fact about its their server to see which of them password’s generation is its usage are registered on WhatsApp. of the phone’s IMEI number or This is carried out in an insecure MAC address. For android devices, environment. The mobile numbers the password is md5 hash of the of your contacts are sent as an array through the phone IMEI no. reversed. Password: md5(strrev($imei)) For iOS, the HTTP request parameter. password is md5 hash of the device’s Wireless Interface card’s MAC address, written twice. Mac The verdict is, WhatsApp has to work on its security address is concatenated with itself and its md5 is but with the recent updates, they have made reasonable improvements in this aspect. We hope found out. that they come up with a better alternative to current Password: md5(mac+mac) passwords and cryptography implementation to As WhatsApp claims, no messages are stored increase reputability with the security community. on their servers once they are delivered to the recipient. For sending of multimedia like audio, -Vipul Chaskar video or images, the data is first uploaded to their Pune Institute of Computer Technology HTTP server. A link to the uploaded file is sent to Pune the recipient’s phone along with thumbnail file, if required.

A Hacker’s take on real time messaging.

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Top 5 linux distros Highlights of the leading distribution.

inux is the fastest growing operating system on planet and offers speed, performance, stability and reliability. Here’s a list of Top Five Linux Distros to try out in 2013. 1. Linux Mint Linux Mint 14 combines the Linux 3.5 kernel, Ubuntu 12.10 base and the latest versions of the MATE 1.4 and Cinnamon 1.6 desktop environments. It is the best Linux desktop for experienced users to date. An Ubuntu-based distribution, its goal is to provide a complete out-of-the-box experience by including browser plugins, media codecs, support for DVD playback and other components. Being compatible with Ubuntu software repositories, it also adds a custom desktop and menus, several unique configuration tools and a web-based package installation interface. 2. Ubuntu Ubuntu is a widely popular open-source Linux distribution with eight years of development, and more than 20 million users. Ubuntu 12.10, dubbed as ‘Quantal Quetzal’, is one of the best free alternatives to windows. Ubuntu has an installable live CD, creative artwork, desktop themes and migration assistant for Windows user. It supports the latest technologies such as 3D desktop effects, easy installation of device drivers for ATI and nVIDIA graphics cards and wireless networking and the on demand support for non-free media codecs. 3. Fedora Fedora is the free version of Red Hat, who’s RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux), has been a commercial product since 2003. Being close, it is particularly strong on enterprise features and often offers PICTIEEE.ORG/PING

them before RHEL does. Its security features are also commendable. While some have viewed it as a cutting-edge distro for the Linux ‘hobbyist’, continuing improvements and widespread popularity have merged to make it a good choice for newer Linux users as well. Its version 18 is known as ‘Spherical Cow’. 4. openSUSE The openSUSE project is a community program sponsored by Novell. This project has three main goals: to make it easily obtainable, to increase usability by leveraging open source collaboration and desktop environment for all its users and open the development and packaging processes to make it the optimal platform for Linux developers and software vendors. openSUSE 12.2 is packed with new features and updates including SpiderOak which syncs your files across the Internet for free, Rosegarden for free editing of your audio files and improved indexing with Tracker. 5. Arch Linux Arch Linux is an independently developed distribution targeted at competent Linux users. It uses ‘pacman’, its homegrown package manager, to provide updates with full dependency tracking. Operating on a rolling release system, it can be installed from a CD image or via a FTP server. In addition, the Arch Build System (ABS) provides a way to easily build new packages, modify the configuration of stock packages, and share these packages with other users. Undoubtedly, these Linux distros surpass expectations, and backed with their immense online support, they can only be expected to improve and challenge the dominancy that Windows holds. -Viraj Anchan www.itechwik.com

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Moth-controlled Robot

Researchers at the University of Tokyo have strapped a moth into a robotic exoskeleton, with the moth successfully controlling the robot to reach a specific location inside a wind tunnel.

Project Shield A 72-core GeForce GPU powered beast that delivers gaming performance at its best!

f you call yourself a gamer, then you have, at some point in your life, wished to be able to play all those visually detailed video games with that immersive style of gameplay straight off your PC on your mobile handheld devices. 2D Scrollers (that’s what games like Aladdin and Super Mario) or 16-bit RPGs (games like Pokemon and Legend of Zelda) on your J2ME powered handset or your Nintendo Game Boy Advance just weren’t good enough for you. Next came the Sony PlayStation Portable, which swept both gamers and amateurs off their feet. The games that it could play on its 333 MHz CPU were as close as one could get to the average PC or PS2 titles back in the day.

marvel. But no, still not good enough. Apple’s iPhone got considerably close with the visual treatment of games but failed miserably when it came to gameplay experience because of the restrictive touchscreen and accelerometer-based controls. Buttons are something that gamers are not willing to trade off. When all seemed lost, Sony rose up from the dead, with the successor to its smash hit PSP, codenamed the ‘Next Generation Portable’, at the Electronic Entertainment Expo(E3) 2011. Featuring a quad core ARM architecture CPU and a quad core GPU with dual analog sticks, a 5” touchscreen display, 6-axis motion-sensor, a rear touch panel and yes, buttons! Being able to play pseudo-PS3 level games, it seemed like every handheld gamers fantasy. It was later christened ‘PlayStation Vita’ and was released in India in February, 2012. PS-Vita received positive response from users and critics alike. It won T3’s “Gaming Gadget of the Year” in 2012, beating Nintendo 3DS XL, OnLive and others. Called as the “Most powerful Gaming Handheld ever built”, life seemed perfect.

But soon, with the coming of 7th generation consoles like the PS3, Wii and Xbox360 along with the ever improving PC, the PSP greatly fell behind. The gamers simply wanted more from their consoles. Enter nVIDIA’s TEGRA System on Chip (SoC) for smartphones and tablets. It integrated an ARM architecture CPU, a GPU and other components into one package. A special marketplace, called the TegraZone, was created especially for the games that could be run on nVIDIA’s new technological 21 P.I.N.G. Issue 9.0. February 2013

This joy was short-lived when, at the Consumer Electronics Show 2013, nVIDIA, a company recognized for its GPUs, announced their own handheld gaming console. Nicknamed ‘Project Shield’, it will come stocked with Android Jellybean which will allow gamers to run all their Android games and applications. It comes equipped with a flip-up 5” retinal 720p touchscreen. This beast shall be powered by nVIDIA’s newest and most powerful mobile processor, TEGRA 4, which incorporates a quad core ARM Cortex A-15 CPU and a 72-core GeForce GPU. With dual analog sticks, it has a button layout similar to the DualShock controllers used in PlayStations, i.e. 4 primary buttons, 4 triggers, an octal direction pad and 5 central buttons. With this PICTIEEE.ORG/PING

console, you can play any game already available on TegraZone and even the upcoming ones. Now, for the most appealing feature to gamers that Project Shield brings to the table: PC gaming on a handheld! Thanks to the revolutionary 802.11n 2x2 MIMO game-speed WiFi technology, which allows for a very high bandwidth, you can have seamless streaming of video from your PC-Games to your console device. Getting the picture here? Your console acts as a normal game controller for your PC-Game and additionally gives you minimum latency video output from your PC on its own screen via WiFi. The result: PC-Gaming on your handheld anywhere in your home! Remarkable, isn’t it? The processing is handled on your PC which must be running on an nVIDIA GeForce 600 series GPU. This allows for a healthy battery life for your handheld which only handles the lightweight task of decoding the incoming video. nVIDIA has yet to announce the price for this vicious devil which has already been lauded and showered with many awards at the CES. It is set PICTIEEE.ORG/PING

to release in Q3 2013, i.e. the 3rd quarter of this year, by July. Many are eager to see how nVIDIA’s entry shall fare against its rivals, while others are eager to own one and savour the delight of holding it in their own hands. Here, one thing we can say for sure is that this will mark nVIDIA’s entry into game console manufacturing and probably place it with the likes of console giants like Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo. We could possibly expect to see another nVIDIA spawn soon, which would be a potential threat to the still unannounced PS4 and Xbox 720. As for increased portability, for playing PC games on just about anything anywhere, nVIDIA is working on its GRID technology for Cloud Gaming but folks, that is a tale for another time. So gamers, is this on your to-buy list yet? -Debojeet Chatterjee Pune Institute of Computer Technology Pune

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3D Print of Organs

Will replacement organs 20 years hence be printed, grown, or built? 3D printing of organs has just been given a huge boost with the ability to print human stem cells.

Personal Cloud

DNA data storage

A private server to eclipse your home.

Your genetic material is a hard drive!

Have you ever lost any important data stored on your desktop or laptop? The reasons for which being -A hard-disk crash or a virus attack or an Operating System break down? Computer systems are vulnerable to many threats that can inflict various types of damage to your system. Losses are caused due to outside hackers, from careless data entry or by installing untrusted software on your computer. The effects of which affect the confidentiality of data while others render the systems useless.

2. Low-power, hence it is environmentally friendly and can be powered from a backup battery or solarpowered source 3. Wireless, to make installation easy and to provide portability 4. Offer large storage capacity, so you can store all Such losses can be avoided by setting up a Home your media and backup data in one central location Server. That’s right. A Home Server. 5. Easily connectable By setting up a home server, all of your data is securely stored on the server. You can access the data So now you have setup your server. But what can whenever needed just as you would access any file you do with it other than just store and backup your on your computer. Once the server is setup, there important data? is absolutely no need of maintenance; provided the system is configured properly. You can share your photos directly from your server without uploading them to any website. Put simply, a home server is a computer that’s All you have to do is store the photos to a shared dedicated to storing, sharing and backing up filesfolder and they are up for viewing on the web. You typically media and data files that are or are not can stream all of your playlists locally or over net used by other computers in your home or office. using SSH or any other technologies. One of such examples is the Squeeze-box by Logitech. You can Setting up a server is very easy. A basic home server even control your System remotely using SSH and requires a computer with minimum specification. VNC. Wake on LAN can be used to turn on your Intel’s Atom processor coupled with 1 GB of RAM system remotely without actually being physically is enough to power your server. The next thing present at your home. you need is lots of storage and a home network. The network can be wired or wireless. Lastly, you The most amazing benefit of having a home server will need a PSU powerful enough to power all of is that you can automate your home. Control the your hard disks and the processor. The server can lights, heating and cooling and more. If you want be run headless. The server can be powered by a a home of the future and don’t want to pay a ton dedicated OS specially developed for servers, like of money, a do-it-yourself home automation project the FreeNAS and Ubuntu Server or it can be set up using your home server is a great way to start. easily on any Linux distribution. What a Home Server should be? 1. Compact, so it can be conveniently located behind or next to your TV 23 P.I.N.G. Issue 9.0. February 2013

The future of Personal Cloud is here. Are you? -Soham More Pune Institute of Computer Technology Pune PICTIEEE.ORG/PING

978 was considered to be a significant year as it saw the birth of a novel technique of ‘Invitro Fertilization (IVF)’ giving rise to what is called as a ‘test tube baby’. Looks like 2013 is walking on a similar path with a magnificent technique in hand is encoded in each. Converting the mass in atomic of what could lead to the formation of ‘test tube mass units into grams and dividing into one gram, data’! it is calculated that DNA, at one bit per base pair, can store 7.7x1020 bits per gram, which is about Scientists at the European Molecular Biology two million times more efficiently than any of the Laboratory (EMBL) are determined to find an currently used artificial storage media. alternative to the age-old problem of data storage. The only difference is that they believe in following Dr Goldman and his team has managed to set a the nature’s way of doing so. With that, Nick record (739.3 kilobytes) for the amount of unique Goldman and Ewan Birney of the European information encoded. But it has been designed to Bioinformatics Institute (EBI), have discovered do far more than that. According to researchers, it the method of storing data in DNA. This idea is should easily be capable of storing the roughly 3 definitely not new. DNA has been used to store zettabytes (one billion trillion bytes) of digital data, information in the form of genomes by every living which is thought presently to exist in the world organism on Earth. Its prowess at this job is the and still have room for plenty more. It would do reason that information scientists have been trying so with a density of around 2.2 petabytes per gram; to co-opt it for their own uses. or, in other words, to fit all of the world’s digital information into the back of a lorry. Moreover, their An overview of using DNA as a storage medium method drastically reduces the copying errors to can be that when one tries to store one bit of the which many previous DNA storage attempts have data stream per complementary base pair in been prone. the DNA molecule-one could theoretically store two bits per base, but would then run the risk of It is intriguing to contemplate the fact that, aside generating a sequence which triggers transcription from the encoding of protein sequences according by a ribosome or causes the DNA in the region to the genetic code, DNA is now considered to be to have undesirable chemical properties. If one used as a general-purpose data storage medium. It bit per base pair is stored, we are free to choose a is obvious that DNA USB drives are not yet right sequence which is benign in these regards. DNA around the corner, as various practical issues have is a double helix in which the backbone of each to be dealt with first. However, considering DNA strand consists of a chain of phosphate groups will most likely never become outdated, and it has and the sugar deoxyribose, with a base pair of already been shown to store massive amounts of adenine-thymine (A-T) or cytosine-guanine (C- data, we can only hope that the 21st century will G) attached to each link the backbone. Assuming witness significant advances in this field, enabling a roughly equal distribution of A-T and C-G base us to see a ‘DNA drive’ in our lifetime! pairs (and their complements), the average base pair weighs about 366 atomic mass units. Adding the atoms in the backbone on both sides of the -Madhura Murar helix, we end up with a total of 782 atomic mass Abasaheb Garware College units per base pair, and hence per bit, since one Pune

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Durango Microsoft’s

next generation gaming console Xbox 720, codenamed Durango is rumoured to have its own Siri. The console has been enabled with natural language recognition to increase the potential of the Kinect.

Mind over Machine

were to power an auditory feedback system. In the relaxed state light music is played whereas when unfocused a thudding drumbeat could be heard by the user.

The Brain’s Muse.

brain–computer interface (BCI) is a direct communication pathway between the brain and an external device. BCIs are often directed at assisting, augmenting, or repairing human cognitive or sensory-motor functions. When interacting with computers or machines, users almost always use their hands. This kind of humancomputer interaction, however, severely limits human's freedom to communicate with the machine.

Data Visualization Though these may be called as games, these are actually exercises. It is not only a clever way to map and visualize the brain signals, but it is also a way to provide real time bio-feedback- all streaming right out of your cortex over Bluetooth.

their patients' progress on quantifiable goals. In the workplace, imagine working in efficient bursts when you know your brain is focused rather than spreading your attention in a thin layer over a whole eight-hour shift. The idea is that a device like the Muse will actually train us to make our brains more efficient when we're not wearing the device by literally reprogramming the brain.

The basic concept of BCI was introduced by Hans Berger's discovery of the electrical activity of the human brain and the development of electroencephalography (EEG). By analyzing EEG The basic principle used, EEG, has been around traces, Berger was able to identify oscillatory activity for over hundred years. But InteraXon wants to in the brain, such as the alpha wave (8–12 Hz). empower people to take reins of these electrical peaks and troughs. By achieving this they can The Muse- A View into the Brain gently steer the brain through these mental state. Muse, crafted by InteraXon is a stylish, sturdy This gives the feeling of being aware of one’s own headband that measures the patterns of electrical thoughts. This by itself is a powerful tool. activity in the brain- electrical signals are divided into ‘bands’ based on their frequency. The Muse To move Heaven and Earth headbands are wrapped around a person’s forehead In one of the exercises developed, a sun and a and tucked behind ear securely.The basic function moon appeared on opposite sides of the screen. of this Muse is to measure the electrical signal The objective of the user is to merge these two and the signature of the brain. With this, the brain using only thoughts. This heavily depends on the signal can be interpreted and the mental state of ability of the user to concentrate and focus. When the person may be determined. It also may be used the person is able to concentrate on merging the to determine the level of relaxation the person is sun and the moon, literally the heavens move to enjoying. form a virtual eclipse. The Muse measures two of the better-understood In another one of these games, the brainwaves

Concerns Essential Conditions ‘These devices have access to your raw EEG This is just the beginning of mind control exercises. (electroencephalography or electrical brain There are some points to keep in mind while going signal) data and that contains certain neurological about designing an efficient user interface using phenomena triggered by subconscious activities’, BCI technology: says Ivan Martinovic, a member of the faculty in the department of computer science at Oxford. ‘So Comfortable implementation the central question we were asking with this work Today its a headband or a helmet that reads was, is this a privacy threat?’ brainwaves from external EEG sensors, but to develop more complex applications, there is a Research shows that the researchers were able need to put sensors inside the head or add more to determine personal information like house components. For this, more knowledge of the brain address, PIN, etc to a certain extent. When shown and our limitations are essential. 10 random places, their place of residence could be determined with accuracy of about 60%. In fact, To improve usage and adoption none of those results point to a realistic possibility To use this technology optimally, focus is of of cybercriminals reading victims’ minds through paramount importance. The Muse may help with their headsets any time soon. But it is possible that this regard, because by letting users play simple with better technology this may become a distinct games, they can train their brains to focus in a threat. More over there may be ethical opposition to way detectable by the EEG monitors. Games and probing the mind of a human being. personal improvement apps seem like a good reason for people to adopt the technology. Muse is a really ground breaking project but there’s plenty of other work going on in this realm and a Standards lot more needs to happen. But when we consider There needs to be a consistent set of meaning. the massive amounts of digital information we’re If there are three different helmets that read going to be negotiating in real-time, the idea of brainwave in the market, the user should be able some kind of computer-oriented telekinesis is to control objects using all three in the same way. pretty compelling. When the brain is the limit, the possibilities are truly endless. Future- Is it Mind Control? The vast power of our own minds is leaking out -Mathangi Krishnamurthi through the attention holes that can’t be stopped Pune Institute of Computer Technology easily. Consumer-oriented, EEG-powered monitors Pune like the Muse aren't just about gimmicky tricks like flying helicopters with our thoughts. Therapists and mental health practitioners can affordably measure

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The main focus of BCI is on the neuroprosthetic applications that aim at restoring damaged hearing, sight and movement. Neuroprosthetics is an area of neuroscience concerned with neural prostheses. But further brain-computer interface is promising with respect to mind controlled devices and gaming applications as well.

frequency tiers: alpha waves (8–12 Hz), associated with relaxation and restfulness, and beta waves (12–30 Hz), which correlate with alert or attentive mental states. According to InteraXon, ‘brains of people in relaxed states create gentle, slow-moving alpha waves, while those engaged in intense concentration generate quick, jagged beta waves.’

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Glass Keyboard

Luminae glass keyboard from vaporware to reality! A light pipe, infrared LEDs, and visible LEDs feed signals into the artfully curved glass. Three cameras look upward from below and see when your fingers break the light pattern. That’s how it recognizes what you’re doing on the glass.

pertaining to the device’s current characteristics. They are 1. Data Collection mode In this mode, the device is switched on and then switched off at regular intervals by the Arduino code and the resulting values are stored. Due to the continuously varying nature of this mode, it can only be used initially while adding the device data to the database. The advantage of this mode is that the continuously on/off behavior of the device gives a very clear picture of the transient phase of the device’s current-value graph. Moreover, multiple transient phase data sets can be obtained from this mode per session.

Smart Grids A quantum leap for a more electrifying efficient network. What is it all about? Smart Grids focuses on effective distribution and consumption of electricity in consumer circuits. While steps are being taken to minimize the losses occurring during the distribution of electricity on a large scale, it is also necessary to ensure that the consumption on an individual basis is optimized. One solution to this would be the installation of a device monitoring system in every home/office network. Such a system would consist of a central processing server connected to every electricity supply plug in the system. These plugs (we call them ‘Smart Plugs’) would be able to capture the current values of the devices attached to them and send them to the central server via a communication system (say PLC- Power Line Communication), which would then identify and monitor the devices.

1. A current sensor circuit attached to the supply plug. 2. An Arduino board used to convert the analog values from the sensor circuit to floating point numbers. 3. A Python module on a computer, to read and analyze the values supplied by the Arduino software and thus identify the device attached (with respect to the values stored in a database). The working modes The Arduino 1.0 software and the Python data collection module are collectively used for the collection, storage and plotting of the current value data coming from the Arduino board through the USB port. This stored data, which is conveniently stored in record files and plotted in form of graphs, can be used at a later stage for reference and analysis.

Implementation A rudimentary implementation is described here of a part of the above idea using the following Using the Arduino 1.0 software, two modes of data collection can be set to get different styles of graphs components27 P.I.N.G. Issue 9.0. February 2013

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device data in an easier-to-understand format. Data analysis and Device recognition (creating the database) Using the Data Collection mode of initial data collection, a large database of current characteristics for different devices is constructed. This database contains multiple samples of transient phases of every device that has been ‘learnt’ by the module. These samples can be used for comparison and analysis of the devices on a regular, day-to-day basis.

The temporary data-set obtained is ‘compared’ with each and every one of the data samples present in the database on the basis of the following two parameters2. Working (Normal) mode 1. The Pearson’s Coefficient. This mode is mainly used for data collection and 2. The Average value of the magnitudes in the two analysis on a regular basis. In this mode, the datasets. transient phase of the device’s current-characteristic graph appears only once, that is, when the device is Thus, the strongest match for the temporary device switched on. However the one transient phase set data in question is found out. The name of the obtained can be used just as well for analysis and device which corresponds to this strongest match recognition of the device attached to the smart plug. in the dataset in given as the ‘recognized device’ by the data analysis module. Extraction of transient phase This implementation focuses primarily on device Future Work and Possible Applications recognition and understanding based on the In the implementation described in this article, the transient phase of the current characteristic of Python module is only able to recognize the device the device, obtained from the current sensor and attached, but not monitor it. As the database of Arduino board. From a given data set (either in device current characteristics increases, the ‘normal On/Off mode or Switched On mode) the transient working conditions/values’ of every device can be phase can be obtained in the following wayrecognized. The Python module can be modified to read the values being obtained from the device 1. The first ‘hike’ in the current values is recognized. at regular intervals and notify the user if there is This corresponds to the moment when the device any high level of irregularity in its functioning. actually starts working. Going one step ahead, the Python module can 2. The data values in the ‘vicinity’ of this point are be made capable of interfacing with the Arduino copied and stored in a separate data file (Temporary software to cut the electricity supply to the device. or permanent, depending on the need). This would prevent the faulty device from causing any problems in the electricity supply Grid, thus Graph plotting making it ‘Smart’! The functions present in the matplotlib Python module are used for plotting of graphs based on -Sachin Joglekar the different values present in the recorded data BITS Pilani (Goa Campus) file. Plotting of graphs has no use for data analysis by the computer, but it aids the user in viewing the PICTIEEE.ORG/PING

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crossword Answers to this crossword lie within the included articles

Across

Down

1. An interactive electronic device used to play video games (7) 3. The original name of the Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) (6) 4. Study of techniques put to use to secure data (12) 6. Memory space equal to 10^21 bytes (9) 7. A tech system that traces the passage of a ball using magnetic induction (7) 10. A series of processors from ARM (6) 13. A high performance text search engine library developed entirely in Java (6) 15. A device that connects with the nervous system and restores functions lost by disease or injury (16) 19. A dataum for computing speed. Signifies trillion floating-point operations per second (9) 21. A computing company that crafted the Muse headbands (9) 22. Latin term for ' in glass' (7) 23. A branch of science dealing with the study of forms and structures of organisms (10) 24. Technology that enables charging without any physical connection (9) 25. The ability to move an object kept at a distance without any physical contact (11)

2. A test for measuring and recording electrical activity in the brain (22) 5. A greek word for 'compress' usually used as a prefix (5) 7. A brand of GPUs designed by nVIDIA (7) 8. A multi-functional health wristband introduced by Nike (8) 9. One of the four main nucleobases found in the nucleic acids (7) 11. A simple way of plugging-in an electronic device (7) 12. An Android App used to download games (9) 14. A popular American TV quiz show (8) 16. A directed force developed in a jet or rocket engine as a result of ejection of exhaust gases (6) 17. A family of mobile system chips by Qualcomm (10) 18. A software company that provides commercial support and related services for Ubuntu (9) 20. An open source platform used for creating interactive electronic objects (7)