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Festivals vs terrorism Bomb blasts, one after the other. Killing, injuring and destroying the lives of innocent people. These have not ceased to make the headlines. On the other hand, it is the month Ramzan and Eid, the greatest festival for millions of Indians who follow Islam and an equally special time for the Hindus, as Navaratri has kicked off and the season will be festive till Dipawali.
At a time when the spirit of love, compassion, peace and brotherhood needed to be reinforced, such tragic incidents are taking place. Those who are inspired by faith in God and enjoy visiting temples are not spared. Those who offer prayers in the mosques never know when it is their turn. While it is the time for getting together and merriment for many, it is the saddest occasion for those who lost their family members in the bomb blasts. And God knows when and where the act is going to be repeated, making the festival a dark one for more innocents.
The most surprising, the most difficult thing to understand is the way terrorists comprehend their religious texts or their belief. More often than not, those involved in terrorism are not atheists but found to have strong faith in their religion. Some even confess that that they were guided by this or that text of their faith which led them to what they are into – destructive plans and acts. But it does not need a learned one to see, feel and understand whether God could be pleased by torturing his creation. It does not need a scholar to feel the pain of the other person, adding to which would be nothing but a sin. It is an open fact that the religions are meant to guide human beings to the humane principles of love, peace, forgiveness, brotherhood and harmony. If anyone claims that religion goes against these and involves killing and torturing others, either through animal sacrifice during festivals or terrorism, irrespective of season, is merely a demon and demons do not have any religion. It is the demonic spirit that alone can decide to harm society as well as social harmony. Most of the time, Muslim terrorists are quoted as saying that their acts please the Almighty. This kind of absolute cynicism should be very loudly and strongly opposed by the Muslims who know that the belief is ridiculous. Similarly, it would be unfair to paint the entire community in an adverse hue due to the wrong acts of some persons. This makes the lives of the millions and millions of the innocent and good-hearted Muslims difficult. Communal harmony has always been very important for the country and is even more essential now. Those who will celebrate Eid and those who are enjoying Durga Puja should have one thing in common, love and respect for the fellow human being. The message of Eid is love and togetherness. The message of any Hindu festival is the same. The true spirit of the auspicious time of the two large groups in the country should now be visible instead of terrorism, bloodshed and tears. Let the true message of the sacred religions be followed and the people greet each other and make merry without suspicion, without fear.
Tags: Festivals Vs Terrorism
The Growing CancerThe problem which had remained unattended and ignored for long has now become a malignant cancer for the economy of the country. The inflow of fake currency notes in the country is not a new thing. For long, India has suffered from this deliberate attack.
For some years, there has been intense competition among the political giants of the country to take credit for the rising GDP and overall strengthening of the economy. The claims of levelling the Indian economy with the economy of the developed countries have become routine talk. Today, when the economy of the entire world is facing a recession, our economy faces even a greater number of problems as compared to others, but anything here catches attention only when some big bank blows up. Because of the silent and slow way it is harming India, the growing circulation of counterfeit currency is not being given adequate attention.
It is not hard to imagine what harm this activity can cause to our economy. The frequent reports from all over the country have brought this issue to light and alarmed an informed section of the people. Most people, however, are unaware of this. The general public does not know how to make out the difference between real and the fake currency notes and are rarely aware that they have been using both. Neither do they know what could be the overall consequences fake notes being in circulation.
Some sections of the media have warned not to trust even the ATMs, as they are also being stocked with fake currency notes. It is extremely disturbing that even banks are not being able to distinguish between the fake and the real! If the ATMs, where the supply is regulated by the banks, contain fake notes, too, where should a person go? An ordinary person trying to deal with the fake notes then is out of the question. The printing standard of the fake notes is unbelievable! The widening circulation of such notes can soon hollow out the economy and it will become too late for the government to correct things. But the government remains in slumber. It is just not in a hurry to take a appropriate measures to tackle this problem.
While the problem can cause serious harm to the economy of the country, its effect on an individual is no less troubling. Where should a person go if he or she realises that the currency in his or her purse is not genuine? What can he or she do if the ATMs are providing fake notes? Can they rely on the police or banks to sort out the problem? Or will their disclosure of the problem only push them into further trouble? If an individual caught with fake notes is held responsible, no question that he or she will try to use the notes silently rather than to make an issue of it. Without the strong will of the government to curb the problem and appropriate measures taken, immediately, it is certain that the fake note industry will only grow, backed by the ISI, one day throwing the entire economy into a mess. But only Heaven above knows how long it will take for the government to awaken to this!
Tags: The Growing Cancer
1) The ringtone "Nokia tune" is actually based on a 19th century guitar work named "Gran Vals" by Spanish musician Francisco Tárrega. The Nokia Tune was originally named "Grande Valse" on Nokia phones but was changed to "Nokia Tune" around 1998 when it became so well known that people referred to it as the "Nokia Tune."
2) The world's first commercial GSM call was made in 1991 in Helsinki over a Nokia-supplied network, by Prime Minister of Finland Harri Holkeri, using a Nokia phone.
3) Nokia is currently the world's largest digital camera manufacturer, as the sales of its camera-equipped mobile phones have exceeded those of any conventional camera manufacturer.
4) The "Special" tone available to users of Nokia phones when receiving SMS (text messages) is actually Morse code for "SMS". Similarly, the "Ascending" SMS tone is Morse code for "Connecting People," Nokia's slogan. The "Standard" SMS tone is Morse code for "M" (Message).
5) The Nokia corporate font (typeface) is the AgfaMonotype Nokia Sans font, originally designed by Eric Spiekermann. Its mobile phone User's Guides Nokia mostly used the Agfa Rotis Sans 6) In Asia, the digit 4 never appears in any Nokia handset model number, because 4 is considered unlucky in many parts of Southeast/East Asia.
7) Nokia was listed as the 20th most admirable company worldwide in Fortune's list of 2006 (1st in network communications, 4th non-US company).
8. Unlike other modern day handsets, Nokia phones do not automatically start the call timer when the call is connected, but start it when the call is initiated. (Except for Series 60 based handsets like the Nokia 6600)
9) Nokia is sometimes called aikon (Nokia backwards) by non-Nokia mobile phone users and by mobile software developers, because "aikon" is used in various SDK software packages, including Nokia's own Symbian S60 SDK.
10) The name of the town of Nokia originated from the river which flowed through the town. The river itself, Nokianvirta, was named after the old Finnish word originally meaning sable, later pine marten. A species of this small, black-furred predatory animal was once found in the region, but it is now extinct.
Tags: NOKIA
The basic design of USB memory sticks may not have altered significantly, but their capacity and functionality are changing. When they first came out around the turn of the century, USB flash memory sticks maxed out at about 128MB, which was enough for about four albums of MP3s. This was nice at the time, but now we have the 16GB version, which is enough for about a dozen movies, and thousands upon thousands of tracks. It is not that expensive either, coming in under £100 ($205). There are actually 32GB memory sticks on the market too, but they cost about £1,000 ($2,050) because you are paying for bleeding edge technology. It is a fair bet that in six months time they will cost half as much as they do now. In fact a good rule of thumb with memory - and with most technology - is wait just a little while before putting your hand in your pocket and you will get much better value for money. This is just as well because they only last for about a decade before they start becoming unreliable. Connecting drives  USB ports in the EZ memory stick allow other drives to be connected There is even partition and security functions that make it possible for users to create password-protected sectors for the storage of personal or highly confidential material. 'Bomb proof' memory Finally, the ultimate in security if you do not want the device blown up. The bomb-proof flash memory stick.  We all know flash is fairly robust anyway - there are no moving parts to go wrong - but this thing is made of CNC-milled, 6061 Type 2 Aluminium, the same as is used in aircraft parts manufacturing. Costing about £40 ($82) for a basic model, it is also water resistant to 200m (656ft) through the use of a EPDM waterproof seal which is perfect for all that underwater data retrieval you are likely to be doing. It is very fast too. Do not be fooled into thinking USB flash memory sticks read or write data at the same speed. Some of them are three times faster than their more languid cousins.
Tags: Flash Technology
"We should obey and pay respect to the words that the Master utters. The we are sure to go back to the Home of our Father. Those who only pay obeisance to the Master outwardly and do not live up to what the
Master says, there is yet time. The time factor is a necessity. That is why Christ said, 'If you love me, keep my commandments.' This is the first step"
------KIRPAL SINGH
Tags: Thought
I shall journey through this world but once. Any good that I can do, any kindness that i can show, let me do it now. Let me not neglect it
or postpone it for I shall not pass this way again.
-----SWAMI VIVEKANANDA
Tags: Swami
A computer is a programmable device, usually electronic in nature, that can store, retrieve, and process data.[1] The first programmable electronic computers date to the mid-20th century (around 1940 - 1941), although the concept and various non-electronic and analog models date back before this. Early electronic computers were the size of a large room, and their thermionic valve technology demanded huge amounts of power.[2] Today, computers are based upon tiny integrated circuits, are hundreds of millions to hundreds of billions of times more powerful,[3] and simpler computers can be made small enough to fit into a wrist watch and powered by a simple watch battery. Personal computers and their portable equivalent, the laptop computer, have come to be an integral part of the modern information age; they are what most people think of as "a computer". However, the most common form of computer in use today is by far the embedded computer. Embedded computers are small, simple devices that are often used to control other devices—for example, they may be found in machines ranging from fighter aircraft to industrial robots, digital cameras, consumer electronics, kitchen and other domestic appliances, hi fi components, cars and other vehicles, medical devices such as hearing aids, mobile phones, and children's toys. The ability to store and execute programs makes computers extremely versatile and distinguishes them from calculators. The Church–Turing thesis is a mathematical statement of this versatility: Any computer with a certain minimum capability is, in principle, capable of performing the same tasks that any other computer can perform. Therefore, computers with capability and complexity ranging from that of a personal digital assistant to a supercomputer are all able to perform the same computational tasks as long as time and storage capacity are not considerations
Tags: Computer
Will technology increase the gap between rich and poor? It will certainly increase the gap between the productive and the unproductive. That's the whole point of technology. With a tractor an energetic farmer could plow six times as much land in a day as he could with a team of horses. But only if he mastered a new kind of farming.
As this example suggests, the rate at which technology increases our productive capacity is probably polynomial, rather than linear. So we should expect to see ever-increasing variation in individual productivity as time goes on. Will that increase the gap between rich and the poor? Depends which gap you mean.
Technology should increase the gap in income, but it seems to decrease other gaps. A hundred years ago, the rich led a different kind of life from ordinary people. They lived in houses full of servants, wore elaborately uncomfortable clothes, and travelled about in carriages drawn by teams of horses which themselves required their own houses and servants. Now, thanks to technology, the rich live more like the average person.
Cars are a good example of why. It's possible to buy expensive, handmade cars that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. But there is not much point. Companies make more money by building a large number of ordinary cars than a small number of expensive ones. So a company making a mass-produced car can afford to spend a lot more on its design. If you buy a custom-made car, something will always be breaking. The only point of buying one now is to advertise that you can.
Or consider watches. Fifty years ago, by spending a lot of money on a watch you could get better performance. When watches had mechanical movements, expensive watches kept better time. Not any more. Since the invention of the quartz movement, an ordinary Timex is more accurate than a Patek Philippe costing hundreds of thousands of dollars. [13] Indeed, as with expensive cars, if you're determined to spend a lot of money on a watch, you have to put up with some inconvenience to do it: as well as keeping worse time, mechanical watches have to be wound.
The only thing technology can't cheapen is brand. Which is precisely why we hear ever more about it. Brand is the residue left as the substantive differences between rich and poor evaporate. But what label you have on your stuff is a much smaller matter than having it versus not having it. In 1900, if you kept a carriage, no one asked what year or brand it was. If you had one, you were rich. And if you weren't rich, you took the omnibus or walked. Now even the poorest Americans drive cars, and it is only because we're so well trained by advertising that we can even recognize the especially expensive ones. [14]
The same pattern has played out in industry after industry. If there is enough demand for something, technology will make it cheap enough to sell in large volumes, and the mass-produced versions will be, if not better, at least more convenient. [15] And there is nothing the rich like more than convenience. The rich people I know drive the same cars, wear the same clothes, have the same kind of furniture, and eat the same foods as my other friends. Their houses are in different neighborhoods, or if in the same neighborhood are different sizes, but within them life is similar. The houses are made using the same construction techniques and contain much the same objects. It's inconvenient to do something expensive and custom.
The rich spend their time more like everyone else too. Bertie Wooster seems long gone. Now, most people who are rich enough not to work do anyway. It's not just social pressure that makes them; idleness is lonely and demoralizing.
Nor do we have the social distinctions there were a hundred years ago. The novels and etiquette manuals of that period read now like descriptions of some strange tribal society. "With respect to the continuance of friendships..." hints Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management (1880), "it may be found necessary, in some cases, for a mistress to relinquish, on assuming the responsibility of a household, many of those commenced in the earlier part of her life." A woman who married a rich man was expected to drop friends who didn't. You'd seem a barbarian if you behaved that way today. You'd also have a very boring life. People still tend to segregate themselves somewhat, but much more on the basis of education than wealth. [16]
Materially and socially, technology seems to be decreasing the gap between the rich and the poor, not increasing it. If Lenin walked around the offices of a company like Yahoo or Intel or Cisco, he'd think communism had won. Everyone would be wearing the same clothes, have the same kind of office (or rather, cubicle) with the same furnishings, and address one another by their first names instead of by honorifics. Everything would seem exactly as he'd predicted, until he looked at their bank accounts. Oops.
Is it a problem if technology increases that gap? It doesn't seem to be so far. As it increases the gap in income, it seems to decrease most other gaps.
Tags: Lever
Introduction Imagine a situation where you are about to make an important Sales Presentation. You realize that you have brought the wrong presentation slides and you call up your colleague. She immediately emails the file to your 3G terminal and you transfer it to your laptop. Another scenario is having video-conferencing and sending character-based messages simultaneously with your clients. With 3G, the possibilities for wireless applications are numerous. For instance, imagine calling up a map in your car, conducting a video conference over wireless phones, checking e-mails, and browsing the web - wirelessly. 3G Defined 3G stands for the third generation of wireless communication technology and the industry direction are to raise speeds from 9.5K to 2M bit/sec. According to 3gnewsroom.com, devices will fall into four categories. The first category includes the basic 3G phones will be used mainly for talking and will store all their information on the network. The second category will support video-streaming, and will provide the user with news and web content. More sophisticated models will be information centres which let users download information from the Internet and store data on the device. A recent initiative by four leading handset manufacturers–Ericsson, Motorola, Nokia and Siemens–plus the messaging companies CMG, Comverse and Logica was motivated by the launch of 3G. The companies hope to create awareness and foster development of multimedia messaging service (MMS) by making audio, video, photographs and other images to accessible to handsets. 3G and the Growth of the Wireless Mobile Market The wireless mobile market is set to explode and this will provide fresh graduates with exciting job opportunities. According to Will Daugherty’s The Growth of Wireless Mobile in Business 2.0, there will be 3 waves of mobile data services. The first wave is linked wireless access to existing information and data applications. The current second wave takes advantage of wireless-specific functionality. The third wave will bring rich graphics, video, real-time multiplayer games. Don Tapscott has been quoted “Mobile commerce is the next stage of e-commerce, where we have the integration of the physical world with the digital world…What we ’re talking here is the beginning of pervasive and ubiquitous computing where billions and billions of inert objects become Internet appliances - enabling the sharing of knowledge and the delivery of a vast new array of services.” Need more convincing and statistics? According to the findings in Wireless Portals: the Information Gateway to the Wireless User, by the end of 2006 there will be close to 1 billion wireless portal users worldwide. The bulk of these users will be wireless voice users, WAP users, 2.5G and 3G subscribers, and other wireless device users such as those using PDAs. Multi-modal users worldwide will stand close to 282 million in 2006. The Reaction of 3G in America The importance of 3G technology can also be gauged by the stance of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce, which is the Executive Branch's principal voice on domestic and international telecommunications and information technology issues. NTIA recently published a report entitled "WIRELESS" INTERNET: What the 3G Challenge Means for U.S. Competitiveness where it insisted that 3G is important for the future of America's global competitiveness amongst other things and that the Europeans and Asians view 3G development as their golden opportunity to beat the United States' in the area of telecommunications and ecommerce. The report also went further to state that the US will remain two years behind many Asian and European countries on 3G services. In contrast in another report entitled "Can U.S. Wireless Firms Ride Business Applications to Global Leadership?," Summit Strategies Practice Director Warren Wilson argues U.S. vendors and service providers stand to win the strategic high ground, first in their home markets and then internationally. "Japan and Europe are leading the way in consumer-focused wireless applications, but business applications will drive U.S. markets,'' Wilson says. "North American vendors and service providers that correctly gauge which business applications to offer, and the development and deployment models that serve customers best cannot only catch up to global competitors, but even turn the tables and claim leadership roles in wireless data. It won't be easy, but it's far from impossible." The importance of 3G and Wireless collaboration with the US has not been lost with NTT DoCoMo which understands that in order to move towards 3G, it must persuade other carriers to follow suit. DoCoMo’s USD$10bn investment in AT&T Wireless came with the agreement that AT&T transferred towards W-CDMA. I will highlight some promises provided by 3G Technology: 1)3G and Workplace Dynamics 3G Technology is an enabler of the development of the Wearable Computing Industry. The WearTel (TM) phone, for example, uses EyeTap technology to allow individuals to see each other's point of view. Therefore, the miniature laser light source inside the WearTel eyeglass-based phone scans across the retinas of both parties and swaps the image information, so that each person sees what the other person is looking at. This technology will enable the HR manager to have a better understanding of how to motivate and reward their employees as personal documentaries of their work-life will be shot from a first-person perspective. HR managers can provide better advice about handling difficult customers or closing sales. However, the immediate benefit is that this technology can be used as a training tool. The reason is that privacy laws have to be reviewed and updated in order that customers are adequately informed of this technology 2)3G and Mobile Job Interviewing With an attached camera in a mobile device, job interviews can be conducted as video-conferencing between the HR manager and the potential job applicant. Initially, the job candidate can answer basic questions like his highest qualification and salary expectation by pressing the key-pad of the mobile device. If successful, he can proceed to have a face-to-face interview. 3)3G and Mobile Advertising 3G technology will enable advertisers to send more sophisticated and customized permission-based advertisements to their target audience’s mobile devices. This will be an improvement from the current SMS. There will be a convergence between the internet and wireless technology as the target audience can request that more product information be sent as email. It is unlikely that these services will provide a sustainable advantage over the long run but they will shape the brand perception of an operator at the initial stage of the introduction of wireless Internet services. However, with the rise of m-commerce, ‘business-webs ’will become even more powerful as every customer will become linked into the web. According to Keith Shank of Ericsson, wireline operators will have to find a way to integrate with wireless by providing a package of combined service capabilities and transparent coverage. Demanding consumers will want convergence of wireline, wireless and data services. 4)From E-Learning to M-Learning The future holds a lot of promise for the E-Learning Industry. Martyn Sloman, author of The e-learning revolution has been quoted as saying "The pace of change in the global economy and advances in communications technology means that there is no debate about whether e-learning is the future or not. It clearly is. Latest assessments indicate that competitive organisations will soon be delivering up to a fifth of their training through the Internet, intranets or the web." With the greater acceptance of e-learning, mobile learning (m-learning) will be thrive. An example of how 3G can power m-learning is when a student who may be late for a lecture can view the entire proceedings through the screen of a mobile device. It is also not far-fetched idea that the same student can even sit for a test by entering a password through the mobile device. Challenges Ahead Privacy is a huge question as in the case of m-commerce, each of us will leave a trail of “digital crumbs”. With the increasing likelihood of a convergence between the net and wireless technology in many facets of social and business interactions, each of us will leave a mirror image of ourselves as we travel around. Another problem that is highlighted by Eric Schonfeld of eCompany is getting developers interested in creating the applications that 3G phones can run. Currently developers tend to ignore markets with fewer than 1 million customers and concurrently, demanding customers insist that 3G phones should have lots of new applications to hold their attention. Lastly, as sourced from the University of California’s Berkeley School of Information Management and System (SIMS) report “How Much Information?” Professors Hal Varian and Peter Lyman analysed industry and governmental reports for production of information in terms of paper, film, optical and magnetic data. Among some of their findings: §The direct accessible “surface” Web consists of about 2.5bn documents and is growing at a rate of 7.3m pages per day. §Counting the “surface” Web with the “deep” Web of connected databases, intranet sites and dynamic pages, there are about 550bn documents, and 95% is publicly accessible. These findings show that we are already taking in a lot of information even before the introduction of wireless communication through 3G. Will there be further information overload or will mobile devices help us manage our daily affairs better? The concluding 2 sections will provide some pointers: 1)Towards An Information Society In the Foresight Project, an initiative led by New Zealand’s Ministry of Research, Science and Technology has stated that in an information society, individuals who are well-educated, self-motivated, and linked into information networks, are the most likely to live prosperous and fulfilling lives. Enterprises that are attuned to their customers’ requirements, employ educated workers, encourage innovation through their workplace organization and, and know more and learn faster than their competitors, are the most likely to succeed and grow. Reinforcing this point, according to Peter Drucker, there is the discipline of innovation. This is translated into having a clear mission and defining the measurement of results. In the event that there are no results, the organization should abandon the idea and then continue to seek for new and unique opportunities. 2)Future Challenges of a Knowledge-Economy According to Dr Johari Mat, Secretary General Ministry of Education (Malaysia) at the First SEAMEO Education Congress, a Knowledge Economy Index developed using selected key elements required to drive a K-economy such as computer infrastructure, infrastructure, education and training, research and development and technology shows that most countries in this region lag behind developed and newly industrialized countries in terms of readiness to become a K-economy. For instance, the Knowledge Economy Index is 3877 for Singapore, 2460 for Malaysia, 1705 for Indonesia, and 1648 for Thailand while the Index is 6650 for USA, 5908 for Japan, 4901 for Australia, 4686 for UK, and 3912 for Korea, thus, to make a transition to the K-economy, countries in this region face the daunting task of putting in place and strengthening the core elements required to support the K-economy. Efforts need to be accelerated in the priority areas of human resource development, science and technology, research and development (R&D), ICT, and lifelong learning. To conclude, 3G is definitely here to stay despite the early glitches. The opportunity of being truly wireless and mobile is just too enticing.
Tags: 3G
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