P.I.N.G. Issue 9.0

Dr Rajesh B. Ingle

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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 news-letter provides platform for all including student members to showcase their talent, views and further strengthen IEEE activities.

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.

Branch Counsellor

from the editors’ desk

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.

In conclusion, we thank our contributing authors for their insightful articles and welcome them to CTD’13.

Rahul [email protected]

Editors

Design Courtesy

Chaitrali [email protected]

Jai [email protected]

Tanvi [email protected]

Riddhi [email protected]

the editorial feature

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It 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.

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.

Undoubtedly, it has lead to the introduction of some of the most fascinating and widely used products in history, the prominent ones being VCR, the Camcorder, CDs and DVDs, OLED TV, the Xbox and Digital Audio Technology. The CES is singlehandedly responsible for many creative gadgets being Kickstarted, an Internet based company for private funding, one of largest being of Oculus Rift, which was introduced in CES 2013.

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:

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 (wireless electrictity) is about 70% of what we get while using our cords upto 5-watts and this can only be expected to rise. The technology implemented is quite straightforward – it requires two coils: a transmitter and a reciever. An AC current is passed through the transmitter coil, generating a magnetic field. This induces a voltage in the reciever coil, hence charging it. Electromagnetic Induction 101 at its best!

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 clearerEntertainment 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 4K UHD has a resolution of 3840 x 2160 pixels (8.3 megapixels), approximately four times 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

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 WorldGamers 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 flawlessly runs supported games at 250 Hz. For a more physical look and reducing latency issues, the

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

Speaking what we Spectate

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expertspeakInsights from the Industry

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Technology empowers people. Technology frees people. Technology inspires people. Technology broadens horizons. Or maybe

not? Today most of the people that stand to gain from technology are non-native English speakers. The question stands if the barrier of language hinders the use of technology can technology still make the same claims? Today as technology tries to proliferate and tries to ease everyday life it is imperative that the technology that promises this panacea be brought to them in a language that they are most comfortable and using which they can extract the most from it.

Is it necessary that people who would like to use computers first learn English? Is ignorance of English enough reason to deny a person access to technology? This problem especially comes to the fore in developing countries where majority of the education is in regional languages. This combined with low literacy rates blocks their access to information and communications technologies (ICTs), especially for the rural poor and women who do not have equal access to education. A need is hence felt for answering these troubling questions. The answer to this problem lies in localization and internationalization commonly referred to as l10n and i18n.

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

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.

So where does Mozilla fit in? Mozilla is a global non-profit project that dedicates itself to putting individuals in control while also help shape the future of the web for the public good. Today the Mozilla Project has an impressive range of software including one of the world's most popular browsers, Mozilla Firefox. Not only this, the Mozilla Project is one of the best examples in the FOSS World of both ‘Internationalization and Localization’.

Today Mozilla Project offers most of its products in over 70 languages thanks to the tireless efforts of the community of developers who developedthe software to support internationalization and the localization community which helped modify and adapt the product for different locales. The aim of the project is to serve the greater community which encompasses the users belonging to an impressively extensive array of language groups. The Project also lists one of its goals as the localization of mozilla.org products into any world language.

So, now that you an aware individual would you too like to contribute and have an impact on the approximately 450 million people who use Mozilla everyday? You can contribute too in various ways! For starters you could introduce people to Mozilla software in their own language and empower them to make a difference! Or you can also join the localization efforts at Mozilla and be part of the community! Pitch in and get counted!

-Gautam AkiwateMozilla India

Mozilla in your Language

Liberating the web of its language constraints.

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.

In this wristband, the user can set his/her own goals and scrutinize daily progress. It uses lithium-polymer battery which gives the user around 5-7 days of battery life. It proves to be better at tracking sleep as it has auto-enabled sleep mode. A striking new feature is the silent alarm which vibrates on the user’s wrist at morning, acting as a wake up alarm.

Fitbit’s competition, Nike Fuelbands, provides a

better display of the user’s stats. Still the rubber-coated 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 BattleThis 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 CESCES has always been a benchmark for trend-setting tech and innovative gizmos, and this year was certainly no disappointment. This year CES displayed striking and remarkable technologies to tech-addicts and we can only expect this massively gratifying platform to get bigger, broader and better!

-The Editorial Team

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.

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 field-emission displays, nanocomposite materials, and nanosensors.

Structural and mechanical applicationsCarbon 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 multi-walled 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 SarkarFairchild Semiconductor

Pune

A 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.

Techniques have been developed to produce nanotubes in sizeable quantities, including arc discharge, laser ablation, high-pressure carbon monoxide disproportionation (HiPco), and chemical vapor deposition (CVD). Most of these processes take place in vacuum or with process gases. CVD growth of CNTs can occur in vacuum or at atmospheric pressure. Large quantities of nanotubes can be synthesized by these methods;

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 single cylindrical wall. The structure of a SWNT can be visualized as a layer of graphite, a single atom thick, called graphene, which is rolled into a seamless cylinder. Most SWNT typically have a diameter of close to 1 nm. The tube length, however, can be many thousands of times longer. SWNT are more pliable yet harder to make than MWNT. They can be twisted, flattened, and bent into small circles or around sharp bends without breaking. SWNT

Carbon nanotubes - Wonder material

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Miniature tubes that grip the future together!

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.

CNT Computer Chip


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

-Saurabh JainAssociate Software Engineer

Symantec Corp.

P.I.N.G. Featured Article

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.

Transaction Neo4j supports configurable ACID transactions, similar to a traditional RDBMS. This allows a client to update a section of the graph in an isolated environment and hiding changes from other processes until the transaction is completed. If multiple transactions try to modify the same data, the Neo4j kernel will try to synchronize them. If interdependencies between the transactions would cause a deadlock, these will be detected and a corresponding exception will be thrown.All modifications to Neo4j data must be wrapped in transactions. Any completed transactions to the graph are persistent.

QueryingThe graph database storage excels while storing richly-connected data. Querying is performed through traversals, which can perform millions of “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

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.

ScalabilityNeo4j 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 to multiple machines. That is not to say we can’t scale it to multiple machines, it just means that our application must create its own sharding layer, and be smart enough to cleanly divide the data, which is a challenge, as graph databases generally store randomly connected webs of data. If the data is not cleanly shardable and instead is duplicated across multiple machines, then the sharding layer must be smart enough to coordinate Neo4j transactions, as Neo4j transactions are currently bound to a single machine.

Neo4j is available in a GPLv3 Community Edition which is a free Software license. Advanced and Enterprise Editions available under AGPLv3 license.

Neo4j 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.

Traditional databases store data in tables with a fixed and static schema. In contrast, Neo4j stores data using nodes, relationships (imagine a line connecting the nodes) and properties. These three are the fundamental building blocks of a Neo4j graph. Nodes (entities, objects or vertices), relationships (links or connections or edges in a graph) are characterised by properties. We can associate a list of properties with each node and define a relation between them. Their properties are limited to Java primitives (int, byte, float, etc.), strings, or an array of primitives and strings. Relationships are typed, allowing us to express things like ‘Person A KNOWS Person B’, ‘Person A IS_FRIENDS_WITH Person C’ or ‘Person A

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 Neo4j is more suitable for social networking sites or social networking platforms where relationships between people objects can most naturally be represented as graphs. Social networking sites like Facebook use GraphDB.

Features-1. Transaction Management, ACID transaction capabilities of an RDBMS or conventional databases.2. Scalability up to a billion nodes and relationships on a single machine.3. High availability for multiple platforms.4. High speed querying using graph traversal.5. Bindings for a number of languages including

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-Jayashree JagdaleAssistant Professor, IT Department

Pune Institute of Computer Technology

Imparting words of wisdomFor 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.

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’.

Natural-Language Processing (NLP) and Information Retrieval (IR) uses the Bag-of-words model of simplification. In this, text data is treated as a collection of words, disregarding grammar and even word order. Thereafter a form of Vector Space Modeling (VSM) came into being, where given unstructured data (which may be a sentence, paragraph or a document) is converted to a structured form that contains vector of words and their relationship with the documents. Later the Bag of n-grams, and Bag of character n-grams feature selection methods were devised and it was observed that they lead to the best results. Alena Neviarouskaya, a reputed Postdoctoral Researcher, et al. defined WordNet using words

from aspecial dictionary as seeds, for sentiment-carrying 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 Key-Word Spotting, Rule-Based Modeling, Semantic Trees, Latent Semantic Analysis, Transformation based Learning, World-knowledge-Modeling, Key-Phrase-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. Chien-Liang 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. Popular sentiment analysis search engines are Sentiment140, Tweetfeel, Opinioncrawl, Trackur, Twendz and Senitiment metrics.

It is evident that such a study of the user’s response to minute aspects can add up to significant data, essential to judge the review and response of the user. A potential technique to predict futuristic trends for events, products and application, it would surely help reduce the rift between users and manufacturers.

When 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.

Web 2.0 presents a wealth of information. People are active on social networking sites, blog spots, chats, and review websites. Knowingly or unknowingly, people express their opinion through comments

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

our mentor speaks

and discussion forums. It is the needof the day to study the natural reaction of peopleto new products, social events etc. which theycomment on, on a regular basis rather than takingfew sample feedbacks from selected customers, asit is done traditionally. Recent surveys have revealedthat opinion-rich resources like online reviews havea greater economic impact on both- consumersand companies, compared to the traditional media.Many applications could benefit greatly fromthis, including entertainment and product reviewmining, product reputation analysis, spam filteringand also in tracking sentiments towards variousevents. Information extraction systems havebeen built to extract facts associated with terroristincidents, disease outbreaks, plane crashes,vehiclelaunches, management succession, joint ventures,corporate acquisitions, and job and seminarannouncements.


If 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

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.

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…

The Gibson Robot Guitar

-Hrusheekesh WarpePune Institute of Computer Technology

Pune

A rhythmic confluence of technology and music.

Quick Jeopardy!Clue : It doesn’t have a brain like a human, yet it thinks. You ask, it answers.

Answer : The IBM Watson Computer.

We live in an age of progressively smarter machines. In recent years, engineers have ventured into areas from voice recognition to robotics, from internet to search engines, the idea once seemed impossible to humans. It was a simple idea that kicked off the very foundation of something which seems so sophisticated once it is built. A similar idea struck IBM Research manager, Charles Lickel, when he saw Ken Jennings play Jeopardy!, a popular trivia TV show. Intrigued by the quiz show as a possible challenge for IBM, he formed a team of 15 people to work on designing a computer that

could play Jeopardy!, which was named after IBM’s first president, Thomas J. Watson, The Watson computer.

The IBM Watson computer is a supercomputer developed in IBM that was designed to answer questions. It combines Artificial Intelligence (AI) and sophisticated analytical software for optimal performance as a “question answering” machine. Watson had access to 200 million pages of structured and unstructured content consuming four terabytes of disk storage, including the entire

content of Wikipedia.The Watson supercomputer processes at a rate of 80 teraflops (trillion floating-point operations per second). To replicate a high-functioning human’s ability to answer questions, Watson accesses 90 servers and processes the 200 million pages of information against six million logic rules. It uses thousands of proven language analysis algorithms simultaneously to find the correct answer.

The prominent features of Watson are:1. Apache UIMA (Unstructured Information Management Architecture) frameworks, infrastructure and other elements required for the analysis of unstructured data.2. SUSE Enterprise Linux Server 11, the fastest available Power7 processor operating system.3. 2,880 processor cores. Each Power 750 server uses a 3.5 GHz POWER7 eight core processor, with four threads per core.4. 15 terabytes of RAM.5. 500 gigabytes of preprocessed information.6. IBM’s Deep QA software, which is designed for information retrieval which incorporates natural 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.

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.

The IBM Watson computer is one of the biggest achievements in the field of AI, the goal of constructing a computer capable of interacting in natural human terms, answering questions that humans ask and justifying its answers is now turning into a quick reality!

The IBM Watson

-Sudipto ChatterjeePune Institute of Computer Technology

Pune

An Artificial Intelligence machine that is smart enough to put you in Jeopardy!


Intelligentsia on the risetechnocrats speak

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.

ProsThe 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 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.

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

ball crossing the line.

ProsThe 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 ball-tracking 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.

ConsA 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.

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 DeyPune Institute of Computer Technology

Pune


Football 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 line technology is the result of the growing need to verify whether the ball has crossed the goal

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

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 off the crossbar, bounced on the goal line, and came out. The goal was disallowed. However,

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.

Goal line Technology


The picture perfect judgement of football!

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.

Green Electronics

SABRE - A reusable spacecraft

ROCKETS! 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 high-tech 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.

The key to the engines's performance is a small, light and powerful heat exchanger, designed to cool 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 pre-

coo ler. 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 BadrinarayanPune Institute of Computer Technology

Pune


Ubuntu Smartphone

Canonical 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.

Excellent UI:Another top class Ubuntu UI, packed with the trademark unity user interface. It has the same old launcher, which has some of the more important/basic applications (modifiable according to user needs). Canonical plan on making the OS compatible with phone as well as PC, with minimal changes for touch screen of course. It will also have all 4 edge swipe, thumb gestures for fast switching between applications while multitasking (Quite like the one in Windows 8 tabs).

Ubuntu One: Ubuntu One is Canonical’s own Cloud service (free 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

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 phone, but want to enjoy Ubuntu, all Android devices can upgrade to Ubuntu.

The idea of having an Ubuntu smart phone is only a proposition for now. In fact, a disappointing twist for all linux enthusiasts, you won’t be buying this phone till late 2013 or even 2014. But the good news is that it will be available for Samsung Galaxy Nexus users by February. It will be a daunting task for Canonical to compete against Google’s Android or Apple’s iOS, and with Mozilla’s Firefox OS coming up very soon, the smartphone market could become really competitive in 2013.

-Arijit Pande Pune Institute of Computer Technology

Pune

A distinctive open source OS for smartphones which makes the fine line between a phone and

a PC disappear! A Synergistic Air-Breathing Rocket Engine that makes space expedition easier on the pockets!


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.

BlackBerry 10 OS

Highlights of the leading distribution.

-Vipul ChaskarPune Institute of Computer Technology

Pune


WhatsApp Security

WhatsApp is something you probably use right now ,or have atleast heard of. It is a cross platform IM application for

smartphones that handles a few billion messages every day. That is approximately more than 50,000 messages sent every second. However, it comes packed with its own set of drawbacks, being criticized for its security issues, mainly cryptographic standards and the way it handles users’ personal data.

Like most of the popular IM clients, such as YAHOO! and Gtalk , WhatsApp implements a modified version of XMPP i.e. eXtensible Messaging and Presence Protocol. On installing this app, it creates the user’s account on WhatsApp’s server. Its username, or technically known as ‘Jabber ID’ is concatenation of the user’s country code and their mobile number.

An interesting fact about its password’s generation is its usage of the phone’s IMEI number or MAC address. For android devices, the password is md5 hash of the phone IMEI no. reversed.Password: md5(strrev($imei)) For iOS, the password is md5 hash of the device’s Wireless Interface card’s MAC address, written twice. Mac address is concatenated with itself and its md5 is found out.Password: md5(mac+mac)

As WhatsApp claims, no messages are stored on their servers once they are delivered to the recipient. For sending of multimedia like audio, video or images, the data is first uploaded to their HTTP server. A link to the uploaded file is sent to the recipient’s phone along with thumbnail file, if required.

Until recently, messages were being sent in clear 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 algorithm it uses has been reverse engineered, especially for iOS devices. Overall verdict is that the current encryption mechanisms used does not follow normal standards.

As it uses phone’s IMEI number or MAC address as its password, someone in physical contact with the phone can easily access it. Someone sharing the same WiFi network can easily find out the MAC address of iOS device with sniffing. All an attacker has to know is the victim’s mobile number and the phone’s MAC or IMEI to enter into a script. Then they can send and receive messages from the compromised account.

Its API, reverse engineered by an open source project called ‘WhatsAPI’, is coded in both PHP and Python and can be integrated with web apps. It can be used to send WhatsApp messages to any number supporting it. This app uploads your contacts to their server to see which of them are registered on WhatsApp. This is carried out in an insecure environment. The mobile numbers

of your contacts are sent as an array through the HTTP request parameter.

The verdict is, WhatsApp has to work on its security but with the recent updates, they have made reasonable improvements in this aspect. We hope that they come up with a better alternative to current passwords and cryptography implementation to increase reputability with the security community.

A Hacker’s take on real time messaging.


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.

Google

Top 5 linux distros

-Viraj Anchanwww.itechwik.com

Linux 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 MintLinux 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. UbuntuUbuntu 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. FedoraFedora 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

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. openSUSEThe 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 LinuxArch Linux is an independently developed distribution targeted at competent Linux users. It uses ‘pacman’, its home-

grown 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.

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

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?


If 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.

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

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.

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

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


-Debojeet ChatterjeePune Institute of Computer Technology

Pune

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.

Moth-controlled Robot

1978 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 of what could lead to the formation of ‘test tube data’!

Scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) are determined to find an alternative to the age-old problem of data storage. The only difference is that they believe in following the nature’s way of doing so. With that, Nick Goldman and Ewan Birney of the European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI), have discovered the method of storing data in DNA. This idea is definitely not new. DNA has been used to store information in the form of genomes by every living organism on Earth. Its prowess at this job is the reason that information scientists have been trying to co-opt it for their own uses.

An overview of using DNA as a storage medium can be that when one tries to store one bit of the data stream per complementary base pair in the DNA molecule-one could theoretically store two bits per base, but would then run the risk of generating a sequence which triggers transcription by a ribosome or causes the DNA in the region to have undesirable chemical properties. If one bit per base pair is stored, we are free to choose a sequence which is benign in these regards. DNA is a double helix in which the backbone of each strand consists of a chain of phosphate groups and the sugar deoxyribose, with a base pair of adenine-thymine (A-T) or cytosine-guanine (C-G) attached to each link the backbone. Assuming a roughly equal distribution of A-T and C-G base 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 helix, we end up with a total of 782 atomic mass units per base pair, and hence per bit, since one

is encoded in each. Converting the mass in atomic mass units into grams and dividing into one gram, it is calculated that DNA, at one bit per base pair, can store 7.7x1020 bits per gram, which is about two million times more efficiently than any of the currently used artificial storage media.

Dr Goldman and his team has managed to set a record (739.3 kilobytes) for the amount of unique information encoded. But it has been designed to do far more than that. According to researchers, it should easily be capable of storing the roughly 3 zettabytes (one billion trillion bytes) of digital data, which is thought presently to exist in the world and still have room for plenty more. It would do so with a density of around 2.2 petabytes per gram; or, in other words, to fit all of the world’s digital information into the back of a lorry. Moreover, their method drastically reduces the copying errors to which many previous DNA storage attempts have been prone.

It is intriguing to contemplate the fact that, aside from the encoding of protein sequences according to the genetic code, DNA is now considered to be used as a general-purpose data storage medium. It is obvious that DNA USB drives are not yet right around the corner, as various practical issues have to be dealt with first. However, considering DNA will most likely never become outdated, and it has already been shown to store massive amounts of data, we can only hope that the 21st century will witness significant advances in this field, enabling us to see a ‘DNA drive’ in our lifetime!

DNA data storage

-Madhura MurarAbasaheb Garware College

Pune

23 P.I.N.G. Issue 9.0. February 2013 PICTIEEE.ORG/PING

Personal Cloud


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.

Such losses can be avoided by setting up a Home Server. That’s right. A Home Server.By setting up a home server, all of your data is securely stored on the server. You can access the data whenever needed just as you would access any file on your computer. Once the server is setup, there is absolutely no need of maintenance; provided the system is configured properly.

Put simply, a home server is a computer that’s dedicated to storing, sharing and backing up files- typically media and data files that are or are not used by other computers in your home or office.

Setting up a server is very easy. A basic home server requires a computer with minimum specification. Intel’s Atom processor coupled with 1 GB of RAM is enough to power your server. The next thing you need is lots of storage and a home network. The network can be wired or wireless. Lastly, you will need a PSU powerful enough to power all of your hard disks and the processor. The server can be run headless. The server can be powered by a dedicated OS specially developed for servers, like the FreeNAS and Ubuntu Server or it can be set up 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

2. Low-power, hence it is environmentally friendly and can be powered from a backup battery or solar-powered source3. Wireless, to make installation easy and to provide portability4. Offer large storage capacity, so you can store all your media and backup data in one central location5. Easily connectable

So now you have setup your server. But what can you do with it other than just store and backup your important data?

You can share your photos directly from your server without uploading them to any website. All you have to do is store the photos to a shared folder and they are up for viewing on the web. You can stream all of your playlists locally or over net using SSH or any other technologies. One of such examples is the Squeeze-box by Logitech. You can even control your System remotely using SSH and VNC. Wake on LAN can be used to turn on your system remotely without actually being physically present at your home.

The most amazing benefit of having a home server is that you can automate your home. Control the lights, heating and cooling and more. If you want a home of the future and don’t want to pay a ton of money, a do-it-yourself home automation project using your home server is a great way to start. The future of Personal Cloud is here. Are you?

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.

3D Print of Organs

-Soham MorePune Institute of Computer Technology

Pune

A private server to eclipse your home. Your genetic material is a hard drive!


A 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 human-computer interaction, however, severely limits human's freedom to communicate with the machine.

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.

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 traces, Berger was able to identify oscillatory activity in the brain, such as the alpha wave (8–12 Hz).

The Muse- A View into the BrainMuse, crafted by InteraXon is a stylish, sturdy headband that measures the patterns of electrical activity in the brain- electrical signals are divided into ‘bands’ based on their frequency. The Muse headbands are wrapped around a person’s forehead and tucked behind ear securely.The basic function of this Muse is to measure the electrical signal and the signature of the brain. With this, the brain signal can be interpreted and the mental state of the person may be determined. It also may be used to determine the level of relaxation the person is enjoying. The Muse measures two of the better-understood

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.’

The basic principle used, EEG, has been around for over hundred years. But InteraXon wants to empower people to take reins of these electrical peaks and troughs. By achieving this they can gently steer the brain through these mental state. This gives the feeling of being aware of one’s own thoughts. This by itself is a powerful tool.

To move Heaven and EarthIn one of the exercises developed, a sun and a moon appeared on opposite sides of the screen. The objective of the user is to merge these two using only thoughts. This heavily depends on the ability of the user to concentrate and focus. When the person is able to concentrate on merging the sun and the moon, literally the heavens move to form a virtual eclipse.

In another one of these games, the brainwaves

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.

Data VisualizationThough 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.

Essential ConditionsThis is just the beginning of mind control exercises. There are some points to keep in mind while going about designing an efficient user interface using BCI technology:

Comfortable implementation Today its a headband or a helmet that reads brainwaves from external EEG sensors, but to develop more complex applications, there is a need to put sensors inside the head or add more components. For this, more knowledge of the brain and our limitations are essential.

To improve usage and adoptionTo use this technology optimally, focus is of paramount importance. The Muse may help with this regard, because by letting users play simple games, they can train their brains to focus in a way detectable by the EEG monitors. Games and personal improvement apps seem like a good reason for people to adopt the technology.

StandardsThere needs to be a consistent set of meaning. If there are three different helmets that read brainwave in the market, the user should be able to control objects using all three in the same way.

Future- Is it Mind Control?The vast power of our own minds is leaking out through the attention holes that can’t be stopped easily. Consumer-oriented, EEG-powered monitors like the Muse aren't just about gimmicky tricks like flying helicopters with our thoughts. Therapists and mental health practitioners can affordably measure

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.

Concerns‘These devices have access to your raw EEG (electroencephalography or electrical brain signal) data and that contains certain neurological phenomena triggered by subconscious activities’, says Ivan Martinovic, a member of the faculty in the department of computer science at Oxford. ‘So the central question we were asking with this work was, is this a privacy threat?’

Research shows that the researchers were able to determine personal information like house address, PIN, etc to a certain extent. When shown 10 random places, their place of residence could be determined with accuracy of about 60%. In fact, none of those results point to a realistic possibility of cybercriminals reading victims’ minds through their headsets any time soon. But it is possible that with better technology this may become a distinct threat. More over there may be ethical opposition to probing the mind of a human being.

Muse is a really ground breaking project but there’s plenty of other work going on in this realm and a lot more needs to happen. But when we consider the massive amounts of digital information we’re going to be negotiating in real-time, the idea of some kind of computer-oriented telekinesis is pretty compelling. When the brain is the limit, the possibilities are truly endless.

Mind over Machine

-Mathangi KrishnamurthiPune Institute of Computer Technology

Pune

The Brain’s Muse.

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.

Durango


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.

ImplementationA rudimentary implementation is described here of a part of the above idea using the following components-

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 modesThe 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.

Using the Arduino 1.0 software, two modes of data collection can be set to get different styles of graphs

pertaining to the device’s current characteristics. They are -

1. Data Collection modeIn 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.

2. Working (Normal) modeThis mode is mainly used for data collection and analysis on a regular basis. In this mode, the transient phase of the device’s current-characteristic graph appears only once, that is, when the device is switched on. However the one transient phase set obtained can be used just as well for analysis and recognition of the device attached to the smart plug.

Extraction of transient phaseThis implementation focuses primarily on device recognition and understanding based on the transient phase of the current characteristic of the device, obtained from the current sensor and Arduino board. From a given data set (either in On/Off mode or Switched On mode) the transient phase can be obtained in the following way-

1. The first ‘hike’ in the current values is recognized. This corresponds to the moment when the device actually starts working.2. The data values in the ‘vicinity’ of this point are copied and stored in a separate data file (Temporary or permanent, depending on the need).

Graph plottingThe functions present in the matplotlib Python module are used for plotting of graphs based on the different values present in the recorded data file. Plotting of graphs has no use for data analysis by the computer, but it aids the user in viewing the

Smart Grids

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 parameters-1. The Pearson’s Coefficient.2. The Average value of the magnitudes in the two datasets.

Thus, the strongest match for the temporary device data in question is found out. The name of the device which corresponds to this strongest match in the dataset in given as the ‘recognized device’ by the data analysis module.

Future Work and Possible ApplicationsIn the implementation described in this article, the Python module is only able to recognize the device attached, but not monitor it. As the database of device current characteristics increases, the ‘normal working conditions/values’ of every device can be recognized. The Python module can be modified to read the values being obtained from the device at regular intervals and notify the user if there is any high level of irregularity in its functioning. Going one step ahead, the Python module can be made capable of interfacing with the Arduino software to cut the electricity supply to the device. This would prevent the faulty device from causing any problems in the electricity supply Grid, thus making it ‘Smart’!

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.

Glass Keyboard

A quantum leap for a more electrifying efficient network.

-Sachin JoglekarBITS Pilani (Goa Campus)

Across

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 physi-cal contact (11)

Down

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)

Answers to this crossword lie within the included articles

crossword

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P.I.N.G. Issue 9.0