Chips in your head

FLYNN REMEDIOS – FUTURISTIC MEDIA NETWORK

Microprocessors have invaded all walks of life from wristwatches to tea-cups. Most of us would remember the nursery rhyme `Polly put the kettle on, let's all have tea'. While in the nursery rhyme Polly was a human being (or was it a parrot?), in the digital age Polly could well be your computer. Today, almost every other consumer product for household use incorporates a small chip that controls its functions.

We all know that digital watches contain a small micro chip that drives the functions of the watch and tells the time. Multi-functional watches that offer chronometrical functions have sophisticated computational circuitry built into a single square centimetre of space. Such chips are fabricated on the circuit board itself and cannot be detached or swapped. Hence, if the chip fails, the watch needs to be discarded.

All electronic consumer goods sold today contain these small microprocessor chips that control vital functions of the product. Hence a toaster microchip would contain a timer and temperature control mechanism built in, a television or tape recorder would contain several chips, as would a motorcar. Some cars manufactured today have more computing power than the most advanced super computers built ten years ago. These built-in or embedded microprocessors are the brains that drive the products. While most parts of a consumer product can be replaced, it is very difficult to replace or change an embedded chip should it fail to function. And most embedded chips are not of the plug-in variety. They are hard-wired with the requisite software and the code is burnt into the silicon of which they are made.


Thanks to contemporary programming languages microscopic processors embedded into products like tea-pots, microwaves, air-conditioners, televisions and other household goods, it is now technically possible to verbally order your television set on or off or your tea-pot to warm up your coffee.


While channel surfing may still require manual operation of the remote, voice recognition (VR) software has advanced enough to provide basic on-off functions. And with most gadgets using built-in microprocessors, it is not very difficult to incorporate a VR option.

As most consumer goods become multi-functional, electronic chips are replacing mechanical systems. So today you have chips in your air-conditioner, Walkman, wristwatch, camera, washing machine, toaster, microwave, electric cooker, you name it.

However, the day is not far off when your Reebok or Nike shoes will also house embedded chips that compute the inflow of air into the soles of the air-cushioned shoes. Some of them already have mechanized versions. Even your fountain pen may have a micro computerized system to control the flow to its nib based on the pressure exerted on the nib.

Or maybe eyeglasses that have a microscopic chip built into the framework to modify the curvature of the lens or adjust the opacity depending on the intensity of the light. Thermal or heat-sensitive garments used in certain industry incorporate miniature microprocessors that modify the texture and other properties of the fabric like sensitivity etc. Cushions and seats in cars and aero planes are already automated to adjust to the pressure exerted on them. Artificial organs that can be implanted into the body to replace faulty valves etc also use built-in microchips. Pacemakers, artificial lungs, or kidneys that are already commercially available run on micro chips. Very soon, a malfunctioning section of the brain could be replaced by a microchip – and then digital brains are not far away.

The original article was first published in The Economic Times and can be found online at: http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:kT6M4Hebs34J:www1.economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-14367333,prtpage-1.cms+%22Flynn+Remedios%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=75&gl=in

Those New Age Plastics

FLYNN REMEDIOS - FUTURISTIC MEDIA NETWORK

For want of a better name, they're called plastics. But new age polymers could soon replace every kind of material you can think or even dream of. You could even be wearing them. Imagine about 70 per cent of the jet you fly in made of the miracle plastic polymers. Crazy isn’t it.

When a chemical engineer at a recent conference in Mumbai made a statement that iron and steel and other conventional building materials would be obsolete in the next decade - only to be replaced by new age plastic polymers, not many in the audience made a serious note of what he said. Others probably dismissed it as mere SF gobbledygook. Only a couple of people in the audience nodded in agreement.

Right from semi-conductors, to batteries, to car engines and aeroplane parts, all can be easily and cost-effectively fabricated using these new age materials, which for want of a specific name are called plastics. Yes, they share some properties with conventional plastics and may have molecular formulas like other polymers, but are as durable, heat resistant and possess the tensile strength of hi-grade steel. They can even be used to build bridges or make flexible computer display screens that could be folded like you'd fold a handkerchief and put it into your pocket. And when you want to use the thingamajig, just pop it out, unfold it and it's ready to go. Well, for now, this may be a wee bit SF, but if developments in plastics' technology are to be believed and the progress being made is sustained, you could have a folding TV in another two years. Better still, your car would probably weigh almost a fifth of what it currently does because not just the bumper and the dashboard, but even the engine and the body would be made of some `plastic' material.


Researchers are even experimenting with using these new materials for making locomotive and aero parts which can withstand very high vibrations, besides temperature and pressure extremes without giving way. One of the biggest advantages that these products promise over conventional plastics is the fact that they are biodegradable and can be recycled without losing any of their specific properties. Unlike conventional plastic, which if recycled, loses its shine and strength and becomes brittle - making it unusable for manufacture of new products.


As far as electronics is concerned, polymers are already used to produce ultra-light batteries for cell phones that are stamp-sized but last for several days. Researchers predict that in the next few years polymer batteries will completely phase out the conventional lithium, cadmium or nickel-ammonium batteries, helping make cell phones much lighter - today almost 60 per cent of the weight and volume of a cell phone is its battery. Imagine if that were reduced by 200 per cent, a cell phone built into your wrist watch would work for more than a week without a recharge - or your palmtop could run for two full days with your multimedia running at full blast.

The original article was first published in The Economic Times and can be found online at:

http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:Io1S7czgnCkJ:economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-15369597,prtpage-1.cms+%22Flynn+Remedios%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=71&gl=in

Hostage on the Net

FLYNN REMEDIOS - FUTURISTIC MEDIA NETWORK


It is very easy for cyber criminals, cyber terrorists and hackers to hijack a domain on the internet, or crack into a web server. The cracking tools are all there on the net itself.

Ever stopped to think how vulnerable you and your business is on the net? And did you ever realise that at any given point of time, there are probably thousands of online predators trying to pry their talons into your web server.

If you are still skeptical, here are some hard facts: According to Wired, Nike lost control of its homepage a few weeks ago to a group of activists demanding "global justice." "Global Justice is coming - prepare now!" the erstwhile Nike.com site read, directing surfers to the website of an Australian organisation called S-11. Meanwhile, Web Networks, a non-profit ISP that hosts websites for other non-profit organisations, is still assessing the damage after losing its domain, Web.net, to a thief recently. A single day doesn't go by with a few hundred sites losing their home pages to hackers, who disfigure them, either to post a message and make a statement or sometimes merely to gain some self-publicity.


A White House official recently confessed to a wire service that every day at least a hundred unsuccessful attempts to hack into the Pentagon, NASA or the White House are logged by the tracking devices and firewalls employed by these sites. Then again, ready-to-use programs that can cause a web server to `hang' - a term called Denial of Service are easily available on the net. Utilities with names like Satan, Crack and Lucifer are widely used with ease by amateur hackers to do their dirty deeds. We have also heard reports of domain squatters who register popular domains and brand names, hoping to sell them to the original owners at a super premium later on. In India itself, business houses have been at the receiving end of cyber-squatters. Not just brand names, cyber-squatters also hijack popular personalities. PramodMahajan.com and Vajyapee.com are some examples. Some Mumbai-based youth managed to register a domain under the name of the IT minister. Last year, a porn site vajyapee.com was online for a short while before it disappeared into the fathomless depths of the internet. But it stayed long enough to cause adequate damage.


Domain takeovers enable the hijacker to control the server associated with a domain name, such as nokia.com or Nike.com. Hijackers can then reassign the domain name to another Web server, or to no server at all, scuttling all traffic intended to go to the site.


Another deadly issue is the use of Internet Warfare or the blocking of sites by hackers from warring or discordant nations. So you have domain-name hijackers taking over hundreds of websites in a campaign rooted in tensions among Balkan states - back home, Pakistani hackers have claimed to have identified over 800 vulnerable Indian sites, that can be blocked or hacked in case tensions between the two neighbours hot up. Individuals listing Serbian and Albanian postal addresses recently have exploited a weakness in registrar Network Solutions and appropriated names registered through the company, only to re-register them anew.


A simple method of IP address redirection, ensures that genuine cyber citizens are redirected to other sites before they end up at the URL or portal of their choice. This means that an online business would use this method to divert customers from other competing sites to their own site. Another method called Spoofing creates a facade or a dummy site on the web. Surfers are presented with a page that looks like the real thing, but is really a Trojan that conceals a payload. Hackers also use sophisticated `sniffing' software and methods to detect IP addresses and packets that they sniff or decipher anonymously. The issue of prime concern is that such software is available for the asking on the Net - all free with the source code included that allows hackers to even change the original to include their own demonical creations. The free internet obviously seems to be serving cyber criminals as well.

This article was first published in The Economic Times and can be found online at:

http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:vsyvHehT-1sJ:economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-16868050,prtpage-1.cms+%22Flynn+Remedios%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=70&gl=in

Call girls in Mumbai using identity cards of Star hotels, airlines and BPOs

By Flynn Remedios - Futuristic Media Network

The Mumbai police and particularly the Social Service Branch of the Crime Branch at Mumbai investigating the misuse of social networking website www.orkut.com by high class call girls and pimps have chanced upon a very disturbing trend in the flesh trade.

An additional commissioner of police under whom the department falls, said that many "women of the night" are using perfect forgeries of identity cards belonging to BPOs, Airlines and even the Hotel industry. Speaking to this journalist, he said, "Our flying squads and night patrols intercept people traveling in the wee hours of the night. We also stop and conduct checks at traffic intersections and at naka bandis. However, when anybody flashes an identity card of a reputed organization our officers and constables immediately let them go without any further questions or further checks.

For the last few years, press and TV media id cards were the most misused even by errant drivers and sometimes inebriated drivers who would jump signals and when accosted by a traffic policeman would flash a "Press Card" of a prominent newspaper or television channel.

"Many times our officers not wanting to "inconvenience" genuine journalists who may be rushing to cover a story or event would just let them go. This modus operandi has been in use for quite some time now," explains a former Mumbai traffic police commissioner.

According to police sources, "however a very disturbing trend is the growing misuse of Id cards belonging to Airlines, five star hotels and even BPOs, all of whose employees are required to work late hours and in shifts. In the last one month we have detained about 50 persons all over Mumbai, most of them women misusing such ID cards."

Call girl network in Mumbai using Orkut?

By Flynn Remedios - Futuristic Media Network

Highly placed sources in the Social Services Branch at the Crime Branch, Mumbai confirmed on Wednesday that they are monitoring the popular international networking and social portal www.orkut.com and have zeroed in on some prominent and other not-so-prominent Bollywood celebs involved in the flesh trade.

Speaking to this journalist on condition of anonymity, a DCP heading the surveillance and monitoring project said that many "high class" call girls - some of them part-time Bollywood actresses and out-of-work models are using the Orkut network to solicit clients and even openly advertise their services. "We have some officers and agents from the Cyber crime cell logging in and continuously monitoring such profiles and checking their "scraps and messages", he explained.


We decided to check out ourselves: Searching randomly through Orkut.com, we found several hundred profiles of Indian girls with suggestive content, some of them mentioning email ids and even contact telephone numbers and not to forget very obscene vulgar photographs.

Most of the photos were not morphed - as is normally believed - as a closer examination of the jpeg, bmp and tiff files revealed but were normal photos shot with digital cameras. A basic cyber forensic examination of the photos in question uploaded on Orkut even revealed the type and make of camera used to click the photos. Next we decided to call a few random the phone numbers listed against the Orkut profiles.

In many cases, the profiles turn out to be put up by disgruntled ex-lovers and "enemies" who may have damaging material on their ex-girl friends. However, of the 20-odd phone numbers we contacted about 12 turned out to be working cell nos which were normally answered by gruff male voices. In one or two particular cases, when we mentioned their "advertisement" we were told to deposit Rs 5000/- in a particular ICICI bank account if we wanted more details. The person answering the phone claimed to have an album of celebrities and their "going rate" but we would have to pay Rs 5000/- for a one-time view of his album.

A few days ago, two Mumbai aspiring actresses and a model, who solicited clients through websites www.hotpari.com and www.damesndesires.com, were arrested by the Nagpur rural police on Friday. Police sources had then claimed that one of the arrested girls is paired opposite Abhay Deol in a forth coming film, the other two girls were models having "appeared" in various print advertisements.

Apparently, a detailed interrogation of the girls lead to the monitoring of Orkut, claim officials. Additional Commissioner of police (Mumbai Western Region) Archana Tyagi was unavailable for comment.

Futuristics: Virtual Fun

By Flynn Remedios - Futuristic Media Network

Got an important board presentation the day after? Want to spruce up your image before the chairman? It's a once in a lifetime chance remember!!! So what do you do? Junk the conventional Powerpoint presentation and try adding a few Virtual Effects, 3D and Dolby Sound-like magic to your otherwise boring PPT. And is that possible - yes it is.

There was a time when 3D and virtual reality (VR) software and effects could only be viewed with special goggles? And, in spite of all those contraptions and contrivances, the images made a perfect recipe for sore eyes. They were crude and lacked the finesse and sophistication displayed by even some of the relatively down-market productions available today.

All that is a thing of the past. Different VR formats like the QuickTime VR developed by Apple and other similar formats from competing software companies have literally put VR on the desktop of the corporate and marketing manager.
QuickTime VR is an extension of the QuickTime technology developed by Apple Computer Inc that allows users to interactively explore and examine photorealistic, three-dimensional virtual worlds.

Unlike many other virtual reality systems, QuickTime VR does not require the user to wear goggles or gloves. Instead, the user navigates in a virtual world using standard input devices (such as the mouse or keyboard) to change the image displayed by the QuickTime VR movie controller. The images displayed in QuickTime VR movies can rendered on a computer using a three-dimensional graphics package.

Also, producing software for such applications is quite easy, thanks to applications like QTVR Authoring Studio and several others that are available at affordable prices. Some VR production software is also available as shareware on the internet - obviously such shareware wouldn't incorporate all the finer features.

This means that producing VR applications and presentations is as convenient as producing Word or PowerPoint demos. Hypothetically yes, though it may be difficult for the uninitiated and Latin and Greek for still others who can barely use MS Word.

However, for those who master this product, with a few clicks of the mouse and a couple of scanned images, the software allows the developer to add effects that range from the downright bizarre to the completely grotesque. All this in the minimum possible time, so that corporate managers can actually carry all the production software on their laptops and change VR demos and presentations enroute from one meeting to the other.

So while in Mumbai you can open your presentation with a background image of the Gateway of India and some high-pitched Mumbai-local train chatter as your background score and when in Delhi change the introduction template to include the India Gate and some Karol Bagh tamasha - if that's your cup of tea.

The most important feature of the currently available VR production software is the portability they offer and their capability to suck out relevant data from standard RDBMS systems or even from ERP and other MIS software. The VR software can draw out data in real-time from say an ERP product like SAP and simultaneously modify the presentation that could include a graph or a pie-chart embedded within another graphic. Of course, besides VR, several other presentation packages make just as good or even better presentations, but the novelty of having a VR embedded presentation can still turn heads and make headlines in the press the next day.

Another aspect is the simplicity and compactness of the generated VR files. They occupy just a few megabytes of hard disk space, and can be stored on a small laptop. If the images are huge, they can be stored on a media server and by incorporating a format like OBVI (Object-based video interface) into the VR presentation, they can be only downloaded via the internet as and when required. The manager can leave the image files on his server and stream them into his presentations.

As these techniques progress to dizzy heights of technical sophistication and software becomes easier to use and even easier to carry around and integrate, we owe these benefits largely to the internet that has made portability a de facto requirement.

Entertainment: Rose Dawn spells a new dawn for Frankfinn Music.

By Jamila Hussain/Flynn Remedios

The haute and saucy item girl that recently hit tinsel town about a month ago, Rose Dawn has sent the cash registers ringing at Frankfinn Music making head honcho K S Kolhi a very happy man. The Suga Candy girl (the name of her recent album),k Rose Dawn is an Anglo-Indian whose Kahin Pe Nigahen from rankfinn Music hit the top of the popularity charts in a matter of weeks. Not just that, she is in great demand for concerts, events and even films. Rose says that she has been approached by many Bollywood producers and directors for 'item numbers' in their forthcoming films, but I am being very careful about what I do as I am comparatively very new in this industry.

"Item numbers can be classy and naughty and need not be raunchy. I aim to create that trend of naughtiness sans vulgarity and am here to stay," announces the bombshell who is a familiar TV face with commercials like 7 Up, Nokia 1230, HP Computers, Reid & Taylor, Lifebuoy Soap, Raj Jewellers, Deep Foods, Ayur, Rediffbol.com, M.tel, Airtel among others.


"I am glad I made my choice of coming to India," says the 19-year-old Rose whose hot performance in the Frankfinn Music remix item number titled Kahin Pe Nigahaen is now the talk of the town. "It's a popular track at discotheques, clubs and pubs in Mumbai," says Rose excitedly.


Rose Dawn, interestingly, is a trained dancer and actor from London. She knows Kathak, Bharata Nayam, Hip-hop, Tap Dance, Ballet and the basics of belly dancing, an art she is trying hard to improve.