Undo the Paperwork

same author, same newspaper, more importance.

Jug Suraiya.

Title: Undo the Paperwork

Back from Bangalore - or Bengaluru, to give it its new name - I am happy to report that the erstwhile Garden City which was fast becoming a concrete wasteland - thanks to greedy property developers who believe that nothing succeeds like overbuilding excess - is sprouting new green shoots. One of the more notable among these is the recently opened Royal Gardenia which has bagged the coveted LEED India Platinum rating for being the world's largest eco-friendly hotel. From its wind-funnel atrium which requires no air-conditioning, to its drip-fed 'vertical gardens' that cover walls in panels of green vegetation, it wears its environmental heart on its corporate sleeve. But what impressed me most about the place was the loo: discreetly tucked away beside the potty was a hygiene faucet. A hygiene faucet? In a super-deluxe hotel? An Indian super-deluxe hotel? Could such a thing be possible? It could be. And it was. There was the hygiene faucet, ready for hygiene-friendly, as well as environment-friendly, service.

All Indians - or at least all urban Indians - know what a hygiene faucet is: that hose-like contraption that provides strategically directed squirts of water after the performance of what are referred to as one's morning ablutions. The hygiene faucet is a born-again, or Gen X, brass lota, that indispensable accessory in any Indian loo, urban or rural, since time - and ablutions - immemorial. Indeed, so ubiquitous is the lota - or its hi-tech avatar, the hygiene faucet - that it might well be nominated as our unofficial national emblem. Despite this, the loos of hotels in India - or at least those establishments which boast more stars than your common or garden constellation - remained singularly and stubbornly lota-less, or hygiene faucet-less. Instead of which - following the Anglo-Saxon example - these supposedly super deluxe luxury loos provided an abundance of toilet paper, or what is commonly known as TP.

This TP-fixation not only put all Indian guests at such places in a quandary of existential angst - how to wash up after the job's done? - but was also environmentally questionable. How many trees - forget trees; how many forests - had to be felled to provide those endless rolls, those globe-girdling infinitudes of TP? And to what purpose, other than what at best might be termed as a less than salubrious bottom line?

Think of it. Think of all those international environmental conferences they've been having, from Rio, to Kyoto, to Copenhagen. Number crunchers have computed the carbon-emitting air miles that delegates flying to and fro from all these tamashas have collectively chalked up. The cups of coffee drunk (imported from Colombia? Jamaica? Brazil?), the pins and paper clips used at such meets, have all been totted up. But no one has given a thought to all the TP literally gone to pot, thanks to these jamborees.

If you take three squares of TP per application, and an average of three applications per visitation, that comes to nine squares. Assuming each square to be four inches by four inches, you get 36 inches, or one yard, of TP per person, per session. And that's assuming that none of all those high-flying delegates has developed a case of Rio Runnies, or Copenhagen Collywobbles, as a result of all this dashing about to unfamiliar climes and needs to use the loo - and the TP - more than once a day. Doesn't bear thinking about.

Or rather, it does bear thinking about. And the Royal Gardenia has thought about it and become the first hotel of its kind - in India and elsewhere - to provide, along with TP, its eco-chummy alternative in the form of the hygiene faucet. It is to be hoped that the example set by the Bengaluru hotel will be emulated far and wide - in India and beyond our shores - so that the next time Al Gore, R K Pachauri and Eco Co meet to see how they can save the planet from environmental catastrophe they'll have help at hand. In the form of a hygiene faucet. And a new eco mantra: Go green; go Gardenia; go wash.

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Plastic Devi

Hello friends,

This is an article ive read from an Indian newspaper daily.

i think this has the kind of a message for us indians to start becoming environment friendly.

the author is Jug Suraiya.

Title: Plastic Devi

here goes,

The face of the goddess is 25,645 feet from the crown of her head to her chin, and she is smiling at me. Her name is Nanda Devi, and she is part of the great Himalayan massif, of which i have a grandstand view from the garden of The Deodars, on Almora ridge, the beautifully preserved 150-year-old bungalow where Richard Wheeler and his charming wife, Elizabeth, are gracious hosts to lucky friends like me. The Deodars' kitchen produces excellent fare, and an even more sumptuous visual repast is offered by the stunning view of the high Himalayas, dominated by Nanda Devi.

Looking at her you can clearly see the two dark lustrous eyes on her snow-white face, the straight line of her nose, and the serene smile. The eyes, the nose, the mouth are of course natural formations of rock and ice. But equally naturally they lend themselves to an imaginative invocation of an eternal deity.

Looking at the Devi, i can't help but think how blessed we are to have such wondrous mountains and hills that we can call our own. Or rather how privileged we are to belong to them. And how do we repay that privilege? How do we pay homage to not just the highest of all the world's mountains, but also the youngest, and still growing by some six centimetres a year? We contribute to their growth. The Himalayas were formed aeons ago by a tectonic plate shift which caused what is now subcontinental India to press up against the bulwark of Central Asia; the impact giving rise to the towering majesty of the Himalayan range, which continues to grow thanks to the pressure still being exerted by geological forces. To which we Indians - patriotic citizens one and all - are contributing our mite. Or should that be might? And what has been our contribution to the further growth and crowning glory of the world's most magnificent mountains? Plastic. Plastic in all sizes, shapes, forms and avatars: water bottles, pouches, bags, cups, sheets, plastic in all its myriad manifestations.

Our love of plastic is well known. We have choked all our cities, towns, villages and countryside with the stuff. Mera Bharat Mahaan? Dunno about that. Mera Bharat maha plastic? Most certainly. And having smothered all our plains with plastic, we're now carrying our plastic ambitions to new heights: we're increasing the altitude of our hills and mountains by heaping them higher with mounds of plastic.

From Almora we drive to Binsar where the hills huddle like giants under the green blanket of pine forests and the high cold air is crisp as a sip of dry champagne. We take a day trip to Bhimtal, a jewel box with its emerald lake basking under an aquamarine sky, where the staff of The Fisherman's Lodge, a boutique hideaway designed and run by Bindu Sethi and Bunty Singh, serve us a cordon bleu lunch. All in all, a scenario where every prospect pleases, and only plastic is vile. There is plastic everywhere; by the roadside, in nullahs and streams and valleys, in green pastures and verdant woods. All sheathed and swaddled in plastic. Each car that passes us - with number plates from Delhi, UP, Gujarat, you name it - pitches in to help, chucking out of the window an empty bottle, wrapper, packet, whatever, anything so long as it's plastic.

Why are we doing it? Why are we burying alive our country, particularly our mountains and forests, in plastic? Are we congenital vandals, inveterate garbage dumpers? Of course not. We are covering our beloved country in plastic to protect and preserve it. From global warming which will melt the Himalayas and flood the plains. So put it all - mountains, plains, everything - under plastic wraps. Plastic is the most imperishable of man-made substances. It'll be around for 10,000 years, doing its job of preserving the beauty and loveliness of our land. Not only from climate change but also from our gaze. I take a last look at Nanda Devi's smile, before it gets hidden forever by our terminal plastic surgery.

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Samsung unveils Blue Earth, a solar-powered mobile phone

Samsung's Blue Earth handset might just be taking the green thing to a whole new extreme. Made from PCM, a recycled plastic from water bottles, the phone boast an "eco" mode for efficiently adjusting screen brightness, backlight duration and Bluetooth usage, and an "eco walk" app / built-in pedometer to tell you how much CO2 emission you've saved by walking instead of driving. The best part? It's got a giant solar panel on the back that'll apparently charge it enough to make a phone call anytime the sun's peaking out. Of the form factor, Sammy says it "symbolizes a flat and well rounded shiny pebble" -- which we hope means it can skip puddles with the best of 'em. It'll come in recycled packaging with an energy efficient charger. What we don't know, unfortunately, is what makes this phone tick, neither OS nor hardware specs. Not a word on price yet, but UK environmentalists can look forward to this one second half of this year

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thermoelectric lamp tutorial

What you see above is a generator that converts heat to electricity. [Reukpower's] thermoelectric lamp is one of those hacks that makes you scratch your head even though you understand why it should work. The heart of the system uses a Peltier cool, just like the thermoelectric solar generator. When there is a temperature differential from one side of the Peltier to the other a small current is generated.
In this case a candle heats one side and a heat sink cools the other. The tiny voltage picked up from the Peltier’s contacts is then boosted using a joule thief. We’ve seen LEDs powered with a joule thief before, benefiting from their own low power consumption. In this case, the boost circuit is scavenged from an emergency phone charger and probably achieves higher efficiency than if he had built it himself.

LET's MAKE IT THEN:

introHow to build a thermoelectric lamp

The thermoelectric lamp generates electricity off the temperature difference between the hot candle and the cool heat sink. This we can use to power small devices, like a radio or very bright LEDs.  You may be able to charge an mp3 player off of it too!

Here's what we'll need:

A thermoelectric peltier chip, the bigger the better. I used a 100W version.
A large heat sink, I used a dell one with heat pipes. The success depends on this heatsink, get the best you can!
An emergency phone charger (we are going to steal the joule thief out of it)
A Small amount of Rock wool insulation, small amounts available from garden centers.
A small tin can with a lip around the top. (Heinz beans will do)
A coke can.
Thermal heat compound
Some heavy duty foil, about 30x30cm
A foot of thick copper or steel wire, for the handle.
2 25mm long M6 Bolts
4 40mm long M5 Bolts
1 50mm long M5 Bolt.

The bolts don't need to be any exact size, just use whatever is available, almost any will work.

Tools you'll need:

Tin snips
Soldering iron
Pliers (with cutters)
Drill bits
Sandpaper
M6 Tap for cutting the threads. The not essential as you could just use an ordinary nut, but it's neater.
Drill (Drill press makes life easier...)
Glue or Glue gun

step 1Drill the holes in the can and fit the feet and central adjustment

You can see that I have drilled 5 holes in the bottom of the can. These are for the feet and candle height adjustment. I fitted little rubber feet to them, this is not essential.

step 2Tighten them all up and glue the central nut in place.

Once you've tightened all of the feet up, you need to glue the central nut in place.
You can see I've added a cardboard shim inside of the can. This because the coke can is slightly too small for the tin can. This prevents it from tipping slightly when the candle height is adjusted. The cardboard only needs to be about 25mm high.

step 3Cut the candle door

Next you need to cut the hole for the candle in the side of the can this should be around 30 - 35mm by about 50mm long. I started by drilling a small hole and worked from there using the tin snips. After this you can drill the ventilation holes all the way around the top of the can. I used a 3mm drill bit for this.
Make sure you sand all the edges so you can't cut yourself on the metal!

step 4Cut the coke can to size

Now cut the coke can to about half off the height of the tin can, you can see in the photo I am testing the height of the flame, we want it to be around 6mm away from the ruler with a new candle. You'll probably have to make a few adjustments to get this right.

step 5Fit some Rock wool to the coke can

Next turn the coke can over and fill it with Rock Wool insulation. Poke a space in the middle with a pen or something similar for the bolt to go into.

step 6Test the coke can fit in the tin can.

Now you can fit the coke can in place. You can see a little dimple in the middle, this is because the coke can was forced down to give the bolt something to rest on. The coke can might not fit perfectly on the bolt because of the insulation, you might need to wiggle it about a bit! Test the movement to make sure you can adjust the height smoothly.

step 7Fit the handle

Next, you can form the handle for carrying the device. I used some thick copper wire as a handle because it matches the heat sink pipes. You need to bend the handle back through the holes to prevent it from turning, see the photo. This stops the device rotating upside down when you are carrying it (the heat sink is the heaviest part).

step 8Drill the heatsink for the peltier holder

Now we can work on the heat sink. Here I have drilled two holes to mount the peltier. You can either tap the holes, or use a locknut on the other side. The two holes need to be set so that the bolts fit inside of the tin can, this keeps the peltier in the right position. I have also cleaned the heat sink ready for the thermal compound.

step 9Cut the peltier holder to size.

Next you can make the cover for the peltier. It's easier to cut the square out with this part still attached to the can - cut the square and then use a can opener to remove the bottom. Mark around the peltier with a marker or a scribe and drill a hole in the centre, work out from this using the tin snips to make the square. The square needs to be slightly smaller than the peltier chip so that it grips it. Mark the two holes the same as on the heatsink and drill them for the correct size. I made the cut out slightly round so I didn't cut through the strengthening ribs on the tin lid

step 10Apply thermal compound

Now you can apply the thermal compound to the heat sink. Make sure it is clean and spread the compound over the contact area. Note: as some people have commented the thermal compound only needs to be a very fine layer, not a thick paste like I have done here. There is a little too much thermal compound in the photo.

step 11Fit the peltier

Now you can fit the peltier to the heat sink. Press it down into the thermal compound and wiggle to smooth out the compound. You can see that the peltier is very dirty from soot, this is from my testing.  The side that is in contact with the heatsink must be clean though. When you use the device dry and avoid getting soot on the peltier as it blocks the heat transfer. Use the candle height adjustment to get this right.

step 12Insulate the peltier

Now you need to make a thermal insulator for between the heat sink and the fire tin.  Cut a square out of the foil the same size as the peltier chip and fit this over the peltier. Fill around the sides with 5mm thick strips of rockwool. Fold the foil over and you should end up with something like this. Don't worry if it is too thick as the bolts will compress it when tightened.

step 13Cut an aluminium patch for the peltier

Now cut a square of aluminium the same size as the peltier chip. Sand the patch with fine paper to remove the paint. Apply thermal compound (the same as in step 10) and gently place it over the peltier ready for step 14.

step 14Bolt the peltier down

Now you can bolt the peltier down. You'll need to punch some holes in the Rock Wool insulator for the bolts

step 15Solder and fit the joule thief

You can remove the battery pack from the emergency charger and just use the plastic end cap with the circuit in it.

First check the polarity of the wires to make sure that you know which way to solder them on. You can do this by just trying them both ways to see which way works, do this with the peltier heated by the candle. You'll need to solder the wires on to the joule thief and attach the joule thief to the tin can. I just used hot melt glue to fix it in place. You should have a nice 2.5mm output jack where you can plug things in

step 16

It should be finished now! You try various loads in the output to see what kind of power you get. Different peltiers will put out different amounts of power,  it also depends on the temperature difference you manage to achieve. I managed to charge  my small MP3 player, but it didn't have enough power to charge my phone. You can see it powering an LED torch here.

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Aerodynamic tail makes Geo Metro even cooler

[MetroMPG], an environmentally friendly car enthusiast from Ontario, added a tail to his car to increase gas mileage. This 1998 Pontiac Firefly is a sibling of the cheap and popular Geo Metro. He had already done some work to cover a portion of the rear wheel wells to reduce drag. Using cardboard, duct tape, and an aluminum frame he extended the rear of the car by around six feet.
The results are pretty impressive. His extensive testing can be seen in the video after the break and reveals a Miles Per Gallon increase of 15.1% at 90 km/h to get to 64 MPG. The tail is removable but we’re thinking it’s a pain to keep relocating the tail lights from the original body to the removable one.
Now we’re wondering if someone is doing this to our Smurf-blue Metro that we sold to the junk man for $100 back in 2001. It ran great, if you weren’t caught in the cloud of blue smoke coming out the back.

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Cooling LEDs by heating the water saves on electricity

Matthias swapped out his twin-tube florescent aquarium lights for LEDs. By running tank water through the aluminum LED mounts he’s transferring excess heat into the water in the tank, in turn saving some of the electricity that would have been used to heat the tank. Couple this with roughly 35 Watts saved by moving away from fluorescent tubes and he’s got a great energy-saving hack. The LEDs used in the last aquarium light conversion were cooled by heat sinks and fans. We’d love to see this concept incorporated into that design.

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PLANET SOLAR

A skipper's dream of sailing across the ocean using solar power is about to come true. More impressively, he'll be sailing on the world's largest pollution-free yacht, the PlanetSolar, which is unveiled Thursday at the HDW Shipyard in Germany.
Raphael Domjan, the skipper and CEO of the PlanetSolar project, regards this event as a confirmation that "the solar-powered boat is now a reality." Since the '80s, Domjan has been dreaming of touring the world using the minimum amount of energy. He envisioned a solar-powered boat in 2004 and the PlanetSolar project has been in full swing since early 2008. Now he looks forward to the solar-powered around-the-world trip.
Designed by a team of international engineers, PlanetSolar is a multihull white catamaran topped by about 5,300 square feet of black photovoltaic solar panels consisting of some 38,000 of SunPower's next generation cells. Each of the cells offers an efficiency of at least 22 percent--the highest efficiency solar cells commercially available. The boat is expected to be both silent and clean.
The boat is slated to be ready for testing in late March and will be ready for its world tour in early 2011. According to SolarPlanet, the project costs around 24 million dollars.
Measuring 100 feet long by 50 feet wide, the yacht is designed to reach a top speed of around 15 knots (about 17 miles per hour) and has enough space for 50 passengers. It's expected to be the fastest solar boat to cross the Atlantic Ocean and the first to cross both the Pacific and Indian Oceans.
During this trip of some 25,000 miles, the boat will stop at major cities, including Hamburg, London and Paris in Europe, New York and San Francisco in the U.S., and Singapore and Abu Dhabi. The solar boat will be available for public display during each of its stops, offering an educational opportunity to all visitors.

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SURFACE

What is Microsoft Surface?

Microsoft Surface is a revolutionary multi-touch computer that responds to natural hand gestures and real-world objects, helping people interact with digital content in a simple and intuitive way. With a large, horizontal user interface, Surface offers a unique gathering place where multiple users can collaboratively and simultaneously interact with data and each other.

For Users: Microsoft Surface represents a fundamental change in the way we interact with digital content. Leave the mouse and keyboard behind. Surface lets you grab digital content with your hands and move information with simple gestures and touches. Surface also sees and interacts with objects placed on the screen, allowing you to move information between devices like mobile phones or cameras. The result is a fun, social and exciting computing experience like you’ve never had before.

For Businesses: Microsoft Surface provides tremendous potential for businesses to improve communication, and be more efficient in how they deliver information and services to their customers. The intuitive and approachable interface is easy to learn and the familiar software platform makes it easy to manage, too. The multi-touch and multi-user capabilities create an incredibly collaborative experience, where sharing and exploring information is easier than ever.

Microsoft Surface has four key capabilities that make it such a unique experience:

• Direct interaction. Users can grab digital information with their hands and interact with content on-screen by touch and gesture – without using a mouse or keyboard.
• Multi-user experience. The large, horizontal, 30 inch display makes it easy for several people to gather and interact together with Microsoft Surface - providing a collaborative, face-to-face computing experience.
• Multi-touch. Microsoft Surface responds to many points of contact simultaneously - not just from one finger, as with a typical touch screen, but from dozens of contact points at once.
• Object recognition. Users can place physical objects on the screen to trigger different types of digital responses – providing for a multitude of applications and the transfer of digital content to mobile devices.

How does Microsoft Surface work?

Microsoft Surface uses cameras and image recognition in the infrared spectrum to recognize different types of objects such as fingers, tagged items and shapes. This input is then processed by the computer and the resulting interaction is displayed using rear projection. The user can manipulate content and interact with the computer using natural touch and hand gestures, instead of a typical mouse and keyboard.

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High speed video from cheap digital camera

Some researchers from Oxford University have come up with a way to produce high-speed video from a one mega-pixel camera. They’re calling the method Temporal Pixel Multiplexing. This method adds a digital micromirror device in line with the camera lens. These chips house over a million mirrors and can be found in home theater projectors. By placing one in front of the digital camera, a longer exposure can be used while the DMD redirects the light. This way, one high-resolution image actually contains multiple frames of lower-resolution video. The video is still decent quality and, at a far lower cost than common high-speed video equipment, this is a worthwhile trade off.

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Smartphones that are hacked could be used to spy you

As smartphones become more powerful, they become susceptible to even more sophisticated attacks from hackers. Researchers at Rutgers University in New Jersey recently used a special kind of malicious software, or 'malware' called a rootkit to demonstrate just how vulnerable smartphones are. Rootkits are not a new phenomenon. They have been used for two decads to infiltrate various kinds of computers. "the point of a new kind of rootkit but to show the greater damage they can cause on smart phone", study team member Liviu lftode, professsor of computer science at Rutgers, told 'TECH NEWS'. Today’s smartphones are really just mobile computers. Many of them run the same class of operating systems as desktop and laptop computers, and as a result are just as vulnerable to malware attacks, the researches say. They add, vulnerabilities in smartphones are even more dangerous because people carry them around at all times, making it easier for attackers to eavesdrop, track locations or even collect personal information . Also, features such as Bluetooth receivers and text messaging make it easier to deliver rootkits to phones.

Iftode and his colleagues recently demonstrated different kinds of rootkit attacks. For instance, the microphone on a smartphone can be turned on remotely using rootkits, allowing someone to listen in on anything going on around the owner. Another attack uses a common smartphone feature: GPS receivers . A simple text message allowed researchers to track the location and activity of the owner.

Finally, the team used another exploit to turn on all power-hungry applications and features in order to run down the battery quickly, leaving the phone inoperable. The researchers say their intent is not to just scare people, but to inspire action. “What we’re doing is raising a warning flag,” Iftode said. “We’re showing that people with general computer proficiency can create rootkit malware for smart phones. The next step is to work on defenses.”

The team used an open-source smartphone called the ‘Openmoko FreeRunner ’ running Linux software, but they emphasised that with enough time and effort, any smartphone operating system can be attacked with malware.

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Samsung launches JET 2 in India

Samsung has announced Jet 2 in India and to be honest, it’s the same as original Jet but apparently with an “easy-to-use user interface of a conventional mobile phone”. The Jet 2 feature set remains the same with 800MHz applications processor, 3.1-inch AMOLED touchscreen display (WVGA), Dolfin browser, DLNA compatibility, Media browser, one-finger zoom, FM Radio, SNS widgets and Smart Unlock. The phone runs on TouchWiz UI 2.0 but also features Motion UI and Media Gate 3D.
“Today’s mobile users seek smart features and easy-to-use user interface in their mobiles. Samsung Jet 2 combines both these qualities and gives the user a superior and differentiated experience,” said Ranjeet Yadav, Director- Mobile & IT, Samsung Electronics.
Samsung will retail Jet 2 for Rs. 19,500.

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Honda goes hybrid cars in India

Hybrid car in India was Civic which was priced at Rs. 21.5 Lakh and this 1.3 liter engine provided almost 50% of fuel efficiency. India was the 33rd country to grab this car and the company feels that this is a great way to do something for the depleting environment and also to gain some market and revenue from countries like India.

Honda is also planning the launch for its sports car Honda CR-Z – c i-VTEC engine volume of 1.5 litres (114 hp), auxiliary electric IMA (14 hp) which would come with six-speed manual and would be seen internationally and in India and company with its new launch is expecting a great market in India.

The success behind the Hybrid Systems in the vehicles is the increment in fuel efficiency and soon Honda will be out with more new hybrid vehicles in India. The hybrid cars from Honda was all imported from Honda Plant in Japan which makes the car costly because of the added import duty.

Honda is on full throttle for its Hybrid vehicles in India and is planning and working hard for it. The Hybrid cars in India has been not so popular because of the exaggerated price tags but then is surely worth that huge amount of money and is a support to the environment. Honda’s Hybrid vehicles are hugely popular in other countries with cars like minivans and SUVs but India experienced only Honda Civic Hybrid.

The Honda will soon be launching other Hybrid cars in India and is going to start a trend of Hybridization in India too.

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LG launches 'Ice Cream' phone in India

Korean major LG's 'Ice Cream' phone has come to india. The company has announced teh launch of its latest clamshell handset, KF350, also known as the 'Ice Cream' phone, in india. LG KF 350 is targeted at the fairer sex and has been launched to mark the internation Women's Day (fallind on March8). KF350 has a 2.2-inch QVGA, TFT display capable of displaying 256K colours. It also comes with an external LED Matrix display the time and other notifications. The mobile phone's other features include a 3MP camera, QVGA video recording, FM Radio and a full-fledged music player. There's 25MB of internal memory that can be increased to 2GB using a microSD card. Connectivity options include WAP 2.0/xHTML, HTML browser, Bluetooth and microUSB. EDGE over GPRS is also supported.
The 800 mAH batter phones supports a 5-hour talk time and a standby time of up to 350 hours.
Price at Rs 7,949, LG KF350 is available in White-rosy, Blue and Pistachio colors.

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NOW SURF UPTO 24 MBPS

If your slow internet connection has been a cause of great distress to you, BSNL now gives you a reason to stop complaining. The state-owned telecom operator has introduces a new plan that offers broadband speeds of up to 24Mbps. To avail this service, subscribers will have to pay Rs. 4,999 a month for speeds up to 16Mbps and Rs 9,999 a month for speeds of up to 24 Mbps. This new high-speed broadband is being made available with digital subscribers loop(VDSL) technology. Sound too good to be true? well, sadly, there is always some drawback that tags along with such good news. While 24 Mbps broadband will be available only to customers located at a distance of up to 500 meters from the BSNL exchange, 16 Mbps broadband is available to those residing up to about 1 km away.

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CONSUMER ELECTRONICS SHOW (CES) 2009 —LAS VEGAS, NV—JANUARY 8, 2009—NVIDIA Corporation, in conjunction with the world’s leading content developers, display manufacturers, and PC OEMs and system builders, is pleased to announce NVIDIA® 3D Vision™ for GeForce®, the world’s first high-definition 3D stereo solution for the home.

Forming the foundation for a new consumer 3D stereo ecosystem for gaming and home entertainment PCs, 3D Vision is a combination of high-tech wireless glasses, a high-power IR emitter and advanced software that automatically transforms hundreds of PC games into full stereoscopic 3D experiences. Designed to work with the new pure Samsung® and ViewSonic® 120 Hz LCD monitors, Mitsubishi® DLP® HDTVs, and the DepthQ HD 3D Projector by Lightspeed Design, Inc, 3D Vision unlocks crystal-clear, flicker-free 3D stereo imagery perfect for driving new experiences in 3D gaming, 3D movies, and 3D photography.

“Along with gaming innovations in Microsoft Windows and DirectX, NVIDIA 3D Vision proves there’s never been a better time to be a PC gamer,” said Corey Rosemond, group marketing manager, Windows Gaming. “By including support for previously released and upcoming Games for Windows and Games for Windows -- LIVE titles, PC gamers can expect a new level of immersion in full stereoscopic 3D, and enjoy broad support for the hottest games.”

Powered by NVIDIA GeForce GPUs, the number one choice of gamers worldwide, 3D Vision is the world’s highest quality stereoscopic 3D consumer solution, consisting of:

High-Tech, Wireless Active Shutter Glasses

Designed with top-of-the-line optics to deliver 2X the resolution per eye and ultra-wide viewing angles versus passive glasses. Comfortable to wear and modeled after modern sunglasses, offering a stylish and lightweight alternative to traditional 3D glasses. Fully untethered solution, offering free range of motion and up to 20 feet of wireless 3D viewing.

USB-based, High Power IR Emitter

Transmits data directly to active shutter glasses within a 20 foot radius and contains an easy to use real-time 3D adjustment dial.

Maximum Display Flexibility

Designed for pure ViewSonic and Samsung 120 Hz LCD monitors, Mitsubishi DLP 1080p HDTVs, and DepthQ HD 3D projectors, unlocking crystal-clear, flicker-free stereoscopic 3D gaming for multiple viewing solutions.

Out of the Box Game Compatibility

Advanced NVIDIA software automatically converts over 300 games to work in 3D stereo out of the box, without the need for special game patches. In addition, NVIDIA’s “The Way It’s Meant to Be Played” program ensures that future games will support 3D Vision. 3D Vision is also the only stereoscopic 3D gaming solution to fully support NVIDIA SLI®, NVIDIA PhysX™, and Microsoft® DirectX® 10 technologies.

Extended Usability On a Single Charge

A single charge using a standard USB cable enables over 40 hours of continuous 3D stereoscopic gaming. Intelligent circuit design built into the glasses automatically shuts the glasses off after 10 minutes of inactivity to preserve battery life.

Support for 3D Stereo Photography and Movies

Includes a free 3D Vision viewer which allows consumers to take in-game screenshots and view them in 3D stereo, or import and view stereoscopic pictures and movies from a variety of different capture sources and online web photo galleries.

“For gamers, 3D Vision for GeForce represents a whole different way of experiencing the game, and for developers, it unlocks the potential of making the game literally pop off the screen,” said Ujesh Desai, vice president of GeForce desktop business at NVIDIA. “From games to movies to photography, 3D Vision delivers a truly immersive awesome 3D experience.”

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Mercedes-Benz F800 Style teases with fuel cells, aggressive new look.

Mercedes has just announced its latest "research vehicle," the F800 Style, and as concepts are wont to do, it intersperses some extremely ambitious goals with plenty of viable and forthcoming improvements. The two powertrain options touted by the company represent this best. On the one hand, there's a perfectly reasonable PHEV setup that will generate north of 400bhp combined grunt and offer an 18-mile range when abstaining from gas power. On the other, there's an electric drive with fuel cells system that will get you a spectacular 375-mile cruising range -- if only it'd make it to real products, which seems highly unlikely right now. All the same, as the company's premium sedan concept, the F800 Style represents the direction of Mercedes' future designs, both in its external styling and in the internal focus on becoming friendlier to the environment. We can find little reason to object to either.

Mercedes-Benz also touts the concept's flexible powertrain platform. The realistic option is a plug-in hybrid system that's basically an offshoot of the V6 light-hybrid setup found in the S400 sedan. Mercedes says this new plug-in gas-electric system, which is good for over 400 combined horsepower, gives the car an EV-only driving range of 18 miles. The automaker has announced that a new plug-in system is headed to the next-genS-Class, so don't dismiss the F800's hybrid setup as trendy green pandering. Save that cynicism for the concept's other powertrain option: a compact fuel cell/electric setup evolved from the one used in the current F-Cell cars. We have no doubt that the technology itself is genuinely impressive, and we're sure news of its development will be a hit with all the jet-setters at the next snowbound global warming conference. From a mass-production, real-person's-car standpoint, expect to see the fuel cell system in Benz showrooms right after Mercedes intros a 700-horsepower inline 3-cylinder that runs on unicorn milk. Alas, we digress.

The F800 concept also introduces two new technologies that will doubtless appear in upcoming models. Distronic Plus Traffic Jam Assistant is an enhanced version of Mercedes' active cruise control system, which can now steer the car through curves as long as it's traveling under 25 mph. Neat. Also new is the Pre-Safe 360-degree system, which expands the existing Pre-Safe collision detection/mitigation system to the rear of the car. Now, if Pre-Safe senses that a rear-end impact is imminent, it'll apply the brakes in a bid to keep the car from getting into an additional chain-reaction accident involving other cars or pedestrians.

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The Fairest Fight : Samsung i8910 HD vs Google Nexus One vs Nokia N97

In the battle of top end, large-screened smartphones, the Symbian-powered flagships have a new competitor: the Google Nexus One, selling across the world and offering the unadulterated Google Android experience. And this being the start of 2010, it's also a good moment to pitch the two open source operating systems against each other. But how mature is Android (2.1)? And how do the device and its software stand up to two of the flagships from the Symbian world, the Nokia N97 and the Samsung i8910 HD?
From the Symbian world, the latter is the standout obvious device to compare the new Nexus One to, having virtually identical specs and form factor. However, Samsung's continuing lack of support for their Symbian flagship has rendered the i8910 HD something of a niche device and almost unknown, seemingly, outside of Italy - or Orange in the UK, in crippled form - and geek circles. Which is why I decided to add the Nokia N97 into the mix as well. The screen's almost as large as that in the other two phones, the price tag is similar, plus you do get a workable physical qwerty keyboard, albeit (understandably) at the expense of extra thickness.
It's at this point that the hack-loving i8910 HD freaks (and I use the term 'lovingly') will be crying foul, but the fact remains that a modern smartphone is so much more than collection of silicon chips and bits of plastic. The Nexus One and the N97 both leap ahead of the Samsung by virtue of far better support from their manufacturer in terms of updates and software.
The almost identical scores between Nexus One and N97 reflect that they each have their strengths, with one being strong in areas that the other is weak. Technically, the Nexus One comes out the winner, but it would only take a single preference (e.g. "I must have a camera protecting shutter") to flip the scores right around. In truth, both are flawed 'superphones' and the only irony is that the Samsung i8910 HD would easily come out on top of the group test if it had Nokia's software, updates and services plus Google's cloud integration.
Which means, yet again, that we're back to 'build your perfect phone' territory - the staple of conversation down the All About Symbian virtual pub....
One useful way to look at the three smartphones here is that they're aimed at different markets:

• Samsung i8910 HD - pitched by networks as a high end camera and media phone, this has ended up being suitable for hard core geeks willing to put lots of effort into tweaking and customising.
• Nokia N97 - pitched as the Nseries flagship, the N97 turns out to be a pretty good all-rounder, but newcomers to smartphones shouldn't apply - quite a bit of effort and setup is still needed if you're going to have a trouble free experience.
• Google Nexus one - provided the new user has a Google account and uses it, setup is trivial and there's almost nothing to go wrong.

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Notion Ink Adam closer look

Notion Ink Adam gives a serious competition to iPad. The tablet of the notion Ink ‘Adams’ is apparently very good. The notion Ink Adam is a challenge to the Apple iPad. With extremely interesting technical values, it is a serious opponent for the iPad. A demo video for Adam is also available on the Internet too. Price is the notion Ink Adam move between 399 – $ 800, depending on the granted subsidy. Notion Ink used the Mobile World Congress to present their innovative product .
The Tablet market remains very popular with the recent introduction of the Apple iPad, and one of the possible contenders will be the company Notion Ink with device, named Adam, which is based on Android. Technoholik have been able to publish an exclusive article in which it can meet many of the details of this new Tablet of talk already about two months and aims to compete with other solutions such as Apple with its iPad.
Ink Notion Adam developers have managed to provide some very interesting technology components, which mainly characterized by the presence of a PixelQI screen that allows you to enjoy various ways to do that we have good visibility in sunlight but also offers the quality of existing backlit displays.
Adam is expected to be ruled by Android 2.1, and displayed two versions of the device. A screen with PixelQI, and one with a conventional LCD backlight.
Another surprise is the presence of NVIDIA Tegra platform 2, which will offer a really remarkable power for all operations of a device that among other things has three HDMI ports, Wi-Fi, 3G, Bluetooth, and unlike The iPad will offer as much support multitasking support for Adobe Flash technology 10.1.The device features a touch screen of PixelQi, which has a size of 10 inches. In the maximum resolution is 1,024 x 600 pixels. The heart is the dual-core processor nVidia Tegra 2 with 1 GHz clock frequency. On the Tablet PC, the browser Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox are also available. The device can connect via Bluetooth, an HDMI output, wireless, or one of three USB ports. The Internet connection is established with the notion Ink Adam via HSDPA (or HSUPA), and GSM. The video output is in great HD quality 1080p possible. In addition, the Tablet PC is a 3-mega pixel camera and an SD card slot-equipped. The battery life is in operation at 16 hours and standby at 160 hours apart. As Google’s Android operating system works and also the Tablet PC is Flash

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Nanotechnology may help turn fabrics, paper into lightweight batteries

An engineer has found a way to cheaply and efficiently manufacture lightweight paper batteries and super-capacitors, as well as stretchable, conductive textiles known as “eTextiles” - capable of storing energy while retaining the mechanical properties of ordinary paper or fabric.

Like batteries, super-capacitors store energy, but by electrostatic rather than chemical means.

Stanford engineer Yi Cui made the development by dipping ordinary paper or fabric in a special ink infused with nanoparticles.

Cui’s team has even envisioned numerous functional uses for their inventions. Homes of the future could one day be lined with energy-storing wallpaper. Gadget lovers would be able to charge their portable appliances on the go, simply plugging them into an outlet woven into their T-shirts. Energy textiles might also be used to create moving-display apparel, reactive high-performance sportswear and wearable power for a soldier’s battle gear.

The key ingredients in developing these high-tech products are not visible to the human eye. Nanostructures, which can be assembled in patterns that allow them to transport electricity, may provide the solutions to a number of problems encountered with electrical storage devices currently available on the market.

The type of nanoparticle used in the Cui group’s experimental devices varies according to the intended function of the product - lithium cobalt oxide is a common compound used for batteries, while single-walled carbon nanotubes, or SWNTs, are used for super-capacitors.

Cui, an assistant professor of materials science and engineering at Stanford, leads a research group that investigates new applications of nanoscale materials. The objective, said Cui, is not only to supply answers to theoretical inquiries but also to pursue projects with practical value. Recently, his team has focused on ways to integrate nanotechnology into the realm of energy development.

“Energy storage is a pretty old research field,” said Cui. “Super-capacitors, batteries - those things are old. How do you really make a revolutionary impact in this field? It requires quite a dramatic difference of thinking.” Cui added.

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Dell Mini 5 Prototype

Dell's puzzled the world for quite some time with its outlandish Mini 5 -- at first glance it's just another Android-based MID, but a quick fiddle with it reveals the full-fledged 3G phone inside. So will it fit in a pocket? Can we carry it around like a normal phone? Is this the future form factor that will bring the ultimate balance between portability and practicality? Now, before you read on, do bear in mind that some of its features -- especially the OS -- may not make it to the final design when it comes out later this year, nor do we know what stage this prototype was at. We good? OK.

Let's start with the basics: the main specs on our unit include Android 1.6 (which will definitely be obsolete for the final product), five-inch 800 x 480 capacitive touchscreen, Snapdragon QSD8250 chipset (with CPU clocked at 1GHz), Bluetooth, WiFi, GPS and WCDMA radio. Sadly, we have no info on whether the Mini 5 will have other cellular radio options, but it wouldn't hurt to send Dell a petition regarding this matter. For those who want the dimensions and weight in numbers, it's about 152mm x 78mm x 10mm at 8 ounces (including the battery, which lasts for almost a day for normal usage on 3G). Memory-wise there's 405MB RAM and 1.63GB of internal storage -- a slight let-down for the latter, so let's hope the retail unit will be given a more generous dose of silicon. You can add a microSD card next to the battery on the back, but it appears that the mysterious second card slot we saw in the earlier teardown only gave us false hope -- we couldn't find a way to get to it without prying open the housing. Connection to your computer relies on a proprietary port -- similar but slightly larger than the iPod's -- to USB cable, which may suggest that we will see some more peripherals made for the Mini 5 and its future siblings.

Software, buttons and keyboard

We won't bore you with a full list of preinstalled Android apps on our Mini 5, but there are indeed a few that are worth mentioning: the usual bundle including Google Mail, YouTube, Amazon MP3, WebKit browser (with pinch-to-zoom but no Flash support), Google Maps (no pinch-to-zoom, boo!), K-9 Mail (which supports Exchange server) and Quickoffice (a file browser that can also view Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents). For multimedia there's the standard Android music app, a Gallery app by ArcSoft (pinch-to-zoom supported), and a three-year trial of the forthcoming CyberLink Live for Android that gives you "instant access to your photos, music, and video stored on your home computers." There's no social networking integration (like MOTOBLUR and Sense) as such, but you can use the preloaded Meebo IM for chatting on AIM, Facebook, Google Talk, ICQ, Windows Live Messenger,Yahoo, etc . Many of the apps support both portrait and landscape modes, although landscape mode only works one way (with the dock connector pointing downwards), which may become a nuisance for those who like to lie on the bed while using their phones.

Going back to the homescreen, we see that Dell's done some skinning -- the top bar houses a button for triggering the apps menu (unlike the traditional pull-up menu on most other Android devices), along with a homescreen switcher button and notifications button. The shortcut icons are contained in shaded grey squares. Only a couple of widgets got our attention: Power Control allows us to quickly change the screen brightness and turn on / off various wireless connections, while the cute TasKiller widgets let us kill apps one by one or all in one go. The widgets for Twitter, Facebook and RSS are useful, but like those on other Android phones, they still lack options for refresh rates.

Multimedia experience

Given the MID form factor and that gorgeous five-inch screen, we immediately loaded a few MP4 videos of various resolutions (1080p, 720p and 480p) to see what the Mini 5 could take. Annoyingly, our Mini 5's default video player could only handle MP4V video codec, so we had to convert our test videos, including the MP4 files that were compiled by iMovie (which encodes in H.264). On the contrary, carrypad's heard from Dell at MWC that the final product will support "H.264 and other codecs." Even then, the device failed to open our 1080p files, but that's not the end of the world considering 720p is already plentiful for the 800 x 480 screen -- we had a 7Mbps 720p video playing smoothly with just the odd stutter. On a similar matter, the preloaded YouTube app performed nicely for us, except for the lack of higher quality playback options to make full use of the large screen.

Moving on to audio: the Mini 5 has a mono speaker on the back that sounds loud and surprisingly clear, but naturally, the bundled earphones sound even better -- we'd scale it to somewhere between the levels of the iPod buds and Apple's in-ear headphones. Fans of stereo Bluetooth headphones will be pleased to know that our Mini 5 supports A2DP and AVRCP, which are particularly useful for devices of such size.

The main camera offers five-megapixel pictures of reasonable quality, along with decent 640 x 480 video capture but with slight rolling shutter effect (aka "jelly motion"). The accompanying camera app has a wealth of settings for both modes: scene, white balance, brightness, contrast, and resolution. Extra settings for photo mode include flash, self-timer, multi-shot, shutter sound, GPS location and flicker adjustment, whereas video mode has options for video format (MPEG-4 and H.263). Both support digital zoom of up to 4x. Once a picture is taken, you get a three-second preview along with options to edit, send, set as wallpaper / contact icon and delete. You get the same options by accessing the photos on the left-hand bar. In edit mode you can rotate, crop, adjust colors, draw, resize and add various goodies (effects, frames, text and clipart). Thankfully, there are undo and redo buttons, too.

Wrap-up

Dell may not be the first to forage into the scene of oversized smartphones (see HTC Advantage and HTC Universal), but it looks like the combination of Android, Snapdragon, 3G affordability and resurrection of the tablet trend may give the Mini 5 a great potential.

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