What's Cooking In My Head

SixthSense Technology goes Open Source

2012-01-10T08:30:00.000-08:00

What is SixthSense Technology?

It is a device which is a mini projector and which can be projected on any surface, it carries the information stored in it and also collects information from the web developed by Pranav Mistry. It is the one which obey hand gestures of yours and gives you what you want to see and know.

This device basically helps us use any object as an interface- the palms of our hand, or a blank wall. The camera interprets the gestures we make. So if we make a gesture with our hands like clicking a photo, the device actually takes a photo. By just pinching your fingers, you can zoom in and out of a map that is displayed, unbelievably enough, on a wall. Even more interestingly, this device not only interprets your gestures, but it also interprets what you are holding in your hands. If you are in a library and you pick up a book, the device instantly searches in an online library and find this particular title, then providing you with editions, book reviews, and other information. Rather than pulling out your Iphone and looking up to see if your flight is delayed, scan this device over your boarding pass and the device looks up the information and flashes it on the boarding pass itself!
You can watch movies, play games or even surf the net using just a blank sheet of paper as an interface. One incredibly useful and striking function is being able to pinch information or pictures from different books and placing it together on one interface- either the computer screen itself, or a paper. The days of cut +copy +paste are long gone!
Some of the things SixthSense may enable us to do:

The unique thing about this technological invention is that rather than just moving forward in the digital world, he has tried to bridge the gap between the technical world and the world that has existed for several centuries already- the physical world.

Easy to Draw: A person can draw anything on paint with the help of his fingers. So, why to use mouse for painting.

Capture photos with fingers: why to take camera on your holiday and no tension for the photo space as this Sixth Sense computer will work like your camera. It caputes the photo, when you make a square with your fingers, highlighting which one you want to frame.
Phone Call: You can call to your friend by typing the numbers on your hand. It display the keypad of the phone over your palm and the keys appears on the four finger... Use your another hand's finger to press the keys.
Check the brand of the Product: It helps you to choose the best brand product from the super market.

Read Books easily: Check out the ratings of the Book you are going to buy, it checks the ratings from the internet. And another amazing thing is that it reads the book for you.. :)

Newspapers: Did you saw the moving pictures of the Newspaper in the movie Harry Patter, it is quite similar to it. It Searches the most appropriate video from the web by seeing the headlines or the caption of the News report.

Check your Flight Status: You can check the status of the flight while you are on Taxi. Just place the ticket in front of the projector and it checks its status from the internet.

While demonstrating the interface at TEDIndia Conference, Mistry told Rediff, “I don’t want this to comply with some corporate policy. I want people to make their own system. Why not?”

Mistry also said, "Yes, I have made the SixthSense project open source. Not only have people begun to download the code and started playing with it, but they are also helping us making it better."

Mistry has written on the SixthSense blog: “The prototype system runs on Windows platform and majority of the code is written in C++ and C#. We will be uploading newer versions as it is being developed; this will also include a mobile version.”

Acer's World's Slimmest Ultrabook

2012-01-10T06:05:00.000-08:00

In The Consumer Electronics Show 2012, Acer launched a new Ultrabook called Aspire S5, the world's slimmest Ultrabook just about 15mm thick. It weighs only about 1.35 kg and has a 13.3 inch LCD display, an Onyx Black brushed magnesium-alloy cover. It comes with unique covered panel at back, called Acer MagicFip I/O where the HDMI, USB 3.0, and Thunderbolt (20Gbps) ports are located. Pressing the MagicFlip key opens the port cover panel, thus exposing the aforementioned ports. The Thunderbolt interface boasts faster transfer speeds than USB 3.0, FireWire 800, and eSATA. The addition of Thunderbolt is new to the Windows PC space, as it has only made an appearance on Apple's Mac laptops, desktops, and displays.

It will sport the latest Intel 2nd Generation or the upcoming Intel 3rd Generation Ivy bridge CPU Processor.

Expected Price in India: Rs. 60,000

Coming in April-May 2012

TeuxDeux

2012-01-07T20:10:00.000-08:00

TeuxDeux is a simple and free to-do application that can sync with your iphone or android device that looks and work lot like your paper diary!!!

Once you've created a free account simply start entering your tasks for each day or add it to Someday Section. You can drag or drop the tasks in the list and click a task to mark it as done. The Unfinished tasks from yesterday is automatically added to Today's list!!!
So, if you love to make To-do list you will love it....

Website: http://teuxdeux.com/

Watch Gadgets - Great and Weird beauties!!!

2012-01-03T06:14:00.001-08:00

Everyone love to have multipurpose gadgets. So here are some cool watches for geeks like us.....

Walkie Talkie Watches

- Two watches that double up as walkie talkies.

- Comes with an AC adapter, earpiece each, 22 channels and each with its own sub-channels.

- Bingo!!!! 5 km range!!!!

Video Recording Watch Camera

- 720P HD Video Recording

- 8GB Built-in Memory

Stanley Tape Measure Watch

- cunningly conceals a 3-foot tape measure behind its plastic exterior

USB Hidden Flash Drive Watch

- Concealed in the side of this watch is storage stick boasting 8 Gb of flash memory.

Casio Gold Calculator Watch

- 50 Page Databank, 8-Digit Calculator, Micro Light

- World Time

- Daily Alarm, Countdown Timer, 1/100 second stopwatch , Hourly Time Signal , 12/24 Hour Formats

- Auto Calendar

Voice Recording Spy Watch

- Concealed 1Gb Flash Memory attached to a microphone

- Cleverly placed microphone to clearly record while the watch is still on your wrist

Bluetooth Watch with Caller ID Display

- Displays caller name and/or number on screen

- A text icon will appear when receiving text message

- Mute your phone's ringer by pushing a button on the watch

- Uses Bluetooth 2.0 and rechargeable

Charles Windlin: Ring Watch

- display calendar and the time all while being worn like your favorite ring

Choose Your Android Tab - A Consumer Guide

2012-01-01T02:04:00.000-08:00

With so many android tabs flooding the market, it is confusing for a consumer to select the right one. Choosing the tablet with the best performance to price ratio is not an easy task even with the detailed reviews at hand. So here is the information to guide you through the selection process.....

1. Processors (CPU+GPU)
Android tablets and phones normally run on CPU's based on ARM architecture an are SOC or system on chip. An SOC is an integrated circuit tht ntegrates all components of a computer or other electronic systems into a single chip. A typical SOC inside an Android tab or phone has:

a. CPU
b. GPU
c. VPU
d. L1 and L2 cache
e. RAM interface
f. Video coding and decoding engines
g. HDMI Interface

Some SOC's like Qualcomm MSM7227T also contain modern processor and cell network connectivity modules.

What to look for in CPU?
Ideally you should look for a SOC with the highest clock speed. The CPU component of the SOC is used to measure the clock speed. But things get a complicaated with multi core CPU's. If you have to choose between a 1Ghz dual core CPU and a single core 1.5 Ghz CPU, choose the dual core CPU.

Note:
There are NO CPUs for tablets or phones with 3 cores. So the ads you see for Mercury MTab or any other Tab that claims "3 core" CPUs are false and misleading. These companies are clubbing CPU+GPU+VPU inside the SOC to claim multi-core CPU. Any CPU below Cortex-A9 is single core.

Here are some CPUs you will find:

Qualcomm MSM7XXX family (MSM7227T, MSM7627T)
Telechip TCC family (TCC8803, TCC 8902)
Rockchip family (RK28XX, RK29XX)
Samsung (S5PV210, Exynos)
VIA Wondermedia family (WM86XX,WM85XX)
Amlogic family (AM8XXX)
Freescale family (iMX5XXX)
TI OMAP family
Nvidi Tegra family
Vimicro family (VCXXX)
Allwinner
Ingenic family (XBurst)
Renesas family

After extensive benchmarking with Quadrant, Lippack, GL Benchmark the knowledgeable folks at XDA, Slateroid and few other forums have found that the best CPU for

2D games and graphics

Samsung S5PV210
AMLogic AML 8726
Tegra 2 and TI OMAP

3D games and graphics

Samsung S5PV210 and Tegra 2
Rockchip RK29XX
AMLogic AML-8726

Optimum Battery Life

Renesas EV2
Tegra 2
Samsung S5PV210 and RK29XX

**For tablets running android 2.3

Note:
From the ranking above it is clear that Samsung S5PV210 is the best all round CPU in the market.

2. User Interface
The screen is the most interacted and visible part of a tablet or phone. If the screen is not good, it does not matter if the tablet or phone has the most cutting edge fastest CPU on the planet, it will suck and you will be frustrated enough to pull some crazy violnt acts on it. In brief, having a igh quality, responsive screen is a must.

Screen
It may be of two types: LCD or TFT. TFT has smaller response time and highest quality and therefore, must be prepared over lcd.

Touchscreen
Tablets and phones come with two types of touchscreens: Resistive and Capacitive.
The resistive screens are cheap and have single point of touch. They are not very responsive and you have to use a stylus to interact with it. So it's better to avoid it.
Capacitive are known as multi touch screen and are the ones where you can use multiple fingers to interact with the device. They are smooth and responsive and you can pinch and zoom and use your fingers to swipe and do other things on the screen. They can b divide into:
2, 3, 5, 10 finger touch

Ideally you should go for screens that support 3 finger touch or more.

Resolution
The higher the better. But higher resolution also means tiny icons, buttons and graphics. High resolution is good when you have to read a lot of texts on web pages and you like to read texts to be ultra crisps. It also means slightly slower performance and more memory consumption.
Look for 800x480, 800x600 and 1024x600 resolutions in 7 and 8 inch tabs. For 9 and 10 inch tabs minimum shold be 1024x600

PPI
PPI stands for pixels per inch, the higher the better. Don't settle for anything less than 144 PPI.

Buttons
The hardware buttons come in two varieties: Feather Touch and Hard Buttons.
If your tablet has hard buttons, make sure they are sturdy. Touch and press them a few times to check their quality.

Viewing Angle
The wider the viewing angle the better it is. If a tablet's screen has a narrow iewing angle, you have to hold it straight in front of your eyes to watch the content displayed on the screen.

3. Memory

RAM
Like any computer, this is the primary memory for a tablet. The more the merrier. Don't buy tablets with less than 512 MB RAM. The performance of tablets with RAM lower than 512 MB is awful. It will be slow, you will often encounter "insufficient memory" messages and applications will close or hang frequently.

NAND / eMMC ROM
This is the memory that contains the actual Android Operating System, drivers, system apps, settings etc. The more space you have the better it is. Do not settle for anything less than 4 Gb.

External Storage
Most tablets support external storage cards of upto 32 Gb. While some support till 16 Gb. Choose the one having maximum capacity.

4. Communication

Wifi
The tablet should support atleast 802.11 b/g standards. Those are the most common wifi and will be so in future. Check the Wifi connectivity of a tablet thoroughly, before buying.

Phone
Not all tabs come with phone capabilities. If you do not want to use 3G USB Dongles and still want to access the internet, you need to have a tablet that supports SIM cards and

GPRS (2G)
EDGE (2G)
HSUPA, HSDPA (3G)
UMTS/WCDMA (3G)

Almost all high end tablets support them but it is hard to find a tablet that supports all th above standards.

Bluetooth
It is required if you want to transfer files among tablets, phone and other devices running a different OS without resorting to setting up web servers to do transfers. It can be used to control other devices that support bluetooth enabled remotes o to connect a bluetooth keyboard or mouse to your tablet.

5. Ports and Interfaces
Try to avoid tablets with proprietary ports and stick to tablets with USB or Mini USB ports.

USB Ports
Look for tablets that support USB 2.0 or above, USB OTG, Mini USB. That way you don't need to buy port converters. USB OTG/HOST enables you to connect yor tablet to your computer also they are needed to connect 3G USB dongles, external keyboards, mouse, pendrives and external hard disks to your tablet.

Audio Socket
A tablet will also have a 3.5 mm audio socket to conect headphnes and mic. But you should check the build quality of socket as well as the sound output quality.

HDMI Ports
Som tablets come with inbuilt mini HDMI port which can be used to view videos, games and other content from your tablet on an external screen.

6. Sensors

Accelerometers
Have you seen how the content on the tablet's screen changes orientation when you rotate the device. This is achieved using accelerometers also called as G-Sensors. If they are not calibrated properly you will have hard time playing games that use tilt based controls or changing orientation of the screen.

Compass
Some high end tablets have digital compass in them. It shows your position in reference to the four cardinal directions. This can then be used to plot a route using the inbuilt GPS. Budget tablets will not have them.

Proximity
It detects the presence of objects near the screen. Example, if you are talking on the phone by holding it to your ear, the screen will shut off to avoid accidental press of on screen buttons and the subsequent disruption of ongoing call. It can also be used to dim or put the device and screen on stand by when not in use or nobody is near it. Difficult to find even in high end tabs.

Barometer
A barometer helps the GPS of your tablet to get a better and faster fix on your location by finding the height of your current location. If you are seriously using your tab for navigation purpose you should have it. Difficult to find even in high end tabs.

Light
Ambient light sensor in a tab helps it to conserve battery by dimming or enhancing the brightness of the screen depending upon the surrounding lighy. This is not a common feature in budget tablets and not essential.

GPS
This helps to find your present location and use it as a navigation tool.

7. Power
Capacity of batteries in mobile phones and tablets is measured in mAh, the more mAh you have the better it is. Do not go for tablets with less than 3000 mAh batteries. For 10 inch tablets minimum should be 4000 mAh. Apart from mAh, the running and charging voltage is critical in getting the most battery life. In brief, go for highest mAh and lowest voltage. For 7 inch tab go for 3500 mAh or more running at 3.7V and for 10 inch tablet go for 4500 mAh or more running at 3.7V.

You can use this as guide a general guideline while you are at electronics shop or you are reading through the specification list of tablets or phones.

How to change the default icon of your USB

2011-12-03T03:56:00.000-08:00

Bored with default icon of your Removable disks or the CDs you burn?? Now you can change them by following these simple steps...... :)

Step 1:

Insert your Pendrive and open it.

Step 2:

Create notepad file in it and write the following instructions.

[autorun]

label=Jyotsana //To change the label name

icon=pumbaa.ico //To change the drive icon. Use any .ico, .dll, .bmp or .exe icons

Note: The icon file should be in the same pendrive.

Step 3:

Save the file as autorun.inf

The drive will show the new icon when you insert it the next time.

Note: Autorun.inf tells Windows how to deal open the presentation and treat the contents of the CD, DVD or any removable drive. To know more about the commands of autorun.inf

Goto: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa969327.aspx

How to add background image to your USB or any other drive

2011-11-29T08:36:00.000-08:00

Step 1: Open notepad and write these lines:

1. Type the exact line given below :

[{BE098140-A513-11D0-A3A4-00C04FD706EC}]

2.Specify the picture :

Now, we give the path of the image we want to set as bg. The file maybe .bmp, .jpg or even .png…

Note: It’s better if you first save the file in pendrive and then give it’s path so that the file is available even when you insert your pendrive in other computer.

iconarea_image=H:\6.jpg

3. Specify the icon label color: Then we will specify the icon label color or the color of icon label's text.

iconarea_text=0x00FFFFFF

Most used colour codes are:

Black - 0x00000000
White - 0x00FFFFFF
Green - 0x0000FF00
Blue - 0x00FF0000
Purple - 0x00C000C0
Red - 0x000000FF
Yellow - 0x0000FFFF
Indigo - 0x00FFFF00

Step 2: Now save the notepad file with name desktop.ini the drive.

Now just reopen or refresh the drive :)

You can also make the files hidden so that no one sees them.

Desktop.ini is a Windows system file that stores information about customized folders. Occasionally DESKTOP.INI is used by other programs for their own settings.

For more information about its attributes,

Goto: http://hwiegman.home.xs4all.nl/desktopini.html