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2025-09-22T17:37:00.000+05:30

Hello everyone, welcome to my blog :)

I started this blog back when I was in high school and my blog has been through a lot of changes as I got experienced in my field. So I guess, this space of mine literally has entire change log of my thought process!

To go with few updates, right now working as an Expert embedded engineer in Poland, if you are more interested in knowing what I do for a living feel free to check out my linked in page or my website (https://www.ivkrm.com/). And also all these years I was working on various research topics which you can find in google scholar search(Citations here).

Oh and now I have a podcast called Glitch, you get to hear me talk about all these nerdy things, but with my voice over ;)

So to my old followers, do mail me your questions will start posting my new articles soon, my contact details are the same. (velsmart93@gmail.com)

To the new visitors, Hello people, this is VIKRAM VEL here, Welcome to TECHQUEST.

A World ruled by algorithms

2023-03-11T18:45:00.001+05:30

This entire post was basically a transcript for my podcast - Glitch. So I wanted this content to be out there just for someone who is looking for it and of course an extra content for me.

They are everywhere!

Algorithms are in the social media apps we use everyday, in search engines, even in dating apps!

In this post, I wanted to talk about what they actually are, or how they work, or who makes them? Should we be worried about them and can they think for themselves!

Rather than being baffled by these questions let's go and find out!

I spend a lot of time typing on my keyboard, by telling the computer what to do. And how every small or big in size they come in, they are unbelievably good in following instructions.

Unfortunately I am not so good at giving them, so most of the time the results are not always efficient. But it is always such a mysterious thing that this piece is made with a lump of metal and sand.. Or whatever else.

Arranged in extremely clever ways is able to do math, logic and powerful calculations which ultimately allow us to create pretty much whatever we set our minds to!

It’s kind of bizarre and I would really like to address how this magic happens. And how computers control our day to day life and should we be concerned!

To start with a simple explanation everything inside a computer’s brain boils down to something called an algorithm.

Algorithms are in everything we do. But for those that aren’t inclined toward math's and programming, the term ‘algorithm’ is less than clear. (In fact, we developers use the word ‘algorithm’ when we just don’t want to explain what we have done.)

So, you might have heard the term before, even used it. But what is an algorithm exactly?

In essence, algorithms are simply a series of instructions that are followed, step by step, to do something useful or solve a problem. A good way to think of them is as mini instruction manuals telling computers how to complete a given task or manipulate given data.

Computer algorithms work via input and output. They take the input and apply each step of the algorithm to that information to generate an output.

For example, a search engine is an algorithm that takes a search query as an input and searches its database for items relevant to the words in the query. It then outputs the results.

You can easily visualize algorithms as a flowchart. The input leads to steps and questions that need handling in order. When each section of the flowchart is completed, the generated result is the output.

Now coming to the important question, why should someone care about algorithms which is in a way making their lives better! ?

Let's take an example of YouTube,

YouTube video recommendations work exactly based on these sets of algorithms.

Have you ever wondered how YouTube always finds the right channel with the relevant content you're looking for?

Or sometimes YouTube might bring up a random channel our of nowhere and you might find it really interesting!

All these recommendations work based on algorithms which basically apply Artificial intelligence and machine learning to the data they obtain from you and the content creators.

So if I am someone who has invested in a YouTube channel and planning to generate revenue from my channel, I need to upload contents consistently for the YouTube algorithm to even consider recommending my videos. And hence to survive in such a platform I need to follow the trends and the content which my audience in this case my algorithm is asking me to do.

For someone who is doing this as a mainstream income, they have the rules dictated by the current society, controlled by the algorithm!

I recently saw a wonderful documentary called “Coded Bias”, where it talks about facial recognition algorithms and how they determine if a person is a threat or not. So for example is a police wanted criminal is identified, it would make it easy to track or find someone if needed.

But interestingly, the algorithm was always finding black people as a red list or a threat. This documentary addresses this exact scenario, and they did find out that these AI and ML software's treats the white and black differently. And because of this all the companies which rely on these software's get incorrect data.

Now the question arises, are these AI and ML algorithms racist?

Well it's not the case, we need to think about who inputs these data and who writes these algorithms, and at the end of the day it's just another human being sitting at the other end controlling the output of these software.

And hence the code get biased by the human who is coding it!

I would say it's not the algorithm which is controlling the world, right now our AI engines are not so intelligent that they have evolved their own consciousness. It is the human who owns these algorithms that controls the world.

This is a quite interesting problem statement which our generation needs to overcome and big tech companies and computer scientists need to come together, to avoid such ethical issues.

I wanted to educate my followers or anyone who is reading to this, and tell them that we have become a part of this new information era. All our data, online footprints and user activities are constantly studied or recorded by machines across the world.

Finding a Job, getting a loan or finding your match in tinder, Algorithms control a lot of outcomes in our lives already. But for algorithms to serve us and the future well, we can’t passively float along without understanding how they shape our world.

If you think of your click as your vote, then you can deliberately tell an algorithm to give me more of “this” or “that”. Very often by looking at what you clicked on last. You can see how this can easily start to reshape the media you consume.

Right now algorithms do control a lot of our world. But the more we know about them, the more we know how they’re acting out there.

The first step in not being overwhelmed. And the second is asking companies to take a look at their algorithms. In order to do this, we have to understand them enough to have an intelligent conversation about them.

We can’t ask for change or know that there is something that needs changing if we don’t understand it. Nor can we have reasonable conversations to ask for things to change without a basic understanding of things.

We don’t need an algorithm free future. But we can start to confront our own, very human, biases as we code and create it.

Episode Link : Here

Embedded systems - Hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) Testing

2020-07-19T16:39:00.001+05:30

Hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) testing is a more specific topic which I had chosen to discuss in this post. I think as the complexity of electronic control units (ECUs) increases, the number of combinations of tests required to ensure correct functionality and response increases exponentially.

HIL is a test methodology that can be used throughout the development of real-time embedded controllers to reduce development time and improve the effectiveness of testing. In recent years, hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) testing has shown significant promise to serve as a comprehensive rapid prototyping and automated testing platform for advanced power systems.

HIL becomes really handy when testing a individual block a system and its functionalities, unlike older testing methodology we need not wait for the controller design to be completed and integrated into the final system before system issues could be identified.

This technique provides a way of simulating sensor inputs and mechanical components in a way that all the I/O of the ECU can be tested. We are able to do this by using all the components of real-time responses, electrical simulated inputs and functional use cases tailored for that individual module.

The below diagram shows a high level design of a HIL test system showing its key components.

As more controller module becomes available for the test HIL system can be modified to incorporate the respective modules as part of testing.

Components of the HIL test system:

ECU under test ( Device under test - DUT) - this is the primary module of the whole testing system around which our test cases are designed. This module needs to be treated as abstract as possible to test its features as functional inputs and outputs of a bigger system in design.
Sensors and Loads - Every system will produce an output which is dependent on the functionality of the module and input provided. These outputs can be predicted as expected outputs and anything matching this will mean our system passed the test case.
Real time simulator - this is the module responsible for conditioning the inputs which will be understood by the ECU under test by abstracting the dependency from other modules of the system.

Depending on the complexity of the controller being tested and the level of fidelity required for the simulation of the overall system, hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulators can vary is size, computing power, complexity and cost.

Example of a HIL test system.

A typical HIL system comprises either a rack-mount unit containing the real-time target computer with I/O boards and plug-in signal conditioning cards, or a standard PC with distributed I/O points connected via one or more communications buses.

Is HIL system appropriate for smaller tests?

Yes, HIL testing comes really handy when we are developing a module as part of a bigger real time system and we need all the functional parameters of the individual module to be tested.

A HIL test system for such smaller use cases can be developed using a raspberry pi performing the automation test handling and reading from sensor outputs. There are various python libraries which can be integrated for handling the unit test cases.

This concludes the article, HIL testing is a more deep concept to be covered in an article. I would try to address an real time project of mine where I applied HIL testing using R-pi which would be a great DIY project for a weekend.

Good reads:

1) Hardware-in-the-loop testing for electric vehicle drive applications

2) Design and implementation of HIL simulators for powertrain control system software development

My phone is eavesdropping!

2019-07-03T11:44:00.000+05:30

Are our mobile phones listening to us?

A couple days ago, something strange happened. A friend and I were discussing about our trip to India and the places we planned to visit. The very next day, I received pop-up ads on Facebook about cheap return flights to India and cheap hotels to stay. It seemed like just a spooky coincidence, but then everyone seems to have a story about their smartphone listening to them.

Lately I have had many incidents where, I tracked background apps in my android mobile, I would see Facebook services running in background and Mic would be turned on, or Instagram asking for Microphone permission!

So are our mobile phones spying on us? I have seen it is a hot topic right now and there has been much discussion about it.

Are they listening to our every conversation, creeping us out by serving us with ads for things straight after we’ve just discussed them with family and friends?

This question made me to research on the topic and I did a couple of debugging myself, and here is what I found.

According to many cyber-security experts and researchers from this area, the short answer is yes, but perhaps in a way that's not as diabolical as it sounds.

For our smartphones to actually pay attention and record your conversation, there needs to be a trigger word (Wake-word), for example "Hey Siri", "Ok, Google". So without these wake-words any data which we provide is only processed with in our own devices. But there are few third party apps like Shazam, Facebook - Still have access to these non-triggered data.

So are they using these data? It is really up-to them now!

From whatever debugging I did, from time to time snippets of our audio data do go back to server from apps like Facebook. But I was not successful in identifying what these triggers were, whether these were based on timings or location-based triggers. All the internal processing of the applications are in encrypted form so it makes it really hard in understanding what caused these triggers.

So this is what I decided to do as a small experiment, I tried to saying bunch of trigger phrases for a period of time, example - "I am thinking of travelling to Bali next month", "I need to get some cheap shoes", " I would like to go for a good chinese restaurant".

I choose these phrases because, I will not even remotely search anything related to above mentioned stuffs and I tried to monitor my Facebook ads closely, to see if there are any changes.

The changes literally came over night!! Suddenly I was getting the best things to do in Bali, the cheapest packages for 3 days in Bali and Shoes from online shopping sites (believe me I have never searched or bought shoes from any of these online sites).

Though they were all good deals, the whole thing was eye-opening and utterly terrifying!

So yes, our phones are listening to us and anything we say around our phones could potentially be used against us. But it’s not something most people should be scared of. Because unless you’re a journalist, a lawyer, or have some kind of role with sensitive information, the access of your data is only really going to advertisers. If you’re like everyone else, living a really normal life, and talking to your friends about flying to India or Bali, then it’s really not that different to advertisers looking at your browsing history.

Still freaked out about these advertisements? check out this good article which I found on Internet Hygiene.

Rocketology - Artistry and Engineering at work!

2019-05-23T12:24:00.001+05:30

At T-minus 6.6 seconds, as the 120-ton space shuttle sits, surrounded by almost 4 Million pounds of rocket fuel is ready to defy gravity as its on board computers take in the command.
As its pressure sensors, pumps, temperatures are nominal the computers give the order to light the main engines and the choreography of incredible engineering happens as each of the three engines fire off precisely at 160 milli seconds apart, tons of super-cooled liquid fuel pouring into combustion chambers, the ship rocking on its launch pad, held to the ground only by bolts.

Image: www.nasa.gov

It is always an absolute beauty to watch a shuttle take off, as the time goes T-minus 0 seconds. At this time the on-board computers check all the sensor data, they give the order to light the solid rocket boosters. In less than one second, the rocket achieves 6.6 million pounds of thrust!

And the spacecraft majestically takes off its launch pad!

No human pushes a button to make this happen, there is no astronaut sits with a joy stick to set the shuttle in orbit, it's an awesome display of power of computers and software doing its job in a well-choreographed manner.

But how much work does the software does? what makes this remarkable?

By the time the shuttle achieves the escape velocity, there would have been billions and billions of sensor data flowing across the 5 on-board computers. The on-board systems would have taken millions of decisions based on these data.

Just to explain in detail on how these machine's computers work. Four identical computers, running identical software’s, get real time information from thousands of sensors, make hundreds of milli-second decisions. A fifth computer with a different software stands by to take control if other four malfunction!

Image: NASASpaceFlight.com

Anyone who has witnessed a shuttle launch would have seen the dramatic belly roll the shuttle does soon after it clears the tower, it is the software which gives the orders to gimbals in the main engines to execute this maneuver.

It is the software which keeps track of where the shuttle is, orders the solid boosters to fall away, makes minor course corrections, and after about 10 minutes, directs the shuttle into higher orbit.

Even the smallest error in space can have enormous consequences! the orbiting space shuttle travels at 17,500 miles per hour; a bug that causes a timing problem of just two-thirds of a second puts the space shuttle three miles off course.

If you are an engineer or someone who has a little experience in designing electronic systems, by this time you should be blown away with all the design and planning that had gone through to such a detail!

What is remarkable is how well the software works. This software never crashes, it never needs to be re-booted, it is bug free. I feel like I am experiencing the first sight of Superman in the movies!

I was able to pull out this information, the last three versions of the program — each 420,000 lines long-had just one error each. The last 11 versions of this software had a total of 17 errors. Just to give a comparison a commercial program of equivalent complexity would have 5,000 errors!

This software is perfect, as perfect as human beings have achieved.

But the real ‘mind = blown’ moment is not realizing all the things I said till now, it’s when you think about SpaceX's Falcon 9, not does it launches the space craft in orbit also gets back the solid boosters back so that it can be reused!

I so want to write about SpaceX's Autonomous spaceport drone ships (ASDS) and its reusable boosters!!! - This is the actual beauty of embedded systems and rocket science in action!

Enemies no more? Microsoft and the Linux kernel!

2019-05-13T15:39:00.000+05:30

It's all over the internet and I see a lot of developers getting excited on the latest news (well its been out there since 2016) that Windows is rolling out a Windows -based Linux kernel in its next software release in June!

I thought I will share what is my take on this, being a Linux geek, for me at first it seemed like another Linux virtual machine running over Windows . Well it actually is, but thanks to the feature called WSL - Windows Subsystem for Linux; Microsoft is now bringing in the heart of Linux into Windows.

So what exactly it does? how is is WSL different from any virtual machine I run on my PC now?

WSL essentially translates the Linux kernel commands (the Operating system core which talks to the Hardware), into the commands which are understandable by Windows kernel! pretty cool right?

To be clear, here Microsoft is not trying to replace its Windows kernel, but Linux kernel will run on a virtual machine called WSL. So yeah, WSL is gonna be another virtual machine operating system running inside Windows, but I think this will not be like any third party VMs. Windows is actually developing a Linux-based kernel, considering the fact, making Linux code run in Windows is a great deal for developers who need to use a Windows machine to write code that runs on Linux servers.

We need to accept the fact that Windows is still the big player inside corporations and I see Linux is most common operating systems, now with WSL programmers can get the benefit of both from a single operating system.

My take on WSL ?

Well, it's not perfect, there were weird issues time to time. End of the day I had to remember that, I'm still working on Windows machine. But overall WSL has been a great change, before WSL, all we developers had was running virtual machine, which meant running an entire operating system - not so efficient approach! WSL made it possible to run many of the same tools and applications within Windows without the need for virtualization.

The actual performance issue arises, particularly when working with the Windows file system. Visualizing only the Linux kernel while running everything else naively is an intriguing compromise depending on how much an application interacts with Windows.

What I see is that, Microsoft is opening itself to developer community where WSL might also help Microsoft win over programmers who use Macintosh products. MacOS is based on Linux's ancestor Unix, but there are differences between Unix and Linux. Microsoft trying to gain the trust from the community where are still digging out of the hole of distrust that they dug themselves into!

Time will tell. Let’s wait and see. I, for one, am excited at this new development and it should bode well for everything Linux — the desktop included.

Doing More with Less!

2019-05-11T01:23:00.001+05:30

For me, the real excitement in embedded system implementation is the intriguing fun of finding the right fix that gives a few more processor cycles, being excited to find that 8 bytes of memory leak, realizing that a few more milliseconds of deep sleep you brought in made your system design made it most efficient in the market!

Picture Courtesy : blackmousedesign.com

Ultimately, optimization is an economics problem. This analogy does help in understanding the business side of a technical design. You start out with a list of resources associated with your system. The major ones are always Memory, RAM, processor cycles, code space and power consumption. The most liquid asset will be the development time and is always money.

And system's assets are somewhat replaceable. For instance, we can trade RAM for processor cycles or code space. Sometimes we might not trade anything, spending more development time will reduce the resource load.

Optimization starts with a good design, preferably one with a little extra overhead. Although there is always some fun in reducing resources as far as possible, you'll get diminishing returns. The first 10% of improvement shouldn't be too difficult, but next 10% will probably take twice as long.

Every situation and environment has its own constraints, including some combination of time, money, space and design. These constraints sharpen your imagination and enhance innovation. Even when you have an abundance of resources, it’s valuable to consider how you would tackle the same challenges without them. These trade-offs we take in our system design defines what the unique factor in our design is, and end of the day, this constrained environment is what makes the beauty of Embedded systems!

Learn Python the Fun way! - Basic syntax

2019-05-09T18:30:00.000+05:30

We are good with the print statements and we are done with the math, its time we get started with the variables and syntax. I believe learning any new programming language is a matter of syntax, if you know the core logic (algorithm) of what exactly you want your program to do, then all it takes is learning the right syntax and start programming.

Now that is said, syntax is basically more of a grammar to any programming language, so its important to know what you want to speak with the computer. The how part is taken care by the language.

This series is not gonna cover the complete python syntax and guide on programming, we have so many really great tutorial series on this if you wanna get into a full time python programmer. This series will jump start you into python, I would recommend, learn the advanced concepts hands-on as and when you get your use case.

Variables and Names:

A variable is nothing more than a name for something, like, "Vikram" is the name for "The cool guy writing this blog ;) ".
You will come across variable names in code which read more like English, this is because programmers have lousy memories. If they didn't use good names for things in their software, they'd get lost when they tried to read their code again.

This is the reason commenting your code becomes handy, always have the practice of commenting your code. You never know when you are gonna revisit this code block which you are writing now.

Variable names should provide some indication as to what the values assigned to it are. Simple variable names like x and y. Do not to do this. Instead, if you have two numbers - say 27 and 06 - use the variable names num1 and num2 instead of x and y. Think of others when writing your programs, as well as your future self. Your future self will thank you. Be detailed in variable names, for example total_number_of_boxes.

The _ in total_number_of_boxes is called an underscore character. Find out how to type it if you do not already know. We use this character a lot to put an imaginary space between words in variable names.

Try out the following python script:

boxes = 10
total_number_of_boxes = 4.0
books = 13
pens = 9
maximum_capacity_of_box = 100
space_left_in_box = maximum_capacity_of_box - ( books + pens );
total_box_capacity = total_number_of_boxes * boxes
print("There are", boxes, "boxes available.")
print("There are only", pens, "pens available.")
print("There will be", space_left_in_box, "space left today.")
print("We can transport a total capacity of", total_box_capacity)

we can use Python for more complicated tasks, we can write an initial sub-sequence of the Fibonacci series as follows:

# Fibonacci series:# the sum of two elements defines the nexta, b = 0, 1while a < 10: print(a) a, b = b, a+b

This example introduces to several new features, lets go line by line.

The first line is called as the assignment step ( initialization of variables). Here we are trying to do multiple assignmen, the variables a and b simultaneously get the new values 0 and 1. On the last line this is used again, so it is important to note that the expressions on the right-hand side are all evaluated first before any of the assignments take place. The right-hand side expressions are evaluated from the left to the right.
The while loop executes as long as the condition (here: a < 10) remains true. Like any other language, in python, any non-zero integer value is true; zero is false.
The condition used in the example is a simple comparison. The standard comparison operators are:

< less than
> greater than
== equal to
<= less than or equal to
>= greater than or equal to
!= not equal to

Note that each line within a basic block must be indented by the same amount.

The output of the above will be, 0112358 (with each number in new line)

Now lets stop right here, give a little time to process. Next coming blog posts will talk about data types, importing and utilizing the power of libraries and getting few cool projects built.

Feel free to google around with your doubts or post it in the comments, lets debug together :)

Learn Python the Fun way! - Hello World

2019-05-07T19:57:00.002+05:30

You should have spent a good time in learning about the text editors, getting familiar with the text editors and getting used to Linux terminal.

Always try to follow the below rule of thumb when you learn programming,

If you have a problem typing, you will have a problem learning to code, typing your code and making it run will help you with learning the keywords.
Always type your code manually, if you copy-paste, you are cheating yourself out of the effectiveness of the lessons.
A basic yet important skill which separates a good programmer from bad programmer is attention to details. Though there are tools which does this task for you, you first have to train your brain the hard way, then use the tools. This skill will come handy when something goes wrong and you debug your code, Which is all the time!!

Hello, World!

Python is a simple and pretty straight forward language. The simplest directive in Python is the "print" directive - it simply prints out a line (and also includes a newline, unlike in C).

One difference from Python2 and Python3 is the print statement. In Python 2, the "print" statement is not a function, and therefore it is invoked without parentheses. However, in Python 3, it is a function, and must be invoked with parentheses.

Lets write out first python code:

Create a file with the extension .py
For example: vim HelloWorld.py
Try typing the the print statement: print("Hello World!")
Save and exit from the file.

Now we have our first python script created. Now time to run the script and see our output.

python3.6 HelloWorld.py

The above command is common for running any python script, python3.6 , runs the script and prints the output in the screen.

Output: Hello World!

Now try out the following,

Try printing more than one line through script.
Try adding '#' symbol before one of the print statement and see what it does.

Indentation

Python uses indentation for blocks, instead of curly braces. Both tabs and spaces are supported, but the standard indentation requires standard Python code to use four spaces,

i = 27

if i == 27:

# indented four spaces

print("I is 1.")

Numbers and Math

Every programming language has some kind of way of doing numbers and math.

Try the following example,

print("Lets get some counting done:")
print("Apples I have ", 10 + 4 / 2)print("Oranges I have ", 50 - 25 * 8 % 4)
print("Now I will count random numbers:")
print(3 + 2 + 1 - 5 + 4 % 2 - 1 / 4 + 6)
print("Is it true that 3 + 2 < 5 - 7?")
print(3 + 2 < 5 - 7)
print("What is 3 + 2?", 3 + 2)print("What is 5 - 7?", 5 - 7)
print("Oh, that's why it's False.")
print("How about some more.")
print("Is it greater?", 5 > -2)print("Is it greater or equal?", 5 >= -2)print("Is it less or equal?", 5 <= -2)

Make sure you type this exactly before you run it. Compare each line of your file to my file.

What You Should See:
Lets get some counting done:
Apples I have 12
Oranges I have 50
Now I will count random numbers:
7
Is it true that 3 + 2 < 5 - 7?
False
What is 3 + 2?, 5
What is 5 - 7?, -2
Oh, that's why it's False.
How about some more.
Is it greater?, True
Is it greater or equal?, True
Is it less or equal?, False

We will start with variables and names in next exercises, Would like to keep the first 'Hello' as simple as possible.

Learn Python the Fun way! - Getting started

2019-05-07T17:58:00.002+05:30

So this is first time I am planning for a tutorial series from my blog!

Though there is a special reason for this specific tutorial series, I thought it will serve a great interactive post for reference to syntax and setting up the environment.

Why Python and what is gonna be unique from so many other tutorial series available online?
As I already said, this whole blog is done for a special reason and I planned to keep it simple and as informative as possible for any one to start from scratch!

Okay enough said, where to start with now?

I am old school programmer who is all time biased with Linux operating system, so this whole series is planned to be in Linux environment ( when it comes to programming, something like python need to care which operating system you are running it! )

"If you know the system well enough you can do things that aren't supposed to be possible."

My favorite mode of learning is through experimentation. In my opinion, it’s impossible to learn anything thoroughly without getting your hands dirty.

Getting the right ingredients:

If you already work in an Linux operating system, you can skip the first few steps of virtual machine installation.

1) Vmware Pro - First thing we need is to get the VMware platform, you can download and install it from the link: VMware Download

2) Linux operating system: I prefer we get started with Ubuntu ( though I am not really a fan of this distro), since it is beginner friendly and we have lot of resources online. ISO image download.

3) Python set up: Assuming you have a Linux virtual machine set up and you are able to access the terminal window, we can proceed with the following steps.

In terminal window get into the SUDO mode by the command : sudo -s ( with root power comes great responsibilities, so know what you are doing from now on!).
We need to set up python in ubuntu ( mostly it comes pre-installed in most of the latest versions, but better to be sure). Type the following commands,

apt-get update - update the packages and repositories.
apt-get install python3.6 - installs python ( I prefer python 3).

Verify if everything works properly by the following command

python3 -V - This should display the installed python version.

So now we have the right sandbox to play with with all the tools we need to play with.

I would recommend to get used to vim editor, will always come handy as we start to code.

What to do with Secrets!

2019-05-04T17:21:00.000+05:30

If you find a secret, you face a choice: Do you tell to anyone? Or do you keep it to yourself?

A few people act as if there were no secrets left to find. How most of us see the world if we don't believe in secrets ?

So what exactly do you do with secrets!

As Peter Thiel says in Zero to One, "It depends on the secret: some are more dangerous than others. Unless you have perfectly conventional beliefs, its rarely a good idea to tell everybody everything that you know."

So its more important to address the question, Who do you tell?

I believe the answer is, whoever you need to, and no more. If we look things in practice, the golden mean is always between telling nobody and telling everybody!

Now what is with all the philosophical discussions I have taken up? I feel this topic is more entrepreneurial!

Every great business is built around a secret that is hidden from the outside world. A great company is unique, when you share your secret, the recipient becomes a fellow conspirator!

These little known facts about a company, product, business-model or an algorithm, that are kept under lock becomes the trade secret of the business.

In the end, everybody sells, everybody has a product to sell - no matter whether you're an employee, a founder, or an investor. So this secret is always gonna take you from 0 to 1, our task is to find singular ways to create the new things that will make the future not just different but better.

Only by seeing our world new, fresh and strange in your own ways, as our ancients saw it for the first time. The actual truth is that there are many more secrets left to find, but they will yield only to rent less searchers.

VERY Urgent Don't Ignore !!!

2019-03-04T11:50:00.002+05:30

"VERY Urgent Don't Ignore.
Please check your mobile phone's contact list for a contact named UIDAI. This contact auto-saved itself in most of the android phones at 12a.m. today. THIS CONTACT CAN MISUSE YOUR AADHAR CARD, SIM CARD AND BANK ACCOUNT DETAILS.

I found it in my contact list & deleted right now.

KINDLY DELETE THIS CONTACT NUMBER AND SEND THIS MESSAGE TO ALL."

This number pops up in every mobile. I never checked it until my mom sent me this forward message today morning.

Every time my mom sends me something like, URGENT or BREAKING NEWS! I know its some fake news which we people keep forwarding it across thinking we are saving the society from great cyber attack or something.

So whenever my mom sends out something like this, I ensure that I explain her in detail and prove this is wrong, so that it gets passed on to a greater group of uninformed (had to look up for a not-so-rude word) people ( my family whats app group! ).

Now coming back to the news, how valid is this? No one knew where it came from but there it is.

From Google's statement the number, 18003001947, and the distress helpline number 112, were “inadvertently coded into the Set-Up wizard of the Android release given to OEMs for use in India and remained there since”. Users can manually delete the number which is added.

The number "18003001947" was supposed to be Aadhaar helpline number and UIDAI is actually "Unique Identification Authority of India". But UIDAI official authorities has denied the fact that this is a valid toll free number, the actual number being 1947 which has been functional
for past two years.

Which proves that it has nothing to do with "THIS CONTACT CAN MISUSE YOUR AADHAR CARD, SIM CARD AND BANK ACCOUNT DETAILS."
It can be there along with those hundreds of contacts which we never talk to, if you don't want this number in your contacts, you can go ahead and delete it.

For tech geek's like me, the following code snippet might be interesting. This is the code added by Google to add the UIDAI phone number by default in your contact list. This code is still in the latest version of SetupWizard.

Source: @fs0c131y's Tweet: here

The Art of System Architecture

2019-02-22T01:29:00.003+05:30

Starting a project from scratch can be difficult. A product/project definition can seldom be fixed at the start, so you may go round and round to hammer out ideas. Believe me when I say hammer out ideas, during my design phases I have ended up at square one so many times I feel like I am playing a game of snake and ladders.

A good design is created by starting with a OK design and then improving on it, ideally before you start implementing it. This is what we normally call a proof of concept, prototype or a product. But these are a really high level categories of what actually happens at macro level during design phase, at times before arriving to a proof of concept we may have revisited our designs and made so many iterations.

You will need a good view of the whole system to understand which pieces have straightforward solutions and which have hidden dependencies, this is what we say the Big picture of the system.

Once our core functionalities are decided we can start thinking about the software architecture. The hardware folks are doing the same thing ( though their focus may be different). Normally your first few projects the designs will be based on other projects and hence hardware designs will be based on existing platform with some changes.

In embedded systems, whole functionality of a product heavily depends upon their hardware. Unstable hardware leaves the software looking buggy and unreliable.

When creating a system architecture, there can be two different approaches:

Top - Bottom approach ( usually preferable): Looking at the system functions and determining what hardware is necessary to support them,
Bottom - Up approach: Creating a system architecture at hardware level and going up to the functional level.

The design flow can vary, but the core concept for a system architecture design remains the same, it always starts with creating system diagrams. Just as how a schematic is important for a hardware designer, a series of software block diagrams are needed to show the relationships between various parts of the software system.

Having such diagrams will always come in handy and helps us to identify dependencies and provide better insights.

What next? at this point we have our architecture diagrams and schematics, should we start writing the code ? or finalize the interfaces?

Now comes an important factor, called encapsulating the modules. Our process leads to interfaces that don't depend specifically on the content or behavior of the modules that they connect.

For example, for a use case of blinky LED, the microcontroller environment can be either Arduino or AVR or PIC controller. Also I can go with a software delay approach or a non-blocking approach. So in our block diagram, the boxes in the diagram should represent the crux of each module instead of a specific design!

Creating a architecture from scratch can be daunting. It can be even harder if you join a team with a close deadline, a bunch of code, and very little documentation with no time to write more. Your ability to see the structure will help you write your own piece of the system in a way that keeps you on track to provide good-quality code and meet your deadline.

You may need to consider formulating two architectures: one local to the code you are working on and a more global one that describes the whole product, so you can see how your piece fits in.

Don't Shush your Inner Voice - It's who you really are!

2018-10-15T18:11:00.000+05:30

First, this is not gonna be a technical blog entry and this will be something completely out of the domain of this blog.

So why am I writing this? well its been a long time since one of my close friend has been requesting me to write an entry of my thought process on personal, emotional and so called physiological topics. And Techquest always goes with its followers request 😎 and this one is a special request too!

And why should you care? this depends, because I am no Sadhguru who has seen the higher dimensions or someone who has seen everything in his life.

All I can say is I don't fit into this "normal" social way of thinking and have my own way of seeing everything - be it my life, science or emotions. Luckily my brain dose not have the capacity to think in all complex ways, so my way of thinking has always helped ( to some extent I believe) the people around me.

So this might make you realize a new angle of seeing things or might put you in an argument with my statements ( which I would love to do ) or you might end up judging me ( which again will be fun 😜 ).

Now all disclaimers said, one last thing, this will be boring 😜😜

When I see people doing stupid things in public or see people doing unethical things (#Wisdom 😝) I have always wondered what actually goes inside their minds, like do they even acknowledge the fact that they are doing something wrong which is affecting others or all they care is about them!

All these things boil down to a simple fact that how seriously do we take the inner voice inside us, which is always questioning - our actions, thoughts and life itself!

From what I see this inner voice acts as a speed governor in any mechanical device ( the engineer in me 😅 ) to put it more simpler for common people, this voice is kind off an engine driver for our conscious mind (Engine).

Our conscious mind has this amazing ability to travel across the space time continuum, for a moment we are in temple praying ( dealing) for our wishes in life and the next moment we end up thinking about the bikes parked outside the temple. At times we sit and cherish all our nostalgic memories and the next instance we end up judging our friend from his/her Facebook post!

When our conscious mind does its task of jumping all over the place, thinking random stuffs, there is always a point where we end up questioning ourselves ( well most of the sane people still think about their thoughts). And this is where most of the right and wrong gets decided, depending on what we think and what people believe in their "Right" and "Wrong" takes so many perspectives!

But if you ask me, based on how you treat this inner voice, there are can be only two types of people. The one who takes this voice seriously, always argues with it and justifies his action. And the other who tries to reason out his actions. Now here comes the best part, Doctors say both types of people as 'Mentally disordered beings' 😂, I mean if you hear voices in your head then off-course there is something seriously wrong with you!!!!

And here I am talking like one saint to listen to all these voices, well, you cant help it, this inner-voice is everything boils into. All the religious texts, the ethical rules, moral ideas, mantras, prayers and meditations - everything talks about the same thing keeping your mind (the inner voice) focused.

More deeper the thoughts and conversations you have with this inner voice yours, more mature and open you become, at one point you end up realizing this is God! the ultimate, supreme being every religion talks about, this one voice has the power to make you take the right conscious decision during tough times ( the term we have coined - Intuition ); When we pray its us talking to this inner voice what that wish really means to us, if we have the patience this voice will always have a question for us - 'How badly do you need this?' - be it a job, a material or the love of your life! its on you to decide what extent you can go for this!

And that is what makes who you really are...

Your inner voice is the voice of divinity. To hear it, we need to be in solitude, even in crowded places. - A.R.Rahman

So thanks for reading this boring, big, self-impressed, know-it all, term what ever you feel, post of mine!

Comments your thoughts, let me know if I need to discuss more such topics or I need to shut this and continue my technical stuffs 😝

Internet of Things - Arduino Over the Air updates

2018-09-14T15:44:00.002+05:30

As the name of the blog suggests I am gonna be talking about connecting some wireless module to Arduino!

But before getting into implementation part I wanted to cover few 101's of the concepts.

For any wireless network (wireless link) we would need a simple Tx and Rx to enable our wireless transmissions and a modulator and de-modulator circuit to convert our digital signals into RF transmission compatible. Now this everyone knows that's the basic principle behind our FM radios working, so what makes a wireless network so special than a simple FM radios?

Well, that's where the Logical brain (Arduino in our case) in the system comes into play and puts such network more capable of doing more complicated tasks rather than just receiving and playing the RF signals received.

Now for our use case today we will concentrate more on adding such wireless module to our Micro-controller and leverage its remote connectivity properties in making our Arduino more standalone node.

Over the Air Updates:

Its a term we all are familiar with, we all get our Software updates for mobiles, PC software, apps and every software needs an update. Over the air updates (OTA) are more like wireless delivery of new software or data to mobile devices.

Why OTA is needed of a device like Arduino ?

With IoT every possible device is being seen as a node and data collecting point and each such node will have a controller to do its logical computing and manage its data. But as the network grows and the nodes get complicated our initial deployment software may run into issues and we will face security issues, this puts the design to be constantly updated and each such update will lead to new firmware for a node.

As the term IoT suggests its the nodes are not gonna be easily accessible for us to go around and connect each such device through a Serial or USB console and update a new firmware, also as the network grows the number of devices will also increase.

This new problem puts us into the need of ways to address firmware updates to be remote, secure and simple(lesser software footprint).

So for a device like Arduino all it needs is a 5V power supply, wireless module and a good robust firmware to make it run forever. This also makes easier to concentrate on network topology than to worry about serial port wire running around for updates, and this makes the hardware footprint smaller.

What are our options for Wireless modules?

To choose a wireless module for our arduino its always simpler if we could narrow down our use case. When going wireless one thing to consider is, what is more important for your project? how much power does it need ? what about distance ? ( pick a real number not "as far as possible".)

WiFi : ESP8266 WiFi Module, there are so many great articles available in the internet on getting started with this. This little module implements a full TCP/IP protocol stack and a great computational power on board. Thus you can manage sensors and elaborate autonomously their signals and measurements. Hosting simple applications on board can let you make a very compact IoT solution.

ESP8266 module

Making ESP8266 a remote autonomous node and giving a OTA update, this itself calls for a separate blog post.

The power requirement and the area coverage are the key points for this chip in being the top for any hobbyist choice of chip.

Bluetooth/BLE 4.0: Bluetooth is always been the go-to choice for wireless connectivity in IoT protocols. Especially with the recent introduction of Bluetooth Low energy, gives us extremely low power consumption which helps in designing fully battery powered boards capable of operating longer than 1 to 2 years in some cases.

CC2540 BLE module

HC-05 Bluetooth Module

We do have many versions of Bluetooth development boards, and many of which are simple and readily available Arduino shields. But an interesting board that has the advantage of being very cheap and a very well-known solution for "Arduiners" is the famous HC-05 module. We have tons of tutorials on how to connect and configure the module and its easy to find.

Zigbee: this is based on IEEE 802.15.4 standard. Though its low power consumption limits transmission distances to 10–100 meters. When it comes to long distance connectivity the first option is always Zigbee, these devices can transmit data over long distances by a concept called MESH, which basically is transmitting data through intermediate devices to reach out more distance.

ZIGBEE module

Single Zigbee module is useless. We always need a pair of modules so that they can talk to each other. Oh sorry, they are not human, I mean they can communicate with each other. I will discuss about it more on coming articles.

GSM/GPS: Well here this might be a over kill for our use case here, but still GSM communication is a must for may remote communication project. I mean who didn't ever think to make an alarm system based on Arduino, may be for our house or an irrigation system. But I am not gonna take this up more for this article.

GSM Module

Radio RF: If WiFi is too much for your project while BLE 4.0 and Zigbee features of networking and mesh networking topology are not needed for you idea, the last (but not the least) alternative is to have the RF transceivers. Users need to read the datasheet carefully for the modules they are using for its best performance. And the software becomes little complicated as there are number of vendors who provide this solution.

LoRa module

Now that we know our options for a good wireless module, I am gonna stick with WiFi (ESP8266) module for my design. Because its low powered, allows me to connect to my home router gateway which makes it easier to send the updates and monitor all the modules from one server and the network nodes fall under TCP/IP protocol makes it more module in integrating with the web based services for the IoT system.

Implementation:

The parts we will be needing are,

Arduino UNO (off course )
ESP8266 module
9V 1A Adapter

The above parts will be the bare minimum for trying out a OTA implementation with Arduino. For myuse case I have planned for a energy monitoring system which will be placed inside the inlet AC-mains of my home.

This system of mine has a CT-coil (current sensor) and AC 400V voltage sensor, and an OLED display. So this node of Arduino is gonna be my IoT node which will display and transmit the energy used to a remote server, also Arduino computes the energy consumed and calculate the monthly electricity bill through the preset energy costs set.

So I will need a freq OTA update of the firmware and energy rates to be sent to Arduino.

Now what are we gonna do with all those parts which you got and why should you care about the energy meter which I am making!!!

So if I answer all those questions in a Single blog post whats the fun in writing,

TO BE CONTINUED ... 😉

What is worth waiting for.... will talk more detail on OTA implementation on Arduino and how to make it more Secure and have a lower software footprint.

Write to me at velsmart93@gmail.com

Embedded Systems - My first Arduino Project

2016-10-21T14:40:00.001+05:30

So we have seen a what are Embedded systems how cool it is to do stuffs with it!

People started asking me to show to to make projects with Arduino recommend any awsum project for them to start with. Well there are no set syllabus to learn the Arduino environment, it differs with person to person, people start with blinky program which is as simple as turning LED on and off at set intervals or few start with different projects!

And that up there is my first encounter with Arduino, I made this small robotic arm and my use case needed a system which could control and manage the power of the whole system. I was a beginner and only way I knew to control the DC motor was through H-bridge [ IC L293D ] and with couple of flip-flops. This system required a bit more low level intelligence and thats the time Arduino was getting popular ( I think late 2011), and thought will get hands-on with it, and thats how my craze fot embedded systems increased! And if you want to check out more about that project click here.

Projects turn out cool with people's imagination so I would recommend you guys to think of a system and try designing it, scavenge for parts, look for more ideas to put in and integrate it!

I always recommend beginners to scavenge for most of the parts instead of going online and buying it new. It will make you love the projects you make and value your parts which we always take for granted.

It doesn't mean that you need to break open your electronic stuffs and sit and de-solder all those micro controllers or search for AVR controllers in your calculators! If you have an old toy or something or a old AC wall adapter try opening it [ Note: there is a fine line between opening stuffs and break opening stuffs ;) ] see whats inside.

Getting the parts:

Arduino UNO
Breadboard
Hook up wires
LEDs
Servo Motors
Few basic resistors ( 1K, 10K, 220 Ohms )

Well these are the basic parts which you will need for all the projects so keep in stock always, specially the LEDs and hook up wires!

What to do?

You will need three different colored LEDs for this ( I picked same colored LEDs ).
Make the LED 1 to blink in 10 milli sec delay, LED 2 to blink in 100 milli sec delay, and LED 3 in 1000 milli sec delay.
And the main part is to make all the three LEDs to blink simultaneously, LED 1,2 and 3 should be blinking in their own rates and no LED should wait for other to complete it task.

How to do it!

Well here comes my first condition I am not going to give you guys the Code or the circuits for the basic projects, so its time for you guys to do a little bit research on coding with Arduino and learning the Electronics 101.

Before starting with your first task, let me tell you the process of designing a project!
Any project you do in embedded systems will always have the following phases,

Use case
Designing
Integration
Debugging

Use case is basically where you sit and figure out what your project is gonna do. We can say I wanna do a robotic arm, but its in the use case where you figure out whether its gonna be a pic and place robot or a a complex robotic arm which can do tasks like unscrewing and stuff.

Designing is where we guys basically decide what are the components we are gonna use and how the whole project is gonna look like and how our logic is gonna be in the coding front.

Most common way of designing is designing the projects in modules, so Integration phase is where we put together all our working blocks.

Debugging is the most vital and important task, this is where all the learning happens in real time scenario, the quote - 'we learn from our mistakes' actually happens here!

I learnt and corrected myself in debugging my codes and projects, for every engineer or hobbyist out there their initial projects would mostly be a big failure, believe me none of my initial projects worked!

This challenging part is where we learn and the real fun starts, the things we learn from debugging our own project can never be learnt from any book or tutorial.

Okay, too much of information, lets see how the above phases happens in our task.

So in our case our use case is to make these three LEDs to blink in three different rates and so the basic output is gonna be some think like this!

Designing phase is gonna be little tricky, circuit wise all we need is to hook up these LEDs with a current limiting resister ( a resistance of 220 ohms will do). But the real design challenge in our case is gonan be the logic of the coding, as we know Micro controllers are single threaded but our use case requires three LEDs to blink on different rates so which means its not gonna be as simple as using the available 'delay()' function in Arduino .

Hint here will be to debug the logic line by line, and decode the process with a clock pulse graph in paper this will help you a lot!
The above graph is a simple logical analysis of the different LEDs which we are gonna use with the clock pulse.

Integration over here will not be required as its just a simple breadboard circuit!

Debugging part for this project will be fun as soon as you load your code you will be getting some output which may be the expected one, but most of the time people land up getting some other output!
The common one will be the 10 ms and 100 ms LEDs will be waiting for the 1000 ms LED to complete its task, so decoding this will be fun for you!

Coding: Well I am gonna leave this part to your style.

Please comment or mail me your thoughts!
And any debugging help or code required mail me: velsmart93@gmail.com

Will start with a new concept in my next blog! :)

Embedded Systems - Arduino Getting Hands-on

2016-10-20T16:32:00.002+05:30

Everyone one is fascinated about robots!

My favourite one is R2-D2 from Star Wars, Especially after the HP ad featuring R2-D2, I started making one, will soon post the pics of it.

When it comes to making a robot, it involves lot of designing, calculation and good knowledge about programming and hardware...

So what does robotics have to do with Embedded systems and the Arduino, well that's the hint for my next article ;)

Getting back to the topic, how to get hands-on embedded systems?
I have a quick check list of things you should have before getting into hands-on excercise.

What is Arduino?

Arduino is an open-source prototyping platform basically based on AVR microcontrollers, there are various boards/versions, Arduino UNO being the common one. Arduino Board uses ATMEGA 168 Microcontroller, the 168 indicates the memory size in Kilo Bytes, and 168 KB of memory space is a lot for embedded systems.

You will find many tutorials on Arduino and there is an official forum for Arduino, and since its open-source you will find millions of projects and support online, which makes Arduino the best board for beginners. I learned from Jermy Blum's Arduino tutorials will attach the links at the end of this article.

If you are completely new to microcontrollers and embedded programming I will highly recommend you to get started with an Arduino board and burn your first 'hello world' program (Blinky).

But its important to note that Arduino IDE and programming with Arduino is kind of similar to building your first models with lego bricks, those are not the real world embedded programming. I would recommend not to get attached with Arduino programs, always try to recreate your code with Embedded C ( will tell the difference between Arduino programming and embedded C in coming sessions).

So start with your projects do some cool stuffs,and mail me your doubts lets debug together.
Mail me at velsmart93@gmail.com

Here are few links which might be useful,

Arduino Tutorials: Click here

Embedded Systems - Getting Started

2016-01-15T19:17:00.002+05:30

In this smart gadget lifestyle of ours, everything we use has a small embedded system part in it.

Well before getting into further details lemme first tell you what exactly is an embedded system.

Embedded system: "An embedded system is a computer system with a dedicated function within a larger mechanical or electrical system, often with real-time computing constraints. It is embedded as part of a complete device often including hardware and mechanical parts."

Well, this is what google tells you when you search for the keyword embedded systems!

For a beginner, it might sound something cool and advanced definition, with all those words like dedicated functionality, real-time computing, constraints.
And yeah! Embedded system is a pretty cool topic to talk about, but to put it in a simple term, it's a cool system which has the ability to listen to the user and do exactly as it is told to do, and does that specific task again-and-again and again until its turned off or something else interrupts it!

There it is, thats the definition for an embedded system, in a non-technical way for the sake of understanding the concept. So it can be as simple as a digital watch and TV IR remotes to complex systems like Mobile phones and again your IR remotes( this time its your Universal remotes).

So what makes an embedded system different from normal systems is 'its ability to listen to the user', let's take a common example of two different washing machines. Let's call the machines, Machine A and Machine B.

Machine A is not a fully automatic one, it's the old machine which has these two separate compartments, one for washing your clothes and other is for drying the washed clothes.

Machine B is the latest washing machine which is fully automatic with a single drum capable of both washing and drying them. And it's a Top load machine ( this has nothing to do with embedded systems but I like this way :P ).

So, the basic operation of both Machine A and B is to wash our clothes and dry them after washing. But in Machine A, the user should wait for the clothes to be washed and should transfer the washed clothes to the drying compartment. And Machine A, does not have the sensors to detect the water input, drain water sensing and stuff. And hence, if there is no water input or if your water drain is blocked the machine will not give you those beeps (error status). But in machine B, it has all those cool buttons and display in the front panel which gives you all sorts of access to the machine, and you get status for your water input, drain check, also different modes for different clothes. So Machine B has this extra system which controls all the operation of the washing and drying tasks, which in Machine A was done by the user. This extra system is what is known as Embedded systems.

Every Embedded system has two main components, just like your label stickers the front side where you write (label) and the back sticky side which sticks to the surface. Similarly, embedded system has the Controller which is your hardware part and the Software code ( instructions ) which are coded into the control IC's.

These control IC's can be Microcontroller or Microprocessor Ic's. Again what is the difference between a Controller and a processor?

Microcontroller

Microprocessor

Both of them are Integrated Chips, and are capable of handling embedded programming ( it's same as normal programming but in a constrained environment/resources). A controller has every peripheral it needs in a single IC package, for example, the Memory, Input/Output drives(ports), Analog to Digital (ADC) and Digital to Analog (ADC) converters and its computational power is lesser than a processor. Whereas a processor has only the computational part in it and all other peripherals should be connected externally.

The main difference will be that a controller is a single threaded programming environment but a processor is capable of handling multi-threading. Our calculators are a great example of microcontrollers, you can only give step by step inputs and only one operation is possible at a time.
and our personal computers are the best example of a processor.

So how exactly can we tell an IC to do tasks?

This is where the embedded programming gets into action, all these microcontrollers and processors are the hardware part of the embedded system ( the sticky part). But the instructions or the programming (labeling part) we do makes it to do the tasks. Once we have the program ready for our hardware, we then send it to our IC's in a language which these IC's understand and that is called Assembly language.

Where to start learning for a beginner?

From a beginner's point of view, getting started with embedded systems and get your first task, (normally we call it 'Hello World') working will be hard. Since putting all these pieces together isn't an easy exercise for a beginner. And that's where all these open source prototyping boards get handy.

Few Boards

There are so many of them out there for different platforms, to name a few, Arduino, Raspberry pi, Beaglebone, Intel's Edison.These are the few boards which I have had my hands on, my personal favorite being the Arduino and that's the one I recommend to get familiar with before getting into advanced stuff.

Wait For my next entry to learn more about ARDUINO :)

Mail me at velsmart93@gmail.com

Here are few links which might be useful,
AVR tutorials: Step by step guide, Video link

Do you really understand everyday technology???

2012-07-03T19:51:00.001+05:30

Good technology is easy to use- one simple twist or push and the safety lock opens, the car starts, the oven heats up, the light comes on and the camera is focused. But how does all work? What are the mechanisms and phenomena behind amazing modern devices? We need to understand the problem that has been solved by a gadget before we can really understand how useful it is.

Why are the numbers 1, 2 and 3 at the top of the dial on a telephone, but at the bottom on a pocket calculator?

Calculator key pad

The reason for the different keypads is historical. Electronic pocket calculators are the direct descendants of mechanical calculators and cash registers. They used lever gears for which it was best to have the lower numbers, including zero, at the bottom. This resulted in a 9- or 10- key panel which continued to be used for the mechanical office calculators. Column 1 had 0 at the bottom and 9 at the top; the next column 10 at eh bottom and 90 at the top; then from 100 to 900, and so on. It wasn’t until electronic calculators appeared that the number of the buttons was finally reduced to just ten.

Cell phone key pad

The people who developed telephone, on the other hand, constructed a user study. In the early 1960’s when the first push button telephone were seen in the USA, various keypad arrangements were put to the test. Two provided particularly good results, and so the decision was made not to have two rows of five numbers, but instead to go for the arrangement that is common today. Here, too, the 0 is at the bottom- after 9, which was familiar from the old dials. This variation also turned out to be more natural for use with the alphabet.

Why doesn’t the ink in the ball point pen leak out?

At the heart of a ball point pen is a tiny sphere- the ball point- which is trapped in a socket at the tip of the ink chamber. The viscous ink in the chamber is pulled in the downward direction by the force of gravity, but cannot flow unaided out of the tiny gap between the socket and the ball.

The ink chamber at the bottom of the ink chamber sticks to the ball, which is made of brass or steal and is often slightly scored. When the ball turns in its socket, it takes some of the ink out the ink chamber and moves in onto the paper, where it sticks even better than it does to the ball. The socket is slightly narrowed towards the front to keep the ball from falling out, although it is loose enough to allow space for the ink. Vertical grooves on the inner surface of the socket also help the ink to flow around the ball. This arrangement also ensures that that the ink does not dry out in the chamber. Since the ball is always covered by a layer of ink, this means that air cannot penetrate the ink chamber.

Dark stars

2012-06-06T17:02:00.000+05:30

A dwarf star.

It is fascinating to wonder what this dark matter might be. One possibility is the existence of so-called dwarfs- dark stars that are compact enough to exert a force of attraction on the other stars, even from a distance. Unlike the sun, which burns the hydrogen fuel in a thermonuclear reaction , converting it to light and heat while releasing helium, brown dwarfs are `failed’ stars, which have never attained temperature to trigger ignition. They are relatively small, dark and cold, and thus completely invisible. Nevertheless, some astronomers have succeeded in detecting these masked celestial bodies, since their mass- which lies somewhere between that of our sun and Jupiter- can bend the light rays of other stars. What uncertain of these brown dwarf stars to make up the dark matter of the universe.

A super massive Black Hole.

Another celestial body that might provide valuable clues to the nature of dark matter is a black hole. These are incredibly compact former stars whose density is so great that they swallow everything that comes near, including their own light rays. Here, too, scientists must use indirect means in order to detect them, because black holes are invisible and absorb all nearby matter. One way to locate them is picking up the radio signals released by matter that is about to be sucked in- like picking up a kind of cosmic distress call. But as far as we know, that there are not enough black holes in the universe to exert the combined forces of dark matter.

The Quest for dark matter

2012-06-06T14:43:00.001+05:30

Of all the secrets of the natural world, possibly the ultimate is the search for the dark matter, a mysteries and invisible form of matter that many scientists believe actually holds the fabric of the universe together. At present, the dark matter only exists in the theory, and we may never know exactly what it is, for even our most powerful telescopes and measuring instruments can only capture a fraction of the full extent of the universe.

Dark Matter

Even with the aid of the strongest telescopes, such as the Hubble space telescope, only about one tenth of the whole universe is visible. Astronomers cannot observe the rest simply because it does not emit visible light rays. Scientists have come to this conclusion on the basis of very careful calculations. After they estimated the mass of all visible objects and compared this figure to minimum density of the universe have to have in order to remain in cohesion they concluded that 90% of the matter could not be detected. The name given to this mass is ‘Dark Matter’.

In the 1930s astronomer Fritz Zwicky was the one
of the first scientists to propose the existence of dark matter.

The question of what constitutes dark matter is not a new one. The concept of dark matter was first considered in 1993, when astronomer Fritz Zwicky of the California Institute of Technology found that he was unable to explain why the galaxy cluster in the constellation Coma Berenice, 300 million light years away, did not fall apart. According to his measure the laws of gravity and the most elementary principles of the celestial mechanics, and they should have broken up an eternity ago, each galaxy going on its own way. The only way that Zwicky could explain this anomaly was to suggest the existence of a mass of some substance that did not emit light, and whose force of gravity kept these galaxies together.

The cohesion of spiral galaxies, which rotate
like spinning tops without collapsing, might
be due to the existence of dark matter.

In recent years, astronomical observations have confirmed Zwicky’s suspicion. The giant arm of the universal spiral galaxies contains countless stars which should have flown off in all directions through the force of their own rotation. Since this has not happened, there must be something working against their centrifugal force. In this respect, scientists from the basic assumption that the velocity of the rotation of these stars increases with their increased distance from their core of the galaxy. However, the stars which are far away from their galaxy core move with an astonishing speed, as if the force of an invisible material held them captive in a giant merry-go-round.

Note: wait the quest is not yet over! more posts on Dark Matter in coming soon

Exploring the everyday

2012-05-21T19:41:00.001+05:30

Why do we burp?

Belching is the way of removing air from the digestive tract that does not belong there. It is especially important that babies are ‘burped’ because they are not yet able to properly coordinate feeding and breathing. A baby may inadvertently swallow air which can cause unpleasant pressure in its oesophagus and stomach, and stomach, which results in discomfort and crying.

Adults also take too much air into their stomachs if they eat or drink too quickly; and some people are known too swallow huge quantities of air.

When we burp after drinking a carbonated drink, such as sparkling mineral water, beer or champagne, the cause may be carbon dioxide, which escapes from the carbonated drink into stomach. In rare cases, faults in the mechanism that closes the link between the stomach and oesophagus can lead to belching which may also bring up some stomach contents as well as air.

Apart from ruminants, such as sheep or cattle, most of the animals cannot belch. The ruminants mainly bring up methane, a gas which is released by bacteria in their digestive tracts.

Why shouldn’t Quiz contestants drink cold water?

Although thirst makes it more difficult to think, taking a drink at wrong time may slow doen the thought process- especially if the drink is cold water.

Scientists in Britain conducted an experiment that showed that thirsty people were better to perform intellectually demanding task if they took a slip of water immediately beforehand. They performed 10% better than the group that was left to go thirsty. However, subjects who weren’t thirsty and drank a small amount of cold water during the course of task came off 15% worse. The researchers suspect the temperature of the water was linked to the loss of concentration. Cold water has to be heated in the stomach to bring it up to the normal body temperature, there by reducing the energy available to the brain for intellectual activity.

Where is memory located in the brain?

2012-05-21T09:56:00.000+05:30

Memory is not a single, simple ability or process. Experts know this from their observations of Alzheimer’s disease and people with memory loss. Dementia patients may not remember what they did five minutes ago, but they can often remember details like their place of birth or childhood places or songs. People with amnesia can often identify pictures of well known personalities or famous figures from history- but fail to recognise members of their own family. This is why researchers now believe that there are several different types of memory. Procedural memory stores knowledge, such as how to tie a shoelace or riding a bicycle. Episodic memory records experiences, while declarative or semantic memory retains facts.

The contents of our declarative memory is stored in the neocortex of the brain, and those of episodic memory in the frontal and temporal lobes. Procedural memory, on the other hand, is so various than it has to be stored in different locations throughout the brain, including the mortor cortex, basal ganglia and cerebellum. Another part of the brain- hippocamous- plays a major role in transferring the contents of short-term memory into long-term memory.

Can we learn to study more effectively?

There are a range of techniques we can use to help us study more effectively. Even simple actions, such as changing location by moving from the study to living room, for example, can be beneficial. The different locations in which learning takes place become recall stimuli which help the brain to consolidate knowledge. It is also important to take occasional complete breaks away from study, such as going for a short walk.

It also helps to structure the material to be learnt. In an experiment, test subjects had to learn the names of 112 minerals by heart. The researchers were able to demonstrate that learning was three times more effective when the minerals were split into groups, such as precious metals, precious stones and building materials.

FUNGI

2011-08-24T17:13:00.000+05:30

Organisms belonging to kingdom fungi , except for yeast are multicellular in nature. The major difference between the the plants and fungus is that the plant cell wall has cellulose while the fungal cell wall has chitin. The fungal body is made up of thread like structures known as hyphae and many hyphae together make up a mycelium
.

Hyphae can be classified into two types , i.e. aseptate and septate .
Aseptate hyphae does not have a cross wall inside them while the septate hyphae have cross walls .

Their mode of nutrition involves the secretion of digestive enzymes that degrade the food substances outside the fungus body. The digested and degraded food material is then absorbed back into the fungal body through the cell wall.

Fungus are very ubiquitous in nature i.e. they can be found anywhere provided the place has a little bit of moisture .

When the Moon passes In front of the Sun...

2011-08-12T18:04:00.000+05:30

Since the earliest times, human beings have raised their eyes to the sky, full of awe- and sometimes fear- when in the middle of the day darkness gradually descends, marking the brightest stars visible in the sky.

Solar Eclipse in India 2010

A total eclipse of the sun must be one of the most impressive dramas that the heavens have to offer.

We can probably assume that one of the most important duties of anyone who claimed knowledge of the workings of heavenly bodies in times past was to predict eclipse accurately and in good time.

In fact the phenomenon of a solar eclipse has a very simple explanation- the orbiting Moon passes in the front of the sun as seen from earth. The fact that the moon precisely covers the sun’s disc is simply a cosmic coincidence.

Although the sun is 400 times larger than the moon it is also 400 times further away from Earth, and it is this that makes both celestial bodies appear to be almost exactly same size when viewed from Earth.