Entries from April 2008 ↓

In the future Ill have a cell phone that will be capable of doing all following.

• Receive AM, FM and all other sorts of radio
• Connect to GSM, CDMA, and any other network technology
• Receive and decode satellite video
• Receive and decode terrestrial TV transmission
• Be my wifi and wimax transceiver

This is all that I can think of now. The point is that your cellphone will become a universal communication device that can handle any communication technology. If some new technology developed, all you need is to upgrade the software, just like we upgrade linux or windows. This is what software defined radio has in store for us.

In SDR the emphasis is on creating a universal hardware for receiving signals, and then do all the processing on a software platform which So if tomorrow a new communication protocol is invented, all you need to do is, upgrade your software.

More than the end user, the immediate benefits of SDR is to a service provider, like your cell phone service provider. He incurrs a huge cost in upgrading all his equipments when a better technology is released. But with this system, he can use a  universal transmission system which can be upgraded to handle any technology just by upgrading the software. This will save the serivce provider a lot of money, and also will result in better customer experience.

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This is where bloggers compete in a friendly manner by writing posts about a few topics. After the blogathon judges will review the posts and awards will be given. The schedule is somehting like this.

April 12 - Blogathon Begins

April 20th - 25th - Submission of posts to blogathon website

April 26th - Blogathon concludes

May 6th - Blogathon awards are announced

Topics:

Infrastructure: Sunday, 20th April 2008
How can we improve the traffic condition in our city?

Politics: Monday, 21st April 2008
How do we change the focus of politics from caste/religion to grassroot issues?

Entertainment: Tuesday, 22nd April 2008
Does Bollywood overshadow regional cinema in India?

Media: Wednesday, 23rd April 2008
Why are Indian news broadcast channels not as mature as their International counterparts?

Gender: Thursday, 24th April 2008
What are the challenges that society faces in accepting the concept of alternate sexuality?

Sport: Friday, 25th April 2008
Are ‘media’ and ‘commercial interests’ in cricket the only reason that are killing other sports in India?
Find more details here

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Wibree, now known as Ultra Low Power Bluetooth saw its first working demo today. CSR, the chip manufacturer successfully demonstrated data transfer between 2 dual mode bluetooth chips. The venue was a medical conference in Luxembourg.

The chips will be commercially available from this year itself. I hope to see a lot of cell phones are wrist watches with wibree technology in the market. This would pave way to a whole new set of products are services.

Wibree is 50 times faster than Bluetooth and because of that reason itself, the power consumption drops. Also the protocol has been stripped down of unnecessary overheads and tailor made to transfer short bursts of data. A single cell battery is expected to give a wibree product a running time of 10 years.

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This is the new Maruti Swift Dzire, the Sedan version of the Swift.

Initially I was not impressed with the looks. But after I saw a few Swift Dzires on the road, I started to like the looks. It stands out in the crowd. Since I was planning to buy a new car, I started evaluating my choices. The cars that I considered were Swift Dzire, Ford Fiesta, Chevrolet Aveo,  Hyundai  Accent and Hyundai Verna.

After having done some research and test drives, Ive concluded that Dzire is the clear winner. The factors that affected the decision were its mileage, driving comfort, pick up and price.

The car has got excellent pick up. Fiesta wont even come close. The driving comfort is also much higher when compared to the competitors.

The car has a mileage of 18km on diesel. The highest claim is by fiesta, and its 22. But fiesta is costlier by 2 lakhs and the pick up is very bad. Also the interiors of fiesta sucks. But fiesta has got more leg space.

Swift Dzire full option ex showroom price is 6.7 lakhs. It comes with airbag and ABS brakes. The medium version without airbag and ABS brakes costs 5.8 lakhs.

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Recently we have been hearing a lot about education being seen as a business, and so called student organisations protesting, court cases being fought, outrage against self financing colleges, every issue that happens in a self financing college blown out of proportion, property destruction etc etc. Is education business good ?

The motivation to write this post is a comment by a reader in one of my previous posts about the suicide of a college student in MACFAT, a self financed college.

“I don’t know in what sense it is ‘wonderful college’.Because I spend around 3 years in MACFAST.During my time the management and admin was not that much good also.If the situation is same I think the management and principal have responsibility for the incident. For them it is a business. ” - Thomas

Almost 20 years back, a relative of mine got an entrance rank around 1200. But he didnt get admission for engineering because no seats were left after cutting all the reservations.

In 2001 a friend of mine paid 4 lakhs donation to get admitted to an engineering college in Bangalore. His entrance rank was 12,000. His annual fees, 60,000 Rs. The torture he got from his seniors there is another story.

In 2002 the self financing revolution happened in Kerala. Now in 2008, a junior of mine with an entrance rank  13,000 is studying in a very good engineering college 4 km away from his home. He didnt pay any donation and he his fees is only 38,000. He has no hostel expenses, travelling expenses and he is not afraid of his seniors.

Now this is what engineering colleges in Tamil Nadu do to our students.  Check out the PSN engineering college story. Did any of the student organisations go there and protest ? It takes guts to challenge that management. Not something that our little student politicians can do.

Is education business good for our state ? You decide.

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