For science, you monster

By Akshit Goyal

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A screenshot of the game.

In the three or so hours that people played it, they were hooked. Ask them why, and the reasons are many, one of them being the unique-core mechanic. It’s true — Portal was one heck of a brilliant game.It’s not very hard to argue that the original Portal was a revolutionary step forward in physics-based puzzle solving, if not gaming itself.

But, what many overlooked in the absorbing experience was the hidden potential in the engine to be used for teaching fundamental scientific and mathematical principles to kids.

Portal is one of the rare games that can change the way we think about the world, how we view the physical space around us. It’s an important lesson: what might seem like a dry subject in the classroom has amazing applications outside of it.

Recognising this, Valve recently offered the title for free on Steam till September 20. This was a great way to spread the love of science and gaming to children. I believe, and if one hadn’t played Portal until this point, they had no excuse.

“One of the biggest challenges in teaching science, technology, engineering, and math is capturing the students’ imaginations long enough for them to see all of the possibilities that lie ahead,” the company wrote on the Learn with Portals site.

“Using interactive tools like the Portal series to draw them in, makes physics, math, logic, spatial reasoning, probability and problem-solving interesting, cool and fun, which gets us one step closer to our goal-engaged, thoughtful kids!”

This isn’t all speculation; Valve actually called in seventh grade students for a while and had them playing with the engine. In the process of creating new levels, children gained a deeper understanding of how stuff works, and how to make it work if it doesn’t. If India adopts these methods for teaching, the pros are many.

For one, the lack of competent teachers in the country can be subverted by such means. And two, you can have children playing a game, while subconsciously instructing them on topics that often require a deeper sense of comprehension than most. If only we can set up the infrastructure

NASA’s “errant satellite” plummeting to earth at 27,000 kph

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APIn this file image provided by NASA is the STS-48 onboard photo of the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) in the grasp of the RMS (Remote Manipulator System) during deployment, from the shuttle in September 1991. NASA's old research satellite is expected to come crashing down through the atmosphere Friday afternoon, September 23, 2011, Eastern Time.

To anyone who grew up on a staple diet of Asterix comics, the illustrated series about a Gaulish tribe by René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo, it is well known that their greatest fear was that the sky would one day fall on their heads.

Today the fears of that tiny tribe gripped the entire world as a massive but dead satellite floating on the outer edge of the earth’s atmosphere began a fiery, high-velocity descent of indeterminate terminal location.

The bus-sized Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite, or UARS, launched in 1991 by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, is 35 feet long, 15 feet in diameter, and weighs a staggering 6,500 kilograms. It will re-enter the earth’s atmosphere sometime Friday night or early Saturday Eastern Time NASA said, noting that it was as yet too early to predict the time and location of re-entry with precision.

However the agency cautioned that it could not rule out the United States as a landing spot, saying, “There is a low probability any debris that survives re-entry will land in the United States, but the possibility cannot be discounted because of this changing rate of descent.”

Meanwhile a U.S. Air Force space operations team in California was said to be tracking the “errant satellite’s” movements. “If the satellite doesn’t incinerate when it enters Earth’s atmosphere, NASA officials expect to see 25 or 26 pieces of debris from the craft. The biggest piece is estimated to weigh 300 pounds,” Jeremy Eggers, Public Affairs Director for the operations centre, said in a statement.

If the satellite doesn’t incinerate when it enters Earth’s atmosphere, NASA officials expect to see 25 or 26 pieces of debris from the craft, the USAF said, adding that the biggest piece is estimated to weigh around 136 kilograms. It was currently estimated to be travelling at approximately 27,000 kilometres per hour.

NASA however hastened to add that the risk that “re-entering orbital debris” posed to public safety or property was “extremely small” because a significant amount of such debris does not survive the severe heating which occurs during re-entry.

“Components which do survive are most likely to fall into the oceans or other bodies of water or onto sparsely populated regions like the Canadian Tundra, the Australian Outback, or Siberia in the Russian Federation,” NASA explained, adding that during the last 50 years an average of one catalogued piece of debris fell back to Earth each day and “no serious injury or significant property damage caused by re-entering debris has been confirmed.”

Yet obviously no place on earth was entirely safe from the dead satellite’s descent – in a small footnote on its website NASA recommended: “If you find something you think may be a piece of UARS, do not touch it. Contact a local law enforcement official for assistance.” This of course assumes it missed the individual in question
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How to create Status Bar Notification in Android

A status bar notification is a nice way to alert the user about some update from your application, when running in background, specially when you require a response from the user for the same. It adds an icon to the system's status bar along with an optional ticker-text message and an expanded message in the Notifications window. When the user selects the expanded notification message, Android fires an Intent that is defined by the notification which is usually used to launch an Activity. In this article, I will show you how we can implement this notification system in our application. To demonstrate how to use status bar notification we will create a layout which will have a textview and button. The button will be used to launch the status bar notification. Create a new Android project with the following properties: Project Name – Status Bar Notification Name of the Application – Status Bar Notification Package name – com.botskool.StatusBarNotification Activity Name – StatusBarNotificationActivity Create a new XML file in res/layout/ and name it as main.xml and copy the following code to it: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" android:orientation="vertical" android:layout_width="fill_parent" android:layout_height="fill_parent" > <TextView android:layout_width="fill_parent" android:layout_height="wrap_content" android:text="Click on the button below to see the Status Bar Notification" /> <Button android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="wrap_content" android:text="Show Status Bar Notification" android:id="@+id/statusbarbutton" /> </LinearLayout> Our application consists of a textview and a button. Whenever the user clicks on the button a notification will be displayed to him/her. Next, add the following code to StatusBarNotificationActivity.java: package com.botskool.StatusBarNotification; import android.app.Activity; import android.app.Notification; import android.app.NotificationManager; import android.app.PendingIntent; import android.content.Context; import android.content.Intent; import android.os.Bundle; import android.view.View; import android.widget.Button; public class StatusBarNotificationActivity extends Activity { private static final int NOTIFICATION_ID = 1; /** Called when the activity is first created. */ @Override public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) { super.onCreate(savedInstanceState); setContentView(R.layout.main); /** Define configuration for our notification */ int icon = R.drawable.icon; CharSequence tickerText = "This is a sample notification"; long when = System.currentTimeMillis(); Context context = getApplicationContext(); CharSequence contentTitle = "Sample notification"; CharSequence contentText = "This notification has been generated as a result of button click."; Intent notificationIntent = new Intent(this, StatusBarNotificationActivity.class); PendingIntent contentIntent = PendingIntent.getActivity(this, 0, notificationIntent, 0); /** Initialize the Notification using the above configuration */ final Notification notification = new Notification(icon, tickerText, when); notification.setLatestEventInfo(context, contentTitle, contentText, contentIntent); /** Retrieve reference from NotificationManager */ String ns = Context.NOTIFICATION_SERVICE; final NotificationManager mNotificationManager = (NotificationManager) getSystemService(ns); /** Listener for click event of the button */ Button statusbarnotify = (Button) findViewById(R.id.statusbarbutton); statusbarnotify.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() { public void onClick(View v) { mNotificationManager.notify(NOTIFICATION_ID, notification); } }); } } Here, first we define the various details of our notification message. We define an icon and ticker message with the help of icon and tickerText variables respectively for the notification to be displayed in system tray. For expanded view of our notification message which is displayed in Notifications window we have defined title and message body by using contentTitle and contentText variables respectively. The variable when stores the time of creation of the notification. Next, we define an object of PendingIntent which will be fired when our notification is selected. We initialize an instance of Notification class with these settings by using the constructor of this class and its setLatestEventInfo(). After defining our notification object we need to retrieve a reference to NotificationManager, which is a system service that manages all notifications. We do so by using getSystemService() method. Finally, we bind ourselves to the on-click listener event of the button which when clicked launches the notification with the help of notify() method. Thats it! Now compile and run the Android application. The app will look like this: If we click on the button the notification appears in the system tray along with the ticker message as shown below: The expanded view of the notification message is shown below:

A slate for micro-finance

PAROMITA PAIN

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The HinduA hybrid digital slate that allows both paper-based and digital record-keeping. Photo: Special Arrangement

Low-cost system combines writing on paper and recording entries in digital format

Over the past three decades, the global micro-finance sector has grown substantially, with mainstream banks realising its benefits for social support and meeting profit margins. But simple issues still plague everyday operations.

In India, for instance, handwritten entries on paper forms, which are often illegible, incorrect or incomplete, make it difficult to maintain accurate and updated local records on microfinance self-help groups.

Addressing this, Aishwarya Lakshmi Ratan, as part of the Technology for Emerging Markets Group at Microsoft Research India, spent 15 months figuring out how to help local microfinance cooperatives improve the quality of their financial records.

The solution she explored with colleagues at Microsoft Research and with a partner non-governmental organisation, PRADAN, is a low-cost digital system that combines the convenience of writing on paper, while simultaneously recording the handwritten entries and instantly storing them in a digital format.

“We used a hybrid digital slate prototype device that allows both paper-based as well as digital recordkeeping. It comes with an A5-size digitising pad and digital pen as well as a small touch screen. The ledger book is placed on the digitising pad and entries are made with the pen in ink. The minute you start writing, the movement of the pen is tracked in the background and all the entries have a corresponding digital copy created.

“The digital entries are then run through a digit recognition tool and the numbers are fed into a local database on the device. These figures are then processed and instant updates are generated. A financial record management application, based on the paper accounting system used by the self-help group, allows the accounts writer to verify all entries on the screen. Audio feedback in the local language is then played back so that the entries are validated by the members. Once the errors are corrected, the data is saved. What this means is that the solution allows users to get digital processing and feedback in response to regular handwritten paper-based entries,” explains Ms. Ratan.

An immediate advantage is that these digital records can be shared easily with banks supporting the self-help group. This hybrid solution, which made it to the MIT Technology Review TR35 list of 35 innovators under age 35, yielded entries that were 100 per cent complete in field trials with significant improvements in accuracy.

“Each self-help group runs its own little banking system. We realised that there were lots of gaps in the quality of financial data, and we wanted to help meet this need. Usually, the paper records are sent to town and then someone transcribes them into digital records for processing. Printouts of updates are then sent back to be used at the next meeting. The logistics of getting the data transcribed were heavy, and the reconciliation of errors was difficult, since the people who entered the first set and those who were transcribing it were different,” Ms. Ratan adds.

Among the many challenges the solution faced was one of no power or unreliable electricity since the device needed to be recharged. A solar charging unit was then attached to it, but that raised costs. Ms. Ratan says: “The other challenges included issues of the audio output. Our first prototype just had the numbers being read out, but field tests showed that saying them in a locally familiar format improved member engagement. We were very conscious that the solution needed to either meet or beat current costs, so we explored methods by which groups could share a device since each group only meets once a week.”

Planet orbiting two suns discovered

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APThis image provided by NASA shows an artist's depiction showing a world where two suns set over the horizon instead of just one. The planet, called Kepler-16b, is the most "Tatooine-like" planet yet found in our galaxy. Tatooine is the name of Luke Skywalker's home world in the science fiction movie Star Wars.

Astronomers claim to have discovered a planet which orbits two suns, like the fictional planet Tatooine featured in the sci-fi film series Star Wars.

An international team, which made the finding through NASA’s Kepler spacecraft, says the planet, called Kepler-16b, is about 200 light years from Earth and is believed to be a frozen world of rock and gas, about the size of Saturn.

It orbits two stars that are also circling each other, one about two-thirds the size of our sun, the other about a fifth the size of our sun. Each orbit takes 229 days; the stars eclipse each other every three weeks or so.

Alan Boss, a researcher at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington DC and a member of the team, was quoted by the media as saying, “You would never get constant daylight because the two stars are so close together.

“They would come together in an eclipse every 20.5 days and then move apart again. As their separation increased, they would go down at different times, and that could make cocktail hour hard.”

In fact, the team, led by Laurance Doyle at the Carl Sagan Centre for the Study of Life in the Universe at the Seti Institute in California, spotted the planet after noticing unusual signals in data collected by the Kepler spacecraft.

Images captured by Kepler’s camera showed two stars orbiting each other and producing eclipses as they moved in front of one another. Both stars were small in comparison with our own sun, at about 69 and 20 per cent of the sun’s mass.

On closer inspection, the footage revealed further eclipses that could not be explained by the movement of the two stars, or an additional third star. Instead, a subtle drop in light from the stars, which amounted to a dimming of only 1.7 per cent, was attributed to an orbiting planet.

The astronomers turned next to a ground-based telescope, the Whipple Observatory in Arizona. With this, they monitored the shifting velocity of the heaviest star as it moved around in its orbit.

Those observations gave Mr. Doyle’s team the details they needed to reconstruct the orbits of the stars and its planet.

They showed that the two suns orbit each other every 41 days at a distance of about 21 million miles. The planet completes a circular orbit around both stars every 229 days at a distance of 65 million miles, according to the findings published in the Science journal.

Josh Carter, another team member, added: “Kepler-16b is the first confirmed, unambiguous example of a circumbinary planet — a planet orbiting not one, but two stars. Once again, we’re finding that our solar system is only one example of the variety of planetary systems nature can create.”

Intel plans smartphone foray with Google

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Intel CEO Paul Otellini holds up a Google Android phone running on an Intel chip at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco.

With an aim to expand its presence in the computing world, technology giant Intel on Wednesday announced that it has partnered with Google for accelerating its foray into the smartphone market by the first half of 2012.

It has also promised to bring power-efficient and affordable ‘Ultrabooks’, a sleeker and lighter version of laptops, to the market this holiday season.

Announcing a new partnership with Google for accelerating its smartphone business foray, Intel president and CEO Paul Otellini said he was hopeful of Intel’s technology-based smartphones being launched in the market by the first half of 2012.

Delivering the opening keynote address at the Intel Developer Forum (IDF), Mr. Otellini also announced that Intel’s engineers were working on a new class of platform power management for the Ultrabooks that will help in producing “always-on-always-connected computing.”

Predicting that Ultrabook systems will provide the most satisfying and complete computing experience, he said Intel was working with industry partners to deliver “mainstream-priced products beginning this holiday season for this new category of lighter, sleeker computing companions.”

Industry experts believe that Ultrabooks are aimed at keeping the market for PCs, especially laptops, alive in the wake of soaring demand for tablets and other hand-held devices.

Terming Ultrabooks as Intel’s vision for the future, Mr. Otellini said the company was working to make these devices lighter, thinner, sleeker and more secure, along with much longer battery life and affordable pricing. However, he did not disclose the price range for these devices.

He said that Intel engineers were working on a power management platform for these Ultrabooks that would reduce their idle platform power by more than 20 times over current designs without compromising computing performance.

Mr. Otellini further said he expects that this design change, combined with industry collaboration, will lead to more than 10 days of connected standby battery life by 2013 on a single charge. The Intel chief predicted that platform power innovation will reach levels that are difficult to imagine today.

Microsoft set to release Windows 8 details

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APMicrosoft has described Windows 8 as the most significant upgrade to its ubiquitous operating system.

Microsoft is expected to offer the first public peek at its new operating system on Tuesday at a conference for Windows developers.

The software giant has described Windows 8 as the most significant upgrade to its ubiquitous operating system since the company adopted the desktop, mouse and the graphical user interface with Windows 95.

Prior to that, personal computers running Microsoft’s operating systems were text—based and could only be operated by typing in commands.

Naturally, the technology world is holding its breath for details of the new operating system, which is designed to be touch—screen friendly and compatible with both traditional PCs and tablet computers.

Microsoft has been quiet about what to expect at its Build Windows Conference, which starts Tuesday in Los Angeles, but announced Monday that it would live stream a keynote address by Windows chief Steve Sinofsky, which it said would “reveal important facts about Windows 8.”

Microsoft has previously said that the new OS would feature live tiles with notifications from Faceboook, email, calendar and other apps, and would dramatically improve start—up times when turning on the computer. Windows 8 will be the first Microsoft operating system designed to work both with Intel’s traditional PC architecture and the ARM chips that are used to run many tablets and smartphones.

The operating system is expected to hit the market in 2012, succeeding Windows 7, which is the most successful operating system in Microsoft’s history with more than 400 million copies sold.

Analysts see Windows 8 as crucial to Microsoft’s future and its only chance of closing the gap with Apple and Google over the burgeoning demand for tablet computers, a market that is cannibalizing traditional laptops and is expected to reach sales of 300 million units per year by 2015, according to research firm Gartner
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Oceansat-2 ground station inaugurated in Hyderabad

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Union Minister of Science and Technology and Earth Sciences Vilasrao Deshmukh with Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy, ISRO Chairman K. Radhakrishnan and Chairman, Earth Commission, Shailesh Nayak, at the newly inaugurated Oceansat-2 Ground Station in Hyderabad on Monday. Photo: Mohammed Yousuf

A state-of-the-art Oceansat-2 ground station was inaugurated on Monday by Union Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh at the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) here.

The Department of Space and INCOIS established the ground station to receive and process data from Ocean Colour Monitor on-board the Indian Remote Sensing Satellite Oceansat-2 in real time.

The Oceansat-2 ground station, fitted with a 7.5 m diameter antenna, could cover an area of 5,000 km diameter circle, covering the Bay of Bengal on the east and the Arabian Sea on the west, a note issued by INCOIS on the occasion said.

The ground station consists of various sub-systems like antenna and feed system, radio frequency and tracking, base band, automation, modulation and de-modulation systems, direct archival and quick—look browsing and Oceansat data production generation system.

INCOIS said, the 7.5 meter diameter antenna system at the new ground station could also be used to receive data from satellites launched by ISRO in the future study of oceans.

The chlorophyll data received from OCM at the ground station would be integrated with Sea Surface Temperature from NOAA satellites for providing the Potential Fishing Zone (PFZ) advisory services.

The PFZ advisories generated by INCOIS using Oceansat-2 data advise fishermen on the optimal locations for fishing.

INCOIS said an estimated 65,000 users regularly access the PFZ service, thereby benefiting by 60-70 per cent reduction in search time for fish shoals and 2-3 times increase in net profit.

“The recent study, carried out by National Council of Applied Economic Research, on the socio—economic benefits of PFZ advisory services and ocean state forecasts, has estimated the net annual benefits to be in the range of Rs 34,000 to Rs 50,000 crore due to scientific identification of PFZs based on satellite information,” INCOIS said.

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy, ISRO chairman K Radhakrishnan, Secretary in the Ministry of Earth Sciences Shailesh Nayak, Incois director Satheesh Shenoi and other officials were present on the occasion.

NASA launches twin satellites bound for moon

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APThis framegrab image from NASA-TV shows the twin GRAIL satellites atop a United Launch Alliance Delta II rocket as they launch from the launch pad at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. NASA is sending the probes on a long, roundabout trip to the moon. It will be the first lunar mission devoted to studying the insides of the moon. Photo: AP

Twin satellites blasted off aboard a rocket Saturday on a mission to unveil the inner secrets of the moon, the US space agency NASA said.

The Grail spacecraft launch at 9.08 am aboard a Delta II rocket from an Air Force base adjacent to NASA’s facilities at Cape Canaveral, Florida.

The blastoff had been postponed twice due to bad weather on Thursday and Friday.

The two small Grail spacecraft - which are about the size of washing machines - will fly in formation above the moon’s surface to map its gravity.

“Trying to understand how the moon formed, and how it evolved over its history, is one of the things we’re trying to address with the Grail mission,” said researcher Maria Zuber of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

By measuring variations in gravity across the moon’s surface over three months, scientists hope to learn how the interior formed, which should also provide general clues about how rocky planets form, Ms. Zuber said.

3D printing in newspapers displayed at Chennai WAN IFRA expo

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The HinduThe newspaper with printed 3D images and glasses to view them with.

Printing systems manufacturer manroland AG showcased 3D printing on plain newsprint at the WAN-IFRA India 2011 conference and expo held in Chennai between September 6 and 8.

The technology by which a 3D image can be viewed in the average daily newspaper using low-cost glasses was demonstrated by the German newspaper Bild last year. Pictures chosen to be displayed in that issue in 3D included a fighter jet on the title page of the publication, and the desk of German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Addition of the third dimension to an image is achieved either by shooting it in 3D with a suitable camera, or using software that recalculates existing pictures to achieve the same effect, according to the publication Messenger published by manroland.

Several pictures featured in the issue of Messenger were printed for viewing in 3D, including printing equipment and a nature landscape among others. Similar publications have come out from Thailand, Brazil, Belgium and other countries. The technology offers enhanced prospects for both advertising and editorial, and raises the appeal of printed newspapers, a company official said.