The 'Creepy' app

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The name of this app is 'Creepy'..! Don't think it as a foolish name for an app, because this one is really creepy..!!

In today's world, we live more in the digital world than in the real world. For us, our 'avatar' is more important than our real selves. Its a harsh fact but we have to admit it.

So living in this digital world, we leave out loads n loads of our personal information accessible to anyone on the internet. We do not think it as a 'no biggie', but you would be amazed or horrified to be more precise, to know how these small 'no biggie' details can be used against you...!

This app for desktop computers called 'Creepy' is a “geo-location information aggregator”. i.e, using a this a person can know where all the places you had been and can hence easily find out the place where you would likely to be..!

Now, you might be going "oh shit..!!"..:) How does it do that..??


Well, we constantly upload pictures and share them with the world. From these pics, its possible to extract geo-location information .......

• tweets have geolocations. ....
• Coordinates when tweet was posted from mobile device
• Place (geographical name) derived from users ip when posting on twitter's web interface. Place gets translated into coordinates using geonames.com
• Bounding Box derived from users ip when posting on twitter's web interface.The less accurate source , a corner of the bounding box is selected randomly.
• Geolocation information accessible through image hosting services API
• EXIF tags from the photos posted.

• So 'Creepy' sniffs all these and much more details from the web and presents it in a map marking all the locations your target has been hence making it easy to find out the places you frequently visit, the places you likely to be found..!

If you are stalking somebody, then its a must have app..:p You can download it here.. http://ilektrojohn.github.com/creepy/



To prevent 'creepy' from stalk you, some simple tips...

• better not to reveal too much of your personal details.
• do not post anything that you dont want others to know.
• Don't try to be in a 'limbo' when there is so much on the real world.

Rolltop - A futuristic laptop

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When we talk about technology and bringing something 'new', that 'new' should be,

• simpler and smaller than the 'old' one.
• more efficient than the 'old' one.
  
• The 'new' one should be able to serve more of our needs in a more better ways.

So there are many concepts of those' new' things, but not all have the features mentioned above.
Now, you are definitely know that what am going to tell you and that concept has all those features..:)

You are absolutely right..!! Its called 'Rolltop'...
Germany's Orkin Design has proposed this fantastic concept of a futuristic laptop. The rolltop is a 'rolled up' laptop. By using the flexible OLED and touchscreen technologies, the created concept is a cylindrical laptop which can be rolled out when need sto be used and can be rolled up again when not used.

Since I said, it has all those features to make itself 'better'.... they are...

• As you know, laptop is portable. But rolltop is ultra-portable..!
• For a laptop, you need a laptop bag. But rolltop fits in whatever bag you have.
• All those charges n wires which makes you sick, is not needed with rolltop..! All those are integrated in the central cylindrical system of rolltop. It has speakers, usb ports, lan port and a camera.
• The top of the column detaches and acts as a power plug while the carry strap doubles as a power cord
• When rolled up, Rolltop will be 11 inches (28 cm) long and have a 3.26-inch (8.3-cm) diameter

There are many of such features..... But I just don't like to type those ..:p Also am damn sure not many have read whatever written their and think all those as bullshit..!! All will look for some video or pics....So lets cup the crap n watch the video..:)

Microsoft's vision of 'Future of Gaming'

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The video which am going to share you with is a recently leaked video on microsoft's vision of future of gaming. Microsoft is showing the world how it the future of its Windows Gaming Experience platform implemented with Xbox Live.

Now, for those who don't know what Windows Gaming Experience or WGX is, it's an internal group name for all of Microsoft's PC gaming efforts, including Games For Windows,MSN, windows live messenger. Let me clear you some things in the first place, before you watch the video......

• Whatever you are going to see is still purely conceptual for the time being.
• It mainly focuses on 4 experiences of gaming.

1) Social : This deals with enhancing the social gaming experience. Especially the facebook games such as Farmville. You may be thinking, why they are trying to enhance such small games, when there are games like Call of duty or Halo...! Well, you may not be knowing, how big is this 'small' game business...:) Did you know that the 'Farmville' on facebook is worth $10 billion....?!?!? How could microsoft ignore millions of casual gamers..??

2) Avatar : Deals with customizing your 'Avatar' with a virtual wardrobe.

3) Search : It eases finding the games n apps through bing.

4) Transaction : It focuses on delivering the digital content with simplicity irrespective of its size and price.

Now lets watch the video.......

Telepathy is not science fiction ...!

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Telepathy ( communicating with our thoughts ) is indeed a dream technology. Whenever I saw those magic shows where the magician lifts a person or things with his mind, I used to think, it would be so cool if those were real and not illusions. But we humans are so intelligent, that we are making everything possible which was once impossible.

Personally, am a big fan of TED. Just watch the demo of this brilliant technology in the TED video below, and you will understand everything you need to know about this brain computer interface technology.

Touchscape - Multitouch Table

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We got to know about touch screens in one of my older posts ( here.. ), now a multi touch on a touch screen display ,refers to the ability to simultaneously register three or more distinct positions of input touches.

There are many of 'multi touch' gadgets but this one caught my eye. Its a multi touch table from Touchscapes. Its cool, its fun and it can be very useful too..!



Touchscape Multi-Touch (MT) Table combines looks and style with high powered surface computing to create a product which could be a stylish addition to any environment. THe specification of the Touchscape Multi Touch table is as below....

• Sports a 47'' High Definition LCD Screen
• The screen is HD, with 1920 x 1080p Resolution.
• Quad Core Processor
• This surface is can be configured to be a native Windows 7 touch input device (just like Microsoft Surface) or can serve TUIO touch events for use with SUSHI or other multitouch SDK.

When you watch these videos here.. you will get know about it more. So lets not spare too many words here .. see it yourself..:)

10 most dangerous computer viruses in history

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A computer virus is a computer program which can copy itself and infect a computer. and it can scare the hell out of a computer user..:) We try so harder in this digital world to keep our computer healthy than ourselves...yet some geek can write some lines of codes sitting at his home and piss us off...:p There were some legendary viruses which are considered as the most dangerous viruses in the history. Today we are going to know which they are......

• Jerusalem 1987

This virus struck the world when people had hardly known the existence of computer viruses. This is the first MS-DOS virus that hat caused enormous destructions, affecting many countries, universities and companies worldwide.On Friday 13, 1988 it manged to infect no. of institutions in Europe, America and the Middle East.
You may be wondering, why the name 'Jerusalem'.That's because, 1st place to get affected by this virus was Jerusalem University.

• Morris (Internet Worm) - November 1988

This virus infected more than 6000 computers is US including NASA..!! It also manged to send millions of copies of itself to different network computers, being able to entirely paralyze all network resources.It used the errors in the operating systems to able to spread.It could also pick user passwords.
Believe it or not, the damages it caused were estimated to be $96 million..!!

• Solar Sunrise - 1998

This virus was worse than the last one. Hackers, using this virus, took over more than 500 computers which belonged to army, government and private sector of the United States..! Initially it was believed that the hackers were from Iraq, but later it was found that the hackers were two teenagers from California. The virus 'Solar Sunrise' was named after he popular vulnerabilities in computers that run on the operating system called Sun Solaris.

• Melissa - 1999

The name of the virus 'Melissa' comes from a lap dancer from Florida..! Confused..?... She was not the programmer but the programmer, David L. Smith from New Jersey was got acknowledged with the dancer.
Melisa virus also known as “Mailissa”, “Simpsons”, “Kwyjibo”, or “Kwejeebo”, is a mass-mailing macro virus. World came to know about Melissa,On March 26, 1999, when the virus shut down the internet mail system..!Melissa was hidden within a file called "List.DiC", which featured passwords that served as keys to unlocking 80 pornographic websites. The original form of the virus was sent through e-mail to different users.
It didn't end well for the creator of the virus, he was sentenced to 20 months in federal prison and ordered to pay a fine of $5,000.

• I Love You - May 2000

This virus was similar to Melissa. It too sent usernames and passwords to users, just like Melissa.It managed to infect millions of computers around the world overnight.The virus started to spread when a user received an email with the subject “ILOVEYOU” and an attachment “LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.TXT.vbs”. As soon as the file was opened, the virus managed to send its copy to every address present in the Windows Address Book.
Officials tracked the virus and found a young Philippino student was the hacker behind the virus. But he didn't face any charges as Philippines did not have any law that would prevent hacking and spreading malware. This lead to the creation of European Union's Global Cybercrime Treaty.

• The Code Red worm - July 2001
  

The 21st century virus caused damages worth $2 billion.....! Code Red was actually developed to use the power of all computers it infected against the official website of the White House at a predetermined date. However, White House managed to decode the code Red and stop it from happening.
The Code Red worm was first discovered and researched by eEye Digital Security employees Marc Maiffret and Ryan Permeh. The worm was named the .ida “Code Red” worm because Code Red Mountain Dew was what they were drinking at the time, and because of the phrase “Hacked by Chinese!” with which the worm defaced websites.

• Nimda - 2001

It affected hundreds of thousands of computers worldwide shortly after the 9/11 tragedy. Due to its 5 different methods of infecting computers systems and being able to duplicate itself, it is considered as one of the most complicated computer viruses.

• Downadup - 2009

Its the most dangerous virus till now, Downadup Worm . Its also called "Conficker". It has affected more than 6 millions of computers worldwidein just 3 days...!!.This malicious program was able to spread using a patched Windows flaw. Downadup was so "successful" in spreading across the Web, because it used a flaw that Microsoft patched in October in order to distantly compromise computers that ran unpatched versions of Microsoft's operating system.But the real power of the virus is, it makes the computer to download the destructive code from random drop point. According to the internet Security Company, F-Secure, the most affected countries are China, Russia and Brazil.

How much information is there in the World..?

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"Hey .. I have 500Gb of movies in my pc..!", "Hey I have a collection of more than 1000 books at my home..!" .....so now, a single person has 5ooGb of information only of movies...! Just hold that thought and think how much information would be there in the whole world...?!? Don't tell me its impossible to calculate, because a study appearing on Feb 10 in Science Express calculates the World's total technological capacity.How much information humankind is able to store,communicate and compute.

So lets find out what's the study say.... Prepare yourself for some mind blowing facts ..!!

• Looking at both digital memory and analog devices, the researchers calculate that humankind is able to store at least 295 exabytes of information. And FYI, exabyte is the number with 20 zeros in it..!!

In other words, if a single star is a bit of information, that's a galaxy of information for every person in the world. That's 315 times the number of grains of sand in the world. But it's still less than one percent of the information that is stored in all the DNA molecules of a human being.

• 2002 could be considered the beginning of the digital age, the first year worldwide digital storage capacity overtook total analog capacity. As of 2007, almost 94 percent of our memory is in digital form.
• In 2007, humankind successfully sent 1.9 zettabytes of information through broadcast technology such as televisions and GPS. That's equivalent to every person in the world reading 174 newspapers every day.
• On two-way communications technology, such as cell phones, humankind shared 65 exabytes of information through telecommunications in 2007, the equivalent of every person in the world communicating the contents of six newspapers every day.
• In 2007, all the general-purpose computers in the world computed 6.4 x 10^18 instructions per second, in the same general order of magnitude as the number of nerve impulses executed by a single human brain. Doing these instructions by hand would take 2,200 times the period since the Big Bang.
• From 1986 to 2007, the period of time examined in the study, worldwide computing capacity grew 58 percent a year, ten times faster than the United States' GDP.
• Telecommunications grew 28 percent annually, and storage capacity grew 23 percent a year.

The lead author Martin Hilbert of the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism says, "These numbers are impressive, but still miniscule compared to the order of magnitude at which nature handles information.Compared to nature, we are but humble apprentices. However, while the natural world is mind-boggling in its size, it remains fairly constant. In contrast, the world's technological information processing capacities are growing at exponential rates."

Racetrack Memory - what is it..??!!

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You may be having the most advanced configuration for your computer but still, I bet sometimes you wish computer to be faster and efficient...:) Well, you may have to wait for another 5 to 7 years.... 'Racetrack memory' is on its way....!!

With Racetrack Memory,

• you can have your computer booted up instantly...!!
  
• Also you can access your HDD at 100,000 times faster than now..!! ( its lightning speed...:) )
  
• Moreover it's 300 times more energy efficient..!!

What more do you want..???
So now you may be thinking ... what is it...???

Stuart Parkin of IBM’s Almaden Research Center came up with a concept of spintroncs-based memory in which the parts dont move instead the information moves. Prof. Mathias Kläui of Switzerland’s EPFL ( École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne ) developed the concept and came up with the Racetrack memory.

Like a videocassette, Racetrack Memory would store data magnetically. Instead of on a moving tape, however, it would be stored on a tiny unmoving nickel-iron nanowire. The bits of information, which are stored in the wire using the spin of electrons rather than an electronic charge, would be moved around at several hundred meters per second, using a spin polarized current. Adjacent bits would be delineated from one another via domain walls with magnetic vortices.
Just to get you an idea of how much faster this could be..., according to EPFL, accessing these nanowires is like reading an entire VHS tape in less than a second..!! They are planning to embed millions or even billions of such nanowires on the chip...!! ( got the idea..?...:) )

But before it hits the consumer market, there are lots of difficulties to be overcome. Such as...
Microscopic imperfections in the crystal structure of the wires, which led to the magnetic domains becoming “stuck,” and it results in a performance equal to current HDDs'.

Lets hope it hits the market soon and days of booting up our computers instantly are not far...:)

Processing 100 billion pixel images in seconds..!!

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Today, lets think beyond our ordinary megapixel range.... think about an ultra high resolution image with resolution interms of gigapixels. Do you know editing such images of extreme resolution is such a headache...? It would take hours just to get such image loaded into the editing suit...!
But.... not anymore...!!

Computer scientists from the University of Utah have developed computer software that allows editing of "extreme resolution" image files in a matter of seconds....!! The software is called ViSUS ( Visualization Streams for Ultimate Scalability )

The question rising in your mind......' HOW....?'

Well, the working of the software ViSUS is a little different when compared to the existing image processing techniques. ViSUS works by using a sophisticated algorithm to choose the required subset of available pixels to produce an approximate preview of the fully processed monster image which allows editors to work in a fraction of the time taken with existing systems and techniques.

The processing power ViSUS is checked by using a 3.7 gigapixel image of the Earth and spliced in a 116 gigapixel photo of the city of Atlanta. ViSUS passed the test with a very impressive result.

According to the scientists, the fast preview is only a very tiny part of its true power. They say, the true potential of ViSUS lies in the fact that it can make editors zoom in and out of the desired section of the giant image.

Now you may be thinking.... what am I supposed to do with a piece of software that can process billion pixel image...? Am never going to take a picture in my backyard with such resolution...?
But...it does has people who will get benifited by this......

• doctors, intelligence analysts, photographers, artists, engineers who wait for hours to get an image processed.

blind makes it possible for the blinds to use computers...!!!

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We all are so much addicted to computers isn't it...? We enjoy so much using our pc and internet. Think of blinds....they cant use computers like us..:( its not fair right..?

Well, there is the 'screen reader' software but, do you know its cost...? its $1000...!!! This software is only for some very rich blinds...:)

But now a free software has developed which enables blind people to use computers...! and the most amazing fact about this news is that, its developed by two blind computer programmers....!!!

The duo who are colouring the blind's life is Queensland University of Technology (QUT) graduate James Teh and business partner Michael Curran.

They have developed a free open source program called NVDA (NonVisual Desktop Access), which provides a synthetic voice to read the words on a computer screen as the cursor moves over them.

Teh and Micheal have faced and overcome a lot of obstacles to achieve their goal. What these inventors say regarding their success is "A sighted person takes for granted that they can sit down at any computer and use it, We really are in the information age -- everything is online these days. So access to computers for the blind and vision impaired is incredibly important, which is why we wanted our software to be free."

They added, " It can also be copied to a USB stick, which can be used on any PC at school or university, with no installation required,"

Because of the contributions from many volunteer translators, NVDA is now available in 27 languages. Teh and curren had started this project in 2006 and their effort has paid off by affecting the lives of visually impaired persons significantly.

The duo have many future plans which would further ease a blind's life in this fast forwarding life but all those may depend on available funding.

well, you can download NVDA from HERE

World's 1st 3D multi-touch AIO PC by MSI is here...!!!

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Am a die hard fan of 3D technology too like everyone else. So whenever I come to know about anything new in 3D, I wish to let others know. So here I am....
We already have in the market, 3D movies, 3D tvs' n all. Now MSI is trying to give a little more 'personal' touch to the 3D technology and is set to release the World's 1st 3D multi-touch AIO PC...!!!

Its seems so cool isn't it...?? Having such a pc n let others to talk about your pc..... and you know what the best part is..? It makes you look cool , Hi-fi and sci-fi...!! :)

I dont know if you are aware of, in April NEC had announced they are going to release a 3D all-in -one pc sometime this year. They were dreaming to be the 1st in the world to release such a pc. But their dreams are now shattered with MSI snatching their opportunity to be the world's 1st.

Any way it doesn't matter to us as we are only interested in the PC now released and not in some other product which may release this year...;)

Now let me tell you some of the cool features and specifications of this amazing Wind Top AE2420 3D AIO PC......

• As you already know its world's 1st
  
• Also its world's 1st AIO PC to feature the USB 3.0 ports
  
• It sports a 24-inch Full HD (1080p) multi-touch display comprising a 120Hz LED panel
• AE2420 3D comes with one pair of rechargeable wireless active shutter glasses and also has 2D and 3D conversion capabilities.
• intel i7 processor
• a discrete ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5730 graphics card with 1GB of DDR3 VRAM that supports DirectX 11
• 4GB of RAM, 1TB SATA2 HDD and a Blu-ray disc drive

Coming to audio, its pretty cool tooo..

• 2.1 channel surround sound via two 5-watt channel speakers and a 10-watt subwoofer
• THX TruStudio Pro technology allows the audio to be enhanced to 7.1 surround sound.

Now the connectivity front...

• there’s a 6-in-1 card reader, HDMI input, VGA output, eSATA port, 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth and six USB ports (2 of them are USB 3.0)
• comes with a wireless keyboard and mouse and a copy of Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit.

So what do you guys think of this PC... I think its awesome...!! The only thing that may disappoint you is its price...:( It will cost you $1,799....!!!

If you can afford it, I would certainly recommend you the Wind Top AE2420 , the world's 1st multi-touch AIO PC....!!

If you like it... then say it... the comment section is for you only.....:)

Most influential Tweeter....???

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Who do you think is the most influential tweeter of all....??
Lady Gaga with 6,178,524 followers...?? britneyspears with 5,895,661 followers...?? Kimkaradarshian with 4,749,614 follower...?? Sachin Tendulkar..?? Oprah..?? If you think they are the most influential tweeters, sorry to disappoint you but you are wrong...!!


Just because all these celebrities have millions of followers, doesn't mean they are the most influential people on twitter.According to researchers it depends on the topic on which, one tweets about.


Most of the people may be unaware ( even I didn't know till I came across this website) that there is a website which gives you the information regarding the most influential people tweeting on the hottest topics of the day. I know its very interesting......so here is the link..
http://pulseofthetweeters.com/

The website was created in the laboratory of Alok Choudhary, John G. Searle Professor and chair of electrical engineering and computer science at the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science.Actually the mother of this website is a thesis project of Ph.D. candidate Ramanathan Narayanan.

Question may arise, how does the website work...? A special algorithm created for the website does the job of ranking the most influential tweeters of the day.The algorithm for the website combines dynamic data mining, sentiment analysis and network analysis in real time.Not only that, researchers have made this algorithm a bit intelligent....!! The algorithm can also tell you whether their tweets are positive, negative or neutral. It also offers related topics to explore.

Let me explain it with a simple example..... Suppose you like cricket, the website will list out the most influential twitter users who constantly tweet about cricket and also have a following of cricket fans who tweet about the same.

Narayan tries to explain the same with an another example ""If someone from BP is tweeting about the oil spill, for example, his opinions are likely to carry much more weight and be of much greater interest than those of Ashton Kutcher, who has a legion of followers."

Some of really good things about this system or algorithm are....

• It can also filter out spam
• It is almost completely automated and requires a very minimal amount of human work
• It has been very successful in providing really useful choices for the people who are interested in twitter

well finally.... its not some website which provides some info about the twitter users...but it has more applications ...!!! According to the researchers

• The website could be used by companies who want to know what people are saying about their product
• They could find out if top influencers are saying positive, negative or neutral things about their product, and that may have a lot of implications.
• In the future, the website could track many more topics, including those that are not trending on Twitter.

So if you want to be a highly influential twitter user, then keep in mind... "its not the no. of followers that matter but the topic you tweet about..!!"