UPTEC - IT Happens

Silver Jubilee Issue

Feature of the month
No Man's Land' and 'Lagaan' both running successfully at UPTEC
It was celebration time at UPTEC this month as the organisation's IT efforts were recognized at the national level. The story of Award for Excellence in Electronics given by ministry of Information Technology for the year 2001-2002 was quite similar to the story of Oscars for the movie 'No Man's Land'. UPTEC has repeatedly proved that the 'A' level is really no-man's land for anyone else. It was given for great contribution of UPTEC for developing human resources in the area of Information Technology. Indeed teachers are the biggest contributors.

Another surprise on the tech front came from our own dark-horse 'Yaksha CD' that was the only low-cost educational product which could come near to a National Award by winning nominations in CSI-National Award 2002 for Best Shrink-wrapped Software. So it was another story similar to Oscar nominations for 'Lagaan' where a creative dream won exceptional support from its end-users but the top-spot was won by the one who could lobby more in front of the awards-jury. Interestingly, 'Yaksha' got around 10,000 pcs order on the very day the final results for CSI-awards were announced.

IT-Quote

1.     I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.
                                                         -IBM Chairman Thomas Watson, 1943

2.     Computers in future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and perhaps only weigh 1 ½ tons.
                                                                                                                                 -Popular Mechanics, 1949

3.     640K ought to be enough for anybody.
                             -Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, 1981

IT-Personality of the Month

A boy gets through one of the toughest exams in the country- the IIT entrance test. But he hasn't got the money to bear the expenses and so he opts for the National College of Engineering, Mysore instead. In 1981 he
starts a company along with six other software professionals. The total capital investment is Rs 10,000 and an apartment in Pune serves as the
office. Today that company -Infosys - is one of India's great success stories and each of the six people is worth a thousand crores. Can you guess whom we are talking about? Yes, N. R. Narayan Murthy, the founder of
Infosys. In March 1999 Infosys became the first Indian Company to be listed on NASDAQ - an American stock exchange. And all this started with a vision and an indomitable will to succeed. As the old saying goes-Where there is a will there is a way.

IT Snippets
3-D Browser

A 3-D browser is a web browser that allows the viewer to view and interact with six Web pages at a time by creating a virtual room on the viewer's screen. Instead of opening six Web pages , minimizing your screen and toggling back and forth between pages , imagine you are standing inside a six-sided cube and each side of the cube is displaying a Web page. There is a Web page in front of you , a Web page on each side of you , a page below you and a page behind you. You can use your cursor to rotate the cube and put any side of the cube directly in front of you. Links on all the pages are active, so you can click from page to page and change the “ walls”
of your virtual Web room. If you see something that catches your interest , you can use the zoom feature to enlarge the “wall”

So that it becomes a traditional page viewed on your flat screen.
The concept of 3-D Web browser has been promoted by former architect and chief executive officer of 2ce, Mike Rosen. Rosen believes that having the ability to view multiple pages will be of practical use to day traders and others whose occupations require them to view multiple Web pages throughout the day.

(Source:http://whatis.techtarget.com/)

E-Paper Comes A Step Closer

Electronic paper , which promises to change the face of publishing and save forests, came closer to reality last month as scientists revealed a super-thin , flexible electronic-ink display screen. Just 0.012 inches thick, the device developed by researchers at E Ink Corporation in Cambridge, Massachusetts , USA, can be flexed without distorting the type and paves the way for electronic newspapers, wearable computer screens and smart identity cards. When it is fully developed e-paper will be able to display black and white and colour text using wireless technology. Buying the daily newspaper will no longer be necessary because with e-paper it will be updated wirelessly or through the Internet.

The display consists of two components . The front part switches according to electronic signals and the back component is a circuit made of transistors that control each individual pixel that composes the display. The current device is too thick to be folded in half but the company is working on a thinner version.

(Source: SmartInc: June 2003)

IT Quiz

1. What is an Adware Software ?

2. In the term CAT- Scan what does CAT stand for ?

3. Most computers today have USB ports. What is meant by USB?

Pen Beams Notes To Phones

Nokia is developing a digital pen that will let people write or draw a note , transfer it to a cell phone and then distribute it via multimedia messaging. The digital Pen SU1B will need a notepad that contains paper that is otherwise ordinary except for printed command symbols that can be sensed by the pen. The notes will be saved in the commonly used GIF picture format. People can then send them to a multimedia messaging-enabled handset like the Nokia 7650 and 3650, or to an e-mail address. The device also connects to a PC through a docking station, with a USB (Universal Serial Bus) interface, so that the writing can be uploaded to a computer. The pen itself can store up to 100 A5-sized pages of text. To convert written words into computer text , the person must purchase a third-party character recognition software package , according to Nokia.

(Source : www.technologyreview.com)

IT Humour
Once a Microsoft Windows programmer died, he found himself in front of a committee that decides whether you go to heaven or hell .The committee asked him whether he wanted to see heaven or hell before stating his preference.
“Sure”, he said , so an angel took him to a place with a sunny beach , rock and roll, where everyone was having a great time.
“Wow! Heaven is great“ he said.
“ Wrong” said the angel. “That was Hell. Want to see Heaven?”
“Sure !” So the angel took him to another place. Here a bunch of people were sitting in a park playing bingo and feeding dead pigeons.
“This is Heaven?” asked the Windows programmer.
“Yup,”said the angel.
“Then I'll take Hell.”
Instantly he found himself plunged up to his neck in red-hot-lava, with the hosts of the damned in torment around him. ”Where is the beach? The music? He screamed frantically to the angel.
“That was the demo, “she replied as she vanished

(Source : www.jokes.com)

IT Quiz Solutions

Adware Software displays advertisements as the program runs. If you're connected to the Internet, the adware program may access a server and display an ever changing array of advertisements every time you use the adware program. By incorporating advertisements in their programs, programmers can ensure that they earn a certain amount of money whether people ultimately register and pay for the program or not.
CAT stands for Computerized Axial Tomography. It is an X-Ray procedure which combines many X-Ray images with the aid of a computer to generate cross-sectional views and, if needed, three-dimensional images of the internal organs and structures of the body.
USB stands for Universal Serial Bus. It combines all the advantages of a multiplatform standard including decreased cost, increased compatibility, and a greater number of available peripherals. It works with numerous devices including printers, digital cameras, game pads, storage devices etc.