New sedan to replace Esteem....

The Esteem has finally run out of steam. Maruti Udyog is all set to launch a new sedan based on the Swift platform in January next year, to replace one of its most successful models.
A source close to the company confirmed that production of the Esteem has already been stopped. But when contacted this is what a company spokesperson had to say: “The production of the Esteem is going to continue for the next 3-4 months. But Esteem owners can rest easy, as we would continue to provide service and spare parts to support the model, as always done in the past with other models that have been phased out.”
A top Maruti official said, “We will be launching the Swift Sedan shortly.” The new sedan will be priced lower than the SX4 and is touted to come in two variants, a new-generation 1.3-litre multi–jet diesel engine and in a 1.3-litre petrol variant.
Maruti Suzuki’s Esteem has been on Indian roads since 1994 and in 2006 it won the JD Power best entry-sedan award.. Maruti Suzuki’s first-ever sedan on Indian roads was the Maruti 1000 which was given a higher engine and rechristened as Maruti Esteem in 1994. Maruti Suzuki was in the process of gradually cutting down Esteem production from the beginning of this fiscal but has built up an inventory to meet the demand for the model going forward. Esteem production was cut from an estimated 1,533 units in April, to just 497 units in November. The production for the model was, however, increased to 1,903 units in August to build up an inventory.The company is offering a discount of up to Rs 57,500 on Esteem.
Swift sedan will be positioned as a practical family car(no sporty ) a new wider rear section will facilitate that. The upcoming swift sedan may replace (or) complement the esteem(if it is launched only on diesel version). Swift in its three box avtaar(sedan) will take on the upcoming next generation Indigo and is expected to be priced around Rs5.5 lakh. Maruti’s earlier bid to capture the diesel market with the esteem diesel ended in a failure node. But the esteem’s petrol model still holds some grip - even after 13years of its debut 6,000 units of esteem is sold in April-July period.

Quantum Dot LEDs..?

In the last few years, LEDs (light emitting diodes) have begun replacing incandescent and fluorescent lights in a number of niche applications. Although these solid-state lights have been used for decades in consumer electronics, recent technological advances have allowed them to spread into areas like architectural lighting, traffic lights, flashlights and reading lights. Although they are considerably more expensive than ordinary lights, they are capable of producing about twice as much light per watt as incandescent bulbs; they last up to 50,000 hours or 50 times as long as a 60-watt bulb; and, they are very tough and hard to break. Because they are made in a fashion similar to computer chips, the cost of LEDs has been dropping steadily.
While the future of electronics and other fields may revolve around nanotechnology, researchers and manufacturers are faced with fabricating large-scale components out of building blocks invisible to the naked eye. Creating hybrid optoelectronic devices depends on the precise positioning of functionally distinct materials. The researchers used organic molecules currently used in OLEDs as an organic semiconductor to deliver an electrical charge to the quantum dots. They used two parallel processes, which are already widely applicable in industry, to create separate but layered structures out of nanoscale materials.
Until now quantum dots have been known primarily for their ability to produce a dozen different distinct colors of light simply by varying the size of the individual nanocrystals: a capability particularly suited to fluorescent labeling in biomedical applications. Artificial atoms or quantum dots (QDs) constructed from semiconductors are expected to provide the basis for future generations of device technologies such as threshhold-less lasers and ultra-dense memories. The quantum dots can be induced by interface fluctuations (top of the figure) in a quantum well, self-assembled with the driving force being lattice mismatch (bottom) or formed with lithographic techniques.Recently the world have made a number of unexpected discoveries arising from the breakthrough of single quantum dot spectroscopy based on ultra high resolution techniques.
The small size results in new quantum phenomena that yield some extraordinary bonuses. Material properties change dramatically because quantum effects arise from the confinement of electrons and "holes" in the material (a hole is the absence of an electron; the hole behaves as though it were a positively charged particle). Size changes other material properties such as the electrical and nonlinear optical properties of a material, making them very different from those of the material's bulk form. If a dot is excited, the smaller the dot, the higher the energy and intensity of its emitted light. Hence, these very small, semiconducting quantum dots are gateways to an enormous array of possible applications and new technologies.
According to michael bowers who made the quantum dots and discovered their unusual properties, the white-light quantum dots, produce a smoother distribution of wavelengths in the visible spectrum with a slightly warmer, slightly more yellow tint. As a result, the light produced by the quantum dots looks more nearly like the “full spectrum” reading lights now on the market which produce a light spectrum closer to that of sunlight than normal fluorescent tubes or light bulbs. Of course, quantum dots, like white LEDs, have the advantage of not giving off large amounts of invisible infrared radiation unlike the light bulb. This invisible radiation produces large amounts of heat and largely accounts for the light bulb’s low energy efficiency.
The approach is based on encapsulating semiconductor quantum dots — nanoparticles approximately one billionth of a meter in size — and engineering their surfaces so they efficiently emit visible light when excited by near-ultraviolet (UV) light-emitting diodes (LEDs). The quantum dots strongly absorb light in the near UV range and re-emit visible light that has its color determined by both their size and surface chemistry.
Unlike traditional LCDs, which must be lit from behind, quantum dots generate their own light. Depending on their size, the dots can be "tuned" to emit any color in the rainbow. And the colors of light they produce are much more saturated than that of other sources.A latest Quantum dots LED, 'MIT QD-OLED' contains only a single layer of quantum dots sandwiched between two organic thin films.The researchers have demonstrated organized assemblies over a 1-square centimeter area and the same principle could be used to make bigger components.The latest MIT QD-OLED have a 25-fold improvement in luminescent power efficiency over previous QD-OLEDs. They are more efficient and achieve even higher color saturation.
Quantum-dot LEDs, particularly those that provide the hard-to-reach blue end of the spectrum, appear to be key to opening any number of exciting technological advances in the fields of full-color, flat-panel displays; ultrahigh-density optical memories and data storage; backlighting; and chemical and biological sensing."Highly efficient, low-cost quantum dot-based lighting would represent a revolution in lighting technology through nanoscience."
Thus hybridising an inorganic nanocrystal and a quantum dot lead to a quantum dot-organic light-emitting device (QD-OLED) a new kind of optoelectronic device that could lead to new types of flat panel displays to supersede liquid crystal displays in everything from mobile devices to TV sets.

global positioning system

The Global Positioning System (GPS) is a burgeoning technology, which provides unequalled accuracy and flexibility of positioning for navigation, surveying and GIS data capture. The GPS NAVSTAR (Navigation Satellite timing and Ranging Global Positioning System) is a satellite-based navigation, timing and positioning system. The GPS provides continuous three-dimensional positioning 24 hrs a day throughout the world. The technology seems to be beneficiary to the GPS user community in terms of obtaining accurate data upto about100 meters for navigation, metre-level for mapping, and down to millimetre level for geodetic positioning. The GPS technology has tremendous amount of applications in GIS data collection, surveying, and mapping.
The GPS uses satellites and computers to compute positions anywhere on earth. The GPS is based on satellite ranging. That means the position on the earth is determined by measuring the distance from a group of satellites in space. The basic principle behind GPS are really simple, even though the system employs some of the most high-tech equipment ever developed.
Individuals may purchase GPS handsets that are readily available through commercial retailers. Equipped with these GPS receivers, users can accurately locate where they are and easily navigate to where they want to go, whether walking, driving, flying, or boating. GPS has become a mainstay of transportation systems worldwide, providing navigation for aviation, ground, and maritime operations. Disaster relief and emergency services depend upon GPS for location and timing capabilities in their life-saving missions. Everyday activities such as banking, mobile phone operations, and even the control of power grids, are facilitated by the accurate timing provided by GPS. Farmers, surveyors, geologists and countless others perform their work more efficiently, safely, economically, and accurately using the free and open GPS signals.
The GPS is made up of three parts: satellites orbiting the Earth; control and monitoring stations on Earth; and the GPS receivers owned by users. GPS satellites broadcast signals from space that are picked up and identified by GPS receivers. Each GPS receiver then provides three-dimensional location (latitude, longitude, and altitude) plus the time.
The space segment (satellites orbiting the Earth) comprises the orbiting GPS satellites, or Space Vehicles (SV) in GPS parlance. The GPS design originally called for 24 SVs, 8 each in three circular orbital planes,but this was modified to 6 planes with 4 satellites each.The orbital planes are centered on the Earth, not rotating with respect to the distant stars.The six planes have approximately 55° inclination (tilt relative to Earth's equator) and are separated by 60° right ascension of the ascending node (angle along the equator from a reference point to the orbit's intersection).The orbits are arranged so that at least six satellites are always within line of sight from almost everywhere on Earth's surface.
The user's GPS receiver is the user segment (US) of the GPS system. In general, GPS receivers are composed of an antenna, tuned to the frequencies transmitted by the satellites, receiver-processors, and a highly-stable clock (often a crystal oscillator). They may also include a display for providing location and speed information to the user. A receiver is often described by its number of channels: this signifies how many satellites it can monitor simultaneously. Originally limited to four or five, this has progressively increased over the years so that, as of 2006, receivers typically have between twelve and twenty channels.

Digital Theatre System-- DTS ?

DTS (Digital Theater Systems), is a multi-channel digital surround sound format used for both commercial/theatrical and consumer grade applications. It is used for in-movie sound both on film and on DVD, and during the last few years of the format's existence, several Laserdisc releases had DTS soundtracks.
The basic and most common version of the format is a 5.1 channel system, similar to a Dolby Digital setup, which encodes the audio as five primary (full-range) channels plus a special LFE (low-frequency effect) channel, for the subwoofer.Note however that encoders and decoders support numerous channel combinations and stereo, four-channel and four-channel+LFE soundtracks have been released commercially on DVD, CD and Laserdisc.
Other newer DTS variants are also currently available, including versions that support up to seven primary audio channels plus one LFE channel (DTS-ES). DTS's main competitors in multichannel theatrical audio are Dolby Digital and SDDS, although only Dolby Digital and DTS are used on DVDs and implemented in home theater hardware.
In theatrical use, information in the form of a modified time code is optically imaged onto the film. An optical LED reader reads the timecode data off the film and sends it to the DTS processor which uses this timecode to synchronize the projected image with the soundtrack audio. The actual audio is recorded in compressed form on standard CD-ROM media at a bitrate of 1,103 kbit/s. The processor also acts as a transport mechanism, as it holds and reads the audio discs. Newer units can generally hold three discs, allowing a single processor/transport to handle two-disc film soundtracks along with a third disc containing sound for theatrical trailers. In addition, specific elements of the imprinted timecode allow identifying data to be embedded within the code, ensuring that a certain film's soundtrack will only run with that film. DTS provided the Digital Audio for IMAX until 2001, when Dolby took over.
DTS and Dolby Digital (AC-3), DTS's chief competitor in the cinema and home theater market, are often compared due to their similarity in product goals. In theatrical installations, AC-3 audio is placed between sprocket holes, leaving the audio content susceptible to physical damage due to film wear and mishandling. DTS audio is stored on a separate set of CD-ROM media, whose greater storage capacity affords the potential to deliver better audio fidelity. However, the separation of print film and audiotrack is both a blessing and a curse. AC-3 (and SDDS) reside entirely on the 35 mm film itself, simplifying distribution by eliminating an extra (optional) deliverable. But DTS's CD-ROM media is not subject to the usual wear and damage suffered by the film print during the normal course of the movie's theatrical screening. Disregarding the separate CD-ROM assembly as a potential point of failure, the DTS audiopath is comparatively impervious to film degradation, excepting that the film-printed timecode is completely destroyed.
Both music and movie DVDs allow delivery of DTS audio tracks. But DTS was not part of the original DVD specification (1997), so early DVD players did not recognize DTS audio tracks at all. The DVD specification was revised to allow optional inclusion of DTS audio tracks. The DVD title must carry one or more primary audio tracks in AC-3 or LPCM format (in Europe, MPEG-1 is also an allowed primary track format). The DTS audio track, if present, can be selected by the user. Modern DVD players generally rely on an external home theater receiver to decode DTS audio. DVD players with integrated DTS 5.1 decoders exist, but are not particularly common. Nearly all standalone receivers and many integrated ("home theater in a box") DVD player/receivers manufactured today can decode DTS.
DTS NEO:6, like Dolby's Pro Logic IIx system, can take stereo content and convert the sound into 5.1 or 6.1 channel format.
DTS 96/24 allows the delivery of 5.1 channels of 24-bit, 96 kHz audio and high quality video on the DVD-Video format.
DTS-HD High Resolution Audio, like DTS-HD Master Audio, is an extension to the original DTS audio format. It delivers up to 7.1 channels of sound at 96 kHz sampling frequency and 24 bit depth resolution. DTS-HD High Resolution Audio is selected as an optional surround sound format for Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD with constant bit rates up to respectively 6.0 Mbit/s and 3.0 Mbit/s. It is supposed to be an alternative for DTS-HD Master Audio where disc space may not allow it. For more info:http://www.dtsonline.com/

labVIEW

LabVIEW ( Laboratory Virtual Instrumentation Engineering Workbench) is a platform and development environment for a visual programming language from National Instruments. LabVIEW is commonly used for data acquisition, instrument control, and industrial automation.
The programming language used in LabVIEW, called G, is a dataflow programming language.Execution is determined by the structure of a graphical block diagram (the LV-source code) on which the programmer connects different function-nodes by drawing wires. These wires propagate variables and any node can execute as soon as all its input data become available.
LabVIEW programs/subroutines are called virtual instruments (VIs). Each VI has three components: a block diagram, a front panel and a connector pane. The latter may represent the VI as a subVI in block diagrams of calling VIs. Controls and indicators on the front panel allow an operator to input data into or extract data from a running virtual instrument. However, the front panel can also serve as a programmatic interface. Thus a virtual instrument can either be run as a program, with the front panel serving as a user interface, or, when dropped as a node onto the block diagram, the front panel defines the inputs and outputs for the given node through the connector pane. This implies each VI can be easily tested before being embedded as a subroutine into a larger program.
The graphical approach also allows non-programmers to build programs by simply dragging and dropping virtual representations of the lab equipment with which they are already familiar.LabVIEW includes a compiler that produces native code for the CPU platform.
One benefit of LabVIEW over other development environments is the extensive support for accessing instrumentation hardware.Many libraries with a large number of functions for data acquisition, signal generation, mathematics, statistics, signal conditioning, analysis, etc., along with numerous graphical interface elements are provided in several LabVIEW package options.
LabVIEW is a proprietary product of National Instruments. Unlike common programming languages such as C or FORTRAN, LabVIEW is not managed or specified by a third party standards committee such as ANSI.
For more informations on LabVIEW please visit this link: http://www.ni.com/labview85/industrial.htm

mechanism of Sound Localisation by Human beings

Human ears are spaced approximately15cm apart.when a sound travels from the left side of the listener, it reaches the left ear before the right ear, i.e., the right ear signal is delayed with respect to left ear signal. For instance, when a 1KHz sound is generated exactly beside the listener, its sound wave reaches each ear with 180 degrees of phase shift.
both the ear signals are subjected to a complicated filtering process,caused by acoustic interaction with the head and the external ear. Humans unconsciously uses the time delay, amplitude difference, and tonal information at each ear to determine the location of the sound.

Sony VAIO VGN-TX17GP

"Good Things Come in Small Packages"....

Sony VAIO VGN-TX17GP is an all new fully laptop,with small size. It is a power packed machin with Intel Pentium M processor running at 1.2 GHz with 2 MB L2 cache, 512MB DDR2 RAM and 60GB HDD. It has a fairly good sound quality and amazing software that allowed to attatch another computer at work or home as a media file server.It has a 28cm(11.i inch) TFT screen. The laptop comes with Bluetooth connectivity, inbuilt wireless LAN card, two USB ports, FireWire port, VGA port and SDcard/Memory Stick slot. The play,stop,pause and even AV mode button to switch from the TFT screen to an external display, and all these buttons are available even when the lid is closed.the volume controls are up in the front. The beauty of the laptop is its sophisticated design. you can use it for official meetings and also try out ur MP3s and vedio on it. The laptop weighs only 1.24Kg.
If size is a matter for u, or u r searching for a small fully loaded laptop try Sony VAIO VGN-TX17GP