Underground SIG-Labs

TATA NANO : Compliment after thousands of crtitics

Most of automotives specialist in India have put big compliment on the world cheapest car, Tata Nano and claim that the car is the best offer for people and proud of Indian innovatie investment.

The AS$2,000 Net-car, which is the price for the basic model, has been introduced by Tata Motors Chairman and he dreams that it will a new evolutionary for whole Indian driving. Most of Indian people are really impressive with it sporty design with engine capacity for 624 cc, which is comparable toother Europe car like smart or even Wlakswagen beatle. Together with bigger interior space, it is believe that the car still be able to provide comfortability during traffic jam.

During the launching day, buyers need to wait long hours before they could feel to drive the Car.

Tags: beatle, car, india, international news, samrt, Tata nano

Palm Pre : When they try to mix Iphone and Android

The first time I say the Palm pre, I was thinking in myself, could they beat Iphone ? emmm…not yet…Android? emmm…sort off..but still need have alot of improvement….

The Palm Pre is a lot smaller than I thpught it suppose to be. A good size comparison would be an iPod classic with a big hard drive. In terms of thickness, it’s definitely not as thin as the iPhone, or even the bold, but it’s an acceptable size considering it’s a slider.

The Pre’s Web OS UI and and UX really looks great. After watching (and using) for 20 minutes, It rarely looked (or felt) unresponsive, choppy, or laggy and it’s clear a lot of thought was put into the design, especially with regard to how the phone would be used with fingers, as opposed to a stylus or d-pad

The Card system is really a great way to keep your information in front of you and know what you’re working on. When you launch an app, you can drag it onto your phone desktop to create a new card, then when you’re finished with a card for a specific app, closing it is as simple as flicking the card upwards.

The input technology that doesn’t involve the screen is also top notch. Palm created the gesture bar, which is the black surface under the screen, because they found it was too hard to control a touchscreen phone with one hand, especially when trying to reach the upper part of the screen. The Gesture Bar streamlines some of the navigation so you can use the phone on the go.

There’s also an accelrometer that works with apps like the web browser and photo viewer, which automatically rotates the screen depending on its orientation. It’s the same as what’s on many other phones, but it’s worth noting that the accelerometer works quite well.

If you’re working in a specific app, you can drag your finger up from the Gesture Bar to the screen, hold it for a second, and the wave dock will appear, making it easy to quick launch another app. The trackball, which feels similar to that of the G1 and Blackberry phones, provides another quick way to get around the Web OS interface.

There’s also the keyboard. It pretty much looks and feels the same as previous Palm keyboards of late, which isn’t spectacular, but it works well enough. When asked why they opted to go with the vertically oriented slide out keyboard, Palm had two main reasons—they didn’t see much less of a difference in effectiveness when compared to a horizontal slider, and found that more people messaged holding the phone vertically. Second, they said there aren’t really any other smartphones with a vertical QWERTY slider, so it makes the phone more recognizable.

While the hardware is definitely high quality, I’m not entirely blown away by the design. It looks really nice, and original, but it’s a little too cutesy in shape and kind of reminds me of an oversized pebble. A slightly larger screen could have definitely been put to good use, and I really don’t like the black space on the side’s of the screen.

I think this phone’s biggest appeal will be the central role the internet plays in the OS. The way it pulls data from various web services, and melds it into its own framework is top notch. I think being able to text, and gChat and send IMs over AIM all from the same window is such a benefit to the user to not have to switch windows for 3 different apps for messaging. And obviously, you won’t be talking to someone on a bunch of different messengers at once, but over a period of a week, you might have convos over these different services, and it’s good to keep track of all these interactions in one place.

The browser is also a far cry from Blazer that was on the Treo’s Garnet OS. The new browser is built on top of Webkit, just like the Android and iPhone browsers, and renders full pages in under 10 seconds. The zoom and drag/pan functionality is very much like the other browsers, both in operation and feel. There was no glitchiness and the browser was extremely responsive.

I also love the way you can search for something on your phone, and then shoot that same query up to Google or Wikipedia without having to launch your web browser. It’s another way the internet has subtly worked its way into the phone without being constricted to a specific app or browser.

The design influence of the iPhone OS is definitely apparent in Web OS. The App dock that sits at the bottom of the home screen is definitely a page out of the iPhones playbook, and for good reason—it works well. The design of the menus such as the contacts list take that same simple approach of not showing more than you absolutely see on any one page, something the iPhone perfected.

The screen is beautiful, and it really shows when looking at photos, which are so bright and colorful, I’d almost say it looks sharper than any other phone.

The camera takes really beautiful photos as well. Even in lighting that wasn’t super bright, colors came out rich, and though a little grainy, it didn’t suffer the same washed out, sandy look that other camera phones generate. This is also due in part to some image post processing that takes place behind the scenes of the camera app.

As far as video recording goes, it’s not available on the Pre for now, but it’s something Palm is looking at for future upgrades. I find this slightly disappointing, because Palm is touting this as an internet phone, and user generated video is a very big part of what’s going on in the online world. A feature where you could live stream or auto upload to YouTube seems like an idea that fits in with the Pre philosophy. I think this absolutely has to be added in the next year.

The Apps and SDK for Web OS i think will be promising. Palm will make the SDK available to anyone to use, but there will be an App Store which will be accessible on the phone only and an approval process for apps. Palm says there are always exceptions, but they will not play the role of Big Brother so much when it comes to apps. What they are mostly concerned with are the security and stability of the apps. Making sure there aren’t apps that crash or provide holes for their phones to be hacked. They also say they will work close with select partners on app and give them access to deeper areas of the OS that are not available in the SDK.

Like Android, there is an Amazon music store app that looks and smells very similar to that on the G1. It lets you preview songs, as well as download from the same screen.

It also has a few features not found on the iPhone, which include copy and paste and MMS messaging, something hardcore iPhone users have been clamoring for since its introduction.

berjaya associates and Bellzen business centre

Tags: android, iphone, palm pre, WEb OS

WiTricity : when paradigm moves over our head

referring to one of my friend`s blog on wireless energy transfer , he shows some evidence to light up 60 Watt bulb from about 2m distance through wireless. I could imagine my positive side, It will be a time when you connect your laptop through wireless router/charger (for sure Cisco will invent something like this in future) continuously in a cafe, or restaurant, or hotel without need to find out where is the power outlet. Or you can re-charge your mobile battery through wireless while your phone still in your pocket. Thats the future benefit the so called WiTricity could give to us.

how it works?

Here some info collected from MIT research paper:

WiTricity is based on using coupled resonant objects. Two resonant objects of the same resonant frequency tend to exchange energy efficiently, while interacting weakly with extraneous off-resonant objects. A child on a swing is a good example of this. A swing is a type of mechanical resonance, so only when the child pumps her legs at the natural frequency of the swing is she able to impart substantial energy.

While these considerations are universal, applying to all kinds of resonances (e.g., acoustic, mechanical, electromagnetic, etc.), the MIT team focused on one particular type: magnetically coupled resonators. The team explored a system of two electromagnetic resonators coupled mostly through their magnetic fields; they were able to identify the strongly coupled regime in this system, even when the distance between them was several times larger than the sizes of the resonant objects. This way, efficient power transfer was enabled.

Magnetic coupling is particularly suitable for everyday applications because most common materials interact only very weakly with magnetic fields, so interactions with extraneous environmental objects are suppressed even further. “The fact that magnetic fields interact so weakly with biological organisms is also important for safety considerations,” Kurs, a graduate student in physics, points out.

The investigated design consists of two copper coils, each a self-resonant system. One of the coils, attached to the power source, is the sending unit. Instead of irradiating the environment with electromagnetic waves, it fills the space around it with a non-radiative magnetic field oscillating at MHz frequencies. The non-radiative field mediates the power exchange with the other coil (the receiving unit), which is specially designed to resonate with the field. The resonant nature of the process ensures the strong interaction between the sending unit and the receiving unit, while the interaction with the rest of the environment is weak.

Any argument on this project?

of course there are.

1. It is about magnetic field. And since long time ago, scientist already claimed that the magnetic field could cause cancer, autism etc…..
2. How about our magnetic drive, credit card, magnetic compass? Will they be affected by these magnetic field?
3. The distinction between a radiating system and a “non-radiant” system is ambiguous. for an example,Rank amature ham radio operators used a light bulb and coil for at least 40 years to determine resonance points in their antenna systems and all tuned radio frequency systems radiate to some degree. Its a matter of efficiency. If you look at it at the power transmission standpoint the “non-radiant” efficiency gets lower and lower as the transmitter-receiver coupling drops. The original article from the researcher said the efficiency of the system was 45%. That means 55% of the energy is going somewhere else. Depending on how the 45% was arrived at, as much as half of the energy can be radiated into the surrounding area. When the transmitter and receiver are uncoupled as when you drop your cell phone in your pocket, the coupling efficiency goes to zero.Anyway it is really not genuine to call this an invention without showing some way to achieve RF coupling efficiencies greater than 90% at a considerable distance and the resulting spurious radiation less than a few micro watts per cubic meter. This flap is a demonstration of the weakness of the Engineering programs in major universities in the U.S. and the willingness of the media to pick up junk science.

Les `Copaque

Well I’m not sure how practical it would be. Implementing it commerically would probably require a high degree of coordination between the devices to make sure everything gets power and nothing gets to be like fried chicken (KFC).

Tags: electricity through wireless, magnetic field, WiTricity

ITIL : The ruler of a new era begin…

For the first time since creating the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL)more than 20 years ago, the U.K.’s Office of Government Commerce (OGC) has officially endorsed a compliance framework to audit vendor products, documentation and processes against the published best practices of ITIL (versions 2 and 3). The compliance scheme will be managed by the OGC’s official accreditor, APM Group Ltd. The move seeks to create a formal, recognized ITIL tools standard to make technology investments easier, though other organizations already offer similar services.

The new audit service is a joint venture between Aspect Group Inc. and Service Management Consultancy Ltd. (SMCG). SMGC will perform the audit service in accordance with the compliance standard. The OGC has approved the use of an ITIL trademark, under license to the joint venture for award to compliant vendor products.

As the cost of technology investments continues to rise, an integrated approach eliminating application redundancies and offering more than just a point solution, as well as a set of compliance standards to measure ITSM products against, is increasingly becoming fundamental for IT buyers.

While some organizations, such as Pink Elephant and Gartner Inc., have offered informal ITSM verification services for years, the OGC endorsement program gives vendors of IT Service Management products an official standard to meet.

Though midmarket businesses may not have many resources to deploy ITIL, those that seek third-party tools may be able to compare offerings more easily if they have all been vetted against the same IT tools standard.

“Some tools claim to be supposedly aligned to ITIL. Having a standard to audit against and providing consumers with a place to check for this information will make purchase decisions easier,” said Sharon Taylor, the chief architect of ITIL v3. Several vendors have already applied for the OGC endorsement, she said.

source: searchcio.com

Tags: ITIL, ITIL v.3, ITSM

Windows Mobile 7 : Dont expect anything from Microsoft

After the release of Windows Mobile 6.5 was officially confirmed for the second half of this year it now appears that its successor isn’t too far away either. In an analysts meeting held yesterday Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer confirmed that Windows Mobile 7 will be available next year.

Steve Ballmer  confirmed that Microsoft will make all they can to make up for the main disadvantage of their OS - namely the lack of user-friendliness. Finger optimization is one of the key thought in the developers’ minds when designing the WinMo 7 and we should expect a whole load of new nice applications too. But I would rather say that these adeas are two back ideology. To be frank, the “enhanced” development that Microsoft claimed on their new Windows Mobile 7 is already occupied in the Iphone product.

And the most important thing is that the User interface (UI) of Windows Mobile 7 is really the same as prvious version. Micrsoft just tend to upgrade their new Windows Mobile UI on the future Windows Mobile 8, which I think not good planning Microsfot is not the biggest Mobile OS monopolist as to compare with their Desktop Operating System.

Tags: iphone, microsoft, symbian, windows mobile 7, WM7