Bhuvan Launched

Well, Bhuvan is getting launched again. No not from Lagaan-II but from ISRO. Bhuvan(Earth in Sanskrit),is a satellite mapping tool similar to Google Earth and Wikimapia. It was developed by Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). It offers resolution up to 5 metres and is considered as a rival to Google Earth and Wikimapia.

A beta version of this application http://bhuvan.nrsc.gov.in/ has been launched on 12th August 2009.Bhuvan will be able to take more closer pictures of the Indian Subcontinent as compared to the Google Earth. Bhuvan will feature a zoom level of upto 10 meters while the Google Earth features a zoom level of up to 200 meters. The new ISRO Bhuvan will also feature a multi layer information mapping while the present Google Earth features a single layer information mapping system. Apart from that, Bhuvan will also update map information every year contrary to the Google Earth which updates its map information every 4 years.

“With Bhuvan we will be able to produce very local information which will be specific to only to our own country. This information available from this mapping system will be useful in addressing very local problems like floods, famines, infrastructure development, education and much more,” said ISRO chairman Dr G Madhavan Nair.

Also I found this information of Bhuvan plug-in available from one of the sites. You can download plug-in from the Bhuvan website after registration and you will also need DirectX8 or higher version (www.microsoft.com/windows/directx/) for installing the plug-in. Mac OS and Linux users will have to wait till next launch as at the moment Bhuvan can run only on windows system and is optimised for IE6 or higher.

Though I haven't tried yet as Bhuvan got a heavy load, it seems. However, Its a proud moment for Indians and ya, for Aamir Khan too!!!!

Religion of Reasons - Please research

Wow what a morning its been!! As I read SundayTimes article "Religion of Reason"(http://lite.epaper.timesofindia.com/getpage.aspx?edlabel=TOIA&pubLabel=TOI&pageid=14&mydateHid=09-08-2009) , I get to know that Atheist community catching up in London. Over 200 buses with hoardings of "there's probably no God, So enjoy Life"....It just quirked a smile from my face as I thought "Oh Ya and when you cannot enjoy, come to God running again!!!"

Article at various instances point out that a person may pray but they could be Atheist. It states that certain religions encourage atheism. Now thats quite amusing. As per Prakash Shesh, whole of Jain or Buddhist or Hindu philosophers community are atheists because they have denied the belief of existence of God. I would ask Prakash Shesh to go over Jainism or Hindu philosophy first, it states that we are actually manifestations of cosmic energy and we do have energy stored within us, in chakras of body and in soul matter, but we don't deny existence of souls who have already attained it. Prakash has misinterpreted indian religions in their philosophical sense. Religions preach us to attain supreme self-realisation through penance, through rituals and through devotion to God(who are supreme souls if not creator of universe), which are actually the processes of attaining, exploring or activating or searching(as per Prakash) our energy and taking it to peak. Its like a chicken and egg story, though we have energy within us, in order to attain self-realisation or be free from birth-death cycle we should be devoted to souls who have traversed the path. We are same as those souls but not as self-realised as them. Hoardings on the bus say "Atheism can be the rejection of theism or the absence of belief in existence of deities"...Now how can you reject theism if you believe in existence of deities??

Atheism in real sense is complete denial of existence of God. But the word 'God' here, is misconstrued as only being creator of universe. God in real sense is a supreme soul who guides us to attain Moksha through various paths. Atheists are people who only believe in rationalism. They only believe in logical life, though life doesn't manifest in logical way every time. Cosmos is real, souls are real, karma associated with them is real and energy within is also real,but explanation for the same is not logical. But Blog space is small to explain that. Finally, I strongly object various references pointed towards certain religions without researching and tagging Atheist to actually who are not.

Future Directions of Computing - II

Next set of technologies are related to life sciences and would be taking paramount importance in future.

Here comes Chemical Computing

Chemical computing is an unconventional approach to computation that uses a "soup" where data is represented by different concentrations of chemicals. Chemical computers can exploit several different kinds of reaction to carry out the computation. For example, so-called conformation computers use polymer molecules that change shape in response to a particular input. Metabolic computing exploits the kinds of reactions typically found inside a living cell.
Dr Andrew Adamatzky of the University of West England works on another type. "I am dealing only with reaction-diffusion computing," he explains. This type of computation exploits waves travelling through a beaker of chemicals to carry out useful calculations.
These waves are the information carriers in the computer. They are created by triggering chemical reactions in the soup at specific points. As waves propagate from different areas they collide and interact - effectively processing the information they hold. At the site of their interaction a point with a new chemical concentration is created, which is in effect an answer.
With a beaker full of thousands of waves travelling and interacting with each other, complex computational problems can be solved. Quite Interesting, ain't it? Now I know its quite difficult to assimilate those things, but its real and IBM is already into it. Lets not be amazed when it shows up in future.

Next is my favourite, DNA Computing

DNA computing, commonly called biomolecular computing, is an emerging field that uses DNA and biochemistry instead of silicon-based electronics. The first proof-of-concept use of DNA to perform computation was carried out by Professor Leonard Adleman at the University of Southern California in 1994. The original goal of the field was to use biomolecules to beat electronic computers at solving large complex problems. But most of scientists refuse to believe that so the goal has been changed to do unconventional things that silicon cannot. In particular Shapiro is trying to develop smart drugs that are capable of computation. "You want a drug that can sense the biochemical environment, analyse it and, in response, release a molecule which is the appropriate drug for that particular situation," he said. Very useful indeed, I thought it could apply somewhere in complex computations and then get in touch with financial and scientific systems. There's where my curiousity for it emerged.

The final future front is Plastics Computing

Silicon is expensive and complex to produce, requiring clean rooms and precise manufacturing techniques in plants that can cost billions of dollars. This means they are currently out of reach for low-cost products. But organic polymers, a class of substances that are used to make everything from bin bags to solar panels, could offer a solution. "It really opens up a whole new set of options for what you do with electronics," said Professor Art Ramirez of Bell Labs. Highly conductive polymers were first discovered in the early 1960s and are already used in some electronic devices. In 2004, electronics giant Philips announced a concept flexible display, while other companies such as Cambridge Display Technology use them to manufacture organic light-emitting diodes (LEDs). Earlier this year, UK firm Plastic Logic said that it would build the world's first factory to produce plastic electronic circuits. Although, circuits made of polymers are much slower than silicon devices, they have one significant advantage: they can be printed using techniques similar to those used to mass produce magazines and wallpaper. This means they are cheap and easy to produce. And as the polymers can be printed onto flexible substrates they can also be used in totally new types of device, such as large-scale billboards or electronic newspapers.

Wow, Imagining picking up electronic newspapers is like having papers from Hogwartz.

So, this was a brief about six upcoming future computing to keep an eye on...lets see what catches up faster!!!

Future Directions of Computing - I

What and how many could be it ?

Well, Here's the first one - Quantum Computing

A quantum computer is a theoretical device that would make use of the properties of quantum mechanics, the realm of physics that deals with energy and matter at atomic scales. In a quantum computer data is not processed by electrons passing through transistors, as is the case in today's computers, but by caged atoms known as quantum bits or Qubits. A bit is a simple unit of information that is represented by a "1" or a "0" in a conventional electronic computer. A qubit can also represent a "1" or a "0" but crucially can be both at the same time - known as a superposition. This allows a quantum computer to work through many problems and arrive at their solutions simultaneously. "It is like massively parallel processing but in one piece of hardware," said Professor Artur Ekert of the University of Oxford. Further he said,

"They will not be used in run-of-the-mill desktop applications but specialist uses such as searching vast databases, creating uncrackable ciphers or simulating the atomic structures of substances. "

Now how about Light Computing -

"We are dissipating huge amounts of power in chips right now," said Professor Stan Williams of computer firm Hewlett Packard. And the problem will get worse as the components become smaller, making chips even more inefficient, he said. "If we could find new ways of moving information around a chip, we could significantly reduce the amount of power that is dissipated."
A potential solution would be to use particles of light - photons - instead of electrons to move information around and between chips. "Electrons will still be doing the computing but photons will be doing the communicating," he said. It is similar to the technology that is used to move data around the internet today but at a much smaller scale. The technology could be key for transferring data between massively multiple core chips - devices with several linked computing engines.

Next comes Spin Computing

Spintronics, also known as magnetoelectronics, is a technology that harnesses the spin of particles, a property ignored by conventional electronics. By using the spin of particles - detected as a weak magnetic force - scientists believe they can unlock almost infinite computing power.
"An electron always has spin and it can be spinning one of two different ways: up or down."said Mr Roche. These two different states can be used to represent a "1" or a "0" - the bits of information used by all computers. Basic spintronic devices are already used in today's computers. For example, most hard drives today use a "spin valve", a device that reads information off the individual disks or platters that make up a hard drive. But researchers at firms such as Intel and IBM are hoping to take this one stage further. "We are hoping to use it to store data, to transmit data; to do all the things we do now with charge but to use the spin property of the electron instead," said Mr Roche. Chips exploiting spintronics would in theory be able to transmit data with spin using a lot less charge.

Well its enough for one post...there are other three remaining >>>

Next Generation Trading Systems

At the turn of century, when technological innovation in financial domain is touching its peak I was wondering about the next generation innovation. When I watch movies like Minority Report, I understand there is ample window of innovation left in our day-to-day lives . But when I think about financial domain especially trading systems in various markets across number of asset classes, it points me towards thin window left. There are couple of reasons for reckoning like this. Firstly, financial technological innovation was among first software services that picked up in 70s. Secondly, companies in India have already started moving more towards life-sciences projects. TCS CEO Ramadorai said in an Interview that financial systems innovation is now more about sustenance rather than innovation. Also while going through this thoughts I came across a article from product manager of Sungard, Erricson Potus, on Next Generation Trading Systems.

He observed that, the current focus for vendors is the development of cross-asset trading systems. The demand for these systems was simply not there in the early 1990s when firms operated in strict, self-contained silos. The equities team traded equities from its equities desk and the same for the fixed income team. Consequently each desk used different trading systems. But at around the turn of the millennium, as the derivatives market continued to grow, financial institutions’ customers began to form crossasset derivatives platforms where traders were no longer restricted to single asset classes and
were dealing with all types of instruments. In addition, a sharp increase in the number of hedge funds operating as proprietary trading desks acted as another catalyst in the demand for cross-asset trading systems.

He outlined number of building blocks that would be necessary for development of next generation trading systems.

· Robust system infrastructure and the ability to store a vast array of financial and market data that can be used for risk management purposes.
· A complete lifecycle management capability
· A consistent and flexible pricing framework that can cater for today’s heterogeneous, cross-asset trading environment and the constant innovation in financial products, especially in the credit, interest rate derivatives and structured products area.
· An open architecture with good integration capabilities to other in-house systems, execution venues, broker-dealers, documentation systems and data providers to name a few examples.
· A strong platform to cater for the use of a wide range of individual asset classes, OTC, electronic trading and high-volume FX/MM trading, plain vanilla contracts mixed with complex derivatives, all incorporated into a greater cross-asset solution.
· A desktop that displays full risk management and P&L information.
· Full integration with key market players in the trading space such as Bloomberg, Reuters and Markit.

While above are the thoughts of pointing towards a system that involves integrating the systems on various parameters and projecting a seamless performance, the other thoughts can be on to moving on mobile systems or systems developed through DNA computing. The market players have already sent out the products on mobile but haven’t heard much on DNA computing contribution towards it. But this would be worth watching on how it evolves if DNA computing picks up and systems migration towards it.