Adverse Consequence of Ears plugged to iPod, MP3 player and Mobile ear phones

One recent articles (Heffernan et. al., 2007) in NEJM and a duplicated reporting of the same case in AJNR; further discussions on an incidence of lightening strike with iPod on neck has driven us to take some caution with these devices. Although the subsequent discussions has shed some different perspectives, but it is nonetheless true that there is an effect of such devices being dangerous to the health in general, ledaing to either accidental cases or to cases realted to the long term effects.



Although the desire to own and use such a device is a recent trend and style; one should be careful; at least after these reports. The follwing image showing the Burns along the Distribution of the iPod Wires, with Relative Sparing of the Ear is scary (Taken from NEJM from the link : http://content.nejm.org/cgi/reprint/357/14/1447.pdf





References :


1. Heffernan EJ, Munk PL, Louis LJ. Thunderstorms and iPods — not a good idea. N Engl J Med 2007;357:198-9.



2. Andrews, Chris, Cooper, Mary Ann, Mick, Paul T., Lee, Patricia K., Longridge, Neil, Heffernan, Eric J., Munk, Peter L., Louis, Luck J.More on Thunderstorms and iPodsN Engl J Med 2007 357: 1447-1448



3. Offiah, C., Heran, M., Graeb, D.Lightning Strike: A Rare Cause of Bilateral Ossicular DisruptionAJNR Am J Neuroradiol 2007 28: 974-975

Microsoft-Facebook

The community is watching the deal . Since it may be MS-Facebook soon.

However, the issue may be bigger than we expect, surely it is better strategy. Social Computing on Web and Microsoft venturing to this phenomena is intersting. >> hugh macleod gives some better insights.

Intel Begins High-Volume Productin of Next-Gen Processors

-- Says the Information Week >> Follow the news here.

What it means is the PCs will start becoming more powerfull..Ahh..More power in hand.

Imagine being able to browse the Google Earth faster or able to render the Solidworks surface in a second. More than the day-to-day use, the design community will be able to use the increased speed well enough.

Intel is not the only player here. The quad-core wars betwee Intel and AMD is already on. AMD's first Phenom desktop chips are schdules to come before year's end; with IBM also in the field.

It remains to see who will gain maximum revenue from the quad-core landscape. I am not satisfied till the 80 Core/100 Cores come out and really make the all powerfull machine in hand. The quad-cores are intermittent technologies, if I am allowed to opine.

Supercomputing in Laptop ..

IBM Lab guys are putting their efforts to cram more data into less space on a memory chip or a hard drive has been the crucial force propelling consumer electronics companies to make ever smaller devices. Stuart S. P. Parkin, a physicist, is developing “racetrack memory,” a technology that makes it possible to read and write data far faster than is possible with existing storage devices. It shrank the mainframe computer to fit on the desktop, shrank it again to fit on our laps and again to fit into our shirt pockets. -- well it can go smaller than that also.

While writing this, my shirt pocket has a Harddisk of 250 GB from Western Digital which I bought at 150 $ (Sale, rebate advantage than the original cost of 200 $).

Combining the hard disk break through with Intel's quad core Higher Performance and Low Cost to Mainstream Computing ; and the projected 80 Core chip, it gives a imagination of a Supercomputers in a Laptop. The days are not far to bring this imagination to reality.

Question is: Who is going to use it ?

Compute intensive and data intensive applications are numerous, spreading from entertainment to health care. It remains to see who takes the fast-mover advantage.

"cloud” computing

-- Means Computing in the Cloud !!!

Well why not ?

John Markoff argues for it; and the whole Microsoft Game Theory is back again. Upside Down Strategy as they call it.

>> The Empire is preparing to strike back <<


Microsoft is prepared to release it's software "suite" this week: It plans to turn that strategy upside down, making available free software that connects its Windows operating system to software services delivered on the Internet, a practice increasingly referred to as “cloud” computing. The initiative is part of an effort to connect Windows more seamlessly to a growing array of Internet services. He says that this is an effort to connect the Windows OS with software services delivered via the cloud - and this is similar to Microsoft embedding Internet Explorer to Windows , a move that invited anti-trust allegations.

It will offer services with a single Unified Installer program, or as separate components. The individual services are Windows Live Photo Gallery, Windows Live Mail, Windows Live Messenger 8.5 and Windows Live OneCare Family Safety, a computer security program.

Face value of the release says it is a belated response to Google’s challenges. Recently, Google launched an unified cloud storage for Gmail, Picasa and also Gmail Drive.

The age of Mother Host is coming back again. Who know where the 2 GB data will be, as far as I am able to access it from anywhere...with portable computing, lightwaight or thin clients or laptops ..and lately the Mobiles and iPods.

-- So which computing is left now ?? Wave Computing ? Or Ocean Computing - Should I Copyright the names to get richer some day by the royalty from Microsoft for using these names !!

iPhone ....and Price

You buy something today for X $ and tomorrow its cost is zero..!! This is true for many things like Food, milk or ...and ...list goes on ..

The last thing to join the list is iPhone...

The intersting thing is the CEO also aplogized for this price cut :
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/apples-jobs-apologizes-over-iphone/story.aspx?guid=A2F7C6EB-082C-422D-A622-71D71A26101F&dist=SecMostRead

I wish he should also apologize for the extraordinary pricing in the beginning..HYPE ..!!

Web 2.0 and its pangs..

The Pangs of Web2.0 is spreading towards the domains unthinkable yesterday, but a reality today.

The acronymic divisions of Web2.0 are Military 2.0, Medicine 2.0,Battlefield 2.0, etc.

Some intersting pointers :-
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/082807-us-troops-swap-combat-ideas.html?netht=082807dailynews1&

and

http://scienceroll.com/medicine-20/

More to come ...

Who Travels on the Broadband Highway ??

Comscore has published the internet traffic details http://www.comscore.com/press/release.asp?press=1582

The results are intersting, at the same time it perhaps gives an idea of the human mentality. The choice and chance makes the story more intersting. Burger King site getting 700% more traffic in a month!

Facebook is growing, Yahoo, Google, Time Warner and Microsoft - the top 4 are sustained.

And it goes on ..!! Cyber Highway is not very different than the Real Highway ...

IT department in managing enterprise systems

Ahhh...

That is the most difficult task.

Starting from the simple IT help desk to go on to the enterprise systems..it is a wavy, dark road.

When I was working at a coporate management system, the first glare when you walk to someone's office used to bear the remark " here comes the guy to make things difficult for me".

And then next time you are in canteen, you are alone ...

However, to make things more difficult, Wall Street Journal has published this :-
http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB118539543272477927.html

I found two or three very intersting, which I have practced sometime or other, thinking the Big Brother may be watching.

- How to visit the web sites your company blocks (Answer: Use a proxy site or Google's translation service)

-- And I will not go into the not-to-mention other tricks..

India and NREN - A Curtain Raiser..

I follow the development of NRENs around the World with my research interst. I was invovled in the ERNET and C-DAC activities in India, in the pre-Gbps era of NREN development. Lately as a consultant to Internet2, I have been closely following the activities in USA. Apart from the NREN inside the country, it is veyr important for then Research and Education domain to be connected internationally with other coutnries and other NRENs. I thought it will be a good idea to put some thoughts on that, with the current and recent past developments in the context of NREN and India.

An explanation of NREN and few links can be found at


http://jibanananda.blogspot.com/2006/11/nrens-and-world.html


In Indian context, it is a long story. In gernal the internet conenctivity is good at India, and better in Cities now. One gets broadband connectivity from BSNL and some other carriers. But what is of interest, is to connect to each and every corner of the country with high speed connection and particularly to enable the connectivitiy for research and education institutions, is happening slowly.

However, the national knowledge commission has given its rfecommendations :-
http://knowledgecommission.gov.in/downloads/recommendations/KnowledgeNetworkLetterPM.pdf
Which is also part of the bigger report - in details : - http://knowledgecommission.gov.in/report2006/default.asp

Now it remains an organisation to be formed to lead the initiatives. Here in US the related people are putting their efforts to connect and bring India to the global map well enough. In fact recently we conducted a good workshop from itnernet2 towards the development of networks in the region.

http://events.internet2.edu/2007/southasia/

The reports are here :- http://events.internet2.edu/2007/southasia/Thursday%20Session%20Agenda.html

http://events.internet2.edu/2007/southasia/Wednesday%20Session%20Agenda.html

Les Cottrell has put up the following site to gather information on the current status and plans for Research & Educational Networks in South Asia. https://confluence.slac.stanford.edu/display/IEPM/South+Asia+Case+Study. It contains a brief discussion of the A&R networking for each country and will contain more case study information as we generate it. We would welcome any further information concerning the situations in the various countries or URLs that provide more information. Please send such information to the list and we will add it to the site and can summarize it at the workshop.
Check out this also :-

http://international.internet2.edu/intl_connect/emergingnetworks_sig.html

The international workshop at Mumbai, India in 2006 was part of the effort to develop the landscape of the NREN and the international connectivity.
http://www.garudaindia.in/chep06_workshop.asp#


This paper aptly describes the state in India, which has not changed much laterly, thought the efforts are still on http://www.garudaindia.in/pdf/papers_presentations/India-High%20Performance%20Computing%20Networks%20&%20NRENS.pdf

-- To be continued...

Intel's 80 Core Chip

Recently Intel has announced its 80 Core Chip.
http://www.intel.com/pressroom/archive/releases/20070204comp.htm

Last couple of years Intel has been moving each of its product segment to dual core. This is radical to move from dual core to 80 core. Hepefully, before that Intel may have tested the 10, 30 or 30 core ones. On the other hand, it may be better radically to jump to 80 core and decide about go or no-go after few iterations of testing. Give the World the Best -- No Moderate technology...

My colleagues and friends at C-DAC will be very happy when this is rolled out. When the massively parallel computers or supercomputers are designed, the maximum part of the design and development cycle goes in deciding the heat and infrastructure part of the supercomputer. Not to mention, perhaps 30-40% of the cost goes into that and may be 90% of the maintenance cost is towards electricity and air-conditioning.

Great..it will be a solace to just get the 80 core chip and place it in a box and declare it as a supercomputer.

Relax !! It is not going to happen before 2010 perhaps.

Going a bit deeper, it is amazing to see how the cores are going to be placed inside the circuit board. Intel has some white papers and videos on this. Core techie guys can go through that. My partly techie mind says that, it is difficult, but not impossible. Perhaps the most delicate thing to be manage will be the design and the heat management. But interestingly, Moore's law supports the process of multi core and multi-threading.

My simple prediction says it will be not before 2010 at any circumstances that we are going to see this chip or at least get one or two pieces to test in labs. A prediction study gives the following results .


Well it may happen that a radical other invention might change the scenario.


Bottom line is Silicon World is so unpredictable - Inside of Outside..!!

New Leadership for Yahoo

Jerry Yang is the CEO of Yahoo.

And it remains to see how the new leadership leads Yahoo !! to the next level..