Wi(reless elec)Tricity

We have all seen wireless communication thro' mobile phones, satellites etc., but just imagine transmitting electrical power by wireless means. Read more to find out how...

Hi I'm srinath the engineer! (not to be confused with the chartered accountant). My first post happens to be on a still experimented field of WiTricity, obvious reasons for my affiliation towards electricity and stuffs come from the fact that I'm an electrical engineer.

WiTricity as the name suggests, it is the method of transmitting electrical power (electricity) by wireless means. Marin Soljacic, first had this idea when his son ridiculed him for using a cell phone charger which had a wire when the phone itself did not require any wires to talk to anybody around the world. Today reserch is being carried out by a team of MIT scientists headed by Marin Soljacic as to how this concept can be implemented.

Though using WiTricity building transmission lines may not be possible right away. But yes, in the near future we will have wireless cell phone chargers and this may be the big changing point in Electrical Technology which everybody is eagerly waiting for.

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The iPhone deal

The new iPhone from Apple released last week (11th July) boasts a new welcome addition, 3G connectivity, apart from its other technical advancements. So what exactly is the deal with 3G iPhone in India? Bharatwaj writes...

Many of the features that shipped with the iPhone 3G were also given to the original iPhone courtesy of the 2.0 firmware update. The inclusion of 3G support is great but it kills battery life and in many cases the performance improvement isn’t nearly as great as the numbers would make you believe. This comes from users of the 3G iPhone outside of India, as 3G connectivity in India is not available as of now.

Sure the phone supports A-GPS now, but without any software to really take advantage it doesn’t feel like a new feature. The phone does look a bit cooler now in my opinion, but seems bigger to hold (albeit grippier, because of the new plastic back panel). I am understandably confused.

Generally whenever I’m confused, all I need is a resetting of my perspective. I was trying to view the iPhone 3G against the original iPhone, in which case most users would be better suited saving their money and either upgrading to the next iPhone that comes along or picking up an iPhone 3G once their are sufficient applications that specifically take advantage of its new features (mainly A-GPS, if that matters to you).

For someone who has never owned an iPhone, the iPhone 3G is really no worse and marginally better than the original, which continues to be the best consumer smartphone available in my opinion. The user interface remains the pinnacle of ease of use and speed, making all other phones look and feel old by comparison.

At the same time, the iPhone 3G does give us one of the major features we were asking for last year: 3G network support. Perhaps it’s that I’ve gotten so used to browsing on Edge, or maybe it’s the severe impact on battery life, or better yet, the total unavailability of 3G networks in India, but the support for 3G just doesn’t seem to be that big of a deal. The problem lies with the Indian Mobile service providers, where 3G connectivity is non-existent, although they make you believe that getting the new 3G iPhone will make your mobile web browsing experience a supremely better one. So, why do they make 3G a big deal when the network support is just not there?

The opening of the App store is much like the discovery that there are planets outside of our own. Apple has just opened up a universe of opportunities here and I’m not sure even Apple is ready to deal with exactly how big this could get. While the vast majority of iPhone apps that have been released are fairly worthless in my opinion, there are enough hard hitting ones to not only give the App store and the iPhone platform instant credibility, but also reinforce the iPhone’s position as the premier smartphone a full year after its release.

Apple must be wary of the direction the iPhone is headed in. While the UI was absolutely perfect for the phone that launched a year ago, today’s iPhone is hardly the same. With easily over twice as many applications on an iPhone today vs. a year ago, performance and navigation have both suffered. The impact isn’t tremendous, but Apple will have to adjust the iPhone accordingly in order to avoid turning the platform into a bloated, complicated mess.

We often forget that despite its high stock prices, Apple is still a relatively small company compared to other leaders in the tech industry. It was the original iPhone’s release that caused the delay of OS X 10.5, and it would appear that the 2.0 firmware, SDK and App store launch all contributed to the iPhone 3G being a mostly evolutionary product. A bigger Apple would have launched an iPhone 3G with far more features rather than making the real focus of this launch the 2.0 firmware update.

The fact that one of the best applications available in the App store is made by Apple speaks volumes to who needs to be a very active developer for the iPhone platform. The iPhone 3G should have launched with a full iChat client from Apple as well as true turn-by-turn voice assisted GPS navigation (I don’t want Tom Tom doing it, I want Apple/Google doing it). It will be a while until we see third party developers produce apps with the same performance, polish and ease of use as a native Apple application. It has happened under OS X where applications like Transmit, Unison and Omni Graffle are truly leaders in their fields, but the same just isn’t true about the iPhone yet. Until that day comes, and even once it is here, Apple needs to be the most active developer on the iPhone platform. Developers are important, but so is Apple.

The enterprise features enabled by the 2.0 firmware are enough to handle the casual users who just want access to their Exchange email, which I’d guess are the majority of users at this point. However, it is very obvious that the iPhone just isn’t a full featured business phone. RIM will continue to do very well with the Blackberry in the enterprise market, but Apple’s iPhone should do a good job of impeding RIM’s entrance into the consumer market.

The iPhone 3G continues to be the phone to get in my opinion. It’s not perfect, but it’s closer than anything else I’ve used. Apple should be very aware of its surroundings. Threatening established PC makers on the computer side and entrenched mobile phone manufacturers on the smartphone side, Apple is bound to be in for some tough competition.

Apple is quite possibly size constrained. As a company that’s attempting to fix both the PC and cell phone industries, it runs the danger of spreading itself too thin. I believe that is why we ended up with an iPhone 3G that offers little more than the original iPhone + new firmware. It’s not a bad summer gift but, everyone seemed to want more. It’s tough to follow a revolution with anything but evolution, which on the hardware side is absolutely true, but with the App Store the situation may be more revolutionary than at first glance.

There is lots of room to grow. Faster processors, better battery life, a further tweaked UI and more native applications are all necessary for the iPhone’s continued success, and unfortunately for me and the tons of other line-waiters, it looks like we’ll be in for a repeat performance next year.

Sure, the iPhone has great new features, sure, its interface is far easier to use than any other smartphone in the market now, and sure, 3G will provide you with faster access to the Internet, but is it worth it now? With no 3G connectivity anywhere in India, would I recommend getting the iPhone? For its price (expected around $200 here in India), I would say its a good deal if you don't own a 3G, A-GPS smart phone now, but if you do, switching to the iPhone 3G is of no use as 3G network presence is not available and the prospects for quickly rolling out 3G connectivity is remote, given the pathetic political situation in India now, this is not going to be on the priority list of policy makers as of now.

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A Bit of Film Trivia

When it comes to movies, music and local entertainment, everyone happens to know a lot! Trivia from the tinsel world never manages to escape the anxious eyes of the general public. Prashanth has managed to gather a bit of trivia from South Indian Films. Read on to find out how up-to-date you are.


I'm going to ask a few questions and let's see the responses in the comments section!

X is the lead singer of a group called 'Poetic Ammo'. X is of Asian origin only. X has a few popular songs to credit w.r.t Tamil music. X has also sung in Tamil movies and those who follow Tamil movies would've heard X's songs surely! Final Hint: X's real name is Yogeswaran Veerasingam. Identify X.

X started his career as a sales man in LandMark, a popular bookstore in Chennai. X has directed 2 recent Tamil films and both did well at the box office. The hero of both movies is the same (not X). X is also becoming a hero now. Identify X.

A sitter now....X is a well known Hindi actor. A hero of yesteryears and a good supporting actor of today, X failed to secure the lead role in Richard Attenborough's Gandhi because he didn't pass the screen test. However, years later, X played the same role in another multi-lingual movie centered around Gandhi written and directed by a reputed South Indian actor. Identify X.

How do we better know 'Alli Nagaram Chinnasami'?

Sithoor Sreenivasan played a very important role in the Tamil play 'Kal Manam'. It greatly impressed yesteryear actor Thangavelu and he rechristened Sithoor Sreenivasan with a prefix with which we know him today. What prefix?

Alyque Padamsee recommended Rajiv Menon to Mani Ratnam for a lead role in one of his hit movies. Rajiv Menon, however, was not interested and X ended up playing the role. The role was well appreciated and earned X a good name. X lent voice to Shah Rukh Khan in the Tamil version of Dil Se, Uyire. X is no longer involved in cinema. Who is X?

Last question. X's original name was Veerappan. He changed it to a fictional character created by Tamil writer Sujatha because he was as witty and playful as that character. X is a popular Tamil director.

Looking out for your answers....

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Humble questions on Humility

Everybody "likes" to be called humble. There are also certain things that the world perceives to be things of humility. A lot of ppl also begin to do those things to be showcased as being humble.What is true humility then?

Let me not write a huge post. But i will ask you guys a few questions that will get you to think.

What is humility?
is it saying "I am not that great and all but actually feeling that you have achieved a lot?

Is it back flattering the other person when he/she flatters you?

Is it being simple? Why cant a complex thinker be humble?

If you feel you are succesful but do not tell it out, you are humble?

If you are confused and hence do not have an opinion, you are humble?

If you have inferiority complex and dont believe in yourself and thereby telling you are not the right person, you are humble?

If you do a lot of things at the back, but never reveal anything outside, you are hummble?

"I have not studied anything!" Telling something like this but actually studying and scoring well, is that humility?

"Being poor and "simple" " but having high influence and excercising it, is that being humble?

If talking about your success is not humble, then talkin about failure is also not humble, right? or is it so?

Not revealing or opinions and your beliefs on the premise of not "showing off" is being humble??

Getting angry but not revealing anything and being nice is being humble??

Being really competitve and always wanting to win over the other person, but talking as though you dont value victory or money etc, is that being humble?

Wearing dirty clothes and looking dirty, is that being humble?

Accepting others opinions for the sake of it, to "Accomodate" them, is that being humble??

last but not the least, after a quarrel and actually hating that person saying , "thats ok, i am sure you did not mean it" , is this being humble???


I THOUGHT HUMILITY WAS SOMETHING NATURAL THAT IS A CHARACTERISTIC AND NOT AN ACT! but i guess thats how things are, or are they?

Last question, the ppl whom you think are humble, are they really naturally humble or are they putting a show?

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Intel, AMD... Why not more?

Why is it that the CPU market has so few players? Is it entirely a practical, technical issue of getting a physical plant up and running? What's more to the precious "CPU space"? Why can't we see more competition than just the Intel and AMD that we have now?

First up, Let me Introduce myself, as this is my first post here. I am Bharatwaj Appasamy, doing my final year, B.E. CSE....I would be posting articles about technology and hardware architectures and the likes.... So let me start off with a pretty light post... Read on...

I find it kind of fascinating the way the computer business works, and the way it progresses so rapidly, despite seeming to perpetually teeter on the brink of having no competitive market at all. I mean, for a long time now we've been only one company away from Intel having the market to itself. Surely if AMD hadn't been around we'd all now just be upgrading to 3Ghz Pentium 4's or something, if that? Why is it that we can't find much competition in the CPU field? And why is it that the EU (European Union) and other such organizations, haven't yet come to level of financing competition in this field, only to inculcate a sense of fair trade practice, as they claim to do always?

The story goes like this....

The CPU market has a lot of players: AMD, Analog Devices, Atmel, Broadcom, Cirrus Logic, Freescale, Fujitsu, Intel, IBM, Infineon, MIPS, NEC, Nintendo, NXP Semiconductors, OKI, Samsung, Sharp, STMicroelectronics, Sun, Texas Instruments, Toshiba, VIA. And I'm sure I missed a bunch. For more information on what they make, just type the name and the word microprocessor into Google (ie. NEC microprocessor). Your router has a CPU, your VOIP handset has a CPU, your cell phone (if it's recent enough) has a CPU, a lot of the newer TV's have CPU's, Blue-ray players have CPU's, and if you have a recent car it'll have multiple CPU's.

But there are few companies that make desktop Windows-compatible CPU's. I think it's mostly a matter of infrastructure. To be competitive you need to be on a cutting-edge process. You need this to keep your design small (and cheap to manufacture) and for the power and performance advantages of each of the generations of process technology. Access to cutting-edge process technology requires you either: build a fab, or pay a lot to another company to fab it for you. Fab's cost about $3.5 billion dollars each. Access to cutting-edge process technology from semiconductor foundries is difficult to get (you are competing with existing customers - like, say, nVidia) and is expensive.

Then there's the design of a modern desktop CPU. If you are targeting a niche market, then designs can mostly be completed by "synthesis" in which a bank of computers running synthesis tools, basically design the CPU for you based on code that looks a lot like C code. So you get a couple of hotshot architects to code up a CPU for you, put it into a synthesis tool and then you have your design. This strategy works well if area, power and performance are not critical, but usually they are. VLSI synthesis packages aren't cheap.

But, synthesis tools still have a long way to go, to catch up with human engineers and so if you want a small, high performance design that uses as little power as possible, you need people to do it. Specifically, you want trained and experienced VLSI electrical engineers. And these engineers are not cheap; median salaries for 2007 were around $108k. And you need a lot of them. You need architects (figure out the design, and performance trade-offs), logic designers (take the architecture and turn it into micro-architectural code), circuit designers (take the micro-architectural code and turn it into circuitry), layout technicians (take circuitry and turn it into a mask for manufacturing). But these designs are also really complex, and, like any large project, there will be bugs. So you need a lot of validation engineers to find bugs and to check it against the existing software, and then you'll need debug engineers (to find bugs and fix them). You'll need people monitoring the design for electrical robustness, and manufacturing issues. In short, you need a lot of people with extensive training in varied fields. About 75 engineers working for 18 months is about the minimum for a modern design, but I've heard of designs that are above 500 engineers working for 3 years, on the design. The IBM Power team quoted even larger numbers than these back at ISSCC, so big designs are even more.

So then you have your $3.5 billion dollar fab, and your 200 engineer, 3 year long design, and you go to sell it... how many do you have to sell to pay off your investment? So you need to keep your CPU prices very competitive, but you need to pay off your investment to be a profitable company. And what if you missed a bug or two - when there's a billion transistors, it's not too hard - so then there's the possibility of recalls. Or there's a reliability issue (such as what just tanked nVidia's stock last week). Or the design tools let you down and your estimates of how great a product you are going to have doesn't match up with the reality of real silicon and it's either slower or hotter than your design estimates. And even if things go great, you have to market your design, and work with OEM's (Original Equipment Manufacturers, for eg. Dell, HP, and so on) to integrate it and validate it in their products. And you need to be working on the next design in parallel. And you need to validate that it works in a complete system.

If you don't opt for the fab and want to use a fabless design and you want to rely heavily on synthesis (both of these to keep costs down) then you will find that it is extremely difficult to have a competitive product. Synthesis does "Ok" for some things, but for things like arithmetic circuitry, caches and registers, you need a human touch to get something that works well. So, if you opt for the really inexpensive investment route, then you will likely end up with a chip that is large, hot and has lousy performance... and if not all three, then likely at least two out of the three (large and hot, but fast, for example). If it's not bleeding edge, or if it doesn't have some form of advantage over the competition, it's not going to sell well. And the competition is a moving target - your design can't just be better than anything available right now, when you start the design process, you need to better what will be out there in 3-5 years (when you finish).

And, as mentioned, then you run into the issue of patents, trade secrets, trademarks. Semiconductor companies have invested huge amounts on money into the way they design the architecture and micro-architecture, design circuitry, and manufacture and package designs. If they invent something new and innovative, they patent it and this means that you'll need to innovate a different way to do it that doesn't copy their patent. If they have a method of doing something that isn't patented, it's still covered under "trade secrets". If you don't want to get into the chipset design business (another large design team), you'll need to license bus protocols. And current names are trademarks, and so you'll need to get customers to accept your new name. Would you buy a laptop with a CPU from a company you've never heard of?

Lastly, you need to test your design. CPU's are big and complex and as much as engineers would like them to, not all of those transistors will get drawn correctly during manufacturing. So you need to test the designs and this requires a team of engineers to write and optimize tests, and then to get them working and figure out how to improve the "manufacturability" of the product. Testers are expensive - they are so expensive and are such speciality items that I couldn't find any web pages about them. But testers like the Agilgent Advantest series, and the Schlumberger 9000-series are about the size of a large car and cost a lot more.

CPU development is a difficult and complex process which has a lot of risks. To succeed, you need to be a big company with history and experience in these types of projects to succeed, and you need deep pockets to survive the inevitable issues. There have been start-ups (Transmeta, for example) that have tried, but even with a lot of venture capital it is very difficult.

All that said, I personally believe that the CPU market is extremely competitive - whether it's desktop CPU's or more embedded CPU's. I think it's actually more competitive than it has been in a while, and that it will continue to get more competitive as we move into the next decade. On the x86 desktop/laptop CPU market, prices continue to drop from generation to generation. You can buy an EEE PC laptop for under $400 (that's ~Rs. 16,000)that runs Windows XP. Laptops used to run over Rs. 60-75K several years ago, and now they are much less. And I would argue that as we move into an era of "ubiquitous computing" - in which everyone carries around a "computer" (i.e. like a Blackberry or iPhone) and has perpetual access to the internet - the role of the desktop PC becomes diminished. Which is more exciting to consumers, a 3G iPhone, or a new Dell PC design with a new CPU in it? And that microprocessor in the 3G iPhone is made by Samsung.

I can't predict the future... when I try to, I get it wrong. But as we move to carrying around computers in our pocket, and we run mobile OS's like Android and do more and more functions on the internet using browsers and software that are not dependent on a specific CPU architecture, and we have media centers on our TV's and gaming consoles, and our latest desktop/laptop computers are "good enough for doing whatever", I think the market will become even more competitive as existing companies have to innovate and new companies appear with new and creative ideas.

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Sound Music

One would have seen and realized many times the role that music plays in everybody's life. It imbibes good culture and adds expressions and beauty to it. For Janani, after silence that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is, simply, Music. Sadly there are few of them who do not realize the potential that this has. Today, she tries to explain, in her views, to everyone of what Music is all about...


It was first during my college days when i started to realise the pressure that was bestowed upon me. Thanks to the university which made us the syllabus. Strenuous times made me crazy and to get rid of this, believe it or not i tried a lot of ways but in vain, Which left me no options other than music. That was the first time i realised what good music can do to me.

The way our classical music has been created is a wonder all by itself. I would always think and wonder about the fact that made our ancestors think and define the wonderful ragas. They had decided that, only music paves way for peace which is
lacking in today's busy world. The first person who flashes in my mind is Muthuswamy Dhikshithar.

Muthuswamy Dhikshithar is the youngest of the trinity of the carnatic music, the other two being Thyagarajar and Syama Sastri. He attained mastery over the Veena, and the influence of Veena playing is evident in his compositions. He composed his first song "Sri nathadhi guruguho" in the Raga Maya-malava-gowla, in the temple of Tiruttani (near present day Chennai). Each of his compositions are unique and brilliantly crafted. The compositions are known for the depth and soulfulness of the melody - his visions of some of the ragas are still the final word on their structure. Muttuswami also undertook the project of composing in all the 72 melakartha ragas, (in his asampurna mela scheme) thereby providing a musical example for many rare and lost ragas. The musical maestro finally departed the world 21st of October, 1835 doing a whole lot of good to the world of music.

This page has lot more to give everyone, but in the forthcoming days..... This is where the good meets the better to develop the best... Keep looking and lets get to know this vast ocean.

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Five common wrong usages in English

Indians have their own versions of all things. Right from English to Pizza to CellPhones to Philosophies, the Desi version always exists. Here, Prashanth writes on common mistakes that Indians make in their English. This post is not intended to insult anyone in particular.

There is a form of English called the Broken English. It's not actually a proper form of English. It's an incomplete form of English used by those who aren't in touch with the language. Generally, when people speak without proper verbs, prepositions and articles, we tend to call the usage Broken Usage. The following mistakes aren't made by people who speak Broken English alone. People who very well claim to know English also make these mistakes from time to time.

I can able to do it. I've come across this so many times that I am actually wondering if this has become officially correct usage and that I'm not up-to date with the trends in English. There are people I know who even argue this is right usage!

Everyone have done it perfectly. This is another extremely common wrong usage. The idea is to consider everyone not as a single entity but as a collective entity. Everyone can be viewed as a rough equivalent to all of them.

The First Person Syndrome. This is one collection of wrong usages relating to the positioning of first person grammar. Some examples are,

LVS and me have had tough times recently.
I and him never cared for them.

The idea here is to use I instead of me in the first sentence and to use Myself instead of I in the second sentence. I would personally advice you to avoid both these usages until you're fully confident :D

The Tense Tense. Another easily noticeable mistake is the wrong usage of tenses. Not only do people use the wrong tense in the wrong place, sometimes the verb is wrongly spelled when changing tense. There is a famous joke associated with this.

A: I was asked to write the past tense of 'Think'. I thought and thought and wrote 'Thunk'.

There is actually a lot of scope for mistake w.r.t usage of tenses. There are verbs like Cut for which the past tense is the word itself! There are also verbs like Say where the past tense becomes Said! People still continue to use words like Drinked, Flied, Eated, Swimmed etc.

Finally, one last little mistake is when people swap Tell and Say. A lot of people in my old school have used this line. Ask him to say me when he finishes.

There can be a few more common mistakes that I've left out in this post. I'll write another post if I remember sufficient number of wrong usages.

P.S. I'm just filling for Sona today. Apparently her LAN is not working.

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