Some random rambling!

Let’s open up with the biggest paraphrase ever, that there is one soul! A prelude to this sentence can be done if we ascend back to the greatest question ever. What is life?  How or rather what happens when someone dies? Is it Heaven or Hell? What is exactly that makes a human being tick?

Well, the answer to that, according to our theory, is that there is singular source of intense energy that makes the heart tick and the machine that is human  being work. Its that energy which makes the enzymes in our brain work, its that energy that makes our brain hormones secrete. This is  because the entire world is in a constant state of vibration! Vibration from higgs boson particles, or according to wave theory. These constant vibrations define us. In a short detour on astrology, at the time of your birth, you get unique “Astro” characteristics. These characteristics is because of gravitation that acts of the planets assignment or alignment in the skies. The same gravitation that affects metals etc. Thats why you are suggested to wear certain gemstones to control the vibrations that are characteristics of the birth stars owing to gravity.

Now these vibrations are centralized at the center of your body, these vibrations accumulate near your heart, which puts these vibrations to a constant resonance (the initial energy is provided by the planets). That shapes you, define you, make you complete. So thats why during meditation, you focus deeply to your heart or brain, the center source of these vibrations. As you reach there, you feel good about it! Thats why weed affects your status, it gets you closer to your energy source, making you feel the vibrations!

Now having said that, what happens after we die? After we die, well, after we die, due to irrepairable damage to your organs, the energy source explodes and disperses. Thats right, explode. This is because the energy source tries very hard to contain the damage, in the process exploding if failed. Imagine a shrinking baloon! So now, after we die, the energy disperses all around, and they join the universal energy, or energy of their own frequencies or levels. Now, at the time of birth, these energies gather around the new forming intense energy source, and owing to certain gravitation causes due to planet alignment, and other frequency change causes, and other different conditions, a child is conceived! That creates a new energy source, filled with different energies of different frequencies and owing to gravitation changes and other conditions!

This energy source is you! The unique You! There can be no variation of you, other than out of trillions of trillions of millions to one odds. So, in philosophical terms, Life is energy! You are the center source of your energy! This is your life, you can do anything you want, because after that, you wont get second chances, so never ever compromise on anything. There is no karma, or act! Everything is defined by you, right here, right now! So never compromise on doing anything, anything that pleases your heart, or in our words, energy source, is worth doing, because you wont be going to heaven or hell, you will just disperse owing to your organ failure and energy source explosion trying to save that! So concluding on, there can only be one you!

You can never be the same you ever again, only, in again millions of odds, some of your parts will come back. Other wise, there is no chance of you being you again! Give this energy source to gather more positive energy. Because, these positive energies drive the energy source to expand and become more rechargeable, in turn, simulating your hormone secretions via vibrations (more positive energy = more vibrations of inner energy = better secretion of hormones of your brain). So give your life full chance of getting these energies, positive energies, in short, being happy!

Never Ever Give Up!

I found this to be the very best post by Zen Pencils, and decided to share it. It motivates me to think that while talent and genius is an added bonus, it’s a person’s ultimate persistence for something that gets him the reward. And in that regard i have noticed, while you want something truly and deeply, the nature perspires to make things easy for you. Again, you wont get the ultimate success after a string of failures and learning, and there are lot of variables attached such as amount of work put in, subsequent expertise and the time frame. But what would beat every obstacle is true Persistence and Determination and the ability to keep yourself attached to your goals deeply.

You can find the original post here: http://zenpencils.com/comic/40-calvin-coolidge-never-give-up/ .

Role of an Entrepreneur in India’s development

The term Entrepreneurship, according to Wikipedia, denotes an owner or manager of a business enterprise who makes money through risk and initiative. While “risk and initiatives” are two bold words for the term, they apply aptly for an Entrepreneur. However, the high reward for these risks more than often compensates, transforming Entrepreneurs into individuals who can bring about a vast majority of changes in our country with their vision and desire to achieve. In that regard, an Entrepreneur can bring certain changes to the society and to our country.

Entrepreneurs can and should pivot a very important role in our country’s development by creating jobs. It’s evident that Entrepreneurs create initiatives, which in turn creates opportunities, which in turn creates jobs. The latest Census reports the unemployment rate as 9.4%, and to further lower this percentage, we need more job opportunities. At a large scale, it should be done by Entrepreneurs. It’s worth noting that both the reports prepared by Planning Commission to generate employment opportunities for 10crore people over the next ten years have strongly recommended self-employment as a way-out for teaming unemployed youth. One such example can be pointed to Mr. N.R Narayana Murthy, whose company Infosys now employs over 145,088 employees.

However, the most important role that Entrepreneurs can play in the country’s development is by creating wealth for the country, which in turn can fund further start ups and budding Entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurial companies offer the greatest opportunity for wealth creation, simply because they have the potential of capturing the market, especially international. Creating and sharing wealth can enable entrepreneurs to do what India’s government has failed to do since Independence, such as transforming education and rural India, making wealth an instrument for bringing the revolutions to build the new India. Think of the next Google or Microsoft from India, and the amount of social change it can bring to our country from the wealth generated. Considering India’s increased poverty rate of 37.2%, Entrepreneurs should create wealth overflow in the country for its development.

Lastly, Entrepreneurs should create more innovations for India’s development. It’s a known fact that Entrepreneurs are the harbingers of new innovations and fresh ideas. And our country, with its increased literacy rate, has a plentiful quality number of innovators, as evident by the increasing number of R&Ds shifts in our country. Entrepreneurs can therefore nurture a great change in the society with their fair set of innovations. Be it technological changes or social changes, the innovative ideas that an Entrepreneur brings in the society contributes towards the betterment of our country by the creation of better products and services. And the thing with innovation is that it creates a ripple effect in such a way that one innovation leads to another, with each innovation contributing some changes towards the society.

Concluding on, creating jobs, generating wealth and nurturing innovation are some of the very crucial job roles that Entrepreneurs should play, all aimed towards sustained development of our country.

 

A very inspirational article read on Facebook about Success

One reason so few of us achieve what we truly want is that we never direct our focus; we never concentrate our power. Most people dabble their way through life, never deciding to master anything in particular.
-Tony Robbins

Commentary by Sudhir Krishnan:

It is common to attribute other people’s success to availablity of resources, talent, luck etc. However the truth is that more than talent and availablity of resources, the reason why the great people in every field became so is because of continuous focus on mastering their craft over long periods of time. Talent is overrated. There are so many talented people out there who never make it to their full potential, as for one reason or another, they get distracted and stop growing. Talent may get you to the door, but it it not sufficient to ensure greatness. Also when you are talking about the top 20% in every profession, it is quite likely that all of these people are very talented anyway. What separates the top 5% compared to the top 20% is thus the relentless focus on mastering their craft completely, growing each day, and never losing track of their goal. This type of progress cannot happen by just mechanical focus on goals – there needs to be inherent passion and inspiration driving those goals. This is why it is important to do what the heart long for – it is impossible to become really good at something in which there is no heart.

It is said that a woman approached the famous spanish painter Pablo picasso and asked him for an autograph, which he signed. Then she said “I love your paintings. Can you please make me a quick sketch?” Picasso took her autograph book and in less than a minute drew a beautiful picture of the scenary around. The woman was stunned by the beautiful picture, thanked him and proceed to leave. Just as she turned, Picasso said “Lady – that will be a million dollars!” The woman, now shocked said “But it took you only 30 seconds to draw that”. To that Picasso said, “Yes, but it took me 30 years to be able to draw that in 30 seconds.”

Source: http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=208355592513997

Everything about Rockmelt (including IDM support)

Today, the browser connects you to your world. Why not build your world right into your browser? ~ Rockmelt team

With backing by Netscape founder Marc Andreessen and development team lead by Tim Howes and Eric Vishria, it was no wonder that the new “social media integrated” web browser “Rockmelt” received eye glances and raving media sensation following its private beta launch on November 8, 2010. It’s been close to 4 months since it’s beta launch, and while being still in it’s primitive beta stage, Rockmelt has already became heartthrob of many a facebook/twitter addicts. Following an invite only usage (to entice users in following it, nice publicity scheme i say), the browser is being marketed as “social” browser, with a heavy integration with facebook and twitter.

Privacy:

You can get Rockmelt from here, with the nifty price of giving away your facebook account information and further integrating it with your browser. You have to permit Rockmelt for seamless integration with your account, including your friend’s list, your wall, your photos, your activities and more. Privacy concerns, naturally arise. What if Rockmelt suddenly decide to generate ads for revenues and start stalking your data? In this regard, Rockmelt creators have given an in depth analysis for each of their permissions on their blog. Furthermore, they have assured users that no data of the kinds that incriminate privacy is stored, with privacy aspect being the top priority of RockMelt.

“We’re not running ad networks, so we’re not trying to target users in any way. We’re not storing personal information about users and what they do. We anonymize info about what users are doing. We never record info about users, what they’re doing online, searches they’re doing, anything like that.” said the creators.

We hope RockMelt to remain this way and dont break our trust on the ability of this awesome browser to respect our privacy.

Under the Hood:

Rockmelt is based on the  Chromium open source web browser project from which Google Chrome has derived its source code. Naturally, it uses the same layout engine (WebKit) that is employed by Google Chrome. So much so, you wont notice any difference between Google Chrome’s speed and Rockmelt’s speed of rendering a web page. So the fear of having to compromise on blazing fast speeds of Chrome is totally eliminated by Rockmelt’s superb enhancement of the lovable Chrome. The layout engine WebKit has been jointly built by Apple, Google and the open-source community but has the JavaScript engine replaced by Google’s own V8 JavaScript engine, also open-source.

The Layout:

After installing Rockmelt, and subsequently setting up the permissions, the first impression of Rockmelt can only be summed up as: Beautiful. Chrome users like me would feel right at home with Rockmelt’s interface. As i said before, Rockmelt can be summarized as “Enhancement of Chrome“, and it beautifully enhances Chrome in the layout aspect. All the basic look and feel of chrome is intact in Rockmelt. What’s new is the inclusion of Rails or “Edges” around the Top, Left and Right margin of the Browser window. These edges icons have been incorporated in such a way that the browser viewing space is not at all compromised. The left edge has all your facebook friends in neatly compiled vertical icons, the right edge has all the site feeds, applications and facebook/twitter feeds information and the top edge has a “Share” button to share your current webpage. The top edge also incorporates unique search box for easy google search. Also, any new facebook/twitter feed is shown via task bar from lower right corner of the screen. It displays the info and quietly vanishes away, completing its job of notifying users about new feeds. Bookmarks button is present right beside the URL window, with settings being accessed from the top left corner of the window. Overall, the look and aesthetic appeal of Rockmelt is palpable at it’s best. The looks can be further enhanced by using Chrome Themes from the Chrome Web Store. (as Rockmelt is basically Chrome). However, many themes are generally not compatible with Rockmelt as for now, and glitches are noticed. For example, when i installed a certain Rain Drops theme by Cyborg, i noticed the “backward/forward” button and “reload” button missing.

With Rockmelt still in early beta stage, it’s generally advisable not to install Themes as for now. We hope Rockmelt start there own Application/Theme center soon to fix this issue. The current theme is good, with light blue border encapsulating every edge. However, everyone loves a distinct visual variety in themes, to personify their own affection.

Tip: To uninstall theme, click on RockMelt (top right corner)>Options>Personal Stuff tab>And then click on the Reset to Default Themes under the Theme section.

Features:

1.) Facebook Integration: The powerful left edge:-

The idea of fully integrating Facebook/Twitter and other social networks within the browser is not new. Infact, competitor Flock has already tried such an attempt with their browser. Also, many 3rd party applications are available on the net that integrates facebook within the browser. However, a dedicated browser for the chief cause of simplifying social media needs is perhaps persistent with Rockmelt. Rockmelt seamlessly integrates two of social network’s giant, Facebook and Twitter. As stated before, the left edge contains all your friend’s list. This provides for nifty instantaneous chat with all your friends. The chat is a breeze, and feels more like instant messaging chat the kinds of YM. No more straining eyes on a small window. Also, if a blue border is surrounding your friend’s icon, it means that your friend has a recent activity under his account. In other words, you can view your friend’s entire recent activity from the chat window itself. The Recent Activity window displays everything, from pics to videos right from the chat window itself. Clicking on any of the links open the links in a new tab in the underlay window. This is very handy in keeping tabs with your friend’s activity. Other distinct feature is the ability to message your friend and write on your friend’s wall from the chat window itself. Also, hovering your mouse over your friend’s icon displays it’s current status update. Overall, the left edge is a complete package to write, chat, message and keep tabs with your friend. Further more, you can directly drag and drop any link on the friend’s icon you want to interact to send him/her the link on Chat, Message or Wall. It also provides a group by favorite friend’s list, with only favorite friends being displayed and available for chat in the window. Again, handy if you want to involve yourself with selected friends in a pool of large friend list. Also present on top of the left edge is the display profile of your account, from where you can go online/offline and update facebook/twitter status updates on the fly. However, more intricate features of Facebook Chat is missing. Chief among them is the inability to group chat. Also, the grouped list/friend list created in facebook is lost. Which means no longer you would be able to make selected annoying groups or friends list offline. Another factor is that for viewing the entire online friend list, you have to open up another overlay window by clicking on the bottom button of the left edge. As vertically, it would be practically impossible to incorporate your entire friends list. However, in facebook, a scroll bar is provided for this purpose. No scroll bars are however provided in the right edge. This doesnt hamper much of your progress, but many a times certain friends would go amiss because you were unable to view their online status (no “coming online” notification is provided!). We hope Rockmelt takes note of this and supplement a fully functional powerful facebook chat feature in it’s official iteration.

2.) Twitter Integration: The Application Right edge:-

Twitter is also integrated in the Rockmelt from the Application Edge in the right hand side of the browser window. Also present in this edge is the Facebook feed, news feed and streams from your favorite sites. Applications developed for Rockmelt and Google Chrome extensions are also present in this tab. Twitter integration, like facebook, is seamless. All you have to do is login from the nifty twitter button, and go on tweeting. The twitter button pops an overlay window displaying all your and your friends tweet. You can go on tweeting, retweeting and sharing the tweets. Like facebook recent activity window, Twitter Window displays every tweet complete with the pictures and videos. The URL are also completely displayed, unlike the twitter counterpart of shortened URLs. Nifty feature to go through entire tweetosphere in a glance. However, only official form of Retweeting is supported, with the ability to append your RTs missing. This right edge also contains news feed and RSS feeds from your favorite sites. The number of feeds are characterized by a small number on the feed icon, making it easier to ascertain the number of news feeds downpoured. One nifty feature is the ability to catch every RSS feed generated from the current window. Many a times, the app manager present in this edge turns green. This means that Rockmelt has captured a feed from the site, allowing for one click addition of feeds from your visited sites. It also categorises the captured feed based on your recent sites visited and your most visited sites.

Included again is the facebook news feed, which displays all your friend’s activity. You can also access your facebook profile from this edge, with the ability to view your notifications and wall. You cant however post on your wall or go on facebooking from the overlay window itself like twitter. You also cant control your facebook page from this window. As stated, the pane is for the feed only. Further, you have no control over viewing selected feeds (such as only status updates, photos or videos) of a few selected friends only. For a user with large friend list, it results in lots of unnecessary feed updates of which he might have no interest, such as application feed updates used by friends. Also, Top News feeds present in facebook is absent.

Lastly, the applications developed for Rockmelt are also included in this edge. Being from the Chrome scene, almost all of the Chrome’s extensions are supported by Rockmelt, and are present in this right edge. They can be controlled by the App Manager present in the edge. However, dedicated applications for RockMelt are in absence. They cant be said in not being in development, with the most recent being Youtube application. But we hope that with the official launch, several 3rd party applications will erupt for the Rockmelt scene.

3.) Search: The top Edge:

The Top edge has two distinct feature. The first one is the share button. It allows you to immediately share your current webpage to facebook and twitter with a pre-shortened link (for twitter). It’s a nice addition, as many web pages or interesting blogs warrant the share around. And not every blog or web page has “Share this” and “Tweet This” button. Another unique feature of Rockmelt is a innovative way of searching the net. Free of ads, whenever you search anything in the search box of the top edge, instead of opening up a new google window of search results, you get a column with the first ten results. You can then actually see the Web pages behind each result in the full browser window by tabbing through each result. This saves search time and is very handy for quick shuffling through the top results without having to open up 10 separate tabs.

However, the overlay search result window blocks certain area of the preloaded web page. Also, you cant scroll down into the loaded web window without having to fend off the result window (meaning, you have to search again after checking out the complete window). A minimize button in the overlay search result window would have solved the problem. Hopefully, RockMelt takes note of this. For most cases however, people are accustomed in searching from the URL box itself (as that’s the prime feature of Chrome). But this nifty search feature is a welcome addition. Just the missing feature is the ability to include other search engines such as wikipedia, yahoo etc. Rockmelt, by default supports only google search from the Search Box. Hopefully Rockmelt includes many diferent search engines by the time it officially launches.

4.) Other features and Notable bugs:

The other features of Rockmelt are more or less same as that of Chrome. The default window has more shortcuts this time, with the ability to view Recently closed tabs and Launching Chrome Applications. The settings is again borrowed that from Chrome, with the traditional  ”zoom” button provided for visually challenging websites and other features such as cut, copy, paste, and incognito options. Other things present is the ability to enable/disable the edges altogether, along with ability to enable/disable the feed popup . You can even control the edges by specifying how the links are opened from the edge. Advanced features include Ad Blocker, Form Auto Fill and Web Page pinning. Proxy support, Gears support, SSL Certification and Automatic Translation are also provided. However, as it’s still in early beta stage, several bugs are present. Some times i saw my scroll bar in the browser absent (wonder what’s with Rockmelt and Scroll bars). Also while watching youtube videos, Adobe Flash tended to crash while streaming. Some times when i went offline, and then presented myself back online, i saw my friend list in the right edge disoriented in the sense that it wasnt divided by Online first/Offline later list. Instead it was cluttered with online offline friends mixs. Also, the original Facebook Home page worked extremely slow sometimes, especially in group chat. I had to close and reopen the facebook home page to fix this Twice my Rockmelt browser crashed owing to heavy usage and multitudes of tabs open. Also, i have noticed that Rockmelt tends to work slightly faster in Windows 7 rather then XP. But i guess that’s just me. Also, even if you close Rockmelt, you are still logged into facebook. To completely log out of facebook and exit the browser, you have to “Log out of Rockmelt” via Rockmelt settings button. Also, to completely remove Rockmelt from your system, you have to first unauthorize the RockMelt application in Facebook. This can be achieved by going through Account>Privacy Settings>Edit Settings (under Applications on bottom left)>Selecting Rockmelt and Rockmelt Beta icons>Remove.

Being a beta browser, download manager supports are not present in RockMelt. However, you can incorporate the internet’s most widely used download manager, Internet Download Manager into RockMelt in much the same way as you incorporate in Chrome. In any case, here are the steps:

INSTALLING IDM IN ROCKMELT:

1.) Get the latest version of IDM (i use IDM 6.05)

2.) Go to Downloads>Options.

3.) In the General tab, Click on “use advanced browser integration” checkbox. It will warrant a system reboot.

4.) After reboot, go back to Downloads>Options and click on “Add Browser” button.

5.) Put down the .exe location of RockMelt by checking out the target of RockMelt from Desktop (Right click on RockMelt desktop icon, and clicking on properties, then Find Target button). It’s generally: C:\Documents and Settings\<user name>\Local Settings\Application Data\RockMelt\Application\Rockmelt.exe .

6.) Restart RockMelt, and voila! You are done. You can even download youtube videos. However, unlike Firefox, automatic naming wont be done in this case.

Conclusion:

Having explored every nooks and crannies of Rockmelt in the first 12 hours of BETA review, i can safely conclude that RockMelt is definitely the browser of the future. It seamlessly integrates the social networking experience with the browsing experience in an unprecedented way. Attempts like this have been tried in the past with less successful Flock. But RockMelt demonstrates the ability to engineer the world of sharing your thoughts any time you wish. What is evident in RockMelt is the big change in browsing experience it’s bringing, by streamlining your social network and your news stream into one single window. This seamless integration of Facebook, Twitter and News Stream is the hallmark of Rockmelt. Rockmelt basically takes your entire social network with you, wherever you go in the internet world, your social network always follows you in Rockmelt. However, not every user wants to take their facebook with them whenever they access the net. All of this data flow might be daunting for some users though. It’s natural of a certain normal guy to be vindicated by the amount of streams, digital tweetings, pop up updates and “glare” of the friend list while all he is doing is filling up a Bank Transaction. Many others would feel distracted by this constant downpour of shared information. In short, Rockmelt biggest strength of complete Social Network Integration most possibly can be it’s biggest weakness and the reason for rejection due to Information Overload. In other browsers, you can atleast keep open up a separate facebook tab and limit or prevent your distractions by significant amount, as you no longer would be bombarded on the fly with news feeds and facebook pop ups. In this regard, you can always disable the edges and pop up feeds in Rockmelt itself, however no difference would arise then between Rockmelt and other old horse browsers. Ultimately, this “distraction” argument is pointless, as Rockmelt is a solid work of art. It’s a product that creates a whole new world under a single window. With it’s plethora of features, easy integration with facebook/twitter, great browsing speed, news feed updates and Chrome functionality, Rockmelt easily melts us facebook addict hearts. Certain bugs are evident, however we hope that patches and a proprietary release would remove many of the bugs and put certain requests on the bandwaggon such as Group Chat Support, Different Search Engines Support, Other Social Network Support besides Facebook/Twitter and Theme/Application center. To finally conclude, we can say that Rockmelt stands true on it’s word of “building your world right into your browser”.

 

Nano Augmentation: A Reality?

Complete Introduction in Establishing Augmentation & Communication Process Through Artificial Nano Implant Digital Circuit Interface

Abstract:

One great scientific innovation lies in two of the most happening branches of Science, Nanotechnology and Augmentation Technology. Augmentation means connecting the physical world with the digital one in real time. However, the ongoing problem with the augmentation world is that no real time interface exists that can effectively bridge the gap between the physical world and the digital world. The current interface are mostly bulky (head mounts) or destructible (Ipad). They also don’t allow complete freedom of manipulation of the physical data and has considerable time lag in the digital world. To address this, Nano Technology comes into picture. Nano Technology allows us to create new sub atomic materials by manipulating matter the size of 1-100 nm. What is proposed here is implantation of Nano Augmentation, digital hardware the size of nanometers, manufactured with the help of Nano Technology. With Quantum mechanics at play, Nano Particles serve as perfect interface between the physical and the digital worlds. These Nano Implants can be then hardwired directly into human brain or nerve cells, hence forth making the time lag negligible. With advancement in laser surgery, it’s plausible to think of nano surgeries. Furthermore, with instructions hard coded into the nano implants, these nano augmentations can ease up significant number of human needs. A brain augmented person, for example, can have perfect memory retentive capacity, the ability to share information on the fly and the ability to process the physical world in cybernetic conception. Information exchange would increase significantly, as all people would be connected in the digital world. Concluding, we can say that even with the sheer risks involved, the endless possibilities poised by Nano Augmentation as an interface cant be ignored. It would completely change the standard of living, with the profound information exchange making the global village even smaller.

Introduction:

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.  ~A. Clarke

Mr. Clarke was perhaps very right in these words. We live in a world where magic exists, thanks to the ongoing technological revolution. One such technological innovation lies in perhaps two of the most happening branches of Science, The Nanotechnology and the Augmentation Technology.

Augmentation here has broad meaning, but processing the word in the scientific sense, it means modulating the Physical world with which we interact and moulding it with cyber interface. Speaking more specifically, augmenting means connecting the physical world and the digital world real time. Augmentation is generally achieved by Interfaces, such as head mounted displays, to connect the digital world and the physical world.

Nanotechnology is defined as the study of manipulating matter on an atomic and molecular scale (on the size of 1 to 100 nm). Broader sense again, we can actually manufacture hardwares the size of nanometers by manipulation of atoms and electrons. With Quantum mechanics at play, the implications of Nano Tech is huge. We can create new atomic level materials that can have effect on every conceivable genre of Science and Technology, especially medicines. But perhaps the most exciting aspect about nano technology is that it can help us bridge the gap between biology and hardware, as nano hardware can easily act as implants due to it’s sheer small size.

Hence forth, we can define Nano Augmentation as those nano hardwares or implants that can allow us to perceive the digital world in an augmented format. It allows us to conceive the cyber reality in real time and be digitally connected 24X7. Nano Implants blurs the boundaries between the physical and the digital world. It replaces the traditional existing interface, for example Ipad or 3D display, that is generally used for creating the cyber reality

Need: Problems with Existing Interface:

Although several attempts have been made to bridge the gap between the physical world and the digital world, it’s the interface which has always poised a problem. The existing interface has numerous problems that warrant a potential shift to nano implants.

• Bulky: The existing interface that offers a near about virtual reality experience are huge in size. Their bulkiness makes them an unnecessary factor in the augmentation experience.
• Destructible: Many such interfaces are destructive in nature, or can be easily misplaced or harmed. Their tendency to attract easy physical damage creates a problematic scenario.
• Time Delay: The existing interfaces, though offers near about complete augmentation experience, are severely limited by the delay in establishing connection between the physical and the cyber world. This delay hampers the ability of interfaces to attenuate the physical world event at exactly the same time in the cyber world, and vice versa.
• Incomplete: The interface never offers the complete augmentation experience, i.e the ability to perceive the cyber reality and the physical world, modifying it on the fly. They are limited to the simple commands.
• Complicated: The interface takes lots of time to set up the augmentation process. Additionally, they create lots of unnecessary hassles in establishing control.
• Dangerous: Current implants are mainly composed of electrodes, chiefly, 500 microns thick (5 times human hair). Additionally, they consist of several sharp electrodes (Brain Gate has 96 electrodes), which pose the danger of brain damages. Also, even if there are no implants, the traditional interface always pose a danger, be it hardware failure or bodily harm through improper electric insulation.

The Idea: Nano Augmentation

Redefining the Nano Augmentation word, they are the nano implants that replace the existing problematic interface, and serve as the new upgraded interface with many added functionalities. Using the concept of Nano Biology, they can also act as cell replacements in the near future.

A Nano implant is generally manufactured from inorganic materials such as silicon or germanium with the help of nano technology. They consist of Power supply, Communicator module, Chemical synthesizers, Nucleus probe with sensors and mechanical effectors and a virus detector/eliminator. The functionality of the implants are hard coded into them.

These nano implants are then surgically placed into the required body parts. The bottom line here lies in establishing a clear communication link between human nerves and the implant’s communicator module. These communications are enhanced using partially invasive Brain Computer Interface (BCI) methods or Biosensors. Partially invasive BCI means that the implants are not inserted into the brain or the said body part, instead, the implants are just glazed into the surface of the brain or the said body part. Hence forth, it is necessary that the implant must depict an almost artificial neuron behavior, as for real time communication process it is mandatory to instigate an artificial immune & communication system. That’s because it’s our body’s immune system that acts as an interface between the human thought process and the neurons. We seek to inject this natural interface with our artificial one, so as to grasp the human thought process and transform it into digital commands via Nano Implants. Hence forth, the nano implants, at it’s basic, must depict artificial neuron behavior as far as possible.

The communication process of body and hardware would happen between the tendrils of human neurons and the implants, much like the neurons interact with other cells. Nerve signals generated by action potentials and electrical energies generated by brain cortex, or specific area of brains would be detected by Bio sensors, and then transferred to the Communication module inside the nano implants for feedback. The implants would generate a similar target signal to interact with the human body. Broadly speaking again, a similiar kind of interface would be formed between human thought and artificial implants, much as the interface that is formed between human thought and neurons.

Once the implants are in place, they are activated to connect digitally with the cyber world. Here, the communication process with the global net happens with the help of Wi-Fi, or more specifically, Radio Waves. Hence, a proper interface is established between the cyber world, the physical world and the human body.

Communication Process:

Given above is communication process that happens between Nano Implant and the VR application. The connected implant picks up the EM signatures or signals generated from the brain cortex or target dendrite. These electrical signals are then digitized, processed in real time, translated to the application signal and then finally, the signal commands are transferred to the said VR application via Wi-Fi in the form of Radio waves. The reverse happens in case we want a feedback from the VR application. The received Wi-Fi or radio wave signal is converted into the electrical form, and then fired back into the neurotic network or the targetted dendrite via Implant’s Communication Module. Henceforth, a two way connecton is established almost seamlessly.

Given above is the core circuit design for the nano Implant. The above pic is the nobel prize winning Hodgkin–Huxley model which accurately depicts the action potential of a neuron. Basically, it is a set of nonlinear ordinary differential equations that approximates the electrical characteristics of excitable cells such as neurons and cardiac myocytes. The lipid bilayer is represented as a capacitance (C_m). Voltage-gated and leak ion channels are represented by nonlinear (g_n) and linear (g_L) conductances, respectively. The electrochemical gradients driving the flow of ions are represented by batteries (E), and ion pumps and exchangers are represented by current sources (I_p). We can use this model as the core circuitary for the nano implants. The simplfied equations in the FitzHugh-Nagumo model would further ease the process of creating the digital nano circuit. Bottom line, Hodgkin-Huxley model acts as the partial blueprint towards creation of artificial neuron circuits in the form of nano implants. The equation would read as:

• is the membrane potential,
• is a recovery variable,
• is the magnitude of stimulus current.

The existing Hodgkin-Huxley model has been extended a lot since it’s inception, but we must note that at it’s core, the model would serve it’s purpose. What is meant is that by expanding and extending the Hodgin-Huxley model, we can create or recreate a suitable Nano Implant digital model. Most notable in this regard is the Cable Theory model, where the existing model is depicted as as a cylindrical structure undergoing a regular pattern of bifurcation, with total output conductance given as:

Henceforth, creating the digital circuitry wont be much of a hassle.

Now we discuss the equations once the artificial implants are in place with the natural neuron circuit. For a given artificial neuron, let there be m + 1 inputs with signals x₀ through x_m and weights w₀ through w_m. Usually, the x₀ input is assigned the value +1, which makes it a bias input with w_k0 = b_k. This leaves only m actual inputs to the neuron: from x₁ to x_m. The output of kth neuron is: Where (phi) is the transfer function.

Furthermore:

Hence we can see, the output behavior is analogous to a natural axon circuit of a human neuron. Its value propagates to input of the next layer, through a synapse. It may also exit the system, possibly as part of an output vector. Broadly speaking, the output of the kth neuron, in this case our artificial implant, would be analogous to the output of the kth natural neuron in the complicated dendrite circuit. Henceforth, we would take inputs from several targetted dendrites, and calculate the output of the artificial implant using the given equation, faciliating our knowledge of the output voltage generated in the Hodgin-Huxley model or the reimagined Nano Implant digital circuit.

The above pic approximately denotes the nano electrode which we would use for the partially invasive BCI process. As explained before, we wont be fitting the implants directly into human brain, as that would prove to be very dangerous to the brain in case hardware failure happens. Henceforth, we would need electrodes to extract the signals generated from the human neurons. To faciliate this process, we would need nano electrodes. The entire implant except the electrodes would be properly insulated to prevent any kind of electrical leakage. The electrodes itself would be made of gold as molecular pharmacologist Roberta Brinton has discovered that neurons adhere better to gold than to other substances.

Even after we create the nano implant, we would need the functionality hard coded into them. For that purpose, we would need an algorithm to program the digital implants in depiciting the artificial neuron behavior. The following is a simple pseudocode implementation of a single step function of a neuron. It takes boolean inputs (true or false), and returns a single boolean output when activated. An object-oriented model is used. If a purely functional model were used, the class TLU below would be replaced with a function TLU with input parameters threshold, weights, and inputs that returned a boolean value.

class TLU defined as:
  data member threshold : number
  data member weights : list of numbers of size X
  function member fire( inputs : list of booleans of size X ) : boolean defined as:
   variable T : number
   T ← 0
   for each i in 1 to X :
    if inputs(i) is true :
     T ← T + weights(i)
    end if
   end for each
   if T > threshold :
    return true
   else:
    return false
   end if
  end function
 end class 
In quite a similiar fashion that we would apply to Hodgkin-Huxley model, we could modify this algorithm to serve our purpose in coding the functionality of the artificial nano implant. The coding itself would be done is processor language. But at the core would lie this algorithm which accurately depicts the step function of a neuron.
Advantages and New Problems:
The need to shift to new Nano Interface can be argued by the sheer number of advantages it offers. It completely rectifies the many defects of the existing bulky interfaces. Owing to their very tiny size, the bulkiness factor is immediately rectified. Secondary, with instructions hard coded into the implants, no scope of any kind of tampering arises with the implants. Since these are natural implants, they would be a medical ease to fit by, kind of similar to the establishment of prosthetic limb (which is a medical ease nowadays). Also, since these implants would be in direct synchronous with human body, no factor of any time delay can arise. They would also be superior to the traditional implants in every aspect, posing no danger to the brain or organs whatsoever due to the very tiny size of the electrodes.
However, certain problems do arise. Chief among them is the Surgical process itself. Will it survive? The answer to this rhetorical question lies in the fact that recent advancements in Laser Surgery and their applications have simplified the process. So implantation wouldn’t be much of a hassle. Much complicated implantations have been done with Prosthesis in this regard. Critics here might circumvent to Hardware failures. But hardware failure is a thing acknowledged by all engineers as unavoidable (Murphy’s Law). We can though, reduce the damages posed. The implants can be made as such to melt under certain set of chemicals, posing no damage. These chemicals can be artifically taken in the form of medicinal pills. Furthermore, the implants would disconnect with human body in a similar fashion as a cell dies and a switch is offed. Another thing might circumvent towards the sheer information overload due to the 24X7 connection. However, just like we choose what to see or download from the internet, we could control the information exchange in quite the same fashion. Plausible Radio Wave damages might again pose a problem. However, no solid proof has been yet known to the engineers that radio waves damages human cells. Furthermore, multiplexing technique (dividing the simultaneous frequency transmission into different spectrum range) can altogether remove the little bit of risks involved.
Typical Augmented Case Study



A brain augmented person would have revolutionary advantages over the existing humans. Perfect memory retentive capacity, the ability to store memory in another body if the current one retires and the ability to process the physical world in cybernetic conception are among some of the innovative features that could be implemented by the use of implants. Typical example of a memory augmented person would be a being who wakes up in the morning, has all his appointments and schedules flashed right before his eyes (via visual implants if need be), would download all the news or information directly into his augmented memory and everything he needs to know or remember would be flashed before his eyes in a matter of seconds. Ofcourse, his organic brain would be unharmed, as the organic brain is the receiver of all the augmented output the person perceives. Visual Augmentation yields even more possibilities, the ability to know the likes and dislikes about a person (similar to a facebook profile, only digital) in real time, the ability to download the information of, say a tourist building, in a flash, ability to see clearly in the dark with inbuilt night sensors and many others. Physical augmentation would allow a person to directly link himself with the cybernetic interface (ranging from anything like an advanced public directory or a super computer) and seek and process the information in real time. The world would change as we know it, with the boundaries between the cyber world and physical world being blurred.
Conclusion



Concluding on, we can say that even with the sheer risks involved, the endless possibilities poised by Nano Augmentation couldn’t be ignored. It addresses the current bulky problems posed by traditional interface, and adds much needed functionalities. Implants would communicate directly with human nerves with the help of bio sensors and direct targeting of human cortex, making it one of the fastest implants. Some problems might arise, especially in the means of Information Overflow and Hardware Control. However none of them are problems that cant be addressed.
Nano Augmentation would completely change the standard of living, with the sheer information exchange making the global village even smaller. It would connect us in unison and perhaps erase the political boundaries altogether. With Nano Technology and Digital Augmentation being the newest technological rage, it’s only imperative that the combined usage of Nano Augmentation would perhaps be the most fruitful discovery of our times.
References:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1392213/?tool=pmcentrez
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/picrender.fcgi?artid=1392219&blobtype=pdf
http://www.pnas.org/content/102/28/9790.full
http://prl.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v102/i22/e226802
http://scholarpedia.org/article/FitzHugh-Nagumo_Model

 
 

					
				

HTML vs XHTML: A Brief Introduction

First developed in 1980 by physicist Tim Berners-Lee, currently HTML or Hyper Text Markup Language is perhaps the most well-known markup language for web page design, allowing the usage of simple codes or tags to process, define and present a scintillating web page. Considered as the building blocks of all websites, HTML provides a means to create structured documents by denoting structural semantics for text and images. Embedding client-side scripting (eg: Java-scripts) and reference to Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) further enhances it’s flexibility and control over a web page.

However, while HTML was based on Generalized Markup Language (later SGML) based markup rules, a new markup language titled XHTML (eXtensible HyperText Markup Language) was formulated to address the general document problems and other more complex and human-oriented features persisting with SGML. Based on XML (Extensible Markup Language), XHTML allows greater control over the “meta language” feature, i.e allowing users to create any tags needed (hence “extensible”) and then describing those tags and their permitted uses. Owing to it’s simplicity and flexibility, XHTML quickly became popular and became W3C Recommendations since January 2000.

However, not much of a difference lies in between XHTML and HTML, as XHTML is basically a ‘reformulation of HTML as an XML application‘, or has the same set of element types and semantics as HTML, heavily mirroring it (one of the prime reasons for the smooth transition). But there are many core syntactical differences, mainly that all XHTML elements must be properly nested, must always be closed, must be in lowercase and always have one root element present. Other notable difference lies in Behavioral response to Scripts and CSS. These differences allows for consistency in the syntax and paves it’s way for more rigorous document creation.

Additionally, XHTML incorporates XSLT (Extensible Style sheet Language Transformations) technology, which is tremendously useful to create various new resources automatically from an XHTML document (eg: creating table of content or RSS feed directly from web page). XHTML clearly is easier to learn and maintain and gains an upper hand with it’s robust set of features and future readiness.

However, for the end user, not much of a difference would arise in an HTML created web page or XHTML created document. Infact, the only way to make the markup language recognize the document as XHTML is by using the xmlns attribute in the tag (xmlns=”http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml&#8221;). Both HTML and XHTML created document would be perceived as mostly same while viewed from the web browser.

So the question arises, which one to choose? Perhaps the simplest answer to this paradigm would be “Using the right tool for the right job”. A web designer would have to evaluate the status of his project and the extent of features he wishes to use. For future readiness and using advanced features of searching, indexing and parsing, XHTML would serve the purpose. However, for simplicity and widespread usage (as IE still doesn’t support XHTML), HTML would more than suffice. In the end though, both are equally versatile, flexible and offer unprecedented control over web page coding.