Letter by ABDUL KALAM

TINY BLOGGIE TOUCH - captures in full HD gets sociable

Sony first revealed the Bloggie camcorder at the CES earlier this year, less than a year later though Sony have now revealed the new Bloggie Touch. Boasting a three-inch capacitive touchscreen, the new Bloggie Touch MHS-TS20K packs either 4GB or 8GB of internal memory, and will capture full HD 1080p video as well as 12.8-megapixel still images courtesy of the F2.8 wide angle lens and Exmor CMOS sensor.

Along its slick, stylish thin body, you’ll find a built-in USB connector and an HDMI output port. Other features on the so-called snap camera include options to easily share your photos and videos on various social networking sites and 360 degrees panoramic video and photo capture.

Here’s the official word for those of you who are interested…

MAINFRAMES BEING THE OLDEST TECHNOLOGIES NO OTHER COULD REPLACE IT...

1960's	Burroughs B5000 mainframe introduced. The system can be considered the first of the "third generation" of computer systems. The most remarked-upon aspects are its use of a hardware-managed stack for calculation, and the extensive use of descriptors for data access. It included virtual memory -- perhaps the first commercial computer to do so -- as well as support for multiprogramming and multiprocessing.
1964	CDC (Computer Data Corp.) 6600 shipped; 100 nsec cycle time.
	First GE Time-sharing operation at Dartmouth College of the DTSS Dartmouth time-sharing system on a GE-265 (GE-225 + Datanet-30)
	IBM announces the 360 family of computer systems.
	The Burroughs B5500, appeared. It also had multiprogramming and virtual memory capabilities, but was three times faster than the B5000
1965	IBM ships the midrange 360 model 40 computer which had COBOL and FORTRAN programming languages available as well as the stock Basic Assembly Language (BAL) assembler.
	Introduction of GECOS-II, a multi-programming operating system for the GE-600
1966	The Burroughs B6500, which was actually an improved version of the B5500.
1967	First IBM 360/Model 91 shipped to NASA GSFC.
1969	First shipment of the CDC 7600 computer system.
	First shipment of IBM 360 Model 85. The 360 family was intended to have 3 operating systems: DOS/360 operating system for the small machines. It could run two "real-time" sessions and one batch session. OS/360 operating system for the midrange and high end. TSS/360 operating system for Time-sharing Multi-user system
	Introduction of Honeywell model 115 in the H-200 product line. The line was renamed H-2000 after models 115/2, 1015 and 2015 introduced in January 1971, and model 2020 and 2030 in December 1972 after the GE merger. The line was eventually merged into Series6 0 NPL through a H-200 mode (emulator) on level 64.
	Introduction of GE-655 that was better known as H-6000 after 1970.
1970	Burroughs announces the 700 series. The first B6700 computer systems were installed during 1971. It was the first Burroughs machine with dynamic linking of programs at runtime. The B6700 line started out with one CPU and one i/o processor and could be expanded up to a maximum of three CPUs and two i/o processors.
	Formal acquisition of Bull-General Electric by Honeywell. BGE takes the name of Honeywell-Bull.
	IBM announces a family of machines with an enhanced instruction set, called System/370. The 370s proved so popular that there was a two-year waiting list of customers who had ordered a systems.
	A giant dies: Announcement of the cession of the world-wide GE computer business, except time-sharing to Honeywell.
1971	US Air Force orders several Honeywell H-6000 WWMCCS (World Wide Military Command and Control System), a $3.5M contract.
	First shipments of IBM S/370 Models 155 and 165 as well as the S/360 Model 195.
1973	Introduction of virtual memory on IBM S/370 Models 158 and 168.
1975	Amdahl 470 V/6 computer system delivered to NASA.
1977	The Burroughs Scientific Processor was developed, and announced.
	IBM 3033 computer system announced
1979	The Burroughs 900-level systems were introduced.
1985	The most powerful IBM computer system of its time, the 3090 high-end processor of the IBM 308X computer series incorporated one-million-bit memory chips, Thermal Conduction Modules to provide the shortest average chip-to-chip communication time of any large general purpose computer. The Model 200 (entry-level with two central processors) and Model 400 (with four central processors) IBM 3090 had 64 and 128 megabytes of central storage, respectively. At the time of announcement, the purchase price of a Model 200 was $5 million. A later six-processor IBM 3090 Model 600E, using vector processors, could perform computations up to 14 times faster than the earlier four-processor IBM 3084.
1990	The ES/9000 models came out with fiber-optical I/O channels (ESCON), and IBM began using the name System/390. The ES/9000s exploited new technologies, such as high-speed fiber optic channels with IBM's new ESCON architecture, ultra-dense circuits and circuit packaging that provided higher performance, extended supercomputing capabilities and twice the processor memory previously available. The line spanned a 100-fold performance range increase from the smallest (model 120) to the most powerful (model 900 six-way multiprocessor). Basic purchase prices for the air-cooled processors of ES/9000 ranged from approximately $70,500 to $3.12 million. Basic purchase prices for the water-cooled models ranged from $2.45 million to $22.8 million.
1999	IBM releases a new generation of S/390.
2002	The S/390 G5/G6 enterprise server family has up to 256 channels, from 2 to 8 Cryptographic Coprocessors, from 8 to 32 Gigabytes of memory, and can run under OS/390, MVS, VM, VSE, or TPF operating systems. It can also host an unbelievable amount of hard drive storage. Let's see a PC match that!
2004	The 3/4 ton IBM eServer zSeries 890, dubbed the "Baby Shark" can host up to 32 GBytes of memory. The four PCIX Crypto Coprocessor (and optional PCI Crypto Accelerators) on the z890 have seven engine levels, giving a total of 28 capacity settings overall. With it's advanced virtualization technology the 64-bit z890 can run several operating systems at the same time including z/OS, OS/390®, z/VM®, VM/ESA®, VSE/ESA, TPF and Linux for zSeries and Linux for S/390®. The z890 is upgradeable within z890 family and can also upgrade to z990 from select z890 configurations. Configured with the new Enterprise Storage Server Model 750 which handles from 1.1TB up to 4.6TB of data, the x890 makes an awesome server.
2007	IBM produces the Blue-Gene/P, a system capable of a petaflop (1,000,000 gigaflops or 1,000 teraflops). It sports 73,728 processors comprised of four cores each of IBM’s 850MHz PowerPC 450, resulting in 294,912 cores. The system can be scaled to nearly three times that size, resulting in a 3 petaflop capability and is all hooked up via a high-end optical network.

VIA reveals 1.6GHz Nano DC processor at Computex, shows it handling 720p (video)

Guess who showed up at Computex with an all-new dual-? Nah, we're t referring to AMD or Intel (though they certainly did) -- we're talking about VIA . The company quietly (re)introduced a dual-core desktop chip here in Taipei, with the codename Nano DC being used to describe it for the time being. The device utilized a VN1000 Digital Media Chipset and fully supported dual-channel DDR3 memory. A Chrome 520 GPU was helping to push out a 720p movie trailer on the demo system, and the innate compatibility with HDMI and DisplayPort should keep home cinema owners happy. The 65nm chip was clocked at 1.6GHz, and we were told that it wouldn't be venturing into mobile machines in its current form. 'Course, this device has been a bit of unicorn for the past couple of years, but company representatives seemed certain that it would finally be ready to ship (using a different process technology, mind you) in around six months. We shall see. Live action video is just past the break.

One Step at a Time – Power Generating Floors at Tokyo

Train Stations

In two Tokyo train stations, steps are under way to generate electricity from the floors of the ticket gates and staircases. If successful, passengers could help provide the train stations with 1,400 kilowatts per second each day.

Soundpower The science of piezoelectricity

Tokyo train station, 8 a.m. One of the 400,000 daily commuters passes through the ticket gate and walks the stairs to the train platform, as he has always done. But, for the moment, this walk is different. For each step the commuter takes, he generates electricity. The floors have been outfitted with power-generating mats that capture the vibrations of the pedestrian and transforms them into electricity.

So far, the power-generating floors are only on trial in two Japanese train stations – the Tokyo station and Shibuya station, which is used by about 2.4 million people on an average week day. When the test period ends in February 2009, the makers –Soundpower Corp. and East Japan Railway Company (JR East) – hope the floors have improved to the point that they can provide all the electricity needed to run the automatic ticket gates and electronic display systems.

Ten steps at a time

The technique behind the power-generating floors is called piezoelectricity, and comes from the ability of some materials to generate an electric potential when stressed or squeezed. When a person steps on one of the mats, the piezoelectric elements beneath it are stretched a little by the weight to produce a small electric current, which is captured by a mini-generator that turns it into electricity. (Read more about piezoelectricity).

In late 2006, when JR East and Soundpower Corp. first put the piezoelectric floor to a test in the Tokyo train station, one average person with the weight of 60 kg (approx. 130 lbs.) generated 0.1 watt stepping across the tile. When the experiment was repeated in 2007, this power generating capacity had increased tenfold to 1 watt per second, along with an improvement in the resilience of the floor.

After the current trial period ends, in February 2009, construction engineers expect another tenfold increase in the generating capacity per passenger – with an aim of 10 watt per second, as well as a two-month capacity decrease of "only" 90%.

If these figures hold, an average of 1,400 kilowatts per second will be produced by the power-generating tiles covering 25 square meters of floor at Tokyo station's Yaesu ticket exit and seven steps of a staircase inside the gate each day. According to JR East, this will be sufficient to run the automatic ticket gates and the electronic display systems.

Dance floors, shopping malls, roads

While the idea of power-generating floors seems especially well suited for train stations where there are always people walking around, it is also being tested elsewhere. All that is required is some sort of kinetic power – someone or something moving to produce "good vibrations."

In London and Rotterdam clubs, power generating-dance floors have already been introduced to absorb the movements of the dancing crowd and turn it into electricity.

In Israel, "energy-harvesting" firm Innowattech is paving the way for power-generating roads, as well as power-generating railways and airport landing and takeoff runways. According to Innowattech, on a busy expressway with 20 cars and trucks passing per minute, one kilometer of road (0.62 miles) could produce up to 1 megwatt per hour.

In the UK, British engineer David Webb of the consultancy Scott Wilson says the "heel strike mechanism" – a technology related to piezoelectricity – is likely soon to be installed in railways, supermarkets, shopping malls, etc., as the technology proves more viable. According to Webb, the probable place to start will be the touristy Spinnaker Tower in Portsmouth.

PRESS RELEASE

SatNav launches new Entertainment device with Navigation

Company releases Ver 8.0 maps and strengthens presence in the North

New Delhi, January 8, 2010 – SatNav Technologies, the pioneers in GPS Navigation in India since 2005 and market leaders by far, today launched their latest device, SatGuide Moov200 3.5” Entertainment device with Navigation. The product was unveiled at a glittering function held at a city hotel, attended by over 200 sales and business partners of the company. The device is sleek and unique as it has video, audio and photo features—a first among other products in its category. The product has SiRF StarIII GPS chipset which comes with Instafix technology helping locate the position in the shortest possible time. With a 2GB memory and its ability to play all file formats, this device stands out among all products sold by players in the Indian market today.

The new addition to the family comes with SatNav’s Ver 8.0 maps released today, which boast of highest street coverage spanning across 628 cities and with whopping 2 million Points of Interest. Major cities are constantly updated by survey and customer feedback, and an additional 200+ cities have been added since the previous version of maps. The POIs are arranged in 42 different categories like Airlines, Airports, ATMs etc for the convenience of the user. SatNav intends to continue this

Competitively priced at just Rs 13,990, SatGuide Moov200 device will be extensively sold through their distributors such as Gras Impex, Galiakotwala and also be available at major Large Format Retailers (LFRs) like Car Plus, Xcite, Jumbo, Gizmos, Croma, EZone, Reliance Digital, Autozone, Staples etc., across the country. SatNav has recently strengthened its presence in the North with a dynamic 10 member sales team, headed by the President of Sales - Surinder Saini who leads their All India Channel Sales. At the same time, they have also setup a strategic alliance with a strong distributor Gras Impex to further strengthen their presence across the country. This dedicated sales team will be based out of the Delhi office of SatNav.

Speaking at the launch Amit Prasad, CEO, SatNav Technologies said “SatNav strongly believes in innovation to develop economical and efficient products which cater to the needs of the Indian consumers, bringing savvy Moov200 Entertainment device which also offers GPS Navigation is another step in that direction. We have over 100 leading stores selling our products in each metro city today and we look forward to further ramp that up in the coming months."

Hardware
CPU	Samsung
GPS Chipset	20-channel SiRFstarIII
RAM / Memory	32+ MB minimum / 2 GB
Memory Slot	SD/MMC (Compatible)
Color Display	3.5" TFT with Touchscreen
Resolution	320 x 240 Pixels (WQVGA)
Display Orientation	Landscape
Battery	Un-swappable rechargeable Lithium battery cell
Battery Capacity	720 mAh
Battery Life	Up to 2.5 Hrs
USB	Yes (V 2.0)
Speaker	Yes
Earphone Jack	N/A
Depth	17.7 mm (0.7")
Width	98 mm (3.8")
Height	84 mm (3.3")
Weight	145 g (5.11oz)
Software
Navigation software & Maps	SatGuide Navigation software & Maps
Video Player	.mp4/.mov/.avi/.3gp/.asf/.wmv
Audio Player	MP3/WAV/WMA
Picture Viewer	.jpg/.jpeg/.gif/.bmp

About SatNav Technologies

Incorporated on January 9, 2004, SatNav Technologies is an ISO certified IT Products Company that is a pioneer in GPS Navigation products. SatNav’s products include an immensely popular GPS Navigation Product SatGuide available at hundreds of stores all over the country including leading retailers like Croma, EZone, Reliance, ABRL, Staples among others - that is helping customers “Never Get Lost!” , variants include Navigation solutions for dedication navigation devices, PDAs, Phones, Laptops, Desktops, SatGuide Logger among others. Also in SatNav portfolio are unique products; a Business Infrastructure Management System, a-mantra; and an online directions portal Roadsofindia.com, among others.