Sixth Sense Technology

Pranav Mistry

Nothing can be and can not be one and at the same time and I am. I am Pranav Mistry. 

Currently, I am the Head of Think Tank Team and Director of Research of Samsung Research America. Before that I was a Research Assistant and PhD candidate at the MIT Media Lab. In past, I worked with Microsoft, Google, CMU, NASA, UNESCO, Japan Science & Technology to name a few. I received my Master in Media Arts and Sciences from MIT and Master of Design from IIT Bombay. I received my bachelors degree in Computer Science and Engineering. Oh, I also dropped out of Architecture School prior to that. Palanpur, a small town situated in northern Gujarat in India, is my hometown. 

Exposure to fields like Design to Technology and from Art to Psychology gave me a quite nice/interesting viewpoint to the world. I love to see technology from design perspective and vice versa. This vision reflects in almost all of my projects and research work as well. in short, I do what I love and I love what I do. I am a 'Desigineer' :) 

Cloud Computing System

DEFINITION

“Cloud computing refers to applications and services offered over the Internet. These services are offered from data centers all over the world, which collectively are referred to as the "cloud." This metaphor represents the intangible, yet universal nature of the Internet”.

The idea of the "cloud" simplifies the many network connections and computer systems involved in online services. In fact, many network diagrams use the image of a cloud to represent the Internet. This symbolizes the Internet's broad reach, while simplifying its complexity. Any user with an Internet connection can access the cloud and the services it provides. Since these services are often connected, users can share information between multiple systems and with other users.

Applications

Examples of cloud computing include online backup services, social networking services, and personal data services such as Apple's MobileMe. Cloud computing also includes online applications, such as those offered through Microsoft Online Services. Hardware services, such as redundant servers, mirrored websites, and Internet-based clusters are also examples of cloud computing.

A simple example of cloud computing is webmail. Anyone can access their webmail from anywhere in the world simply by knowing the web address of the webmail service, there's no need to know the name of the server or an ip address or anything else. e.g. Yahoo email or Gmail etc. You don’t need a software or a server to use them. All a consumer would need is just an internet connection and you can start sending emails. The server and email management software is all on the cloud (internet) and is totally managed by the cloud service provider Yahoo, Google etc. The consumer gets to use the software alone and enjoy the benefits.

The analogy is, 'If you only need milk , would you buy a cow ?' All the users or consumers need is to get the benefits of using the software or hardware of the computer like sending emails etc. Just to get this benefit (milk) why should a consumer buy a (cow) software /hardware ?

HOW THE TECHNOLOGY WORKS?

Cloud computing is broken down into three segments: "applications," "platforms," and "infrastructure." Each segment serves a different purpose and offers different products for businesses and individuals around the world.

Applications:

• Salesforce.com (NYSE:CRM) offers customer relationship management (CRM) application services in the Software as a Service (SaaS) Industry.

·        Google Inc (NASDAQ: GOOG), a global information technology leader, specializes in how people access and interact with information.

·        NetSuite Inc. is a vendor of on-demand, integrated business management application suites for small and medium-sized businesses.

·        Concur Technologies is a provider of business services that automate the processes involved in the management of corporate expense.

·        Oracle

·        SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) is the world's leading provider in business software and is the top provider in 20 of the 25 industries that it serves.

Platforms:

Many of the companies that started out providing On Demand application services have developed platform services as well. The platform segment of cloud computing refers to products that are used to deploy internet. NetSuite, Amazon, Google, and Microsoft have also developed platforms that allow users to access applications from centralized servers.

• Google (GOOG) - Apps Engine
• Amazon.com (AMZN) - EC2
• Microsoft (MSFT) - Windows Azure
• SAVVIS (SVVS) - Symphony VPDC
• Terremark Worldwide (TMRK) - The Enterprise Cloud
• Salesforce.com (CRM) - Force.com
• NetSuite (N) - Suiteflex
• Rackspace Cloud - cloudservers, cloudsites, cloudfiles
• Metrisoft - Metrisoft SaaS Platform

Infrastructure:

Below are companies that provide infrastructure services:

• Google (GOOG) - Managed hosting, development environment
• International Business Machines (IBM) - Managed hosting
• SAVVIS (SVVS) - Managed hosting & cloud computing
• Terremark Worldwide (TMRK) - Managed hosting
• Amazon.com (AMZN) - Cloud storage
• Rackspace Hosting (RAX) - Managed hosting & cloud computing

BENEFITS

In June 2009, a study conducted by VersionOne found that 41% of senior IT professionals actually don't know what cloud computing is and two-thirds of senior finance professionals are confused by the concept, highlighting the young nature of the technology. In Sept 2009, an Aberdeen Group study found that disciplined companies achieved on average an 18% reduction in their IT budget from cloud computing and a 16% reduction in data center power costs.

TOP THREATS TO CLOUD COMPUTING

Threat #1: Abuse and Nefarious Use of Cloud Computing

Criminals continue to leverage new technologies to improve their reach, avoid detection, and improve the effectiveness of their activities. Cloud Computing providers are actively being targeted, partially because their relatively weak registration systems facilitate anonymity, and providers’ fraud detection capabilities are limited.

Example:-IaaS offerings have hosted the Zeus botnet, InfoStealer trojan horses, and downloads for Microsoft Office and Adobe PDF exploits. Additionally, botnets have used IaaS servers for command and control functions. Spam continues to be a problem — as a defensive measure, entire blocks of IaaS network addresses have been publicly blacklist.

Threat #2: Insecure Interfaces and APIs

While most providers strive toensure security is well integrated into their service models, it is critical for consumers of those services to understand the security implications associated with the usage, management, orchestration and monitoring of cloud services. Reliance on a weak set of interfaces and APIs exposes organizations to a variety of security issues related to confidentiality, integrity, availability and accountability.

Example:- Anonymous access and/or reusable tokens or passwords, clear-text authentication or transmission of content, inflexible access controls or improper authorizations, limited monitoring and logging capabilities, unknown service or API dependencies.

Threat #3: Malicious Insiders

The impact that malicious insiders can have on an organization is considerable, given their level of access and ability to infiltrate organizations and assets. Brand damage, financial impact, and productivity losses are just some of the ways a malicious insider can affect an operation. As organizations adopt cloud services, the human element takes on an even more profound importance. It is critical therefore that consumers of cloud services understand what providers are doing to detect and defend against the malicious insider threat.

Threat #4: Shared Technology Issues

Attacks have surfaced in recent years that target the shared technology inside Cloud Computing environments. Disk partitions, CPU caches, GPUs, and other shared elements were never designed for strong compartmentalization. As a result, attackers focus on how to impact the operations of other cloud customers, and how to gain unauthorized access to data.

Threat #5: Data Loss or Leakage

Data loss or leakage can have a devastating impact on a business. Beyond the damage to one’s brand and reputation, a loss could significantly impact employee, partner, and customer morale and trust. Loss of core intellectual property could have competitive and financial implications. Worse still, depending upon the data that is lost or leaked, there might be compliance violations and legal ramifications.

Examples:-Insufficient authentication, authorization, and audit (AAA) controls; inconsistent use of encryption and software keys; operational failures; persistence and remanence challenges: disposal challenges; risk of association; jurisdiction and political issues; data center reliability; and disaster recovery.

Windows Presentation Foundation

GXTechno Tags: .net, .net4, wpf, windows, presentation, foundation, new in wpf

Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) is a next-generation presentation system for building Windows client applications with visually stunning user experiences. With WPF, you can create a wide range of both standalone and browser-hosted applications.
It is a Next-Generation User Experiences. Windows Presentation Foundation, WPF, provides a unified framework for building applications and high-fidelity experiences in Windows that blend application UI, documents, and media content. WPF offers developers 2D and 3D graphics support, hardware-accelerated effects, scalability to different form factors, interactive data visualization, Windows 7 features including multi-touch, and superior content readability.

What's New in WPF 4 - feature review

.NET 4 is the best .NET release to date. I'm really proud of what the teams accomplished here, from the new features in WPF to integrating MEF, to the performance improvements, to the newer, smaller client runtime. Awesome stuff.
Visual Studio 2010
WPF Tracing Support
WPF Designer
Text
New Text Rendering Stack
ClearTypeHint
Selection and Caret Customization
Custom Dictionaries API
Graphics
Layout Rounding
Cached Composition
Pixel Shader 3
New Pixel Shader APIs
Easing Functions
Removal of legacy bitmap effects
Controls
DataGrid
Calendar
DatePicker
Binding
Binding Commands on InputBinding
Bind to Dynamic Objects
Bindable Text Run
Styling and Templating
Visual State Manager
Windows 7
Multi-Touch and Manipulation
Integration with the Shell and Taskbar
General
Client Profile
Managed Extensibility Framework
Parallel Computing
XBAP Script Access

Google's New Technology

Smart Internet search will be able to do with a mobile device in the NEAR future� A mobile device with Touch screen, built in camera, scanner, WiFi, google map (hopefully google earth), google search, image search… Like this way, when you can see a building through it, it gives you the image search result right on the spot. Choose a building and touch a floor and it tells you more details of the building. You can use it when you want to know a car model, an insect name, what kind of food is served at a restaurant and how much, who built a bridge, etc. etc. It’s got a scanner built in. so you can use it this way when you want to check the meaning of a word in the newspaper, book, magazine, etc. It would be much easier to read a real book. You can use the dictionary, Wikipedia, thesaurus and anything else available on the web. What do you think? Indoor guide:Works in a building, airport, station, hospital, etc. Automatic simultaneous translation: here Latin to English. Search keyword: Helpful when you want to find out a word from a lot of text in newspaper/book. Nutrition: This kind of function would be helpful for health freaks.. Getting data of a weather forecast, maybe this might be possible.

Future Technology

3G Technology

Introduction

3G wireless technology represents the convergence of various 2G wireless telecommunications systems into a single uniform global system which includes terrestrial and satellite components in its functioning.
3G or the third-generation wireless refers to near future developments in personal & business wireless technology, especially relating to mobile communications. 3G or The Third Generation will usher in many benefits as roaming capability, broad bandwidth and high speed communication (upwards of 2Mbps).

Network operators & telecommunications service providers are embracing the recently adopted global third generation (3G) wireless standards in order to cater to emerging user demands and to offer new services to their customers.3G wireless technology represents a shift from voice-centric services to multimedia-oriented like video, voice, data, fax services.

The most interesting & useful aspect of 3G wireless technology is its ability to unify existing cellular standards such as GSM, CDMA and TDMA.

3G Mobile Phone Technology

Introduction

A short perusal of the major tech blogs on the internet, like Mobile Magazine, will inevitably result in at least a small handful of entries drooling over 3G mobile phone technology, with everyone drooling over the latest 3G offering coming out of cell phone manufacturers in Korea, Japan, and the rest of the world. But what exactly does3G mean?

Current Technology

By and large, most of the mobile phones on the market today are a part of the second generation, or "2G". This includes such standards as GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications: like the services offered by T-Mobile), and iDEN (Integrated Digital Enhanced Network: as developed by Motorola and deployed by Sprint/Nextel).

Several handsets and networks are also capable of higher speed data than standard 2G technology. These are often referred to as part of the 2.5G or 2.75G. The most common 2.5G technology is GPRS, or General Packet Radio Service, which works in tandem with GSM networks. Further along the spectrum are such technologies as CDMA2000 1xRTT (1 times Radio Transmission Technology) and EDGE (Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution). Each successive generation has provided faster and faster data transfer rates, in order to keep up with high demand services like picture messaging, ringtone downloading, and mobile web.

So What's the Big Deal with 3G?

3G Mobile Phone Technology is said to be a substantial leap forward in data transfer rates for cellular phones, and as people demand more and fuller content, mobile networks need to keep up and send the data faster than ever.

Video Telephony

Video conferencing was said to be the "killer app" for 3G. As such, many 3G handsets feature not one, but two cameras. The "primary" camera is typically on the back of the phone and is a megapixel (or better) picture taker. Finding phones with 2-megapixel cameras or better is no longer out of the ordinary, with some units offering as high as 8 megapixels. The "secondary" camera, however, is usually next to the display and a simple VGA unit. This is meant to be used for video telephony. However, in areas where 3G is more prevalent, like urban regions of Japan, video telephony has not been as popular as previously predicted.

Mobile TV and Web

For more on mobile TV, check out the official Mobile TV article here on LoveToKnow Cell Phones. While mobile television is technically a separate issue from 3G mobile phone technology, the two are often discussed in the same breath. Oftentimes, users download short video clips and even streaming movies using 3G technology, especially where "conventional" mobile television -- like T-DMB -- is not available.

Ringtones, Music, and More

Where 3G has really begun to shine, even before it has reached widespread deployment in the United States and Canada, is its use in downloading mobile content. Cell Phone Ringtones are incredibly popular, with several services being offering allowing users to customize their mobile phones with unique ringtones, especially since so many handsets are capable of MP3 ringtones these days. Instead of a standard ring, imagine hearing your phone blast out the latest Lil Jon hit, or a classic Frank Sinatra song.

Musicphones, like the Walkman line from Sony Ericsson, are also growing in prevalence. In fact, some have said that by 2010, over-the-air mobile music services -- that is, downloading music onto your cell phone directly on a purely wireless basis, rather than using your home computer as an intermediary -- will have more users than online music stores (read: iTunes). 3G technology (and successive generations) have had, and will continue to have a lot to do with this trend.

3G Standards

There are three main 3G standards that have already been deployed in selected regions around the globe.

• W-CDMA: Not to be confused with standard CDMA (which is the direct competitor for GSM), W-CDMA is "Wideband" Code Division Multiple Access, and is allied with 2G GSM. There are two main forms:
• UMTS stands for Universal Mobile Telecommunications System, and is sometimes referred to as 3GSM. UMTS is said to be capable of data transfer rates of up to 1920 kbit/sec.
• FOMA stands for Freedom of Mobile Multimedia Access and is the brand name for 3G services offered through NTT DoCoMo of Japan. A pioneer in 3G, FOMA was officially launched way back in 2001.

• 1xEV-DO, initially designed by Qualcomm, is CDMA's answer to W-CDMA, if that makes any sense. EV-DO stands for Evolution Data Optimized, and is a broadband data standard that has already been adopted by such wireless service providers as Telus Mobility of Canada and Verizon Wireless, the latter of which marketing its EV-DO services as "V CAST". EV-DO's data transfer rate is right in line with W-CDMA, offering approximately 2Mbit/sec downlinks.

• TD-SCDMA is being developed by and for the People's Republic of China. Standing for Time Division-Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access, TD-SCDMA was meant to provide the Chinese people with high speed data that wasn't "dependent on Western technology". TD-SCDMA testing is currently underway, with full deployment expected before the end of the year.

What the Future Holds

• HSDPA: Even before 3G has been fully adopted, cellular phone technology companies have already started working on and testing the next sub-generation of wireless data. As part of the 3.5G, HSDPA (high-speed downlink packet access) is a new mobile telephony protocol, and it is said to be an extension of WCDMA in much the same way that CDMA2000 was improved upon to become EV-DO.

• HSUPA: Whereas HSDPA allowed for "downlinks" (cell phones receiving data), HSUPA allows for "uplinks" (cell phones sending data). In this way, it naturally accompanies HSDPA, and is said to be 3.75G.

5th Dimension

A 5 Dimensional Space-Time Animation

4 G

4th Generation Technology

International Mobile Telecommunications-Advanced (IMT Advanced), better known as 4G, 4^th Generation or Beyond 3G, is the next technological strategy in the field of wireless communications. A 4G system will upgrade existing communication networks and is expected to provide a comprehensive and secure IP based solution where facilities such as voice, data and streamed multimedia will be provided to users on an "Anytime, Anywhere" basis and at much higher data rates compared to previous generations (see QoS).

Objective and approach

Objectives

4G is being developed to accommodate the QoS and rate requirements set by forthcoming applications like wireless broadband access, Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), video chat, mobile TV, HDTV content, Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB), minimal services like voice and data, and other services that utilize bandwidth.

The 4G working group has defined the following as objectives of the 4G wireless communication standard:

• A spectrally efficient system (in bits/s/Hz and bits/s/Hz/site),
• High network capacity: more simultaneous users per cell,
• A nominal data rate of 100 Mbit/s while the client physically moves at high speeds relative to the station, and 1 Gbit/s while client and station are in relatively fixed positions as defined by the ITU-R,
• A data rate of at least 100 Mbit/s between any two points in the world,
• Smooth handoff across heterogeneous networks,
• Seamless connectivity and global roaming across multiple networks,
• High quality of service for next generation multimedia support (real time audio, high speed data, HDTV video content, mobile TV, etc)
• Interoperability with existing wireless standards, and
• An all IP, packet switched network.

In summary, the 4G system should dynamically share and utilize network resources to meet the minimal requirements of all the 4G enabled users.

Approaches

As described in 4G consortia including WINNER, WINNER - Towards Ubiquitous Wireless Access, and WWRF, a key technology based approach is summarized as follows, where Wireless-World-Initiative-New-Radio (WINNER) is a consortium to enhance mobile communication systems.

Consideration points

• Coverage, radio environment, spectrum, services, business models and deployment types, users

Principal technologies

• Baseband techniques
• OFDM: To exploit the frequency selective channel property
• MIMO: To attain ultra high spectral efficiency
• Turbo principle: To minimize the required SNR at the reception side
• Adaptive radio interface
• Modulation, spatial processing including multi-antenna and multi-user MIMO
• Relaying, including fixed relay networks (FRNs), and the cooperative relaying concept, known as multi-mode protocol

4G features

According to the members of the 4G working group, the infrastructure and the terminals of 4G will have almost all the standards from 2G to 4G implemented. Although legacy systems are in place to adopt existing users, the infrastructure for 4G will be only packet-based (all-IP). Some proposals suggest having an open Internet platform. Technologies considered to be early 4G include: Flash-OFDM, the 802.16e mobile version of WiMax (also known as WiBro in South Korea), and HC-SDMA (see iBurst). 3GPP Long Term Evolution may reach the market 1–2 years after Mobile WiMax is released.

An even higher speed version of WiMax is the IEEE 802.16m specification. LTE Advanced will be the later evolution of the 3GPP LTE standard.

Applications

At the present rates of 15-30 Mbit/s, 4G is capable of providing users with streaming high-definition television. At rates of 100 Mbit/s, the content of a DVD-5 (for example a movie), can be downloaded within about 5 minutes for offline access.

4G wireless standards

3GPP is currently standardizing LTE Advanced as future 4G standard. A first set of 3GPP requirements on LTE Advanced has been approved in June 2008. The working groups are currently evaluating various proposals for standardization. LTE Advanced will be standardized as part of the Release 10 of the 3GPP specification.

3 G

3rd Generation Technology

The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) defined the third generation (3G) of mobile telephony standards – IMT-2000 – to facilitate growth, increase bandwidth, and support more diverse applications. For example, GSM (the current most popular cellular phone standard) could deliver not only voice, but also circuit-switched data at download speeds up to 14.4 kbps. But to support mobile multimedia applications, 3G had to deliver packet-switched data with better spectral efficiency, at far greater speeds.

Features

Data rates

ITU has not provided a clear definition of the data rate users can expect from 3G equipment or providers. Thus users sold 3G service may not be able to point to a standard and say that the rates it specifies are not being met. While stating in commentary that "it is expected that IMT-2000 will provide higher transmission rates: a minimum speed of 2 Mbit/s and maximum of 14.4 Mbit/s for stationary users, and 348 kbit/s in a moving vehicle, the ITU does not actually clearly specify minimum or average rates or what modes of the interfaces qualify as 3G, so various rates are sold as 3G intended to meet customers expectations of broadband speed.

Security

3G networks offer a greater degree of security than 2G predecessors. By allowing the UE to authenticate the network it is attaching to, the user can be sure the network is the intended one and not an impersonator. 3G networks use the KASUMI block crypto instead of the older A5/1 stream cipher. However, a number of serious weaknesses in the KASUMI cipher have been identified.

In addition to the 3G network infrastructure security, end to end security is offered when application frameworks such as IMS are accessed, although this is not strictly a 3G property.

Evolution from 2G

2G networks were built mainly for voice data and slow transmission.

From 2G to 2.5G

The first major step in the evolution to 3G occurred with the introduction of General Packet Radio Service (GPRS). So the cellular services combined with GPRS became' 2.5G.'

GPRS could provide data rates from 56 kbit/s up to 114 kbit/s. It can be used for services such as Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) access, Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), and for Internet communication services such as email and World Wide Web access. GPRS data transfer is typically charged per megabyte of traffic transferred, while data communication via traditional circuit switching is billed per minute of connection time, independent of whether the user actually is utilizing the capacity or is in an idle state.

From 2.5G to 2.75G (EDGE)

GPRS networks evolved to EDGE networks with the introduction of 8PSK encoding. Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution (EDGE), Enhanced GPRS (EGPRS), or IMT Single Carrier (IMT-SC) is a backward-compatible digital mobile phone technology that allows improved data transmission rates, as an extension on top of standard GSM. EDGE can be considered a 3G radio technology and is part of ITU's 3G definition, but is most frequently referred to as 2.75G. EDGE was deployed on GSM networks beginning in 2003—initially by Cingular (now AT&T) in the United States.

EDGE is standardized by 3GPP as part of the GSM family, and it is an upgrade that provides a potential three-fold increase in capacity of GSM/GPRS networks. The specification achieves higher data-rates by switching to more sophisticated methods of coding (8PSK), within existing GSM timeslots. EDGE can be used for any packet switch

Evolution towards 4G

Both 3GPP and 3GPP2 are currently working on further extensions to 3G standards, named Long Term Evolution and Ultra Mobile Broadband, respectively. Being based on an all-IP network infrastructure and using advanced wireless technologies such as MIMO, these specifications already display features characteristic for IMT-Advanced (4G), the successor of 3G. However, falling short of the speed requirements for 4G (which is 1 Gbit/s for stationary and 100 Mbit/s for mobile operation), these standards are classified as 3.9G or Pre-4G.

3GPP plans to meet the 4G goals with LTE Advanced, whereas Qualcomm has halted development of UMB in favour of the LTE family.

Issues

Although 3G was successfully introduced to users across the world, some issues are debated by 3G providers and users:

• Expensive input fees for the 3G service licenses & agreements
• Numerous differences in the licensing terms
• Large amount of debt currently sustained by many telecommunication companies, which makes it a challenge to build the necessary infrastructure for 3G
• Lack of member state support for financially troubled operators
• Expense of 3G phones
• Lack of buy-in by 2G mobile users for the new 3G wireless services
• Lack of coverage, because it is still a new service
• High prices of 3G mobile services in some countries, including Internet access (see flat rate)
• Current lack of user need for 3G voice and data services in a hand-held device