Wednesday 29 August 2012

Earth And Jupiter Captured Together From Mars


Back on May 8th, 2003, the Mars Orbiter Camera on the Mars Global Surveyor photographed both the Earth and Jupiter in the same region of space. It was the first planetary conjunction observed from another planet, with the Earth 86 million miles away and Jupiter 600 million miles away. The resulting image (shown above right), contains both planets, along with some of the moons.

Here’s a higher-res version of the photograph:
The three moons of Jupiter seen in the photograph are Callisto, Ganymede, and Europa (from left to right).



Monday 27 August 2012

UK's Mini-libraries

mini libraries  

Lots of villages in the UK have turned red telephone boxes into mini libraries, just take a book and leave one behind. This model can surely be implemented in developing countries where the majority lacks access to libraries.

Sunday 26 August 2012

Naked Prince Harry

British Prince Harry has been caught naked on camera while playing strip billiards with some young ladies at Wynn hotel in Las Vegas. Celebrity gossip and entertainment news website TMZ published the images online.

Prince Harry playing Strip Billiards

Prince Harry hiding his private part with a naked lady behind


The royal family of Britain requested the British media not to publish the photo. But The Sun, owned by media mogul Rupert Murdoch, has published it.

Thursday 23 August 2012

Mobile Service Providers Turn Green

Solar concentrators

The Indian local telecom regulator has recommended that companies reduce their dependency on diesel and cut carbon emissions by 50% at all rural towers and 20% at urban towers. Their solution is to run these towers on hybrid power, a combination of renewable and grid power.
Bharti Infratel is one of the companies trying to meet these targets. It has begun the shift to sustainable sources of energy at more than 1,000 tower sites. This has led to savings of nearly seven million litres of diesel a year.

Sunday 19 August 2012

5 SMS per Day

Government of India has limited SMS sending facility to 5 per day. This rule has come into effect from 17th August, 2012 midnight. This has been implemented through TRAI to stop the rumor spread across north-east India regarding a fictitious violence against minority religious groups.

"We have banned bulk SMSes and MMSes for 15 days," Union Home Secretary RK Singh told PTI.

5 SMS per Day


Due to this regulation, no one will be able to send more than 5 SMS in one go and more than 20 KB of data through mobile phones as MMS during the ban period. Though the limit on SMS is on bulk messages, some operators have reportedly applied this cap on person-to-person SMS as well.

It is being strongly suspected that there is Pakistan's hand behind this NE violence and there is natural anger being shown against Pakistan on social networking sites due to this SMS ban.



Thursday 16 August 2012

Farmer to Green Entrepreneur

Ding Jiangshan

A Chinese farmer, Ding Jiangshan, has devoted himself to scientific innovation for 30 years, believing that green energy will be used widely in the future.

In 1990, after obtaining a state patent for a combine harvester that can be mounted on a tractor, he went on to invent more instruments, such as an automatic rope-making machine, solar-powered sweeper, hybrid electric-petroleum vehicle, and fitness bicycle that can generate electricity.
 
Green and environmentally-friendly technology is a major trend, and my biggest dream is to apply my invention to the daily lives of ordinary people.

Wednesday 15 August 2012

India witnesses 56% drop in HIV cases

AIDS awareness
The country has witnessed a 56 per cent drop in HIV related cases in the last one decade.
"This has been possible due to political support at the highest levels to the various interventions under National AIDS Control Programme, including from Parliamentarians and elected leaders at the State and Local Levels and cooperation received from NGOs, civil society etc," Health and Family Welfare Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad said.

Tuesday 14 August 2012

Google Plus Vanity URL

Google product manager Saurabh Sharma has recently announced in his Google+ profile that Google Plus users are going to get custom URL, popularly known as vanity URL. Here is an excerpt from his post...

"A custom URL is a short, easy to remember web address that links directly to your profile or page on Google+. For instance, +TOYOTA  can now use google.com/+toyota to unveil their latest models, +Britney Spears  can share her upcoming appearances at google.com/+britneyspears+Ubisoft  can share game trailers and videos at google.com/+assassinscreed, and +Delta  can help travellers find great deals at google.com/+delta"


Google Plus vanity URL


This feature is already there on the competing social networks like Twitter and Facebook and it was only a matter of time for Google to roll it out. This again showed that Google is keen to have its grip back on social network after the fail of Orkut. For SEO communities it is going to be a vital move, as a perfect keyword under a PR10 domain Google.com will add a huge link juice to a website.

Sunday 12 August 2012

A Man Without A Country

Guor Marial

Guor Marial has a marathon to complete this weekend at the Summer Olympics, but he will be doing this with no nation to represent and no countrymen to cheer him on. 

Marial fled his home as a 9 year old in the midst of the Sudanese civil war. With great difficulty, he eventually escaped to Egypt, where he lived with an aunt and uncle. Then to New Hampshire, where he attended high school. And Iowa, where he enrolled in college. And now Arizona, where he lives, works and runs. But Marial doesn’t identify himself as American and certainly not as Sudanese.  He’s running under a white flag that features the Olympic logo.

Representing the five rings, it’s the best,” Marial said Friday. “I’m representing the whole world, basically.

Thursday 9 August 2012

Olympic Volunteers

Queen greets some of the 70,000 volunteers

"Volunteers are not paid not because they are worthless, but because they are priceless"

When visitors marvel about the spirit of the games, the volunteers are a very big part of it. They are drawn from every corner of the UK and every background. Filling their ranks are students and pensioners, the unemployed alongside high flyers. There are 70,000 of them, constituting nearly half of the Olympic workforce, Britain's biggest peacetime mobilization of people since the Second World War.

The Olympic volunteers remind us what real engagement looks like. They show us what organizations that fan the enthusiasm of their participants can deliver. They give new life to the old-fashioned notion that good work gives us good societies.The volunteers of the Olympics hint at what an alternative customer experience might look like. And it looks very exciting.

Wednesday 8 August 2012

Threatening Rail Project Halted

Awa tribe

In a major setback for mining giant Vale, a judge has ordered an immediate freeze on expansion work along the Carajás railway, and sets a daily penalty of US$25,000 for any breach. The existing railway lies next to  the forest home of Brazil’s Awá tribe, who have vocally contested the mining giant’s plans, which they say threaten their livelihoods and those of their uncontacted relatives.

One Awá man said, "We don’t accept the expansion of the train line which passes right in front of our territory. It is really bad! It makes a lot of noise! The hunters can’t find any game; the animals are scared off".

But the railway isn’t the only threat to the tribe’s survival. Despite assurances from Brazil’s authorities, the Awá’s way of life still hangs in the balance, threatened by Loggers, ranchers and settlers– we need action.

Monday 6 August 2012

Curiosity lands on Mars

Celebrations at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab

We are wheels down on Mars” was the official word from mission control as NASA’s new Mars rover, Curiosity, reached the surface of its new home.

 


Curiosity's first images showed pebbles, dust, and the shadow of the rover on the surface of Mars.

Curiosity Rover photo on the surface of Mars


Curiosity will drill, sample, and laser-shoot rocks on the Martian surface over the course of it's initial two years to figure out what minerals and elements they contain. In particular, it will search for organic carbon that could indicate fossilized life forms and also sniff the Martian atmosphere for gasses such as methane that could be a sign of present-day life.

Bhutan goes Organic

Organic farming
According to Bhutan's Minister of is officially going "100% cage free and organic". 

Addressing the opening session, Prime Minister Jigmi Y. Thinley cited four reasons for the decision:
  • Protection of soil health and fertility, ground and surface water, and biodiversity
  • Creation of new economic opportunities
  • Strengthening of the independence, self-esteem and self-reliance of the nation’s farmers
  • Strengthening of culture and rural communities

Both moves are in line with the four pillars of Gross National Happiness, which the Bhutanese Government had embraced as a measure of development, replacing the Gross Domestic Product (GDP):-
1. good governance
2. sustainable socio-economic development
3. cultural preservation
4. environmental conservation.

Wednesday 1 August 2012

Greatest Olympian Ever

Michael Phelps  

Four years after he broke the Australian swimmer Mark Spitz's record of seven gold medals in an Olympic, Michael Phelps has now officially become the greatest Olympian ever, breaking the record held by Larisa Latynina, the former Soviet Union gymnast, after winning his 19th medal in the 4x200m relay.

Phelps said once "I've always felt most at home in the water... I disappear from the world. That's where I belong." He was recently congratulated by Mr. Barack Obama for his awesome achievement...