Change in equiments!

Image source - lg.com

LG is hosting an idea collection drive to improve their consumer durables. You can provide ideas on what you want as a feature in TV, computer screen, microwave oven, refrigerator, home theater, AC, washing machine and mobiles. This is a new concept which is adopted by several companies in recent times. You can provide your ideas here. 

Here are some ideas that I have submitted.

• Washing machine - A machine which can hold the detergent and after wash powders. Depending on the load and the dirt level, the machine automatically picks up the required amount of washing powder and after wash substances (like blue, starch etc)

• TV stand integrated with TV. The height of which should be adjustable. This helps me in watching the TV while sleeping on the floor without stressing\stretching my neck. We can also increase the height so that small kids do not fiddle with the TV.

• Home theater that plays from songs in an USB memory stick.

• Refrigerator with ice tray below and vegetable stand above. Typically the least used part of the fridge is the ice tray. The vegetable tray is the most used. And adults have to bend to get the tray out. This is very difficult for the elderly people. Kids would want their ice cream and ice at an accessible height. So place the ice tray at the bottom and the vegetable tray on the top.
• As a corollary the fridge door needs to have 2 handles (one at the top and one at the bottom).
• Handles should not be projecting out of the fridge (it should not be a hindrance when walking)

• Refrigerator - Have the skin of the fridge changeable. This can be changed as per the user's choice of colors (perhaps fitting to the painting around it).

• A weigh scale or a measurement instrument integrated with the oven. Many times, recipe says "take 200 gms of flour". How do I measure it?

• A weigh scale (Fitness check instrument) below the fridge. Just pull from below the fridge and stand on it. It weighs and gives all other vital parameters of the body. Fridge is the apt instrument as it stores our daily food…The instrument can store the history readings to give some vital details.

Pictures, Play or Practicals?

Just came across this wonderful blog on science explanations.

We always said - A picture is worth thousand words...How true!

And what is a moving picture worth?

I do not know the author of this blog. But credit to the person for explaining things pictorially.

Complicated Mechanisms in pictures

As I continued my search, I came across this site for kids.
Here you find toys that help children learn science in a very different way - By feeling it!
How about that?
Science through toys


Then we have the lab experiments...the college and school stuff.
Science through practicals

Now - what's better?
Answer - depends on the background of the person, age and purpose!

MJ singing a Bollywood number?

Requirement -

Application which can put in a different singer's voice to any given song.

Example - Want to check how would Micheal Jackson sound on bollywood hit song "zindagi ek safar.."

First of all is this already possible?

On a parallel note, let me admit that, i know very less about the applications in the sound processing space.

1. With the application, separate the human sound from the music of a song.

2. Analyze the extracted human sound - Frequency and intensity and whatever that is needed - Lets call it "Variations".

3. From this we get the voice of the singer and the "variations" he has produced in this song -  Kishore Kumar in this case.

4. Do similar operation one of Micheal Jackson's song.

5. We now have 2 distinct voices.

6. Modify MJ's voice to the "variations" that is extracted.

7. Mix this with the original song music (got in step 1).

We have MJ singing Kishore's hit "Zindagi ek safar..."

Imagine the impact - We need not pay any singer any money (unless you need a really fresh voice).

Evil Mind

I was going through the IEEE paper on the scandal "The Athens Affair". First of all, though the scandal is grave, probably it went un-noticed (by media) or did not receive the attention it deserved.

About the scandal - As the name suggests, it happened in Athens during the period of Athens Olympics in the last decade. It was discovered accidentally that the mobile telephones of some of the big names of Greece (including the then PM, defense minister) were tapped and conversations recorded.

Telephone tapping is nothing new...Remember President Nixon...Or closer home Mr Ramakrishna Hegde resigned as CM of Karnataka because of phone tapping controversy. 

The IEEE paper I referred to, is the a technical explanation of how such a mechanism was actually implemented. A couple of pages through the paper, I lost interest in the "HOW" part of the story. I was wondering on "WHY" and "WHAT NEXT"?. So clearly I was not interested in technical aspect of how the phones were tapped, but was more interested in the brain behind, reasons for the setup and the massive cover-up later.
Wondering " 'Why' did I loose interest in WHY?"…

One possible reason is  - I am not a hardcore techie (at-least not the hackers type).
Other reason could be - Reading thrillers rather than reading technical books has dropped the technical curiosity in me.

But a more realistic reason (or so I think) is - I cannot reuse the technical aspect of the hack (because security-wise the systems could be robust now). It could be of some use later in life, if I get to know why hackers hacked the phone. I may be in such a situation and hacking could be a solution then (WHY part). And more important - how I can save myself later, if caught (WHAT NEXT part).

Now that’s called "Evil mind". Isn't it?