Saturday, March 3, 2012

Virtual & Augmented Reality

Going by the literal meanings augmented means adding something more valuable to the already present thing and virtual means something that is not actually present. Both augmented reality and virtual reality offer layering of data but they are different as the environment you work into is real and synthetic while you are working with them. Virtual reality fabricates a whole new digitalized world around you starting from the very pixel, virtual reality is 100 percent digital while augmented reality is more a digital overlay onto the real world, it is the meeting of virtual reality and reality.
My concern here is which one is better ??
I tried Google insight and found augmented reality was on a rise as compared to virtual reality in a past few years since 2009. People all over the world are working more on augmented reality than virtual reality and with the boom of smart phones augmented reality has found a new platform of development.There are a number of applications of the same on iPhone and Android which help you see the world around you in a more meaningful and comprehensive way. Consider the SIXTH SENSE project, its ideals are keeping people away from the matrix like world and preventing them turning into machines. So i personally believe in the augmented reality scores over virtual reality. Haptic is another technology which has a great potential of bringing virtual objects feel real and a combination of augmented and haptic technology would be very productive.
That was my take on VR and AR . Do share what you think ?

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Narrating Stories Using Google Maps.


This Morning I came across a very unusual site (http://wetellstories.co.uk/stories/week1/) it uses Google map APIs' to narrate stories. I appreciated it and the way it was narrated . A nice idea making stories a bit more real than plain text. HAIL http://maps.google.com/
It is more interesting to see a character move actually though the real map of the place where the scene is set than imagining it. We explore the real place as we explore the story, what a way to gain some info. Watching multiple characters move on the map makes a lot sense with the dialogues and situations. Like in the story of "THE 21 STEPS" the protagonist takes a tube from an actual tube stop in NY. Another situation where the protagonist talks with a character on the jet-plane tracks the view gives a real feeling.
It would be really great if something like this can be done on Google Earth. It would be awesome to go through each street in the play and explore stuff.

And People who want to create such MapFi-Stories here's a link for the tutorial.
http://langwitches.org/blog/2008/05/27/digital-storytelling-part-v-google-maps/




Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Cricket -->>>My Point<<<--

Cricket is a bat and ball team sport. Many variations exist, with its most popular form played on an oval-shaped outdoor arena known as a cricket field, at the center of which is a rectangular 22-yard (20.12 m) long pitch that is the focus of the game. OK fine don't freak out, that was some wiki stuff  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cricket.

If you live or were born in India Cricket is something what people worship here more than anything else.Sachin,Dhoni,Yuvraj are there God..lolzzz ,I am not laughing on these great player who marvel at their work and have carved a niche for themselves in their fields but am laughing on  those people who worship them when they win a match and burn their statues when they loose any.

Cricket is a sort of entertainment for people sitting off ground just like chess,football,hockey comedy circus
isn't it...ya it is.True we have some more emotional attachment to the game but why is that we are spending cores in IPL ,giving lakhs and cores to players in felicitations when we can put it in poverty prone issues,felicitating young minds who are actually contributing to the nations development.

We need more people like Dr Kalam  and how are we going to harvest them in this air where News Channels
(http://www.indiatvnews.com/ f*** the channel owner) have 24x7 news on scams ,scandals,Dramas,Bollywood,excessive cricket ,peeping in personal lives of stars WTF.Media has a lot of effect on people and if u are in india then looking to most of news channels you can come to know whatz going of every and each channel on air..else than whats going in nations they show those Quick news 27 sec  27 news ,perhaps  they are only the 27 sec those channels show real news....DD news loads of respect.

Live Example of our college those people(staff) ask us to attend college 100percent in a semester and when we ask to go in competition they  choke us on attendance and internals but when its INDIA VS PAKISTAN they give an official off .

Thursday, December 9, 2010

Hack Windows..opening the Gates.

Who hacks windows?
Why to hack windows?


The answers of above questions can be...because i love to do crazy stuff that others don't dare.


TOP HACKS FOR WINDOWS 7 AND VISTA


(Create a back up of ur registery and run regedit ,what ever you are going to do, you are simply going to do it here only...)


1.Hover Speed up:- By default you may notice that there is a slight delay when   hovering your mouse over a Taskbar Thumbnail. Here is a neat registry hack that will allow you to speed it up. 
got to:-


HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced and right-click to create a new DWORD and name it ExtendedUIHoverTime.


Now double-click on it and give it a Decimal value of “1” click OK, close out of Registry Editor, then logoff and back on for it to go into effect.


If u wanna slow it down just give it any value in place of 1...maybe 1000(millisecond),it will take dat much time.




2.When a install is their sleep and shutdown button button are replaced by install update button....wanna change it Follow me


Goto:
HKEYCURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU"




Add a 32-bit DWORD value called NoAUAsDefaultShutdownOption with a value of 1. No reboot should be necessary.
Now our Sleep button should be back to the way it was, but if you wanted to use the Install Updates and Shut Down option, it’s still available via the shutdown menu.
3. KILL WINDOWS IN 3 KEY STROKES TO BLUE SCREEN(keyboard Ninja :) 
This isn’t a bug, it’s a “feature” in Windows that is designed to let users trigger a crash dump for testing purposes. There’s even a whole Microsoft KB article on the subject.But who knows it just show off your ninja skills and convince people to switch to linux(tux).
goto:-"
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\kbdhid\Parameters"

the above link is for usb keyboards only..

.
Now right-click on the right-hand pane and add a new DWORD key named CrashOnCtrlScroll, giving it a value of 1.

Reboot your computer, and when it starts back up you can trigger the Blue Screen of Death by using the following keyboard shortcut:Hold on the right ctrl and hit scroll.What if u don't have a scroll key button on laptop then just try and change the "ctrlscroll part to any other thing like "ctrlEnter".if it works do tell me..........
4.MAKE THE TASKBAR IN LAST ACTIVE MODE
The new Windows 7 taskbar’s Aero Peek feature, with the live thumbnails of every window, is awesome… but sometimes you just want to be able to click the taskbar button and have the last open window show up instead. Here’s a quick hack to make it work better.
To better understand the problem, imagine having nine windows of the same type open on your screen, but you are primarily working in just one of the windows at a time. So every time you want to switch back, you have to click the taskbar button, and then choose the one you are using from the list, which can be pretty annoying…

Now if you know your Windows 7 shortcuts, you’d know that you can simply hold down the Ctrl key while clicking on the taskbar button, and the last window will show up. In fact, you can keep holding down the Ctrl key and keep clicking, and Windows will cycle through the open windows. It’s a useful shortcut, but hardly something you want to do every single time.
We’ll use a quick registry hack to make the normal click switch to the last open window—if you still want to see the thumbnail list, just hover your mouse over the button for half a second to see the full list.


goto:-"

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced"

 Create a new 32-bit DWORD value on the right hand side, give it the name LastActiveClick, and set the value to 1.Restart and experience it.


5.How to add any application to windows desktop right click background
Showing for notepad...
go to:- HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Background\shell

create a new key underneath the shell key, the name of which is exactly what is going to show up on the desktop menu. Right-click on the “shell” key, and then choose New \ Key from the menu.Give the new key the name that you want to show up on the desktop context menu. For this example we’ll be using Notepad. If you want to assign an “Alt” key to this menu entry for quicker access, you can change the (Default) value on the right and put an & character in front of the key you want to use. For instance, if you wanted to be able to just use the N key to launch Notepad once the desktop context menu pops up.

Next you’ll need to create the command key that will actually hold the command used to launch the application. Right-click on the new Notepad key, and then choose New \ Key from the menu.Give this key the name “command” in lowercase.
To complete this step you’ll need the full path to the application that you want to launch. You can use Shift + Right-Click to get the Copy as Path menu item to find this more quickly.Note: of course, for Notepad you wouldn’t need the full path, but this is just an example.
Now click on “command” on the left side, and then double-click on the (Default) key in the right side to edit the string value.Paste in the full path to the executable that you got from the “Copy as Path” step above, or you can put in the full path yourself if you’d like.
Done Chk ur desktop right click now




Saturday, November 27, 2010

Why is Linux Better?

1.Forget About viruses
Linux hardly has any viruses. And that's not like "Oh well, not very often, you know". That's like "If you've ever heard of a real Linux virus, please tell me". Of course, a Linux virus is not impossible to get. However, Linux makes it very hard for this to happen, for several reasons:
  • Most people use Microsoft Windows, and pirates want to do as much damage (or control) as possible: therefore, they target Windows. But that's not the only reason; the Apache web server (a web server is a program located on a remote computer that sends web pages to your browser when you ask for them), which is open source software, has the biggest market share (against Microsoft's IIS server), but it still suffers from much fewer attacks/flaws than the Microsoft one.
  • Linux uses smart authorization management. In Windows you (and any program you install) usually have the right to do pretty much anything to the system. If you feel like punishing your PC because it just let your precious work disappear, you can go inside the system folder and delete whatever you want: Windows won't complain. Of course, the next time you reboot, trouble begins. But imagine that if you can delete this system stuff, other programs can, too, or just mess it up. Linux doesn't allow that. Every time you request to do something that has to do with the system, an administrator password is required (and if you're not an administrator on this system, you simply can't do it). Viruses can't just go around and delete or modify what they want in the system; they don't have the authorization for that.
  • More eyes make fewer security flaws. Linux is Open source software, which means that any programmer in the world can have a look at the code (the "recipe" of any program), and help out, or just tell other developers "Hey, what if blah blah, isn't this a security flaw?".

2.You can run Linux for years:-
Of course, no operating system is perfect, and people who tell you that theirs can never ever crash are lying. However, some operating systems can be so stable that most users never see their systems crash, even after several years. This is true for Linux. Here's a good way to see this. When a system crashes, it needs to be shut down or restarted. Therefore, if your computer can stay up and running for a long time, no matter how much you use it, then you can say the system is stable. Well, Linux can run for years without needing to be restarted (most internet servers run Linux, and they usually never restart). Of course, with heavy updates, it still needs to be restarted (the proper way). But if you install Linux, and then use your system as much as you want, leaving your computer on all the time, you can go on like that for years without having any trouble.


4.Why copy when its free:-
Here's a list of some commercial software, and their open source equivalents :

CommercialOpen sourceExists on Windows?
Adobe Illustrator (~$500)InkscapeYes
Adobe InDesign (~$700)ScribusYes
Adobe Photoshop (~$600)The GIMPYes
Adobe Premiere (~$800)Kino, CinelerraNo
Adobe Reader (free)Evince, Kpdf, GVYes
Apple iTunes (free)AmaroK, Rhythmbox, BansheeNo
Autodesk 3ds Max (~$3500)BlenderYes
Autodesk Maya (~$7000)BlenderYes
Kazaa (free)aMule, eMuleYes
Microsoft Excel (~$200)OpenOffice SpreadsheetYes
Microsoft Internet Explorer (free)Firefox, KonquerorYes
Microsoft Office (~$400)OpenOfficeYes
Microsoft Windows Mail (free)Thunderbird, Evolution, KMailYes
Microsoft Powerpoint (~$200)OpenOffice PresentationYes
Microsoft Windows Media Player (free)Mplayer, VLC, Totem, Kaffeine, XineYes
Microsoft Word (~$200)OpenOffice Word ProcessorYes
Microsoft Windows Messenger (free)Pidgin, Kopete, aMSNYes
Nero (~$100)K3b, GnomebakerNo
Palm Desktop (free)Gnome-Pilot, KPilotNo
Quark XPress (~$800)ScribusYes
QuickTime Player (free)Mplayer, VLC, Totem, Kaffeine, XineYes
Winamp (free)AmaroK, Rhythmbox, BansheeNo


3.Why Does Windows get Slower Day by  Day:-
Windows has a number of design flaws, resulting in it becoming slower and slower and not lasting very long. You've probably heard more than once someone say "My computer is getting sluggish, I'm gonna reinstall". Reinstalling Windows solves the problem... until next time.
You may think this is just how computers work: they're very new technology, and not really stable yet. Well, try Linux and you'll be surprised. Five years from now, your system will be just as fast and responsive as the day you installed it, not to mention that you won't have any viruses, adware, trojans, worms, etc., that would force you to reinstall anyway.

Linux lets you spend more time working, less time reinstalling over and over again.


4.Enjoy free and unlimited support:-
One of the great assets of the Open Source community (and Linux in particular), is that it's a real community. Users and developers really are out there, on web forums, on mailing lists, on IRC channels, helping out new users. They're all happy to see more and more people switch to Linux, and they're happy to help them get a grip on their new system.
So if there's something you don't understand, a program that doesn't behave the way you would expect, or a feature that you can't seem to find, don't hesitate to go and ask for help. If there's somebody near you (family? co-workers?) who is using Linux, he or she will probably be happy to help you out. Otherwise, just go online and you'll find literally thousands of places where nice people will answer you and walk you out of your problem most of the time: geeks actually are very nice people, if you ask your question politely. Just type "linux help" (or replace "linux" with whatever distribution you chose -- see the install section) in Google and you'll undoubtedly find everything you need.


5.No Back door to your software:-
Changing the source code of open source software is a much more open process. By definition, all the recipes are public. It doesn't matter to you since you won't be able to understand the code anyway, but people who understand it can read it, and speak out. And they often do. Every time someone wants to change the source code, all other developers are able to see the change ("hey man, why did you add this code spying on the user's keyboard input, are you out of your mind?"). And even if the whole team of maintainers for a piece of software go crazy and start adding puppy-killing features all over their source code, someone outside the team can very well take the code, remove all the bad bits, create a whole new version of it, and let the world know what the difference is. It's open.
That's why you can be sure open source software doesn't do bad things behind your back: the community keeps a close eye on all the recipes.

6.Linux Does Not Need Drivers:-
Linux doesn't need separate drivers. All the drivers are already included in the Linux kernel, the core of the system, and that comes with every single Linux installation. This means:
  • very fast and standalone installation process. Once you're done, you have everything you need to start working (including the software you'll be using, see "When the system has installed..." item on this website).
  • Out-of-the-box ready peripherals.
  • Less harm for the planet because all these CDs don't need to come with hardware any more (well, at least once Windows don't need them either...)




The few cases where you should stick to Windows (for now)


1.There is a proprietary software you can't live without
2.You are a hardcore gamer
3.Your hardware is not yet supported
4.You work in a book or printing industry.