Cars flash mails before breaking down

Bangalore:Breakdowns in the middle of a busy street due to engine trouble would become a thing of past as future technologies would enable a car flash ‘health report’ well in advance indicating ‘all was not well with it’.
“Your car could send an e-mail telling you that it’s time to drop in for a health check-up at your nearest service centre,” said Alan Taub, executive director, General Motors Research and Development in Warren Michigan, while tracing the future technology in the automotive industry.
“It could warn you well in advance that it was having an engine problem or that the brake pads were getting worn out or that the battery has not been charged enough,” he said. The component of electrification and electronification of value-added software in vehicles, especially in the high-end segment will go up to 40% by 2015, said Allan. The vehicle would have sophisticated software that could be serviced by just downloading a patch of software.
GM, which has already made available parts of this sophisticated technology in the US, is working on increasing the content of sophisticated software that could be addressed through remote applications, Nady Boules, director, Electrical and Controls Integration Research Lab said.
The technology, which will be made in India in future, would enable the driver to receive a ‘once-in-a-month’ report from the vehicle telling you its health status. The technology would help monitor the critical systems in the car from time to time and send indications if it was going to face some trouble, said Boules.
“The indicators could be available in various ways, you could have a green saying that it is time for a check up, a yellow that could indicate that you need to hurry and red which meant that you swerve immediately to your service centre,” said Boules. GM is working on software at two ends, one that could be made available on the driver’s panel and another that could be availed through remote control, he said.
“Next time you find you have locked your car and left the keys inside, you could call the back office of the company, inform them and they could in turn ‘break in’ the software and unlock the car. Or if you find there is some problem that needs to be immediately attended to, they could through remote application attend to it immediately,” he said.
In the US, currently, a driver whose vehicle has been stolen could intimate the company back office, which, through GPS system, would track the location of the car.
The software, which could be remotely controlled could actually “slow down the car and prevent the thief from running away. It would take out the control of the car from the thief’s hands,” he said with a chuckle.
Such a technology could help immensely in preventing vehicle thefts and free the owner from worries about the car being parked in dim-lit corners of a road. These back-office services could be availed of even during other crises with regard to the car. “The person driving the car could simply call up the back office of the company, inform them of the specific problem, which could be attended to immediately with the help of the advanced software,” he said.
In the US, in case of an accident, the back office is immediately alerted through an automatic system which then calls the driver to understand the gravity of the situation. Help is immediately deployed to the site of the accident. Such accident alerts could be extremely beneficial for India too where the driver in a serious situation could get help immediately, he said. The bursting of the airbags could send out the alert signals to the office.
“Currently, GM is working on components like engine control, steering, safety controls in the process of introducing more electronification of the vehicles,” he said. Once the sophisticated software is in place, it would mean that a car breakdown would have to be struck off from the list of ‘most common excuses’ dished out for showing up late.

Porn websites pose hidden, extortionate dangers

Online pornography hunters' internet adventures are already fraught with danger from malicious code many porn sites use to commandeer visitors' machines or steal personal data.
Now comes a scheme some researchers say amounts to extortion: One site's threat to disable visitors' computers with relentless pop-up ads if they don't pay for a subscription they were automatically signed up for after a free trial.
The threats, reported this week by researchers at security vendor McAfee Inc's Avert Labs, affect people who visit the Web site and download software to access a free three-day trial membership.
Visitors do get free access for three days, but the download includes code that then generates a stream of pop-up windows, when the user is online and offline, demanding payment of roughly $80 for 90 days' worth of additional access.
The windows stay open up to 10 minutes and appear once a day. They appear on top of any open windows and restore to their original size if shrunk or moved, making them impossible to ignore. They also reappear if the computer is rebooted.
The site actually warns visitors they will be billed as full members - and lose full use of their computers if they don't - unless they cancel the subscription within the trial period. But the warning appears in the full terms and conditions statement, which downloaders aren't required to read.
Once the fees are paid, the software can be removed with a special file.
"What it appears they are doing is, in my humble opinion, a form of extortion based on the (usually correct) assumption that a person's computer will be key to many other activities in their daily life,'' McAfee researcher Seth Purdy wrote on the Avert Labs blog.

Ramadoss flooded with marriage offers from medicos

Union Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss has been flooded with marriage offers by medical students. But if only it was for love!
Armed with roses for the minister, these students want him to marry and accompany them to the rural areas. The students have adopted this novel way to get Ramadoss’ attention after the Health Ministry’s move to increase the duration of the MBBS course, which included a one-year compulsory rural service.
“He is the most eligible man for us because we don’t have an option. He is sending us to the rural areas and we will also get less salary so we need to marry Ramadoss to get us through the difficult times,” Lakshmi, a medical student said.
Instead of agitated protest marches these medical students have taken refuge in a show of love. For them, wedding posters speak louder than words.
“Be our husband and come with us to the villages to protect us. If he (Ramadoss) is so keen on sending us to the villages then he should also be there to support us,” another student Rashmi said.
It’s a new form of Gandhigiri in which love and cupid take centrestage but will the persistent minister bow to their proposal or rather the rural posting? That’s a million dollar question but if he doesn’t then this protest will just be remembered as an eye-capturing tactic.
Meanwhile, the story in Hyderabad, too, is one of protest, but here there is no space for love and roses. Senior doctors in Andhra Pradesh have threatened to join their juniors in a strike, seeking action against MIM MLA Afsar Khan, who is accused of assaulting a lady doctor.

Congress is a party that supports terrorism: Modi

The electoral battle in Gujarat is heating up and poll-bound Chief Minister, Narendra Modi is at his provocative best.
At an election meeting in Godhra, Modi called the Congress a party that supports terrorism.
In fact, he called Congress President Sonia Gandhi a Maut ka Saudagar (merchant of death), and said that the Congress was a party that supports terrorism.
"The Congress couldn't do much about the terrorists who are killing people everyday. Instead, they are calling Hindu Gujaratis terrorists and defaming them," he said at the Godhra rally.
He asked the crowd whether they were Hindus. The crowd responded with a resounding 'yes'. He then asked the crowd whether they were terrorists, and they all said 'no'.
Modi then went on to say: "This Congress calls us terrorists. This Congress has called Hindus terrorists. Those who call Hindus of Gujarat terrorists, you Congress, you are insulting Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Patel."
The statement was in retaliation to a statement made by Congress President Sonia Gandhi a couple of days ago in which she had called Narendra Modi a merchant of death. On Wednesday, Modi paid back in same coin.
"Sonia says Modi is a merchant of death, but Sonia ben, it is your Government in Delhi which is the merchant of death instead," Modi said.
At a rally on Tuesday, he had even justified the killing of Sohrabuddin Sheikh in a fake encounter, keeping in mind the polarised electorate in the state.
Meanwhile, the BJP defended Modi saying it was the Congress which is provoking him.
"It is the Congress which is bringing up these issues, it is the Congress which wants Modi to be brought to international courts. The Congress said Hindus are terrorists. It is a Congress campaign not a BJP campaign. We are simply responding to Congress allegations," said BJP spokesperson, Prakash Javadekar.
The Congress on the other hand was ready with its defence. Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi said, "Appropriate action will be taken against Narendra Modi if Congress comes to power in Gujarat."

Sugar could power electronics in the future

Aiming to deal with the problem of discarded goods, electronics giant Sony is experimenting with biodegradable material to create energy.
Each year, electronics retailers tempt consumers with the newest arsenal of state-of-the-art models which are faster, bigger, brighter electronics to enhance the modern lifestyle. But bigger TV screens and computer monitors on all the time use a lot of power, and disposing them off when you're done is increasingly problematic.
At the Sony laboratories on the outskirts of Tokyo, engineers at the new materials laboratory have been given the difficult task of making electronics more environmentally friendly. And to do so, they've gone back to basics.
Manufacturer, Sony Electronics, Masaya Kakuta, says, “This is the type of sugar human beings consume. Humans breaks down the sugar using enzymes to convert it into energy.”
Sony has developed a new bio battery; which is powered by nature's most simple of fuels, sugar. Here, sugar is mixed with enzymes to produce energy; similar to the way it works in the human body, and it's enough to power an MP3 player.

Kakuta also adds “Conventional battery uses lots of various minerals and fossil fuels in its production. But the bio-battery uses recyclable material such as sugar and enzymes. Therefore this battery has fewer burdens on the environment.”
With today's focus on the environment, green products are moving quickly from the drawing board to store shelves.
Sony has also developed a Walkman, the casing for which has been made from corn, and is among several products Sony has made of vegetable plastic.
With many new products developed to cut down on energy consumption, a new addition is a bendable organic led screen.
Its predecessor has just been released in Japan; it consumes only 40 watts of energy, equivalent to your average light bulb.
With more eco-friendly products in the works, Sony hopes these will pave a greener way for tomorrow's electronics.