INNOVATION – Page 42 – Take off with Natarajan

Thought For The Day….Persistence is the Iron Quality of Success !!!

April 5, 2013April 5, 2013Natarajan1 Comment

Your ability to persist in the face of adversities, setbacks and disappointments is the measure of your belief in yourself.

-Brian Tracy: Law of Persistence

Thrilling Facts…. Determination and Persistence

This is a real life story of an engineer who build the Brooklyn Bridge in New York, USA.

In 1883, a creative engineer named John Roebling was inspired by an idea to build a spectacular bridge connecting New York with the Long Island. However bridge building experts throughout the world thought that this was an impossible feat and told Roebling to forget the idea. It just could not be done. It was not practical. It had never been done before.

Roebling could not ignore the vision he had in his mind of this bridge. He thought about it all the time and he knew deep in his heart that it could be done. He just had to share the dream with someone else. After much discussion and persuasion he managed to convince his son Washington, an upcoming engineer, that the bridge in fact could be built.

Working together for the first time, the father and son developed concepts of how it could be accomplished and how the obstacles could be overcome. With great excitement and inspiration, and the headiness of a wild challenge before them, they hired their crew and began to build their dream bridge.

The project started well, but when it was only a few months underway a tragic accident on the site took the life of John Roebling. Washington was also injured and left with a certain amount of brain damage, which resulted in him not being able to talk or walk.

“People thought.” “Crazy men and their crazy dreams.” “It’s foolish to chase wild visions.”

Everyone had a negative comment to make and felt that the project should be scrapped since the Roebling’s were the only ones who knew how the bridge could be built. In spite of his handicap Washington was never discouraged and still had a burning desire to complete the bridge and his mind was still as sharp as ever. He tried to inspire and pass on his enthusiasm to some of his friends, but they were too daunted by the task.

As he lay on his bed in his hospital room, with the sunlight streaming through the windows, a gentle breeze blew the flimsy white curtains apart and he was able to see the sky and the tops of the trees outside for just a moment. It seemed that there was a message for him not to give up. Suddenly an idea hit him. All he could do was move one finger and he decided to make the best use of it. By moving this, he slowly developed a code of communication with his wife. He touched his wife’s arm with that finger, indicating to her that he wanted her to call the engineers again. Then he used the same method of tapping her arm to tell the engineers what to do. It seemed foolish but the project was under way again. For 13 years Washington tapped out his instructions with his finger on his wife’s arm, until the bridge was finally completed. Today the spectacular Brooklyn Bridge stands in all its glory as a tribute to the triumph of one man’s indomitable spirit and his determination not to be defeated by circumstances. It is also a tribute to the engineers and their team work, and to their faith in a man who was considered mad by half the world. It stands too as a tangible monument to the love and devotion of his wife who for 13 long years patiently decoded the messages of her husband and told the engineers what to do. The Brooklyn Bridge shows us that dreams that seem impossible can be realized with determination and persistence, no matter what the odds are. Often when we face obstacles in our day-to-day life, our hurdles seem very small in comparison to what many others have to face.

Concluding thought: Persistence is the iron quality of success; if you persist long enough you must eventually succeed where no handicap can keep you from achieving your goal.

source::::: input from a friend of mine…

Natarajan

Perfectly Balanced Stones!!!!

March 31, 2013March 31, 2013NatarajanLeave a comment

He balances them and they balance him right back. That is relationship that has formed between Michael Grabb and his special art pieces. Grabb makes most of his statues in the streams of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. His is a Sisyphean work of piling and balancing the stones one on top of another.

This activity, he says, balances the material world with the spiritual one.On the one hand is the material nature that rocks symbolize, on the other, the perfect harmony and balance that comes from the spiritual world, as well as the connection to the natural world. The results are fantastic and creative, when we see his implausible creations.

אמנות של איזון אבנים בנהר

source::::babamailnet

Natarajan

The Cardboard Cops: @ Bangalore !!!

March 28, 2013NatarajanLeave a comment

cardboard

Instead of state-of-the-art speed cameras and number plate recognition devices, Bangalore’s police chiefs opted to swell their ranks with recruits who work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, without breaks, bribes or even a salary. The city sees two road deaths every day and officials hopes motorists will be fooled into slowing down after seeing the fake officers !!!!

source::::::mail on line …UK

Natarajan

Apple Imagines An iPhone That’s All Glass And All Screen, All The Way Around !!!

March 28, 2013NatarajanLeave a comment

Apple just published a patent that imagines what an iPhone would look like if the whole phone body were a wraparound screen.

Here’s what Apple’s drawing looks like, via Patently Apple:

wraparound iphone screen patent from Apple

Apple Patent via Patently Apple

Patently Apple’s summary of Apple’s patent filing:

Today’s invention focuses on the flexible wraparound display that could be fashioned in aluminum, aluminum and glass or a fully transparent design. This future iPhone design won’t have any physical buttons so controlling the audio on the iPhone will simply require you to hover your hand over the side of the display to temporarily illustrate the controls. The new design could also produce 3D visuals through its unique dual display design. This is certainly one of Apple’s hottest inventions of the year.

Neat, right?

OK, but keep something in mind.

Apple files all kinds of patents for gadgets and technologies that never actually see the light of day. Apple does this to keep its options open. The rule is: think of an idea? Patent it. Before Samsung does.

So, the image above could be a preview of the iPhone 6 or iPhone 7 – or it could be a total red herring.

SOURCE:::business insider .com

Natarajan

Perfectly Timed Self–Portraits Of a Japanese Girl Artist !!!

March 28, 2013Natarajan1 Comment

TAKING hanging around to a whole new level, for the last two years Tokyo-photographer Natsumi Hayashi has snapped a daily self-portrait of herself going aerial.

Armed with her tripod and Canon camera on self-timer, Hayashi ignores the confused stares of baffled onlookers to leap into the air seconds after she presses her shutter button.

The remarkable results make it appear as if she spends her days permanently floating around Tokyo, defying the laws of gravity.

“To achieve the look of levitation it’s crucial that you don’t appear to be jumping,” she says.

“That means a controlled facial expression and lack of movement. It should look like a moment frozen in time, not mid-jump.”

The Levitating Girl

source:::: news.com.au

Indian startup aims for the moon – and $30 million Prize Money!!!!

March 23, 2013March 23, 2013NatarajanLeave a comment

GOOGLE LUNAR X PRIZE | MOON | SPACE | TEAM INDUS

Rahul Narayan, who describes himself as a serial entrepreneur, is the founder of Team Indus. It is the only Indian team in a race to the moon by privately funded groups competing for the largest international incentive prize of all time – the Google Lunar X Prize.

Google is offering $30 million in prizes to the first privately funded teams to safely land a robot on the Moon, including a grand prize and other bonus prizes.

With a purse of $30 million, the competition will reward the first privately funded team to softland on the moon, travel 500 metres and transmit back to earth, at a distance of nearly 4 lakh km.!!!!!!

In a conversation with Reuters, Narayan talks about Team Indus’ prospects, timing, his struggle to be taken seriously by investors and why he would not be too disappointed if someone else wins.

Q: What is the biggest challenge in this mission?

A: Everything is a challenge – money, finding advisers, being taken seriously, reaching out to people.

Almost all of it is uncharted territory. Nobody’s done a (privately funded) mission before, definitely not from India.

Q: How was Team Indus formed?

A: I had gotten in touch with them (organizers) saying, if there was an Indian team, please let me know, I’d like to work with them. They got back to me saying there was no Indian team, and if you want to set up a team, we can give you a bit of expert help. That’s when I got out of whatever startups I was doing.

Q: How did you recruit people for this project?

A: Almost our entire team right now is people who came to our website and said they wanted to work.

Q: When is your planned launch date?

A: We plan to launch sometime in 2015.

Q: How much have you spent so far? What is the projected total cost?

A: We’ve spent about one crore rupees (10 million rupees, or about $185,200), including for registration, a little bit of prototype being done, operational expenses and salaries. It’s a design effort and we are not doing any hardware yet. Total spend, we expect it to be $15 million.

Q: Where do you see yourself among the 23 active teams?

A: We believe we are in the top five. We believe the moment we sign up with ISRO, we will be in the top two. Signing up with ISRO is the one big event that changes a lot of things for us. It has not happened yet, but we’ve started talking to them. (The Indian Space Research Organisation, or ISRO, is the primary space agency of the Indian government. Team Indus plans to use ISRO’s PSLV satellite launch vehicle for its moon mission)

Q: The competition rules state that the project must be 90 percent privately funded. So how are you managing?

A: Right now it is founder-funded. We’ve divided the cost into three different parts. One is cost of design, second is the cost of building it and the third is the cost of launching it. We have separate strategies for each one of them. For designing, we will be looking for investments. Building it is where we are looking at partnerships (aerospace companies, IITs or government agencies). We are looking at these people to partner with us and potentially contribute, if not money, then equipment. The last part, we are going to do crowdfunding.

Q: Why would investors be interested?

A: I started by saying we are an aerospace company. So we see this as a company which is doing a project, and it will continue doing other aerospace projects or derived technologies or IPR, or licensing rights from what we’re going to do here (moon mission).

We are a for-profit company. It’s not just this mission, we will continue building beyond it.

Q: What if somebody else beats you to the prizes?

A: We’re definitely aiming for the first prize. We’ve got one bonus prize built into it. But, if all the prizes go away in 2014 and I’ve booked my launch with ISRO, that doesn’t mean I stop. I have to go because I’ve already done my engineering, I’ve already spent the money and probably just a residual amount is left. So you’d see that differently as then maybe it converts from a Google Lunar X Prize mission to simply a India’s mission. It’s a people mission, people have contributed to it, people have worked in it, and people have a part in it.

Q: What would losing mean for your team?

A: Even if we lose, we’ll still accomplish a fantastic engineering feat. Prize money is just one component of it, so I’m talking about a company which is going to continue after the prize money….

source:::: David Lalmalsawma in Reuters US

Natarajan

You can follow the David on Twitter @confusedat30

A Private Jet Maker Is Thriving By Making Old Planes New Again !!!!!

March 21, 2013March 21, 2013NatarajanLeave a comment

Designing a new airplane is an incredibly expensive, complicated, and long process, one that can prove wasteful if not executed properly — as Boeing‘s troubled Dreamliner jet has proven in recent months.

nextant 400XT on Production Floor

In 2007, looking to avoid the costs and pitfalls that come with new aircraft, aviation entrepreneur Kenn Ricci created a business that would sell small jets for half of what they usually cost, thanks to a simple change.

Instead of building new jets, Nextant Aerospace would take old jets, refurbish them, and sell them for 50 cents on the dollar.

The result, President Sean McGeough says, gives you “everything a new aircraft gives you.” Unless a buyer is dead set on having a 100 percent new plane, he seems right. That’s because Nextant retains the hull of the plane, then replaces just about everything else.

So far, Nextant has produced one model, the 400XT, based on the Hawker 400. The huge cost of designing a plane from scratch does not have to be recouped, so the price of the planes stays low.

In refurbishing a jet, the airframe is kept, while the avionics and any life-limited components, along with the interior, are replaced. From start to finish it takes about 6,000 man hours of work, around 16 weeks.

Before re-entering service, the jets go through the same certification process and flight testing as any new plane. The end result, McGeough says, is a “virtually new” airplane.

Nextant

In fact, he says, the updated planes are often improvements of their original selves, because they are outfitted with systems developed since the planes were first designed. Once a Hawker 400 becomes a Nextant 400 XT, its operating costs drop 30 percent, and its range improves by 50 percent, says McGeough.

McGeough joined Nextant as President after leading Hawker Beechcraft’s international operations in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia Pacific. Selling old planes instead of new ones was “very new territory,” he says, but he was drawn to Nextant by its value proposition and track record of high deliveries: 25 planes in 13 months.

Matt Doyle is the Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Flight Options, a fractional jet ownership company that has purchased 12 aircraft from Nextant (its chairman is Kenn Ricci, Nextant’s founder). Asked if he hesitated before buying refurbished aircraft, Doyle said no.

If Flight Options can offer essentially new planes to its customers for half the cost, and saves everyone money, it’s a good deal, Doyle told Business Insider.

Nextant

That’s especially important in a private jet industry that has been lagging in the United States in the wake of the recession. Nextant has sold aircraft to corporate clients, commercial fleet operators, and wealthy individuals.

Its business model has proved popular abroad as well: Despite expectations that its clients would be mostly domestic for the first few years, McGeough now predicts 60 percent of its products over the next three to five years will go to foreign buyers.

So far, Nextant has not gone beyond its first product, the refurbished 400XT. To build on its early success, the company is getting ready to announce its next model, a few months from now.

And while selling old planes may seem questionable, the saga of Boeing’s Dreamliner — the commercial passenger jet full of new technology that was designed to change the industry — proves its wisdom.

The Dreamliner debacle is an example of why remanufacturing works, McGeough argues: “You don’t go through the teething problems you would on a cleansheet design,” and you work only with proven technology.

source::::businessinsider.com

Natarajan

Beluga….Super Transporter Plane from AIR BUS !!!!….A Jumbo Giant in Sky!!!!

March 21, 2013NatarajanLeave a comment

Business is booming at Airbus: The European planemaker just closed a huge deal to sell $24 billion worth of A320 jets to Indonesia’s Lion Air, and it’s busy building the A350 XWB, the plane it created to compete with Boeing‘s 787 Dreamliner.

Airbus is based in Toulouse, France, but produces planes in the United Kingdom, Spain, Germany, and China.

To transport the wings and fuselages of half-built planes from one factory to another, it needed a plane bigger than any standard cargo jet.

So it built the Beluga.

Developed in the 1990s and based on the A300 (the wings, engines, landing gear, and lower portion of the fuselage are the same), the Beluga has one of the biggest cargo holds in the world.

It’s the best way to get the body of a jumbo jet, a fleet of helicopters, or even a priceless painting across the planet.

It’s also one of the strangest looking planes in the skies.. Airbus Created This Bizarre Plane To Fly Jumbo Jet Parts Around The World

airbus beluga transport plane

With its main compartment open, the Beluga looks like a whale swallowing its prey…thus the name .It is built to fit entire aircraft fuselages..On a typical flight, Beluga carries more than 100,000 pounds of cargo. It is 56 Feet tall !..And the diameter of the fuselage is 24 Feet…

The Beluga is available for charter. In 1999, it was used to fly Eugene Delacroix’s huge painting, ‘Liberty Leading the People,’ from Paris to Tokyo for an exhibition.
Seeing it on the ground, it’s hard to believe the huge plane can get airborne. But it’s actually made with a maximum takeoff weight of 341,713 pounds.

At the 2012 ILA Berlin Airshow in September, one was used to attract potential employees. It’s official name is the A300-600ST Super Transporter.

The Beluga is available for charter. In 1999, it was used to fly Eugene Delacroix's huge painting, 'Liberty Leading the People,' from Paris to Tokyo for an exhibition.

From the ground, it seems almost like a normal jumbo jet — but not quite. Its wingspan measures more than 147 feet.

source::::businessinsider.com

Natarajan

A Daily Cup of Greek Coffee Could be Key to Longevity !!!!

March 20, 2013NatarajanLeave a comment

The elderly inhabitants of the Greek island Ikaria boast some of the highest rates of longevity in the world, and now scientists believe that the secret may lie not just in their heart-healthy Mediterranean diet but in their daily caffeine fix.

Findings: A new study has found that drinking certain types of coffee could help you to live longer

Could a daily cup of boiled Greek coffee be the secret to a longer life?

In a new study in the journal Vascular Medicine, researchers from the University of Athens Medical School found a link between the good cardiovascular health of the island’s elders and the boiled Greek coffee they drink daily.

Only 0.1% of Europeans live to be over 90, the researchers said, yet on Ikaria, the figure is 1%, with the islanders tending to live out their long lives in good health.

From a sample of 673 Ikarians aged over 65 who lived on the island permanently, the researchers randomly selected 71 men and 71 women to take part in the study. Medical staff checked for high blood pressure, diabetes, and other ailments, and subjects answered detailed questionnaires about their medical health, lifestyle, and coffee habits. In addition, the researchers tested their endothelial functioning — the endothelium is a layer of cells that lines blood vessels, which is affected both by aging and by lifestyle habits, such as smoking.

Prior studies have suggested that moderate coffee consumption could not only reduce the risks of coronary heart disease but have a positive impact on several aspects of endothelial health, the researchers said.

The researchers investigated all types of coffee that the subjects imbibed — but interestingly more than 87 percent of those in the study consumed boiled Greek coffee daily. Subjects who drank mainly boiled Greek coffee had better endothelial function than those who consumed other types of coffee. Even in those with high blood pressure, boiled Greek coffee consumption was linked with improved endothelial function.

“Boiled Greek type of coffee, which is rich in polyphenols and antioxidants and contains only a moderate amount of caffeine, seems to gather benefits compared to other coffee beverages,” says lead researcher Dr. Gerasimos Siasos.

-Relaxnews

SOURCE:::The NewAge Online

Natarajan

Meet Sundar Pichai….Google Android”s New Spearhead !!!!!

March 18, 2013NatarajanLeave a comment

Another name that India’s illustrious education brand – IIT Kharagpur can boast of is Sundar Pichai. In a much unexpected move that led Andy Rubin to step down from the executive in charge of Google’s Android operating system and Sundar Pichai to come in as the replacement, who was in charge of Google’s Chrome Web browser and operating system for lightweight laptop computers, has made Indians across the globe give a standing ovation.

The Rise of Sundar Pichai

Born in 1972, Pichai hails from the Southern state of Tamil Nadu. He studied metallurgical and materials engineering from IIT Kharagpur and graduated in the year 1993. Pichai was known to be one of the most obedient and enthusiastic students at the institution.

IIT Kharagpur is always famous for its prodigies that include Arun Sarin, the former chief executive of Vodafone Group, and Vinod Gupta, chairman of U.S.-based venture capital and private equity firm Everest Group LLC.

Masters in engineering and materials science at Stanford University in the U.S. Later on he also got a Masters in business administration from the Wharton School of Business, where he was named a Siebel Scholar and a Palmer Scholar.

After his graduation, Pichai started working with the engineering and product management divisions of semiconductor maker Applied Materials and as a management consultant at McKinsey & Co.

Pichai at the Helm of Google

It wasn’t long before Pichai’s name started coming up with Google. In 2004, Pichai joined Google as the vice president of product management, where his duties involved leading the innovation team for Google’s Chrome and Chrome OS.

Pichai’s growth at Google was uncompromisingly fast. Pichai spearheaded other Google search products, like Google Toolbar, Chrome, Desktop Search, Gadgets, Google Pack, Google Gears, Firefox extensions, apps such as Gmail and Google Maps and Mac products.

In September 2008, Pichai was promoted as the VP of product development and he was ready to introduce the Chrome browser to an impatient world. A few weeks after Google came up with another ground breaking announcement and this time it was the Android 1.0 SDK.

But Pichai wasn’t done yet, as less than a year later, in July 2009, Pichai surprised the whole world by announcing the new Chrome OS.

The launch of both Chrome and Chrome OS propelled the search giant to a whole new space and the prominence of Pichai and his visions powered into a new public-facing role at Google. Later on Pichai presided over Google’s major announcements like the first Chromebook prototype, the launch of Chrome for Android and iOS, the revelation of Google Drive, and the recent introduction of the Chromebook Pixel.

And now there is Android! Pichai’s additional responsibility comes in at a crucial time for Google and Android, as a stint of anxiety on Samsung’s dominance over Google’s OS flaunts over the company.

This is what CEO Larry Page said about Pichai’s new role:

“Sundar has a talent for creating products that are technically excellent yet easy to use — and he loves a big bet. Take Chrome, for example. In 2008, people asked whether the world really needed another browser. Today Chrome has hundreds of millions of happy users and is growing fast thanks to its speed, simplicity and security.”

“So while Andy’s a really hard act to follow, I know Sundar will do a tremendous job doubling down on Android as we work to push the ecosystem forward,” Page said in a company blog post.

source:::::siliconindianet

Natarajan