India to cut carbon emission intensity by 20-25 pc by 2020

Ahead of the Copenhagen summit on climate change, India today announced that it would reduce carbon emission intensity by 20-25 per cent by 2020 on the 2005 levels through a series of policy measures, including mandatory fuel efficiency standards on all vehicles.

Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said if the Copenhagen Summit is successful in reaching a "comprenhensive and equitable agreement", India would be willing to do more but only through voluntary measures.

"We are telling the world that India is voluntarily ready to reduce emission intensity by 20-25 per cent in 15 years from 2005," he said replying to a debate in the Lok Sabha on impact of climate change.

IMEI-less Phones To Go Offline Today

If you are one amongst the 25 million subscribers using an IMEI-less handset (Chinese or not), this might just be the last day you use your mobile phone as one. Chances are that your phone might just be relegated to an overpriced media player as it can be taken "offline" by your trusted mobile operator.

The reason is a directive from the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) to disconnect all phones which do not have valid IMEIs from their network. This move comes after a yearlong saga of many flip-flops and ideas some of which included things like "legalizing" an illegal handset by assigning it an IMEI number. However, after a year, nothing seems to have borne fruit and an exasperated DoT has come up with this directive.

What remains to be seen now is if the mobile companies really go ahead and "deliver" this time round. This is not the first time that such a directive has been issued by the DoT. Earlier this year, there was a huge outcry when a similar directive was issued. However, nothing much happened that time. Let us wait and watch if anything happens this time as well. Meanwhile, keep a tab on the network signal indicator on your Chinese phone!

Epson Address Expert printer series are good postcard printer

What you are looking at here isn’t some miniature all-in-one desktop computer with printer, but the Epson Address Expert.

This is a printer that is set up to postcards, and that looks like all it can print. I have to admit that it has been a while since I have sent a postcard, but they are still popular in Japan, so I’m told.

The Epson Address Expert series come in two forms: the E-800 and E-600. Each of them have a 7-inch LCD display with 5760 x 1440 dpi resolution, and are PC and Mac compatible. The E-800 includes a wireless keyboard so you can compose your well-wishing messages.

Hands on Review of the Eye-Fi Explore Video

This isn’t the first time that we have reported on Eye-Fi products before, and chances are, it won’t be the last time. I finally tried it out for myself, and was fortunate enough to get my hands on the Eye-Fi Explore Video 4GB version.

For those who are not familiar with the Eye-Fi line, this is a memory card that allows the user to upload photos to their computer without any USB cable. You might be wondering how that is possible, and, truth be told, so am I. I can’t deny that it works, though. After a quick setup with my computer, I was able to view photos from my camera on my browser screen like magic. Of course, the user to be very specific about where the photos are to be sent, or it is very easy to wake up to find photos from your Eye-Fi floating all around your computer where you cannot retrieve them.

As for the video function, I found that it took quite a while to upload video footage. Not only that, it had to do this operation uninterrupted. That means if you have a video camera with the Eye-Fi Explore Video, then you better make certain you can leave it on for extended periods of time. Because if the battery runs out while the video is wirelessly downloading to your computer, then you have to do it again.

Textminator an arcade game for today’s youth

I realize that stand-up video games are practically a thing of the past, and there has not been a decent one since Dance Dance Revolution (DDR). Since home versions of the game along withGuitar Hero/Rock Band has pretty much eclipsed stand-up video game glory, its nice to see someone trying to renew it with Textminator.

As you can see, someone has even used the safety bars on the DDR game, but made the subject matter of the competition not dancing, but texting, something that the teens these days are really, really good at.

So why not make an arcade game where players must “face-off” with each other on stainless steel phone-like keypads? It sort of reminds me of MasterType, a very old-school computer program that helped me learn to type. In that game, the player had to save a spaceship by typing in the correct sequence of letters to shoot the guns to destroy the aliens. I am assuming the player does a similar sort of game in Textminator.

3D Rendering not difficult with ProFORMA

Whenever I think of 3D scanning, I think of this very complicated process of a multitude of cameras surrounding an object, taking pictures at every angle, and then blending them all together with a computer.

A PhD student at the Cambridge University Engineering Department named Qi Pan has made like Apple and “thought different”.

As you can see from the video after the jump, Pan took a detailed paper building and rotated it on an axis, filming it with an ordinary web camera. His ProFORMA (Probabilistic Feature-based On-line Rapid Model Acquisition) program scanned it, and he immediately had something ready for 3D model generation. He could even shake the real thing and move it, and the CG image would do the same. Wild!

Declutter for a healthy life

Clutter is often the result of having too much to do and too little time to contain everything— a pile of faxes to attend to, and post-it notes from the boss, stuck on the sides of the monitor, are but obvious signs. Similar signs can often be seen at home as well, such as a pile of unwashed clothes, messy closets and kitchen cabinets. Creating a mess is not a sin, but not clearing it probably is. Unless you are dealing with an Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, chances are, your daily grind often leaves your surroundings far from organised. But if ignored, the mess may start getting the better of you, impacting your overall productivity and thought process. We list the advantages of decluttering.