- GSM (Global System for Mobile communication) is a digital mobile telephony system that is widely used in Europe and other parts of the world. GSM uses a variation of time division multiple access (TDMA) and is the most widely used of the three digital wireless telephony technologies (TDMA, GSM, and CDMA). GSM digitizes and compresses data, then sends it down a channel with two other streams of user data, each in its own time slot. It operates at either the 900 MHz or 1800 MHz frequency band.
Mobile services based on GSM technology were first launched in Finland in 1991. Today, more than 690 mobile networks provide GSM services across 213 countries and GSM represents 82.4% of all global mobile connections. According to GSM World, there are now more than 2 billion GSM mobile phone users worldwide. GSM World references China as “the largest single GSM market, with more than 370 million users, followed by Russia with 145 million, India with 83 million and the USA with 78 million users.”

Since many GSM network operators have roaming agreements with foreign operators, users can often continue to use their mobile phones when they travel to other countries. SIM cards (Subscriber Identity Module) holding home network access configurations may be switched to those will metered local access, significantly reducing roaming costs while experiencing no reductions in service.

GSM, together with other technologies, is part of the evolution of wireless mobile telemmunications that includes High-Speed Circuit-Switched Data (HCSD), General Packet Radio System (GPRS), Enhanced Data GSM Environment (EDGE), and Universal Mobile Telecommunications Service (UMTS).

Microsoft announced that they will give a unique Email address to every indian. This service is featured by Windows Hotmail. Indians can choose any email Id they want like vijay@lokhandwalarocks.com using the custom domain feature.

This service currently started as Beta by domain name www.lokhandwalarocks.com for the residence of Lokhandwala in Mumbai.

Jaspreet Bindra, Country Head, MSN India and Windows Live said “Email needs to connect with the user in a deeper way and this will be possible with custom domain ids powered by Windows Live Hotmail. MSN India believes that there is a need to move email from just a being a service to becoming an extension of a consumer’s personality and identity. We aim to deliver an email id for every kind of Indian, which truly reflects their identity and personality. This is our way of offering more from one’s email,”.

“With this service advertisers can now look to reach out to specific user segments whose interests and personalities align with their brands. This initiative even offers advertisers the opportunity to create a custom id for their own brand loyalists,” said Rajnish Head of Digital Marketing Revenue and Strategic Business, MSN India.

Users can use this service for login into Hotmail Live accounts also.

When people talk about “a GPS,” they usually mean aGPS receiver. The Global Positioning System (GPS) is actually a constellation of 27 Earth-orbiting satellites (24 in operation and three extras in case one fails). The U.S. military developed and implemented this satellite network as a military navigation system, but soon opened it up to everybody else.

Each of these 3,000- to 4,000-pound solar-powered satellites circles the globe at about 12,000 miles (19,300 km), making two complete rotations every day. The orbits are arranged so that at any time, anywhere on Earth, there are at least four satellites “visible” in the sky.

A GPS receiver’s job is to locate four or more of these satellites, figure out the distanc e to each, and use this information to deduce its own location. This operation is based on a simple mathematical principle called trilateration. Trilateration in three-dimensional space can be a little tricky, so we’ll start with an explanation of simple two-dimensional trilateration.

The Global Positioning System has a clever, effective solution to this problem. Every satellite contains an expensive atomic clock, but the receiver itself uses an ordinary quartz clock, which it constantly resets. In a nutshell, the receiver looks at incoming signals from four or more satellites and gauges its own inaccuracy. In other words, there is only one value for the “current time” that the receiver can use. The correct time value will cause all of the signals that the receiver is receiving to align at a single point in space. That time value is the time value held by the atomic clocks in all of the satellites. So the receiver sets its clock to that time value, and it then has the same time value that all the atomic clocks in all of the satellites have. The GPS receiver gets atomic clock accuracy “for free.”

When you measure the distance to four located satellites, you can draw four spheres that all intersect at one point. Three spheres will intersect even if your numbers are way off, but four spheres will not intersect at one point if you’ve measured incorrectly. Since the receiver makes all its distance measurements using its own built-in clock, the distances will all be proportionally incorrect.

The receiver can easily calculate the necessary adjustment that will cause the four spheres to intersect at one point. Based on this, it resets its clock to be in sync with the satellite’s atomic clock. The receiver does this constantly whenever it’s on, which means it is nearly as accurate as the expensive atomic clocks in the satellites.

"The principles of physics, as far as I can see, do not speak against the possibility of maneuvering things atom by atom. It is not an attempt to violate any laws; it is something, in principle, that can be done; but in practice, it has not been done because we are too big."
— Richard Feynman, Nobel Prize winner in physics

Nanotechnology is the engineering of functional systems at the molecular scale. This covers both current work and concepts that are more advanced.

In its original sense, ‘nanotechnology’ refers to the projected ability to construct items from the bottom up, using techniques and tools being developed today to make complete, high performance products.

What is nanotechnology all about?

Nanotechnology is the engineering of tiny machines — the projected ability to build things from the bottom upinside personal nanofactories (PNs), using techniques and tools being developed today to make complete, highly advanced products. Ultimately, nanotechnology will enable control of matter at the nanometer scale, using mechanochemistry. Shortly after this envisioned molecular machinery is created, it will result in amanufacturing revolution, probably causing severe disruption. It also has serious economic, social, environmental, and military implications.

Much of the work being done today that carries the name ‘nanotechnology’ is not nanotechnology in the original meaning of the word. Nanotechnology, in its traditional sense, means building things from the bottom up, with atomic precision. This theoretical capability was envisioned as early as 1959 by the renowned physicist Richard Feynman.

Four Generations of nanotechnology:

Mihail  (Mike ) Roco  of the U.S. National Nanotechnology Initiative has described four generations of nanotechnology development (see chart below). The current era, as Roco depicts it, is that of passive nanostructures, materials designed to perform one task. The second phase, which we are just entering, introduces active nanostructures for multitasking; for example, actuators, drug delivery devices, and sensors. The third generation is expected to begin emerging around 2010 and will feature nanosystems with thousands of interacting components. A few years after that, the first integrated nanosystems, functioning (according to Roco) much like a mammalian cell with hierarchical systems within systems, are expected to be developed
It is difficult to say for sure how soon this technology will mature, partly because it’s possible (especially in countries that do not have open societies) that clandestine military or industrial development programs have been going on for years without our knowledge.

Is nanotechnology bad or good?

Nanotechnology offers great potential for benefit to humankind, and also brings severe dangers. While it is appropriate to examine carefully the risks and possible toxicity of nanoparticles and other products of nanoscale technology, the greatest hazards are posed by malicious or unwise use of molecular manufacturing. CRN’s focus is on designing and promoting mechanisms for safe development and effective administration of MM.

We cannot say with certainty that full-scale nanotechnology will not be developed with the next ten years, or even five years. It may take longer than that, but prudence—and possibly our survival—demands that we prepare now for the earliest plausible development scenario.

The microprocessor, (or CPU), is the brain of the computer. The picture above shows a slot 1 processor with heatsinks and a fan, which prevent it from overheating. Below is the processor without the heatsinks and fan, being inserted into a slot 1 motherboard connection. Slot 1 processors have the microprocessor and level 2 cache memory mounted on a circuit board, (or card), which is enclosed inside of a protective shell.The enclosed slot 1 processor card contains the central processing unit, (or CPU), with its level 1 cache memory. The central processing unit also contains the control unit and the arithmetic/logic unit, both working together as a team to process the computer’s commands. The control unit controls the flow of events inside the processor. It fetches instructions from memory and decodes them into commands that the computer can understand. The arithmetic/logic unit handles all of the math calculations and logical comparisons. It takes the commands from the control unit and executes them, storing the results back into memory. These 4 steps, (fetch, decode, execute, and store), are what’s called the “machine cycle” of a computer. These 4 basic steps are how the computer runs each and every program. The microprocessor’s level 1 cache memory, is memory that is contained within the CPU itself. It stores the most frequently used instructions and data. The CPU can access the cache memory much faster than having to access the RAM, (or Random Access Memory). Below is a picture of what’s inside of a Pentium 3 processor. The control unit, arithmetic/logic unit, and level 1 cache are contained within the center CPU chip. Level 2 cache memory is visible on the right-hand side of the processor card.

Level 1 cache memory is memory that is included inside of the CPU itself. It is usually smaller and faster than level 2 cache memory. Level 2 cache memory is memory between the RAM and CPU. It is used when the level 1 cache memory is full or is too small to hold the intended data. Originally it was not directly on the CPU chip itself. *Read the update at the bottom of this page.* The photo above shows level 2 cache memory on the processor card, beside the CPU. Below are two photos of a CPU. The photo on the bottom is a view of the CPU chip from the outside. The photo on the top is a large map of the inside of the CPU, showing the different areas and what their function is. See if you can find the areas that fetch, decode, and execute the instructions. Can you also find the level 1 cache areas that store information? The pipelined floating point area, logic areas, and superscalar integer execution units area are part of what? Did you guess the arithmetic/logic unit? If so, you’re right!

At the top you can also see the clock driver. The clock driver is what times, or sets the pace, for the computer. The clock’s speed, is how CPUs are rated. Each machine cycle consists of two beats. Each beat the control unit fetches and decodes data, which is called the “instruction cycle.” At the same time the arithmetic/logic unit executes and stores data, which is called the “execution cycle.” The speed of a clock is rated by how many beats per second it can accomplish. 1 billion beats per second is referred to as 1Ghz. For every beat, (except the very first), a machine cycle is completed. Common CPUs available today perform at 3Ghz and faster. This means that a 3Ghz CPU can execute 3,000,000,000 instructions in a single second!