Upcoming Google OS

The google seems to be taking all over IT world
There upcoming OS looks stunning
more like Mac OS and Ubuntu, Linux versions

Let's see how good they will be in the future.........

American SUV s converted for export markets in Sri Lanka

Overseas Vehicles Sales Limited will relocate their plant from Negombo Road, Peliyagoda to Kirimandala Mawatha, Narahenpita.

The company is engaged in converting large US built vehicles made by General Motors from left hand to right hand drive for the export market. The vehicles they import are essentially 4-wheel drive Sports Utility vehicles (SUVs) of the Cadillac, GMC and Hummer brands.

Chairman of Overseas Vehicles Sales Limited Peter Hill, an Australian national, decided to locate his plant in Sri Lanka as he has many family friends in the island. This was the main selling point, he added.

The latest vehicle to be converted is the Hummer, the popular civilian version of the vehicle, which is used extensively by the United States military. The conversion from left to right hand drive is a very extensive task, as the vehicles have to be completely taken apart and rebuilt.

The company produces many of the parts which are used in this conversion such as right hand drive dashboards, windscreen wiper panels, centre consoles, electric seats, heater boxes, bracketing for air conditioning, steering boxes and the brake system.

Since the company was established in Sri Lanka in 2003, the project is not new, but the decision to relocate the plant to a larger facility at Kirimandala Mawatha, Narahenpita is an indication of the growing demand for such vehicles.

There are currently 52 right hand drive countries in the world, so the market potential for these converted vehicles is considerable.

Hill, is very optimistic about the market potential for these large and very luxurious SUVs. The economic growth in Asian countries has resulted in increasingly discerning customers who are attracted by the powerful performance, luxurious fittings and near indestructible bodyworks of the American vehicles.

According to Hill his primary export markets will be India, Malaysia, Hong Kong, South Africa, Indonesia and Fiji. The 50 workers employed have been trained to man very advanced equipment needed in the process of converting the vehicles.

The conversion plant at Kirimandala Mawatha, Narahenpita is an ISO standard quality workshop. Hill is confident that the plant will convert about 300 vehicles every year.

He also added that he would like to see his vehicles on Sri Lankan roads. The vehicles he said are ideally suited for Sri Lanka, especially those in the Chevrolet range.

Convert String to Date

DateFormat df = new SimpleDateFormat("dd-MM-yyyy");

DateFormat df1 = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd hh:mm:ss");

try
{
Date today = df.parse("20-12-2005");
Date t1 = df1.parse("2008-05-12 08:40:00");


System.out.println("Today = " + df.format(today));
System.out.println("t1 = " + df1.format(t1));

System.out.println(t1);
} catch (ParseException e)
{
e.printStackTrace();
}

for more info http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/docs/api/java/text/SimpleDateFormat.html

M&M to set up $ 100 mn IT centre in Sri Lanka

Mahindra and Mahindra on Tuesday entered into an agreement with the Board of Investments of Sri Lanka to set up a 100 million dollar IT-ITeS centre in the Economic Processing Zone at Katunayake near here.

The MoU was signed between M&M Executive Director Arun Nanda and Sri Lankan Minister of Enterprise and Investment Sarath Amunugama, in the presence of visiting Indian Minister of State for Commerce Jairam Ramesh.

The centre, to be developed on 53 acre land, would generate 25,000 IT jobs in the island country, Nanda said.

Besides the IT unit from M&M, efforts would be made to rope in top national and global clientale of the Indian company into the Sri Lankan facility, he said.

The work for the IT centre will start within the next six months, he said, adding that the job opportunities provided by the centre would also have a spillover effect on employment in other areas.

Board of Investments is a statutory agency responsible for promoting and facilitating foreign investments in Sri Lanka.

Jairam Ramesh announced that besides the IT centre, the Mahindra group has also decided to set up a manufacturing facility over 900 acre of land at Trincomalee in Eastern Sri Lanka.

He said the agreement to this effect will be reached soon.

Speaking on the occasion, Amunugama said while the IT project will provide employment opportunities, the Trincomalee manufacturing base would act as an integrating point for Sri Lankan communities as this eastern province had equal ratio of Tamil, Sinhala and Muslim population.

Convert String to Date

DateFormat df = new SimpleDateFormat("dd-MM-yyyy");

DateFormat df1 = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd hh:mm:ss");

try
{
Date today = df.parse("20-12-2005");
Date t1 = df1.parse("2008-05-12 08:40:00");


System.out.println("Today = " + df.format(today));
System.out.println("t1 = " + df1.format(t1));

System.out.println(t1);
} catch (ParseException e)
{
e.printStackTrace();
}

BIGGEST LIE OF USA TILL DATE

Wireless sensor networks - Mobile robots as gateways

This is a new venture that is focused on intelligent mobile robots that are used in flexible environments, not automated toolsets in fixed locations. For example, Intel-based mobile robots will be used at the James Reserve by the Center for Embedded Networked Sensing (CENS) to map terrain and monitor habitats.

Intel silicon for robotics applications is also being used by researchers, such as professor Tucker Balch at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Professor Balch is exploring how robots can organize and perform like social insects, such as bees and ants. Future projects may include the possibility of building a ground-based Robonaut, as well as the brains of the 2009 Mars Rover.

Intel's focus is not on the mechanical aspects of robots -- the wheels, motors, grasping arms or physical layout. Instead, this venture is focused on the silicon and software that give a robot its capabilities and intelligence. Intel's role is to assist researchers in putting powerful, sophisticated intelligence into small, standardized packages for mobile robotics. With wireless technologies now practical and available, this is a novel area for research and investigation.

To assist researchers, Intel is offering inexpensive, standards-based hardware, an open-source operating system, and drivers for use in robotics environments. The open-source package lets researchers take advantage of leading-edge Intel XScale microprocessors and Intel Centrino mobile technology, while reducing the overall costs of developing robotics systems.

What is a robot?

Robotics is not a new field. It has been around for decades. In fact, most people have robots in their own home, even if they don't recognize the robots as such. For example, a dishwasher automatically washes and dries your dishes, then grinds up the rinsed-off food so the organic matter doesn't clog your drains. A washing machine soaks, soaps, agitates, and rinses your clothes. Down the street, the car wash-n-wax cleans, brushes, washes, and waxes your car, all for a few dollars. One of the better known home-oriented robots is iRobot's smart vacuum cleaner, called the Roomba, which has already won the Good Housekeeping Award for efficiency and ease of use.

More sophisticated robots are used in manufacturing plants and warehouses. Car makers use automated machines to position car frames, bolt pieces together, and even do welds and priming. In wafer communications, test systems position themselves along grids, take measurements, and then correlate the data into graphs. Robot-assisted heart microsurgery is now performed routinely in the U.S.

To some extent, we have become so used to robots that we no longer pay attention to the automated machines. We look only at the tasks they complete, and we think of them simply as tools. It is easy to think this way: most of today's robots are stationary tools in fixed locations, like a fruit sorter in a cannery, or an alarm sensor that triggers a call to security.

Robots growing in sophistication

Although we are surrounded by robots that we think of as automated tools, there are some sophisticated robots already in use (photo below). A remote telepresence is one of the most common applications that today's mobile, autonomous robots provide. Intelligence for these robots is handled via an embedded microcontroller that manages internal systems, and by a laptop that is attached to the robot. Humans control the robot through wireless communications. In this way, humans can tell the robot to change directions, shift a camera angle, take measurements, grasp objects, and so on. For example, mobile robots can let security personnel stay in a central office and still check out unsupervised areas in a warehouse or other remote site.

Carnegie Mellon University's TagBots use Intel boards

With advances in microchip design, nanotech sciences, software architecture, and mini-power cells, robot systems can be more than just another pair of eyes. They are already being tested and used in a variety of applications. They can traverse different, even dangerous environments and perform complex tasks on their own. For example, mil-spec iRobot Packbots have been used in Afghanistan to detect and map the locations and contents of caves. Another iRobot rover was used in the historic exploration of both the southern and northern shafts that led to the Queen's Chamber in the Great Pyramid at Giza (Egypt). The rover was able to illuminate areas beyond the blocking stones in the shafts, which had last been viewed by human eyes some 4,500 years ago.

Robot mobility issues

Regardless of a robot's design or tasks, there are still three main issues with its mobility:

• Localization: How does a robot know where it is in its environment?
  



• Mapping: How does the robot know the details of its environment?
  



• Navigation: How does a robot traverse its environment?

Intel works closely with researchers to identify novel ways for a robot to perform its mobility tasks. Intel is particularly interested in machine-vision libraries that can be used to perform localization and mapping based on monocular- or stereo-vision systems. For example, right now, most robots navigate by using infrared or radio waves to avoid objects in their paths. However, Intel software researchers recently developed several libraries that are very applicable to robotics systems. Intel's computer vision library is already used extensively by vision researchers.

Intel has also released a test version of a technical library for building Bayesian networks to support machine-learning activities. Bayesian networks are a form of probability-based artificial intelligence. Such a network would let a robot navigate by matching sensor data to a map stored in its memory.

Gateways into sensor networks

Two technologies in particular seem to be moving toward an interesting convergence: mobile robotics and wireless sensor networks. The two main questions here are:

• Can a mobile robot act as a gateway into a wireless sensor network?
  



• Can sensor networks take advantage of a robot's mobility and intelligence?
  

One major issue with a mobile robot acting as a gateway is the communication between the robot and the sensor network. Sensor networks typically communicate using 900 MHz radio waves. Mobile robots use laptops that communicate via 802.11, in the 2.4- to 2.483-GHz range. Intel hopes to prove that a sensor net can be equipped with 802.11 capabilities to bridge the gap between robotics and wireless networks.

Intel recently demonstrated how a few motes equipped with 802.11 wireless capabilities can be added to a sensor network to act as wireless hubs. Other motes in the network then use each other as links to reach the 802.11-equipped hubs. The hubs forward the data packets to the main 802.11-capable gateway, which is usually a laptop. Using some motes as hubs cuts down on the number of hops any one data packet has to make to reach the main gateway. It also reduces power consumption across the sensor net.

Intel believes that one of the most interesting technology convergences will be in designing mobile robots that can act as gateways into the wireless sensor networks. For example, Intel recently installed small sensors in a vineyard in Oregon to monitor microclimates. The sensors measured temperature, humidity, and other factors to monitor the growing cycle of the grapes, then transmitted the data from sensor to sensor until the data reached a gateway. There, the data was interpreted and used to help prevent frostbite, mold, and other agricultural problems.

The agricultural example shows just how a sensor network could take advantage of a mobile robot's capabilities. Over time, sensors need to be recalibrated, just like any other measuring equipment. If a robot could act as a gateway to the sensor network, it could automatically perform tasks such as calibration. For example, a robot could periodically collect data along the network, determine which sensors are out of tolerance, move to the appropriate location, and recalibrate each out-of-tolerance device.

To look into using mobile robots as gateways to such wireless sensor networks, Intel is bringing in a Ph.D. candidate from the University of Southern California, under the guidance of professor Gaurav Sukhatme. This person will work with Intel on integrating wireless sensor networks into robotics research for localization techniques. This type of collaboration is just one example of how Intel is promoting the convergence of microelectronics and robotics.

Numerous collaborations on robotics projects

Overall, Intel is working with approximately 20 robotics research groups, including Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), University of Southern California (USC), University of Pennsylvania, Northwestern, and Georgia Tech. Intel is also in discussions with universities and robotics manufacturers, such as Sony, about robotic dogs, and Honda and Samsung on using Intel silicon to build robotic humanoids. Intel is also in discussion with NASA and DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) on several major projects.

Other pilot projects include professor Sebastian Thrun's CMU research into an aerial mapping helicopter (photo below), which is currently about 4 feet in length and which has been demonstrated in certain DARPA programs. Acroname is also using Intel's open-source robotics package in their latest commercial robot, called Garcia (see photo at beginning).

Sebastian Thrun's aerial mapping helicopter

In other collaborations, professor Balch of Georgia Tech is using Intel technology to develop hundreds of mobile robots in order to model the swarm behavior of insects. Professor Vijay Kumar is using Intel's XScale boards (photo below) and open-source software for off-road robot investigations. Professor Illah Nourbakhsh is teaching mobile robot programming using new robotics systems with Intel XScale boards and the Linux operating system.

Intel boards are being used in a number of robotics projects

Robotics task force

The thrust of Intel's robotics effort is to reduce the cost and engineering required to build small, powerful, sophisticated robots. This thrust, however, requires standards and protocols. Right now, robotics standards and protocols are in their infancy. With technology convergence becoming increasingly important in Intel's areas of interest, Intel is leading industry efforts for the Robotics Engineering Task Force (RETF).

The RETF is modeled after the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). RETF allows government and university researchers to work together to establish standard software protocols and interfaces for robotics systems. Currently, government representatives include researchers from NASA, DARPA, and NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology). All told, approximately 35 government and university researchers are already participating in the RETF.

The most pressing issue for the RETF is devising standards for commanding and controlling the mobile robots. The task force has already defined a charter to develop standards for robotics systems. A working draft of the first framework document is now being reviewed for comments.

The task force has also begun work on standards for bridging networks, on protocols, and on application programming interfaces (APIs). Current issues being discussed include intellectual property rights and copyright. The task force hopes to begin work on full specifications as soon as the framework document is approved. The task force expects to publish its work as open-source code when the work is complete, something it hopes to finish in about two years.

Standardized building blocks

As one of the industry leaders of the RETF, Intel is devising low-cost reference designs for relatively small robots. The reference designs are based on silicon for Intel's XScale microprocessor and Intel Centrino mobile technology, flash memory, and 802.11 wireless networking with built-in support for wireless sensor networks. The designs give researchers an intermediate scale between the embedded microprocessors currently used in internal robotics and the large-scale laptops used for mobile intelligence.

The robotics package also includes the open-source Linux 2.4.19 operating system, as well as a multitude of open-source drivers. Drivers include vision-system drivers for sensing infrared, drivers for ultrasonic devices that measure the distance from a robot to objects in the robot's environment, and so on. The software platform also supports Java applications, and integrates USC's Player device server for robotics systems. All elements in the open-source robotics package are wirelessly connected using 802.11 networks.

With internal robot systems standardized, researchers and developers will not have to redesign the wheel for each robot's brain. Instead, developers can spend more time on mobility, visual recognition systems, and the software for artificial intelligence (AI).

Nine Ways to Wipe Out Spyware

The goal of antispyware software is extremely simple. If any kind of malicious software is present on the system, the antispyware app should remove every trace. And if the system is clean, the app should prevent malicious software from installing. Simple. The hard part is making it happen.

There's a little confusion over the different coverage areas for antispyware and antivirus. A number of the standalone products have solved this question by incorporating antivirus protection. Here's the lowdown: A computer virus is very specifically a program that "infects" other programs with its own code. When an unsuspecting user launches an infected program, the virus looks for more programs to infect. A worm is like a virus, but it can spread without requiring a user to launch it. Both of these lie squarely in the antivirus camp.

The term spyware is actually a catch-all for a variety of nonvirus malicious software (malware, for short). Trojan horse programs masquerade as something useful—games, screen savers, utilities—but actually have their own sneaky agenda. One especially pernicious type of Trojan pretends to be an antispyware utility. These rogue antispyware programs tend to be alarmist, reporting tons of threats and offering to remove them—for a price. The term adware refers to programs that display ads on your computer (independent of the built-in banner ads on Web pages). Spyware literally spies on you, gathering personal information and sending it to the lair of its evil creator. Keyloggers specifically records all the keys you type, thereby capturing passwords and other sensitive info. Some of these may use rootkit technology to escape detection. A good antispyware program will handle all of these overlapping threat categories.

To test the efficacy of antispyware products, I challenge them to clean up a collection of virtual machines preinfested with known malware of all the types mentioned above. When they're finished, I review their success by checking my own list of known files and Registry traces associated with each threat. If they wipe out every executable file they get full credit, even if dozens or hundreds of data files and Registry items remain. If they make the attempt but leave executable files behind, they get only half credit. Spyware Doctor with AntiVirus 5.5 cleans up a system more thoroughly than any other product I've tested: It wiped out every trace of many threats and left just an item or two of others.

I also load each antispyware product on a pristine virtual machine and check how well its real-time protection manages to prevent installation of the same set of malware samples. The better products, including Spyware Doctor and Webroot AntiVirus with Antispyware and Firewall, prevent the malicious software from even being downloaded. When presented with a folder full of malware samples, they delete most of them on sight. In many cases I'm left with just one or two samples to test, so I repeat the test using variants of the malware installers that I created myself, renaming each sample, modifying nonexecutable bytes, and appending null bytes to change the file size. And again, the best products aren't fooled by this minimal disguise.

Of course many people rely on their full security suite for protection against spyware and viruses. Many of these are quite effective: Check our Security Suites 2008 roundup for details. The difference is that these suites include lots of other stuff you may or may not feel you need, including (but not limited to) antispam, parental controls, firewalls—even backup and system-tuning utilities. You may not have children, or your ISP may provide your antispam, or you may simply prefer à la carte security. If you choose to build your own security system using best-of-breed software in different areas, you certainly won't go wrong with our Editors' Choice, Spyware Doctor. But there many other choices available to you—some well worth considering, and some to be avoided at all costs—even at no cost. Below are quick summaries of my full-length reviews of nine antispyware apps. As always, click the link to read more about each application.

Ad-Aware 2007 Pro
The new version of Ad-Aware is faster and prettier, but the retooled version of this ground-breaking antispyware app can't handle the worst spyware threats lying in wait for you on the Internet.

CounterSpy V2
CounterSpy V2 ranks just below the best standalone antispyware apps. It has trouble with badly infested systems but does a good job of keeping healthy systems clean.

GarbageClean 3.0
GarbageClean has marginally improved its malware removal in version 3.0, but the program still stinks--and now it's not even free.

Spyware Doctor with Antivirus 5.5
Spyware Doctor is our go-to app when it comes to wiping your system clean of malicious software. Treating your malware infestation with Spyware Doctor can take time and effort, but the end result is a near-total recovery for your PC.

Spyware Terminator 2.0
Spyware Terminator is yet another app that doesn't live up to its tough name. While this free solution warns about phishing Web sites and other dangerous sites, it tested poorly on both malware removal and malware blocking.

STOPzilla 5.0
When you hear the name STOPzilla, you'd expect a 50-foot tall spyware-destroying behemoth. What you get is an app that costs more than the best standalone antispyware programs yet does less.

SUPERAntiSpyware Professional 3.7
SUPERAntiSpyware costs the same as the top standalone antispyware product yet doesn't remove malware as well, and it's worse at protecting a clean system. It's nimble and doesn't hog resources, but it has to get tougher against the bad guys.

SpyEraser 2
SpyEraser 2 doesn't wildly kill off other programs at random, as its predecessor did, but it's still terrible at blocking and removing malware.

Webroot AntiVirus with AntiSpyware and Firewall
Webroot's antivirus and antispyware solution now includes a firewall along with a brand-new (and very long) name. The program still offers solid virus/spyware protection but no substantial improvements compared with the previous version.

Have you got this ?????????

Are you seeing the following error message when trying to log
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access your account, we'd like to provide you with some clarification
and tips for troubleshooting.If you're seeing this error message, this
means your AdSense account shares the same login and password as a
Google Account, but the two accounts are not linked. As a result, when
you try logging in at www.google.com/adsense, our system will only
grant you access to your Google Account -- not your AdSense account. To
resolve this issue, you'll need to maintain two separate passwords. The
easiest way to proceed is to first ensure that you're logged out of
Google Accounts for any other products you use, such as Gmail or
AdWords. Then, change your AdSense password at
https://www.google.com/adsense/assistlogin. You'll be asked to submit
your login email address to us, and we'll then send a reset link to
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select a unique password that you're not using with any other Google
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in again at www.google.com/adsense.We understand that this is
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working on migrating all AdSense accounts over to Google Accounts, and
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