Internet of Things

Imagine you could control your car with your computer, analyze the Tyre pressure, engine temperature, calibrate the intricacies of its transmission system from your tablet; your car would have had an IP.  It can be a person with a heart monitor implant, a farm animal with a Bio-chip transponder, or any other natural or man-made object that can be assigned an IP address and provided with the ability to transfer data over a network. Everything can now be controlled, remotely. This is what is called Internet of Things. The Internet of Things (IoT) is the interconnection of uniquely identifiable embedded computing devices within the existing Internet infrastructure. So far, the Internet of Things has been most closely associated with machine-to-machine communication in manufacturing and power, oil and gas utilities.

IPv6’s huge increase in address space is an important factor in the development of the Internet of Things. The address space expansion means that we could “assign an IPV6 address to every atom on the surface of the earth, and still have enough addresses left to do another 100+ earths.” In other words, humans could easily assign an IP address to every "thing" on the planet. An increase in the number of smart machines, as well as the amount of upstream data the nodes generate, is expected to raise new concerns about data privacy, data sovereignty and security. 

Today computers -- and, therefore, the Internet -- are almost wholly dependent on human beings for information. Nearly all of the roughly 50 Petabytes of data available on the Internet were first captured and created by human beings by typing, pressing a record button, taking a digital picture or scanning a bar code. 

The problem is, people have limited time, attention and accuracy -- all of which means they are not very good at capturing data about things in the real world. If we had computers that knew everything there was to know about things -- using data they gathered without any help from us -- we would be able to track and count everything and greatly reduce waste, loss and cost. We would know when things needed replacing, repairing or recalling and whether they were fresh or past their best.

MICROMAX Canvas TAB P 470 : A REVIEW !!

Micromax has launched an economical 3G-enabled voice-calling Canvas Tab P470 tablet in India, at a price tag of Rs. 6,999. The tablet has hit shelves starting December 20 in Classic Silver and Mystic Grey colour variants.

The dual-SIM supporting Micromax Canvas Tab P470 features a 7-inch TFT display with 1024x600 pixel resolution. The Android 4.4.2 KitKat-based tablet is powered by a dual-core MediaTek MT8312 processor clocked at 1.3GHz, coupled with 1GB of RAM.

As for storage, the Micromax Canvas Tab P470 sports 8GB of inbuilt storage, which can be expanded via a microSD card (up to 32GB). A 3200mAh battery backs the tablet, and is claimed to offer up to 158 hours of standby time and 11 hours of talk time, the battery is non-removable. It has normal arsenal of sensors such as Proximity, Accelerometer and G-sensor and built in applications include, Google Talk, Twitter, Facebook chat, Yahoo!, YouTube, Gmail, Google Search, Google+, WhatsApp.

The Canvas Tab P470 also features support for 21 Indian languages, including Hindi, Gujarati, Punjabi, Malayalam, Tamil, and Kannada. It also features a 5MP LED fixed-focus rear camera and a 0.3MP VGA front-facing camera with abilities of Auto-focus, Face Detection, Camera Effects, Image Viewer. On the connectivity front, it supports 3G for voice calling and data (dual-SIM), Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS. It has a weight of 310 grams.              

Micromax last month launched a new 8-inch Android tablet called the Canvas Tab P666, priced at Rs. 10,999. Notably, the Micromax Canvas Tab P666 is the first tablet from the popular handset maker packing an Intel chipset. It is powered by a 1.2GHz dual-core Intel Atom Processor Z2520 (4 threads, 1MB Cache) coupled with 1GB of RAM.

Some of the other key specifications of the Canvas Tab P666 are an 8-inch WXGA IPS display; 8GB of inbuilt storage which is expandable via microSD card (up to 32GB); a 5-megapixel rear autofocus camera; a 2-megapixel front-facing camera, and a 4400mAh battery.

8 Uninstall Tips for Windows

Windows includes a number of straightforward options for removing programs, and we'll look at those here. However, some programs can be a bit tricky to fully remove properly; here are some useful tools that you can download to help you out as well.

1. Use System Restore

All versions of Windows going right back to XP include an option called System Restore that allows your PC to revert back to an earlier state. Windows XP hides this deep inside the Start menu - All Programs/Accessories/System Tools - but in later versions of Windows you can quickly locate it just by typing 'restore' into the Search tool in the Start Menu or the Windows 8 Start Screen. Before you install any new piece of software you can use System Restore to create a new 'restore point'. If anything subsequently goes wrong with your PC you can use System Restore to turn back time and return your PC to the state it was in before you installed that new program.

2. Check Your Control Panel

When you install any new piece of software onto your PC, that program is added to a list that is stored in the Windows Control Panel. It's called Add or Remove Programs in Windows XP. In Windows Vista and Windows 7 and 8, you have to open Control Panel and then select View: Category. You will then see Uninstall A Program listed under the Programs heading.

You can then just double-click any program in that list to remove it from your PC. Most programs will be deleted automatically, although some may also provide options to repair or modify the program if it isn't working properly. If your first attempt to uninstall a program doesn't work, Microsoft suggests trying again for a second time. Another option is to restart your PC using its special Safe Mode, which is often used for diagnosing and troubleshooting various problems with Windows. You can normally do this by holding down the F8 key while you restart your PC, and then selecting 'Safe Mode' from the screen that appears. You can then try removing the program using the Control Panel again while still in Safe Mode.

3. Searching For Files

Some programs may not show up in that list in Control Panel, but they may have a separate uninstaller program tucked away somewhere else. In Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7 you can click on All Programs in the Start menu, and then look inside the program folder (if it has one - some programs may just show as a single file on their own).

4. Windows 8 Uninstall

Windows 8 displays programs as a series of rectangular 'tiles' on the Start screen, and you can just right-click on a program's tile to display a special toolbar at the bottom of the screen. This toolbar includes an option for uninstalling the program, as well as showing the location of the file on your hard disk so that you can see if it has its own uninstaller program or help files.

5. Reinstall To Uninstall

If none of those options works then - believe it or not - reinstalling the program might do the trick. If you still have the original disk or the original download file for the program, you can use that to run the installer program again. Some installers include an option to repair or modify the program, which may solve your problem if the program is not working properly. Running the installer again may also give you the option to completely remove the program as well. You can also check the support forums on the developer's web site to see if there are instructions for uninstalling the program.

6. IObit Uninstaller

If you're still having trouble then there are a number of free software tools that can help you remove troublesome programs. A good general-purpose tool that works with most types of programs is IObit Uninstaller. This is a good tool for beginners, as it provides convenient lists of all recently installed programs, as well as large programs that are taking up a lot of space, or old programs that you don't use very often. For more advanced users there's also a Forced Uninstall option that allows you to locate individual programs or files and completely wipe them out.

7. Windows App Remover

Some modern apps occasionally resist the standard uninstall options that we've mentioned here, so there is another heavy-duty option for dealing with modern apps that won't uninstall properly. Windows includes a tool called the Powershell, which allows you to delve more deeply into the Windows system. It's a bit complicated for beginners, but Microsoft provides a 'script' that can launch Powershell and help you to uninstall modern apps. 

Just download the script (from https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/scriptcenter/Remove-Windows-Store-Apps-a00ef4a4) and unzip it. The script file is called RemoveWindowsStoreApp, and you can right-click on it and select Run With Powershell. The Powershell window will then display a numbered list of all your modern apps. You can then uninstall multiple apps simply by entering the number for each app.

8. Security Software

Antivirus software and other types of security software can be quite difficult to remove as these programs are designed to resist attacks from viruses and other malware that might stop them from working properly. If the normal options for uninstalling programs don't work then you can try AppRemover, which is specifically designed for removing various security tools and all their associated files. AppRemover can automatically detect any antivirus or security software installed on your PC and then deletes that program and any other files that are associated

What is BIG DATA ?

The single point that makes understanding big data so elusive is that we weren't and still aren't really prepared for big data or its management. 90 percent of the world's data was generated in the last two years. That's the reason why we were caught off our guard. There's so much new data produced every day from social media sites, industrial sensors, satellites, cell phones, photographs, documents, and much more. Every day our data grows by more than 2.5 quintillion bytes (2,500,000,000,000,000,000) or just over two billion (2,328,306,436.5) gigabytes. That data has to be stored somewhere—even temporarily—and sent through databases and applications for analysis. There's so much new data piling up that its storage, management, and analysis are overwhelming. This is why very few really understand big data.

This huge amount of data is why you're hearing so much about big data and why its understanding is difficult. Data has always been big relative to our capacity to store, retrieve, analyze, organize, archive, and purge but now the situation is almost out of our collective control.

As a side note, you might have heard a lot about metadata lately concerning the private information that the NSA has captured and analyzed. Metadata is data about data. It's a strange concept but, simply stated, metadata is a description of your data and you use metadata all the time but might not realize it. For example, when you snap a digital picture, the metadata for that picture is the size, date, location, dimensions, pixels, and so on.

All you have to do to check out metadata for a photo is to right click the photo file, select Properties, and then select the Details tab. You can see that metadata also takes up space but is not the data itself. It is data about data. So we could discuss big metadata as well as big data. So there's more to data than just the data itself. To clarify, metadata doesn't make big data big, it makes big data bigger. Now that you have an understanding of data and metadata, you can now explore what big data is.

Big data is a lot of data. It's more data than we've ever dealt with before and from more disparate sources. Plus the metadata. It's a lot to think about. It's a lot to store. It's a lot to analyze. And those are the major issues of big data. When data becomes so big that its sheer size is the problem, it is big data. We have data generated from disparate data sources: cell phones, satellites, electronic sensors, text messages, log files, etc. Data from so many sources is very complex. 

This is big data. You have to collect, store, analyze, organize, purge, and use the data. It's that process from collection to use to purge that is the great unknown of big data. Big data is complex and difficult to manage. The management part of big data is where the lack of understanding comes from. There are very few people who know how to manage that volume and complexity of data. Most companies have grown their own pieced together solutions. Each department usually tries to manage its own data in various forms. What happens is not only do these companies have huge amounts of disparate data; the data is stored in disparate locations, and in disparate data technologies. Big data. Big mess.

An Example of BIG DATA in Action:

Every day in the U.S. some 7 billion shares of stock or other securities are traded on various financial exchanges, and fully two-thirds of these trades are executed by computers using algorithms to trade with other computers, without human participation. Roughly 33,000 discrete trades take place every second on the New York Stock Exchange and of course they must (and do) take place in a particular order, one trade at a time, each trade separated from the next by just a few microseconds. Financial transactions generate an enormous quantity of data to be stored, processed, and re-processed. But all human activity is now generating such data at an accelerating rate.

Think of the thousands, millions of selfies, comments and posts and re-sharing on Facebook alone. I am already feeling dizzy.

So are you big enough for BIG DATA ?

4K Videos : In and Out

What Is 4K?

Ultra HD (4K), or Ultra High Definition, is the next big step in HDTV resolution. For a one liner 4K means more pixels. About 8 million which is around four times what your current 1080p set can display. Think of your TV like a grid, with rows and columns. A full HD 1080p image is 1080 rows high and 1920 columns wide. A 4K image approximately doubles both those numbers, yielding approximately 4 times as many pixels total. To put it another way, you could fit every pixel from your 1080p set onto one quarter of a 4K screen. More pixels mean more information. More information means sharper pictures. Sharper pictures are more engaging.

Collectively, the format was originally known as 4K, but technically it is called Ultra HD (UHD for short) but the 4K label appears to be sticking.

Depending on the variety (discussed above), 4K generally offers four times the resolution of standard 1080p HDTVs. Even so, 4K content will still be compressed for home use.

4K video also takes a solid 1Gb-per-second connection for reliable playback (unless it's compressed in some way), which means fast hard drives and faster-than-usual Internet and network connections. The HDMI connections on your current devices might not be enough to show 4K video at its smoothest; most entertainment devices and HDTVs use HDMI 1.4 which supports an Ultra HD picture at 30 frames per second. HDMI 2.0, which is starting to appear on most 4K HDTVs, supports Ultra HD at 60 frames per second. Like the display technology itself, it will take some time for the HDMI standard to become common enough for both HDTVs and media players. 4k technology is also called 2160p technology.

What 4K HDTVs Are Out There Now?

The third round of 4K HDTVs are already hitting the market, and at much lower prices than they were last year. Plus, they're coming from big-name vendors like Samsung, Panasonic, Sony, and LG. Now that there are 4K HDTVs in the low-to-mid-four-figure range—still too dear for most of us, but not unlike what big-screen plasma TVs cost in, say, 2005—it's more realistic to look at them now, at least from a hardware standpoint.

Is there any 4K Content that we can watch on an HDTV?

In a word: barely. In a few more words: Sure, sort of. Back in 2012, the first 4K digital movie available for purchase was TimeScapes, a beautiful 50-minute film of night sky cinematography. There are a few shows here and there; moreover you can always check You Tube for 4K videos which are already inundating the website.

Top Mobile Techs in 2015

Think that brand-new smartphone in your pocket is awesome? In just a few short days it'll be officially obsolete. In 2015, the first phones with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 810 chip will arrive on store shelves, and they're going to power all kinds of new experiences in the next generation of mobile devices. Qualcomm Snapdragon processors power virtually all of today’s top-tier phones that aren't iPhones. Android, Windows Phone, BlackBerry chances are it packs a Snapdragon.

A smartphone or tablet’s processor is the backbone of the entire experience. Every app, every push notification, every pixel is controlled by the CPU (although graphics are sometimes handled by a separate GPU). Greater computational power means enhanced abilities, and the company’s best chip on the market today — the Snapdragon 805 — enables experiences like the virtual reality environment on

Here are five things next year's smartphones, powered by the 810, will be able to do that this year can't:

1. Juggle 4K Video

Yes, smartphones such as the LG G3 already have Quad HD (2,560 x 1,440) displays, which more pixels than you’ll ever need, but the new phones will be more about moving 4K video around than actually displaying it. A phone with a Snapdragon 810 will be able to wirelessly stream a 4K video (4,096 x 2,160) to a TV with just a few taps.

Most flagship smartphones can already shoot 4K video (it requires only an 8-megapixel camera), and the company estimates 500 million devices will be 4K-capable by 2018.

2. Simulate an Optical Zoom

There’s a new kind of smartphone camera, made by Core Photonics, that’s actually two cameras: a normal wide-angle imager, and one with a fixed telephoto lens that magnifies the image about 3 times. Using the serious computing power in the Qualcomm chip, the phone can combine the two images to create a picture that Core Photonics claims is better than what a DSLR can capture, at low zoom levels.

3. Record Directional Audio

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 chip will enable directional audio recording while capturing video, letting the camera capture individual voices in a loud room. One big issue with capturing video on cellphones is audio quality. With the new chip, the phone will be able to process sound in a way that captures it in specific directions. If you, say, just want to record audio from the person you're
filming, you’ll be able to tell your camera you just want his or her voice, and nothing else.

4. Serve as your Home PC

With this much computing power in a phone or tablet, it can actually serve as a PC workstation, connecting wirelessly to a workstation with a monitor and keyboard. With a device not much bigger than a Chromecast, a Qualcomm-powered tablet can power a workstation, connected via the next generation of Wi-Fi, called 802.11ad.

The Snapdragon 810 will be the first Qualcomm chip to support 802.11ad, which is about 5x the speed of the current 802.11ac standard. That’s good enough for 4K and then some, although it’s going to require new hardware all around.

5. Game like a Console

A phone or tablet powered by a Snapdragon 810 processor is always a pretty good substitute for a game console. While Android has had difficulty in becoming a fully-fledged game platform, next year’s hardware will be superb for gaming, able to connect to an external monitor wirelessly with ease for gaming on a big screen.

All these new abilities are just demonstrations at this point — it’s up to manufacturers to implement them. But they certainly will, and tomorrow’s smartphones will surely play an even greater role in our digital lives than they do now… if that’s even possible.

Acer Chromebook C720 vs Chromebook 13

Acer Chromebook C720 

The new Acer Chromebook C720 is the upgraded version of one of the most popular Chromebooks on the market. This C720 comes with the Ultrabook-grade Intel i3-4005U dual-core 1.7GHz processor, the same found in laptops more than twice its size and price.

This 11.6-inch computer is the most powerful Chromebook available; with 4GB of RAM and 32GB of onboard storage, plus the free 100GB of Google Cloud space, the high $380 price tag is a crazy good deal. That’s because the performance matches the price twofold.

This C720 is fast. It doesn't matter what websites or web apps you have open, what extensions are running, or even how many tabs are running. The C720 handles it all like a pro.

One of my absurd tests is to open more and more YouTube videos simultaneously until the browser crashes. The Chromebook C720 ran 56 YouTube tabs before it gave up the ghost. That’s insane.

It can run multiple heavy web apps like Asana, Slack, and Google Drive, all while Gmail, YouTube, and a bunch of other apps are open. The C720 is a workhorse web browser.

As someone who lives, eats, and does just about everything else on the interwebs, the C720 isn't just a gateway, it’s a drug. Aside from the quiet fan whirring to life when enough tabs are open, it runs smoothly and flawlessly. And perhaps most importantly, even with a higher-powered CPU, the C720 maintained a solid eight hours of use among a variety of different tasks, like streaming HD videos.

The only downside is the display, which is totally usable but far from pretty. The matte panel is bright and certainly usable outdoors — just don't expect to watch and enjoy films. So far the standard for Chromebooks is exactly that, the one exception being the Samsung Chromebook 2. For a sub-$400 laptop it’s not a big deal, especially if you carry around a large smartphone like the iPhone 6 Plus or Galaxy S5.

So the Acer has the following to offer:

Blazing-fast performance • Solid eight hours of battery life • Good keyboard and Trackpad

Display quality is barely okay • No 13-inch model with a 1080p screen

The Acer Chromebook C720 is so good; it could be your full-time laptop.

Chromebook 13

On the extreme opposite of the Chromebook spectrum is the Chromebook 13, a 13-inch model with the much lighter-weight Nvidia Tegra K1 processor. The 1080p version lasts 11.5 hours, while the lower-resolution model (1,366 x 768 pixel resolution) stays alive for a full 13 hours. Thanks to the mobile CPU the 13 isn’t only lower-powered (so it lasts longer), it doesn't need to be cooled down so there’s no fan. No moving parts, better battery life. But again, this is a Chromebook, not a tablet, and the 2.1GHz quad-core chip doesn't perform up to snuff for even the typical Celeron-based machines.

Problem is speed. The standard for Chromebooks today is to stutter when loading a new web page, doing something major in a web app, or really doing anything relatively heavy. It’s slight but noticeable.

The performance drop is bad, especially so if you've got a number of extensions running. I typically have eight to 15 running at any given time, like Save to Pocket, PushBullet, Google Voice, AdBlock, etc. Without any extensions the 13 is much faster, but if you're not using Chrome extensions, you’re not using Chrome right.

Problem two is heat. Without a fan, if it’s hot outside, this computer will run slower to make up for it. It’s one thing when you're using a tablet or smartphone that you don't really care whether it’s a bit faster or slower and expect the latter. The expectation is that a laptop should be fast, even if it’s a Chromebook. And the Chromebook 13 doesn’t meet that expectation. Sadly the 13 shares the same display woes as other Chromebooks, and even the 1080p model has a lower-quality panel than most, including the C720. It’s too dark and colors don't pop whatsoever. Nevertheless, the laptop is a visual stunner: the pearl-white frame is gorgeous compared to the very I’m-a-typical-laptop C720. I've never been asked about how good Chromebooks are as much as when using the 13 in public.

Then again, that lower performance means significantly better battery life. Eight hours from the C720 is great, but 11.5 or 13 hours from the Chromebook 13 is unprecedented, especially if you plan to have focused sessions and are only doing one thing at a time. Ironically, or perhaps thankfully, the better-performing but lower-performing and lower-resolution model lasts longer and is less expensive at $300, while the full HD model goes for $380.

Acer Chromebook 13

Gorgeous frame, excellent build quality • Great battery life on both models • Starts at $300

Performance, especially with multiple extensions and tabs, is bad • Display quality is worse

Both the Chromebook 13 and C720 have a lot to offer. And because of how much of a looker the 13 is, I’m regularly asked how good Chromebooks are. If Acer and Google wanted to make a statement that Chromebooks are here to stay, the 13 is a marketer’s dream. Of all tested Chromebooks, the C720's excellent performance makes it not only the better machine of the two, but the best Chromebook we've ever tested. All that power with eight hours of battery life for less than $400 is an incredible deal.

But the answer is always the same. Chromebooks are great and the C720 is the right model. Eight hours should be enough for anything but long flights. The performance is great, and more importantly it matches the perception we all have for how fast a laptop should be. I can use the C720 like I would any laptop, and it doesn't fail to impress.

GSAT-16 : Boom in Communications Services

India's latest communication satellite GSAT-16 was placed in orbit by Ariane 5 rocket in the early hours on Sunday from the space port of Kourou in French Guiana. The European launcher blasted off at 2.10am (IST) and hurled the GSAT-16, designed to augment the national space capacity to boost communication services, into space in a flawless flight. GSAT-16 was launched into a Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO).

Indian satellite's co-passenger DIRECTV-14, built by SSL (space systems/loral) for operator DIRECTV to provide direct-to-home television broadcasts across the US, was also launched by Ariane 5 VA221, marking 63rd successful mission in a row for the rocket.

With a lift-off mass of 3,181kg, GSAT-16 carries a total of 48 communication transponders, the largest by a communication satellite developed by the ISRO so far.
GSAT-16, with a designated on orbit operational life of 12 years, will boost public and private television and radio services, large-scale Internet and telephone operations.

It will replace INSAT-3E, decommissioned prematurely in April. It is the 18th satellite launched by Arianespace for ISRO, the DIRECTV-14 spacecraft was deployed first in the flight sequence, separating from Ariane 5 nearly 28 minutes after liftoff, followed four minutes later by its GSAT-16 co-passenger. Delivering a total payload lift performance of approximately 10,200 kg, the mission — designated Flight VA221 in Arianespace's numbering system — lofted DIRECTV-14 for operator DIRECTV, along with GSAT-16.

The satellite will boost public and private TV and radio services, large-scale Internet and telephone operations. GSAT-16 will be finally positioned at 55 deg East longitude in the geostationary orbit and co-located with GSAT-8, IRNSS-1A and IRNSS-1B satellites. India's rockets PSLV and the present GSLV do not have the capability to launch satellites of more than two tons class, prompting ISRO to opt for an outside launch. ISRO is presently developing the next big launcher, GSLV-MkIII, which can put satellites of up to 4 tons in orbit.

Facebook: The Software and The Servers

Facebook is currently the world’s most popular web site, with more than 1 trillion page views each month, according to metrics from Google’s DoubleClick service. Facebook currently accounts for about 9 percent of all Internet traffic, slightly more than Google.

Facebook requires massive storage infrastructure to house its enormous stockpile of photos, which grows steadily as users add 300 million new photos every day. In addition, the company’s infrastructure must support platform services for more than 1 million web sites and 550,000 applications using the Facebook Connect platform.

The company’s massive armada of servers and storage must work together seamlessly to deliver each Facebook page. “Loading a user’s home page typically requires accessing hundreds of servers, processing tens of thousands of individual pieces of data, and delivering the information selected in less than one second. Here is a brief description of what servers and what programming languages and database softwares are used in Facebook.

What kind of servers does Facebook use?

In a marked departure from industry practice, Facebook has disclosed the designs and specs for its data centers. In April 2011 the social network launched the Open Compute Project, through which it is releasing the details of its energy efficient data center design, as well as its custom designs for servers, power supplies and UPS units.

Facebook’s servers are powered by chips from both Intel and AMD, with custom-designed motherboards and chassis built by Quanta Computer of Taiwan. The servers use a 1.5U (2.65 inch) chassis, allowing the use of larger heat sinks and fans to improve cooling efficiency.

The cabling and power supplies are located on the front of the servers, so Facebook staff can work on the equipment from the cold aisle, rather than the enclosed, 100-degree plus hot aisle.

Facebook’s servers include custom power supplies that allow servers to use 277-volt AC power instead of the traditional 208 volts. This allows power to enter the building at 400/277 volts and come directly to the server, bypassing the step-downs seen in most data centers as the power passes through UPS systems and power distribution units (PDUs). The custom power supplies were designed by Facebook and built by Delta Electronics of Taiwan and California-based Power One.

Facebook contemplated installing on-board batteries on its servers, but settled on in-row UPS units. Each UPS system houses 20 batteries, with five strings of 48 volt DC batteries. Facebook’s power supplies include two connections, one for AC utility power and another for the DC-based UPS system. The company has systems in place to manage surge suppression and deal with harmonics (current irregularities).

What kind of software does Facebook Use?

Facebook was developed from the ground up using open source software. The site is written primarily in the PHP programming language and uses a MySQL database infrastructure. To accelerate the site, the Facebook Engineering team developed a program called HipHop to transform PHP source code into C++ and gain performance benefits.

Facebook has one of the largest MySQL database clusters anywhere, and is the world’s largest users of memcached, an open source caching system. Memcached was an important enough part of Facebook’s infrastructure that CEO Mark Zuckerberg gave a tech talk on its usage in 2009.

Facebook has built a framework that uses RPC (remote procedure calls) to tie together infrastructure services written in any language, running on any platform. Services used in Facebook’s infrastructure include Apache Hadoop, Apache Cassandra, Apache Hive, FlashCache, Scribe, Tornado, Cfengine and Varnish.

Boeing's Eco-friendly Flight

Boeing aircraft company has completed the world's first flight using 'green diesel', a sustainable biofuel made from vegetable oils, waste cooking oil and animal fats. 

The company powered its ecoDemonstrator 787 flight test airplane on December 2 with a blend of 15% green diesel and 85% petroleum jet fuel in the left engine. Green diesel offers a tremendous opportunity to make sustainable aviation biofuel more available and more affordable.

Sustainable green diesel is widely available and used in ground transportation. This fuel is chemically similar to HEFA (hydro-processed esters and fatty acids) aviation biofuel approved in 2011. Green diesel is chemically distinct and a different fuel product than "biodiesel," which also is used in ground transportation. With production capacity of 800 million gallons (3 billion litres) in the US, Europe and Asia, green diesel could rapidly supply as much as 1% of global jet fuel demand. It’s use shall also reduce emissions which weaken the ozone layer in stratosphere.

Green diesel is among more than 25 new technologies being tested by Boeing's ecoDemonstrator Program aboard 787 Dreamliner ZA004. Green diesel differs from biodiesel, and the two are produced through different processes. The program accelerates the testing, refinement, and use of new technologies and methods that can improve aviation's environmental performance.

On a lifecycle basis, sustainably produced green diesel reduces carbon emissions by 50 to 90 percent compared to fossil fuel, according to Finland-based Neste Oil, which supplied green diesel for the ecoDemonstrator 787.

Why Facebook bought WhatsApp ?

Why did Facebook buy WhatsApp?

I think there’s been a lot of great analysis out there. I think that this was done to keep the focus on Facebook, and away from any competitor. The social network has seen a decline in younger users – the same audience WhatsApp is chock full of – and there’s been speculation that the company is losing its mojo and the appeal of Facebook is dying off. More importantly, Facebook stopped Google from buying WhatsApp – for a rumored $10 billion – again, keeping itself in the headlines instead of Google.

In many ways, WhatsApp users are just the kind of customers Facebook is looking for. They are extremely active, sending more than 600 million photos a. A whopping 70% of WhatsApp users are active every day. By way of comparison, 62% of Facebook users are active daily. People around the world send 19 billion WhatsApp messages per day, including 200 million voice messages and 100 million videos. Crucially, WhatsApp has a strong presence internationally, particularly in Europe, India and Latin America. Those are regions where Facebook is trying to grow its base of users. WhatsApp and other mobile messaging services also are widely used by teens, a group that has notoriously been ditching Facebook for rival services.

"Facebook users were complaining dearly about the lack of one-on-one personalized socializing and sharing, which WhatsApp clearly has been successful with.

How WhatsApp makes money: WhatsApp is also growing at a blinding speed, adding 1 million new users per day. With its $1 annual subscription fee, 1 billion users would translate into significant revenue for Facebook.

"Large scale networks like WhatsApp are rare and provide significant monetization opportunity, justifying their valuation over time. The messaging service, founded in 2009, has been so successful because it understood from the start the importance of embracing mobile technology. That's something Facebook struggled with, notably going public without any revenue from mobile devices. Facebook now gets more than half of its revenue from advertising on smartphones and tablets.

Through WhatsApp, Facebook can see who people are communicating with and how. That information can be used to hone ads on other platforms, this is already in action. Facebook shall implement it through its own or through third party platforms. Facebook shall use data from a user’s WhatsApp profile to predict better ads on his Facebook profile, thus providing better value to the advertiser. Financial Institutions and Hedge Fund Corporations already play with users in this way.

How Facebook Is Earning Money?

It is a well-known fact that the growth of Facebook has been extremely fast as it is a perfect place for the people to experience the social benefits. Few years back, there was a rumor that it would be a paid membership site. Facebook denied it and specified that it is a free website for the members. So, it is not making money with membership fees and you might think “How Facebook is earning money?”

The last year (2012) earnings of Facebook is approximately about $2.6 billion. Of that, 55% revenue comes from web advertisements, 30% from mobile advertising and 15% of revenue from other sources like games and gift shops.
 Let’s see its revenue generating sources in detail.

1.       Advertising

Advertising is the main reason of Facebook’s earnings and success. Many businesses create ads on Facebook and it gets paid to deliver the ads. It publishes ads on the screen which is directly related to the users by gathering their likes and activities. i.e. if an user mentions that he/she is a fan of Mercedes Benz, then the ads related to that will be showing up to that user, it is the same thing as Google operates Adsense, only difference is Adsense is way better. Even though the click through rate of Facebook is not as high as Google, it is generating good traffic with the ads in it and letting the businesses to have a successful advertising campaign. This type of ads is called Engagement ads and it is placed on the homepage of Facebook.

There is another type of adverting called self-serving ads, in which the users can set up their own advertisements. Different types of Facebook ads associated with this type of advertising are Standard ads, Like ads, Page post ads, Sponsored stories and so on. As these types of ads are easy to create, small business people are making use of it and Facebook is generating large revenue with this self-serve ads.

2.       Mobile advertising

About 1/3 rd of Facebook’s revenue comes from mobile advertising. Recently, it launched its own App center similar to Apple which let the users to download their desired applications from appropriate store directly.
Also it cooperates with mobile advertising agents to help the advertisers like AdMob and iAd to bid for the space to advertise.
Moreover, the Facebook starts its monetization strategies with Instagram.

3.       Non advertising method (other sources)

Games, gift shop, Facebook credits and some featured applications are some of the non-advertising ways with which the Facebook is creating a huge income.

A. Facebook Games

Games like Farmvillie, Mafia Wars, Cityville, Empire & allies are some of the popular games which have millions of users who pay real money to play with it. These games are made by Zynga and Facebook takes 30% revenue from it.

B. Facebook Gift shop

Facebook Gift shop is one of the contributors to its revenue which let the users to send virtual gifts to their friends and other users. It also opens this shop to third party developers to get the variety of products to sell. Small items like dolls, birthday & other occasion cards can be purchased and the Facebook will deliver it to the preferred person.

C. Facebook credits

Facebook is generating good revenue from its credit program as it is an easy payment for the users to buy virtual goods, to play games and to use various applications.

Google Compute Engine vs Amazon Web Services

With the introduction of Google’s Infrastructure as Service dubbed Compute Engine, more than one pundit has declared that Amazon’s EC2 giant has finally met its match. It’s true that Google is one of the few companies that can seriously go head-to-head with Amazon’s and match its computing capacity and prices. But in a significant number of other ways, Google Compute Engine (GCE) is also quite different from Amazon’s EC2. Let’s take a closer look at the two.

Google Compute Engine (GCE)

GCE is Google’s IaaS offering in the increasingly crowded cloud computing market. It was launched in mid-2012 and started operations proper in April 2013. GCE utilizes a novelbilling model that differs somewhat from the norm and is sure to have users of other IaaS vendors why they aren’t getting the same deal. As per Wikipedia’s article: “Each VM is charged for a minimum of [an initial] 10 minutes followed by 1 minute increments, rounded up to the nearest minute. VMs can be launched from the standard images or custom images created by users.” To make an attractive deal, Google also throws in sustained-use pricing, in which the hourly rate is tiered downwards the more you use the virtual machine in a given month. GCE offers the standard array of features of a fully-fledged IaaS setup: Windows and Linux instances, RESTful API’s, load balancing, data storage and networking, CLI and GUI interfaces, and easy scaling. GCE servers are distributed in 3 zones around the world – central USA, Western Europe and East Asia. GCE offers real 100% uptime via transparent maintenance. If the machine running your application has a hardware failure or needs a software patch, your instance is automatically migrated to another server.

When comparing cloud computing providers, the price-for-performance comparison is critically important. A caveat though – it is almost impossible to do an exact apples-to-apples comparison because of the differing specs of machine configurations offered by different vendors. That said though, GCE still emerges as the victor in this battle.

First off, Google’s instances start up much faster than Amazon’s, by a factor about 60-80%.

Cloud computing companies are currently locked in a vicious tit-for-tat price reduction war in which they routinely slash prices a few times a year. The main players in this fight are Amazon, Google and Microsoft, and those of us who use their services cheer on gleefully as we all benefit.

Amazon EC2

Amazon is of course the biggest and oldest shark in the tank when it comes to cloud computing. Founded in 2006, Amazon’s AWS has about the same computing capacity as the next 12 vendors combined. So nobody, not even fellow corporate titans Google and Microsoft, can really compete with Amazon on capacity. And not many can also compete on the breadth of offerings in the Amazon AWS stable – storage, compute, databases, networking, configuration management, content delivery and many more.

Amazon also owns the largest data centers in the world, and here is one score in which it handily beats Google. AWS data centers are located in 9 regions around the world: 3 in the US and the other 6 scattered strategically around the world. A tenth one is coming up in China exclusively for that market, and will be completely isolated from the others to placate Chinese concerns about US government snooping. In 2013 Amazon also won a coveted contract to create GovCloud, a private cloud expressly for the U.S. government.

Other Features

Although we have focused here on compute facilities, these vendors are giants that easily offer a huge array of other services. From Network World: “Not only does AWS have EC2, the direct competitor to GCE, but it also has a variety of storage options (like Google), including Simple Storage Service (S3), Elastic Block Storage (EBS), and RedShift the data warehousing platform.

The companies each have data analytics platforms too. While Google has BigQuery, Amazon Web Services answers with ElasticMap Reduce, its Hadoop on-demand service. AWS at its re:Invent show rolled out Kenesis, its real-time data analytics platform for short-term analytics jobs.

Conclusion

The most important components are computing power and storage. Google’s current offerings in this space are both cheaper and better-performing than Amazon’s, with the cherry on top being a refreshingly simpler pricing structure that gets cheaper as you use it more. But Amazon has been at it much longer, and has many more data centers throughout the world. Amazon also offers a rich plethora of features apart from the core compute and storage, though Google matches it in some areas and will undoubtedly add more as its own platform matures.

Dropbox vs Google Drive vs One Drive

Cloud storage services are so handy nowadays as it saves space on your portable drive, smartphone or computer; it syncs all your files throughout all your devices, its cross-platform compatibility and best of all, you can get storage space for free. Sharing big or multiple files is also made easy while it securely keeps your files away from public computers.

1. Storage Space

Each service offers different amounts of free storage and a variety of premium storage spaces.

Dropbox : Dropbox starts you with 2GB of free storage but you get referral perks that is 500 MB of extra space for every friend you refer Dropbox to. More than 35 referrals later, you’ll be able to earn a maximum of 18GB, giving you a grand total of 20GB inclusive of your initial 2GB. For more storage, you can opt for the Pro Dropbox account that offers 100GB, 200GB and 500GB from $9.99, $19.99 and $49.99 per month.

Google Drive :Google Drive is readily available within your Gmail account. From there you start with 5GB worth of storage space. Additional space can be purchased with a wide variety of plans (ranging from 25GB to 16TB). Upgrading to any account will also give you the same amount of storage in Picasa while your Gmail Storage is upgraded to 25GB.

One Drive : One Drive comes with 7GB of free storage. They have the cheapest upgrade plans among the 3 services which you can see in the picture below. They classify their upgrades as add-ons to your 7GB of space; unlike the previous two services.

2. Supporting Platforms

We’ll now take a closer look at what platforms each cloud service currently supports: Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android, Windows Phone.

Dropbox : The Dropbox desktop application is available on Windows, MAC OS and Linux. Dropbox is also available on iOS, Android and BlackBerry. Dropbox is the only service that currently natively supports Linux; and also the only service to support BlackBerry.

Google Drive : Google Drive is available for Windows and Mac OS; however unlike Dropbox, it has no native support for Linux and relies on third party programs. In terms of mobile, Google Drive is available only on iOS and Android.

One Drive : One Drive is readily available for Windows and Mac OS; just like Google Drive, it relies on third party programs for it to be used on Linux. For mobile platform support, One Drive is the only service that has their own app for Windows Phone; it is also available on iOS and Android.

Speaking of Windows Phone support, there is a third party Windows phone app that supports Dropbox, unlike Google Drive which has yet to enter the Windows phone scene.

3. Features

We'll now take a look at the unique and common features that can be found in each cloud service.

Dropbox : Besides ‘earning’ storage space through referrals, you can get more free space by using Dropbox’s Camera Upload feature on your desktop or smartphone. Dropbox also has an unlimited undo (version) history feature for an extra $39 a year, only available with a Pro Dropbox account. Dropbox has also successfully integrated with Facebook Groups where you can share files from your dropbox files to your Facebook Groups.

Google Drive : Google Drive allows you to disable automatic deletion of old versions which means you can keep all file revisions as long as you want although doing this maxes out your storage space quickly. Google Drive is also an online document editor which converts your Microsoft Office document (.doc / .docx) into a Google Document (.gdoc) before editing. There is a file size upload limit of 10GB on the desktop app and website version.

 one Drive : Installing the One Drive desktop application allows you to access every file on that PC it is installed in; so as long as your PC is turned on, connected to the internet with One Drive running, you’ll be able to access all your files through the One Drive website. One Drive also has Microsoft Web Apps which include Microsoft Office Word, PowerPoint, Excel and OneNote on the web browser. Although it does not have every feature found on the desktop application, it is sufficient enough for quick editing jobs.

4. File Type Support : You can upload any file type to the cloud but you can view only file types that are supported. If the service does not support the file, all you can do is download it onto your computer to view and edit. Videos and images are supported on all three services.

Dropbox : Dropbox does not have any online document editor which means files only can be downloaded. However, for the Dropbox app on your smartphone or tablet, you are able to view Microsoft Office files, Apple iWork files, audio/video files, images, and PDF files. Documents cannot be edited with the app but can be opened with another editing app.

Google Drive : The Google Drive website supports unique files like Adobe Illustrator (.AI) and Photoshop (.PSD) files, Autodesk AutoCad files and Scalable Vector Graphics files. You can also view Microsoft Office documents, but can only edit it after converting it to a Google Docs file type.

One Drive : Most Microsoft Office file types can be viewed and edited thanks to its Microsoft Web App. The website version only supports playback for .MP4 and .WMV video files, while other video and audio formats can only be downloaded. The website also supports slideshows for images and PowerPoint files.