Monks take to photography

The world’s oldest monastery, Saint Catherine's, plans to use hi-tech cameras to study further into the Codex Sinaiticus. The Codex Sinaiticus is the oldest surviving bible in the world and the monastery will use cameras to photograph parchments at different wavelengths of light which will highlight faded texts masked by time and overwriting. This technology is called Hyperspectral imaging. Photographing of these documents may involve using 4 cameras taking images from different angles and then stitching the image together. Presently, a 72 mega pixel camera is being used to photograph other documents at this monastery and they hope to get these images up on a website by mid 2006. Maybe we can use this technology to test Dan Brown's theories in 'The Da Vinci Code'.

And in the Blue corner, coming in at 6 feet tall………

I can almost hear the announcer at a boxing match introducing IBM’s Supercomputer known as Blue Gene. I would like to call this event the ‘Computer Olympics’. It is held twice a year and the reason for this frequency can be attributed to the rapid development in the computer world. Every time you look around the corner, there is a faster processor released by Intel or AMD and it is no different in the supercomputing world. At the International Supercomputing Conference (held in Heidelberg, Germany), IBM’s Blue Gene clocked 136.8 trillion calculations per second, or teraflops (sounds like a Looney Tunes word).
IBM also came in second with a computer called 'BGW' which clocked 91.2 teraflops,
Silicon Graphics Inc’s Columbia came in third clocking 51.87 teraflops.
Did you know that the human brain processes information at about 100 teraflops? I wish I had known that during my math adventures in school.
Click on the links if you want to learn more.

Blue Gene, Linux top supercomputing list

IBM's Blue Gene Remains Tops In Supercomputer Rankings

Foxy!!!

Mozilla Europe has come up with this funny online advertising campaign featuring Firefox. Firefox is the new browser that is taking the internet by storm and it has been grabbing market share away from Internet Explorer which many companies thought to be impossible. It is nice to know that the Microsoft will be learning a few lessons from Firefox and will include ‘tabbed browsing’ in the new version of Internet Explorer. Anyways, back on the subject of this online advertising campaign, check out the ads on the Funny Fox website.

The Chip That Jack Built

Jack Kilby (November 8, 1923 – June 20, 2005), the Nobel Prize-winning engineer who invented the microchip died on the Monday, 20th of June, 2005 in Dallas. Most of us have not even heard of Jack Kilby but every time we use the computer and most modern consumer electronic appliances, we are using Mr.Kilby’s invention. He held 60 patents and also went on to become the co-inventor of the first handheld calculator. From anyone who ever used a computer, Thank you Jack.
Click here to learn more about Jack Kilby

Did you know I can’t tell time?

You have seen them at the coffee shop, you have sat next to them at the movies, you may even have had conversations with them, and they lurk everywhere. Yes, I am talking about “Geeks”. People say that I qualify as one too; I disagree although the subject of this blog is not helping my cause. The geeks have a new toy, there is a new watch in the market that displays time in binary format and if you see someone wearing this, be prepared to talk in 1s and 0s. This watch displays the time using the numbers of the binary sequence. The values of the lighted LEDs are added to calculate the time; add the top LEDs to get the hour and the bottom ones for minutes. Sounds like a lot of work to me but some guy called Terence Wong says that all that one really needs is the ability to do mental arithmetic. Why??? . Why can’t I look at my ‘normal’ watch and tell the time? Ok, I get it Terence, when someone looks at the watch and asks ‘what the hell is that?’ you say it’s a watch and ONLY I CAN TELL THE TIME and then give the all knowing smile.
You should be calling ‘Hitch’ pretty soon.

Just when you thought it was safe to get back into the water

MasterCard has confirmed that a hacker got into the systems of Cardsystems Solutions and stole 40 million credit card numbers. Cardsystems Solutions is MasterCard’s Atlanta-based payment processor partner. Now the blame has finally come down onto Microsoft because Cardsystem Solutions had its systems running on Microsoft's Windows 2000 operating system and IIS Server 5.0. What we are seeing here is how the blame is being pushed from company to company. The way I see it, MasterCard should be blamed for being irresponsible enough to have a partner like Cardsystems Solutions and Cardsystems Solutions should be blamed for not using the right patches or upgrading their software and also not storing the transaction data in encrypted form !. MasterCard does not have the details of the credit card numbers that have been compromised so if you have not been notified, don’t think you are safe. Keep an eye on your card transactions and contact your bank if you find irregular activity on your card. Hmmm, I can see the tagline in their next TV ad, ‘There are some things hackers can’t steal, for everything else, there’s MasterCard.’

The word ‘Payphone’ takes a new meaning

Your cell phone could moonlight as a PDA, a digital camera and an mp3 player and now it is all set to take on another role, your wallet. Simply put, all that a cell phone needs is a chip that could transmit credit card details on demand to a terminal in the supermarket and the transaction is done. In Japan, DoCoMo provides this service to its subscribers helping them buy things at 20,000 stores and vending machines. DoCoMo, along with Visa, have created this service called VISA PPI which enables credit card payment through infrared transmission. The users can download their credit card information onto their phones and then use the phone to send the details to POS terminals. We may soon stop carrying ‘Plastic’ and start carrying more ‘Silicon’. (you will not be credited for any breast implants jokes that you might post as comments, I have cracked them all)