Sunday 15 September 2013

Future of smartphone Biomatrics

Sorry, Apple. The fingerprint recognition feature on the upcoming iPhone 5s, Touch ID, might be eye-catching, but you still have to log into your device. Identifying someone by the way they tap and swipe on a touchscreen might be the more natural, unobtrusive future of smartphone biometricsMovie Camera.

Developed by Cheng Bo at the Illinois Institute of Technology and his colleagues, SilentSense does just that. Using the phone's built-in sensors, it records the unique patterns of pressure, duration and fingertip size and position each user exhibits when interacting with their phone or tablet.

Machine learning algorithms then turn this into a signature that identifies the user – and will lock out anyone whose usage patterns do not match.


To increase the system's accuracy, the smartphone's accelerometer and gyroscope measure how much the screen moves when you are jabbing at it. They can also pick up on your unique gait as you walk while using the screen.

"Different users, dependent on sex and age among other things, will have different habits in interacting," says Bo.

In tests, 100 users were told to use the smartphone's touchscreen as they would normally. SilentSense was able to identify the phone's owner with 99 per cent accuracy after no more than 10 taps. Even with an average of 2.3 touches the system was able to verify the user 98 per cent of the time.

To save on power, the software stops checking the user's identity when apps like games are being used. To maintain security, it automatically switches on when more sensitive applications, such as email or SMS, are accessed.

"This is interesting, creative research," says Kevin Bowyer, a biometrics researcher at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana. "It could help preserve privacy if the phone could recognise if the owner or a guest was using it and lock guests out of some applications."


Journal reference: arXiv:1309.0073v1

CryEngine 3 vs Frostbite 3









Although there is much debate and speculation regarding the competition between the upcoming next gen consoles and the various producers waiting to promote their latest game releases, it’s easy to forget that the competition is also rife in software development. There is no better example of this competition than between the established CryEngine 3 by German Developers Crytek, the engine being used in games such as Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2 and Crysis 2. The competitor is the upcoming Frostbite 3 engine by Swedish developer DICE, which has been showcased during E3 in the incredible gameplay demo of Battlefield 4.

One of the first things that people will assess when comparing the two engines will be the visual/graphical comparisons, and after comparing the two engines I feel the award for the most visually impressive must go to the Frostbite 3. The graphical display on Battlefield 4 was simply amazing, showcasing the clear crisp graphics, excellent framerate, clear sound effects, shadowing, lighting, speedy rendering, and the support for huge open world maps. All of this was a clear demonstration of both the excellent graphical capabilities of the software, but also a clear demonstration that the next gen consoles are capable of running the engine without any compatibility or processing problems.

 

Both Engines are stunning to look at, but I still find myself drawn more to the Frostbite 3.

Compare that with the CryEngine which, to its credit, wowed us with its own display of graphical, sounds, and quality when showcasing Crysis 2 on the PC. Also any issue of its redundancy on next gen consoles was dismissed by Crytek who stated on their website the engine will be compatible for supporting games on next gen. Also, although I feel the graphics are better on the Frostbite Engine, the CryEngine does appear to have a more colorful look and more emphasis on character models, although both engines seem to adopt a dark and dusty tinge, possibly to try and make the game world look more realistic.

However in one area that I do feel the Frostbite 3 engine is indeed far superior, is in its performance. One of the most glaring problems attributed to the CryEngine 3 is its apparent favoritism towards the PC platform. Although Crytek claims the engine was designed specifically to allow more compatibility with consoles, this did not translate in graphics, rendering, or performance, which was average at best when compared to the PC. In the case of the Frostbite 3 engine the development has been made for the use of next gen gaming as a priority, and as such will not only be able to flex its ‘graphical muscles’ in high profile events, but do so on what will soon be the best selling gaming devices on the planet.

Sunday 8 September 2013

Assigning IP address (Cisco Router)

 

 Here I am taking the Equipment 
    

      -  Cisco 2811
      -  Serial DCE
      -  WIC-2T

 Assigning IP addressing : 

     Must keep in mind that every communication is based on IP, without IP you cannot do anything

           Configuration :

                 -  Router> enable

                 Switch to enable Mode
               
                -  Route#

                 Now we are switch mode, For configuring Our router we should
                 move to configuration mode

                -  Router#config t

                 After that you'll move to  config mode

                -  Router(config)#

                 Now move to that serial on which wire is connected
                 In my example it 0/3/0

                -  Router(config)# int s 0/3/0

                 Now we are at interface serial 0/3/0
                 Here we have to assign the ip address 

               -  Router (config-if)#ip address 1.1.1.3 255.0.0.0

                In this command after right next to ip address the ip address
                you want to assign and then after that the subnet of that class 
                is written

                - Router (config-if)# end

That's it IP is assigned, Same work is to be done on the other router For communication 

               
      



Sunday 18 August 2013

Google Chromium project leaves WebKit to work with Blink browser engine

When Opera announced in February that it would switch to the WebKit browser engine, the same basic technology that powers Chrome and Safari, critics wondered if this was a bad move for the open Web.
The worry was that browser vendors were putting too much power in the hands of one rendering engine. Many, no doubt, were recalling the years when Internet Explorer dominated browser usage requiring Web developers to cater to IE's peculiarities.
Fears of a so-called WebKit monoculture may be over now that the Chromium Project is splitting with WebKit, an open source project created by Apple in 2001. Google will instead work on its own rendering engine called Blink, taking the new engine’s initial codebase from WebKit, a practice called forking. Chromium is the Google-led open-source browser project that supplies the code for the company's Chrome Web browser.
With the addition of Blink, there are now four major Web engines including WebKit, Mozilla's Gecko engine powering Firefox, and Microsoft's Trident for Internet Explorer.

Why the change?

"[WebKit was] the obvious choice for Chromium's rendering engine back when we started," Google's Chromium Project said in a blog post Wednesday. "However, Chromium uses a different multi-process architecture than other WebKit-based browsers, and supporting multiple architectures over the years has led to increasing complexity for both the WebKit and Chromium projects."
Google says that at first, there will be little difference in how Blink works as the first round of changes to the new engine will be largely architectural. Right from the start, Blink will have a smaller codebase as it eliminates from its WebKit source about 7,000 files and 4.5 million lines of code. A smaller codebase could translate into smaller download packages for new browser installations and perhaps faster start-up times for browsers.
Chromium Logo

Introducing a new rendering engine could either be a blessing or a boon for users and developers. Catering to multiple rendering engines can put a heavy burden on Web coders who need to make sure their sites work no matter if someone is viewing their site in Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera, or Safari. Even when those browsers are supposed to respect the same Web standards, minor differences in each browser can require code tweaks by developers to keep their sites working.
Chrome and Chromium won't be the only browsers using Blink. Opera confirmed to PCWorld that it will also follow Chromium into the Blink project. When Opera announced it was going WebKit in February, the company said it would base its new browser on elements from Chromium, so the switch to Blink makes sense.
Others, however, feared a singular Web culture ruled by the technological capacities and limitations of WebKit. There’s little doubt that WebKit is currently a dominant factor in Web development, especially when it comes to optimizing websites for mobile devices.

Apple's Safari for iOS and Google's Android browsers rely on WebKit and account for more than 90 percent of the mobile browser market worldwide, according to stats from Internet backbone company Akamai Technologies. WebKit's mobile dominance even prompted Microsoft to write a blog post with guidelines on how to tweak a WebKit-optimized site to work with Internet Explorer 10 for Windows Phone 8.
Google says it is keenly aware that introducing a new rendering engine has the potential to break Web compatibility, but the company argues that multiple rendering engines will "spur innovation and over time improve the health of the entire open web ecosystem."
So when will we see the first version of Chrome fully powered by Blink? Google hasn’t said yet, and Opera said it cannot comment on its roadmap plans. Opera released its first beta version of Opera based on WebKit earlier in March.

Saturday 22 June 2013

TED TALK: Autonomous Agile Aerial Robots

Autonomous Agile Aerial Robots
In this TedTalk, Vijay Kumar introduces autonomous agile aerial robots. These robots are related to unmanned air vehicles; also known as UAV’s. But unlike UAV’s, autonomous agile aerial robots are much smaller in comparison weighing less than 1 pound. Also, unlike UAV’s, these small robots are very agile and are able to perform very acrobatic maneuvers. In the discussion, Vijay shows the physics of how these robots are able to perform these agile maneuvers by changing rotor speeds, pitch and yaw. The robots are able to have this type of ability due to their fast processors which receive environmental input 100 times per-second and adjust controls 600 times a second. This gives these robots the ability to be aware with neighboring robots to perform group tasks like flying in formation.

Vijay Kumar's Perspective 

Autonomous micro aerial robots can operate in three-dimensional environments, and offer many opportunities for the field robotics community. I will describe the challenges in developing small, agile robots and our recent work in addressing these challenges. I will also discuss the problems in deploying large numbers of aerial robots with applications to cooperative manipulation and transport, construction, and exploration and mapping in indoor environments.

Future of UAV's

Future applications of UAV systems will depend on the aircraft autonomous behavior and decision capabilities. Search and Rescue is one complex possible mission and is here taken as a case study. The ReSSAC project is a multidisciplinary project at ONERA. Its main challenges are related to the architectures and algorithms for autonomous decision and information processing onboard UAVs that perform their mission in cooperation with operators. The feasibility demonstrations and results of the project are intended to be reused and extended in further studies, projects and collaborations. A first step of the project was to develop an autonomous control architecture for our two rotorcraft. In this paper, we present the current status and preliminary achievements of the ReSSAC project, especially some records of past experimental flights with our autonomous aircraft. We further discuss ongoing studies and research perspectives.

TED TALKS Video

Vijay Kumar talks about different functionalities of this UAV in this video