Mind Uploading

Aside from artificial intelligence and robotics, there is a third field that will start showing incredible promise in coming decades. We will begin to integrate computer systems into our brains. Computers will become more and more integrated to our brains until we eventually dispense with the old fashioned goo that is our biological brains and move forward at accelerating rates with our fully artificial brains. We will have, in essence, become the robots. This concept is called Mind Uploading.

Simply speaking, mind uploading is a science fiction concept of copying one's mind into an artificial body or computer. It is a popular term for a putative process by which the mind, including memories, personality, consciousness, etc of a specific individual is transferred from its original biological brain to another operating substrate.
Despite of the tremendous and miraculous achievements of we humans, being in the most of the scientific field and research area, mind uploading is still the scientific challenge for human race. This technology will radically alter society in many ways, as science fiction authors have begun to illustrate. With this rapid development in technology, the day might not be that far away when this science fiction turns into reality. Once it is possible to move a mind from one substrate to another, it is called Substrate Independent Mind (SIM). SIM is a field of research which seeks to understand the brain and the nervous system of a wide range of organisms including humans, in order to facilitate emulation of these organisms in an artificial substrate, for example, a computer professor.

In order for progress to be made in the field of SIM, advancements in many key technologies and research areas are required. Some of them are nanotechnology, biotechnology, brain imaging, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, computational hardware and architectures, cognitive psychology and philosophy.
The technology most commonly associated with mind uploading is Whole Brain Emulation (WBE), emulation as when one type of processor is emulated in software on top of another type of processor. Whole Brain Emulation can be equivalent to neural prosthesis of the whole brain. Neural Prosthesis (NPs) are assistive devices that restore functions lost as a result of neural damage. It can substitute a motor, sensory or cognitive modality that might have been damaged as a result of an injury or a disease.

The terms "whole brain emulation", "mind uploading" and "substrate independent minds" have been used informally in recent years to describe a set of related ideas regarding hypothetical possibilities for transferring or emulating the functioning of a human's brain or "mind" on a synthetic substrate. 
The recent breakout in the research was Synaptic Electronic Circuit that learn and forget like neural processes. Rui Yang, Kazuya Terabe and colleagues at the National Institute for materials Science (NIMS), and the International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics (MANA) in Japan and at the California NanoSystems Institute/UCLA have developed "nanoionic" (processes connected with fast ion transport in all-solid-state nanoscale systems) devices capable of a broad range of neuromorphic and electrical functions. Such a device would allow for fabrication of on-demand configurable circuits, along memories, and digital-neural fused networks in a single device architecture.

Synaptic devices that mimic the learning and memory processes in living organisms are attracting interest as an alternative to standard computing elements to help extend performance beyond current physical limits. However, artificial synaptic systems have been hampered by complex fabrication requirements and limitations in the learning and memory functions. The device is based on a platinum-tungsten trioxide (WO3-x) device using oxygen ions migrating in response to voltage sweeps. Accumulation of the oxygen ions at the electrode leads to Schottky-diode like potential and resulting changes in resistance and rectifying characteristics. The stable bipolar switching behavior at the platinum-tungsten trioxide based device is attributed to the formation of a conductive filament and oxygen absorbability of the platinum electrode, they mimic. The researchers noted that the device properties -- volatile and non-volatile states and current fading following positive voltage pulses are similar to neural behavior that is, short and long term memory and forgetting processes. The device was found to possess a wide range of time scales of memorization, resistance switching, and rectification varying from volatile to permanent in a single device.

This technology will radically alter society in many ways, as science fiction authors have begun to illustrate. With this rapid development in technology the day might not be that far away when this science fiction turns into reality. Once it is possible to move a mind from one substrate to another, it is called a Substrate Independent Mind. If such breakthrough occurs repeatedly in field of mind uploading then the day is not far that all the sci-fi like Avatar, Transcedence, etc come into reality. The pros and cons of this research will be however known after the real practice in near future.

Forced Perspective

The fascination for some things never fades away. Considering humanity as a whole, the fascination for representation and expression of ourselves though "forced perspective" has been one of many such things. The earliest records of this can be found during the Roman Era when technology was limited. The interior of Roman Emperor Constantine's Aula Palatina palace is one of the examples, built in around 300 A.D. Its mystery is unraveled later in the article. In addition, forced perspective photography in which objects that are far from us are smaller relative to the ones that are closer.

Forced perspective is one of the methods used to create optical illusion. It exists because of an almost a defect to working of human visual system. Human mind has a natural desire to interpret any 2-D drawing or picture as a projection of  a 3-D object in a plane. Our visual perception processes information about objects we see on the basis of light received from them. So, objects that are far from our eyes are smaller relative to the ones that are closer. But when the information given to our eyes is limited by forcing it to process information based on a single perspective, looking at different parts of the object makes us reconsider the 3-D nature of the object, which confuses the mind. Thus, an optical illusion is created by the method of forced perspective. This can be clarified from the example of Penrose triangle shown below.

Fig: A Penrose Triangle

A penrose triangle has its every 3rd side situated at an angle to the plane containing any 2 of its sides. By forcing us to interpret the information about the triangle only from one perspective , it makes us realize the impossibility of such a structure to exist.

There are many interesting applications in both contemporary and modern culture. Architectural accomplishments, ranging from times of Roman era to the present that has been adopting this method to surpass limits of creation to create 'Impossible Architecture'.
Constantine's palace is one of such examples where the length of the palace is magnified by optical illusion, giving an impression of the palace being much longer than it actually is, when seen from the entrance.

In recent times, forced perspective has found applications in Film making, Photography, Videography and more recently typography and gaming.
In Filmmaking, forced perspective techniques have been widely used ranging from low-budget B movies to Mega budget movies like the Lord of the Rings series, Harry Potter series, Inception, etc. A lot of this was used in the Lord of the Rings to make characters like Grandalf, a giant and like Frodo and Bilbo, dwarfs when in reality their height differs only by 5 inches. Similar dwarf-giant technique has been used in Harry Potter. Forced perspective techniques have also been widely used and experimented in photography and videography. In a music video, "The writings on the Wall" by a rock band, OK Go, multiple instances of this technique has been used. This is also widely being adopted as a presentation technique for the unique view/perspective about things.

Cognitive Radio

An Approach to Spectrum Management

We are all quite familiar with the enormous capacity of the universe that makes it a massive storehouse of energy from where humans have been continuously extracting assets to somehow build a human friendly world. One of them is finite and increasingly precious resource - the electromagnetic spectrum.

The radio spectrum is an entity of the electromagnetic spectrum corresponding to radio frequencies in the range of around 3 KHz to 300 GHz that help us transmit information through air. Radio spectrum enlarges the definition of natural resources to use air as a medium of communication, so like any other resource, it has a fixed capacity at any given time and the use of it by one limits the use of it by others. The dependence in radio communication in one form or the other has grown dramatically in recent years, and the growth in the number and variety of applications, many of them bandwidth hungry, and the huge expansion in user expectations place ever-increasing demands on radio spectrum.

Fixed and mobile communications, sound and television broadcasting, aviation, railway and maritime transport, defense, medical electronics, emergency services, remote control and monitoring, radio astronomy and space research, as well as many other applications, make use of radio spectrum. Because the radio spectrum offers the instantaneous and direct way of communicating across space, congestion has greatly increased abating its efficiency.

                 Congestion, here called interference results, when spectrum is overtaxed, just as pollution arises in a crowded highway or in a body of water that receives effluents. In order to avoid interference, spectrum holes need to be sensed. The under-utilization of the electromagnetic spectrum leads us to think in terms of spectrum holes, which is a band of frequencies assigned to a primary user, but, at a particular time and specific geographic location, the band is not being utilized by that user. Spectrum utilization can be used significantly by making it possible for a secondary user (who is not being serviced) to access the spectrum hole unoccupied by the primary user at the right location and time.

Cognitive radio, inclusive of software-defined radio, has been proposed as a means to promote the efficient use of spectrum by exploiting the existence of spectrum holes. Cognitive radio is a popular technology as it is based on software to define the wireless sensing techniques which further enhances the spectrum utility rate evidently. Software radio provides an ideal platform for the realization of the cognitive radio. Software radios are emerging as platforms for multiband multimode personal communication systems. Radio etiquette is the set of RF bands, air interfaces, protocols and spatial and temporal patterns that moderate the use of the radio spectrum. Cognitive radio extends the software radio with radio-domain model-based reasoning about such etiquettes. Cognitive radio enhances the flexibility of personal services through a radio knowledge representation language. This language represents the knowledge of radio etiquettes, devices, software modules, propagation, networks, user-needs, and application scenarios in a way that supports automated reasoning about the needs of the user.

The concept of cognitive radio is originated from radio sensing and learning; recognizes and allocates spectrum opportunity; realizes spectrum opportunity, and cognitive radio utilizes the intelligent sensing method to acquire the spectrum usage information and environment parameters, then chooses the most feasible network or the spectrum reconfigurable network architecture.

Cognitive radio is an intelligent wireless communication system that is aware of its surrounding environment (i.e. outside world), and uses the methodology of understanding-by-building to learn from the environment and adapt its internal states to statistical variations in the incoming RF stimuli by making corresponding changes in certain operating parameter (e.g. transmit-power, carrier-frequency, and modulation strategy) in real-time, with two primary objectives in mind:

• Highly reliable communications whenever and wherever needed.
• Efficient utilization of the radio spectrum. 

Local Apps To Watch Out For in Nepal

1. eSewa

 

The first online payment gateway in Nepal provides services like paying utility bills, buying movie tickets, airline tickets and even recharging your phone right from your home. So, whether you are a busy CEO or a lazy couch potato, this app will definitely make your life easier.

Developer: f1 soft

 

2. Yellow

 

Ever gone hungry just because you could not find a decent place to eat? Now, with the yellow app, find over 500 great places within Kathmandu to eat and celebrate. Also, find great deals and info about upcoming events. And try really hard not getting overwhelmed by the incredible design.

Designer: Yellow Nepal

3. Kantipur (KMG)

 

Read Nepal's largest selling English and Nepali dailies and weeklies, watch Kantipur TV, get latest news updates, listen to Kantipur FM, watch model profiles and what not. This app covers the best of Kantipur Media and has even made reading newspaper on paper feel like it's 1995.

Developer: KMG

4. Birthday Forest

 

 

Gift someone a tree on their birthday, anniversary or even for no reason at all. An award winning non-profit, you will receive longitudes and latitudes of your tree.

P.S, it's one more thing for you to boast in social media.

Developer: Birthday Forest

5. Nepal Sutra

 

If you have been following Nepali app history, this app needs less of an introduction. A regular travel app plus a feature called 'find travelling buddies' helps you find fellow like-minded travellers on the go, next time you're travelling, don't forget to take this personal travelling guide with you.

Developer: Candid Services

6. nLocate

 

Locate everything around you: Whether it be a bank, hospital, ATM, government office, coffee shop, you name it - you can find almost every corner around the metropolis. Of course, you can do that with the google maps but the purpose here is to find more relevant information like phone numbers and local experience. Also watch out for a major performance and UI update.

Developer: Nepways

7. IFA Krishi

 

This app provides the major crop and animal disease information and its medical solutions. It also lists out the fertilizer requirements in different plants. It also provides best quotations in the market for getting the right value for your reaping. Another feature is its 14-day weather forecast of major cities of Nepal to help the farmers better their farming process.

Developer: Innovation Web Groups

8. Amakomaya

 

 To what extent can we owe an app? Can it save someone's life? Apparently, now it can. This app increases the outreach of information related to maternal health issues to rural pregnant women. With interactive videos and infographic dos and don'ts you cannot just save a life but save several lives at once.

Developer: Yagiten Pvt. Ltd

 

 

 

Raspberry Pi

People were skeptical of the Raspberry Pi when it was first announced that a credit-card sized computer for $35 sounded like a fantasy. Which is why, when it started shipping, the Raspberry Pi created a sensation of excitement. The demands for the minicomputer was outperforming what the foundation had expected. So, what is about the Raspberry Pi that tests the patience of a hardware-enthusiast?
One can use this device to watch videos, surf the web, or to hack, learn and make an open source project with the board. The Raspberry Pi is a flexible platform with tremendous support for fun, utility and experimentation. Here are just a few different ways how a Raspberry Pi can be used.

General Purpose Computing
In fact, Raspberry Pi is itself a computer and you can use it as one, make the pi boot into a graphical desktop environment with a web browser, which is lot of what we use computers for these days. In addition, install variety of software like LibreOffice productivity suite for working with documentation and spreadsheets.

Learning to Program

Raspberry Pi is meant as an educational tool to encourage young generation to experiment with the computers. It comes pre-loaded with interpreters and compilers for Python and Scratch (graphical programming language from MIT).
But you are not limited to Python and Scratch, you can write programs for Raspberry Pi in many different programming languages like C, Ruby, Java and Perl.

Project Platform

The Raspberry Pi distinguishes itself from a regular computer not only in its price, size, processor and architecture, but also because it has the ability to integrate with electronic projects.

Media Center

The Raspberry Pi has both HDMI and composite video outputs, it's easy to connect to televisions. It has enough processing power to play full screen video in high definition. To enable a Raspberry Pi as a media center, XBMC (Xbox Media Center) have ported their project to the Raspberry Pi. XBMC can play many different media formats and its interface is designed extremely friendly with large buttons so that it can be easily controlled from the couch.

Raspberry Pi, a microcomputer is based on the ARM processors that uses a family of instruction set architectures based on a Reduced Instruction Set Computing (RISC) developed by a British company, ARM Holdings.
The term RISC abbreviates Reduced Instruction Set Computing. It is focused on a small set of instructions which simplifies the hardware design and improves the processor performance.


Where can you buy it from?

In the context of Nepal, Raspberry Pi can be purchased from Himalayan Solution Industry, Gyaneshwor (Contact: 9841827527).

Despite being a $35 microcomputer, it is a little expensive in Nepal. But, if you have contact with friends and family abroad, then shipping via online shopping stores like Amazon would be sensible and more economical.



Source: Electronics Project Club Magazine (KEC)

Wired Spy Bug

WIRED SPY BUG:

 Circuit Diagram:

Description:

This spy bug circuit will help you to listen to a conversation without being noticed or simply when you want to spy on a person. The circuit is constructed using a Mic, an Amplifier and a Speaker. The device can be wired or wireless depending on the comfort of your design. The device is built around an OpAmp IC741. It consists of a NPN transistor Q1(2N222) and a PNP transistor Q2(2N2907) connected in Push-Pull configuration.

Working:

This circuit can be divided into three sections for better understanding. First part is the Receiver, which is built using an Electric Microphone (Mic) and a Resistor R1. The microphone converts the sound into electrical signal and R1 adjusts the sensitivity of the Mic. The resistor R2 serves as a volume control and capacitor C1 is used to remove the dc component of the signal.

Next comes the pre-amplifier stage which is built using the OpAmp IC741. The IC is wired as an Inverting amplifier and hence the input signal is passed through the inverting terminal of the IC. The positive terminal or the non-inverting terminal is biased using the voltage divider R3 and R4. The resistor R5 is used to provide the negative feedback to the Opamp which in turn controls the gain of the Opamp.

The final stage comes to the amplifier built using the transistors Q1 (2N222) and Q2 (2N2907). These transistors are connected in Push Pull configuration which implies that one of the transistors amplifies the positive half cycle of the input and the other amplifies the negative half cycle. Collectively, we obtain an amplified 180 degree out of phase signal from the amplifier. The signal is then passed through the capacitor C2 to filter out any dc components and then finally to the Speaker.

Nanotechnology

Nanotechnology

Nanotechnology refers to the technology which deals at the size of 

nano meters ( about 1-100 nm). Nanotechnology is the study of all

aspects of science and technology in a very precised size, i.e it deals with atoms and molecules of the particles. In Nepal, we mostly get used to the technology at the micro level such as micro controllers, microprocessors and so on. Nanotechnology encompasses the understanding of the fundamental physics, chemistry, biology and technology of nano metric scaled objects.

 Evolution of Nanotechnology:

Every now and then we hear about the famous talk "There's plenty of room at the bottom", entitled by a famous physicist Richard Feynman. This phrase was talked way before the term "Nanotechnology" was used. The development on the field of nanotechnology did not start until 1981, when a tunneling microscope was invented which could even distinguish a single atom.

Interestingly, if a marble is considered to be the size of a nano meter, then one meter would be the size of the whole earth.

So, there's an unprecedented multidisciplinary convergence of scientists dedicated to the study of a world so small, we can't see it, not even with a light microscope.

Importance of Nanotechnology:

Let me ask you a question:

What's so small that you can't see it, but it's smart enough to run your iPad or stop cancer?

- If your answer is a microscopic person who is a doctor with a part time job of being an electronics engineer, then you're not absolutely wrong. But, the answer is "nanotechnology".

In most of the developed countries, Nanotechnology has found a place in consumer products, medical treatment, the food industry and so much more. In fact, it's becoming increasingly harder to keep track of where nanotech isn't. And the truth is that the technology's potential is nowhere near being reached, not even in the highly developed countries. Many of the big breakthroughs are still being worked out in laboratories. And only some of the simplest forms of nanotechnology have really come to the marketplace.

Some of the best examples that nanotechnology exists today are:

• Molecule Printers
• Stretchable Gold
• Artificial Muscles
• Stain-Repellant Fabric Coating
• Plastic that bleeds and heals itself
• Electricity Generating Viruses