Induction cookers suddenly appeared on the market a few years back and stealthily replaced all other electricity based stoves like heater coils and nichrome alloy stoves.
Induction cookers are notoriously energy efficient and safer compared to these older technologies.
So, the question is How does an Induction cooker work ?
The answer, like any magical technology is MAGNETS.
Yes, magnetic fields.
Watch this video explain how Induction cooking uses magnetic fields to concentrate energy exactly where you need it.
Bill from Edison explains :
Electrical Engineer Bill Kornrumpf describes how it works. AC power is converted to DC by a rectifier, then it is converted into high frequency AC power by an inverter. EE W.P. Kornrumpf invented better control circuitry for this and other appliances, reducing the size and amount of raw material used.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., July 3 (Reuters) - A Russian Soyuz rocket blasted off on Friday to deliver a cargo ship loaded with food, water and equipment to the International Space Station, breaking a string of launch failures, a NASA TV broadcast showed.
The Progress capsule, carrying more than three tons (2,700 kg) of supplies, was expected to reach the orbiting outpost on Sunday following launch at 12:55 a.m. EDT (0455 GMT) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
"All of the systems on the Progress (are) in excellent shape," said NASA launch commentator Rob Navias.
Friday's liftoff came five days after a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket exploded after launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The accident destroyed a Dragon capsule carrying about 5,000 (2,200 kg) pounds of food, science experiments and equipment, including a docking system for two new space taxis under development by SpaceX and Boeing.
Leo Burnett from Beunos Aires had a wonderful idea for Samsung Argentina to reduce the number of road accidents caused during overtaking their trucks.
When there are roads without medians (one-lane highways), the traffic from both sides has to be careful not to get into a head on collision especially when overtaking.
This problem is more so when the view ahead is obstructed by a huge truck. And the length of the truck makes matters even worse, as covering the entire length of the truck before the oncoming traffic reaches you is critical.
Watch the video to see how Samsung Trucks in Argentina show "Next is What ?" to save lives, not just change lives.
Earlier in 2014, a team from Harvard college in Massachusetts had developed an origami robot that walks on transforming paper legs.
Now MIT researchers have developed a much smaller origami robot that can walk, swim and dissolve in acetone afterwards. This is however powered by an external magnetic field and is currently of limited application.
This is the latest update from MIT about their Cheetah robot. Cheetah can now see with LiDAR and jump over obstacles.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has a lot of robotics development in progress. The company Boston Dynamics was spun off from MIT by Marc Raibert in 1992. They have a lot of scary advanced robots.
Their technology is becoming more and more advanced and scary with every update. Google bought Boston Dynamics on 13 December 2013. But that was only one of the 8 robotics companies that Google bought in December 2013.
While many Android folks are still using devices based on Ice Cream Sandwich and Jellybean, some on KitKat and a few on Lollipop, Google has today released a Developer edition of Android M.
Android M 6.0 is Milkshake
What does M in Android M stand for ?
There is still no official word on what the M is going to stand for.
But the latest rumor is that it will be Milkshake.
Here's a photo from Google I/O showing an Android Wear watch worn on stage by Google's vice president of engineering, Dave Burke, clearly showed a picture of a glass of milkshake as he demonstrated features during the conference. He even fiddled with the device a few times, almost deliberately drawing attention to it.
Clues to Android M being Milkshake
Previously the name was suspected be Milkshake/Muffins/Marshmallow/Macaroon/Mango or even brand names like Mentos/M&Ms like Google did with Kit-Kat.
CSI : Zoomed image
Here's a poll from a few weeks back which showed the top contenders where the favorite was Marshmallow.
So, hope you all get an update to Android Milkshake when it is available for non-developers.
Android Milkshake will have USB type C support - the reversible, high speed, high powered USB port. (that the new MacBook Air has only 1 port of)
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh launched the country's first locally built nuclear-powered submarine on Sunday, 26th of July, 2009
"Today, we join a select group of five nati
ons who possess the capability to build a nuclear-powered subm
arine," Singh declared in his speech at the eastern naval base of Visakhapatnam.
The submarine launch reflected no aggressive plans by India.
We do not have any aggressive designs, nor do we seek to threaten anyone. We seek an external environment in our region and beyond that is conducive to our peaceful development and the protection of our value systems," Singh said.
A nuclear-powered submarine is a much more complex
platform than any other vessel and India building one on its own is a great achievement. This is the unanimous assessment of officials, be they from the Defence Research and Development
Organisation (DRDO), the Department of Atomic Energy or the Indian Navy.
What enhances the scale of the achievement is that INS Arihant, India’s nuclear-powered submarine, will be fitted with India’s own K-15 ballistic missiles that can be launched from under water. The K-15 missiles, which are already under production, can carry both conventional and nuclear warheads. They have a range of 700 k
m. They are 10.4 metres tall and weigh 6.3 tonnes each.
“This is a very big capability,” a DRDO official said. “It means we can launch missiles with nuclear warheads from ground, drop nuclear bombs from air and also fire them now from under water.”
A nuclear-powered submarine bestowed on India the status of a nation possessing a blue-water navy because the boat can travel far and wide.
While the Navy designed INS Arihant, the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) built the mini-nuclear reactor that powers the submarine, the DRDO developed the K-15 missiles. The K-15 missiles have been test-fired several times from submerged pontoons off the coast of Visakhapatnam. A missile emerging from the water without losing its fire was a technology in itself.
A distinct advantage of a nuclear-powered submarine is that while it can remain under water for a long duration, a diesel-fired submarine has to rise to the surface every day for ejecting the carbon-dioxide produced by the diesel-generator. Otherwise, the boat’s crew will face problem.
“In a nuclear-energy system used in a submarine, there is no emission of carbon-dioxide. It is a clean form of energy,” a DRDO official explained. “The turbine operating on enriched uranium in INS Arihant is a clean system. But a diesel-generator emits carbon-dioxide. You cannot discharge it into the water. So the submarine has to be brought up to the surface every day to eject the carbon-dioxide into the atmosphere.”
Trials to follow
DRDO officials cautioned that while INS Arihant entering water from the dry-dock in the Ship-Building Centre of the Visakhatpatnam harbour on Sunday was an important step forward, making the boat operational would take time. “The submarine will now go for harbour acceptance trials (HATs). Then it will go for sea acceptance trials (SATs). Later it will go down to a certain depth and come up,” they said.
A nuclear-powered submarine was a highly complex platform and safety regulations had to be adhered to. “There are hundreds of systems on the boat. They have to work one after another. This is called setting-to-work. The HATs and SATs will last about a year-and-a-half. This is the most difficult period of activity and you have to do it perfectly. Then the K-15 missiles will be fitted into the boat.”
M. Natarajan, Scientific Advisor to the Defence Minister, was present when the INS Arihant was launched on Sunday.
The project has been named the “Advanced Technology Vessel” (ATV) programme. Vice-Admiral (retired) D.S.P. Varma is the Director-General of the ATV programme.
If you have a laptop with an RGB out and s-video out, you would have thought it was impossible to get a TV out to connect it to a normal Large TV. It would be very cool to get the video on a TV screen instead of watching movies on your laptop's tiny 14 inch screen.
S-video to Composite RCA video cable on Amazon
How do I get my laptop's video on a normal TV (which has only a composite video in) which does not have any fancy S-video or RGB input ?
Very, very simple.
Or you could make it yourself.
This circuit I am showing here has only one Capacitor - but the circuit is absolutely useful.
Materials required : wires, capacitor, s-video pin and coaxial composite video pin (most of this can be salvaged from old wires and cables lying around the house)
1 Y ground
2 C ground
3 Y (luminance+sync)
4 C (crominance)
Or, you can buy this from an electronics shop for less than a dollar.
This simple adapter can be used to convert Y/C video (S-video) to a composite video. This adapter is useful in cases where your video output device has only S-video output but your signal source accepts only composite video input. This circuit works with both PAL and NTSC video standards.
Y-ground——————+
+———- RCA/composite ground
C-ground——————+
Y————————-+
+——— RCA/composite video
C————||———–+
470pF
This circuit can be quite easily i inside a the S-video connector case if a physically small size 470 pF (ceramic) capacitor is used. Larger capacitor values will also work, but cause picture to become “softer”. The voltage rating of capacitor can be 10V or more.
This circuit works in practice quite well even though the circuit operation is not ideal. This means that impedances and signal levels not matched exactly right, but near enough to work acceptably. The picture quality you get from this circuit is is good, but not as good as with best possible composite video output circuitry.
Can I use different capacitor values ?
The circuit diagram lists the capacitor value 470 pF. Somewhat different capacitor values would also work. Practically all capacitor values form around 400 pF to around 10 nF should work somehow acceptably.
Can I buy ready made adapters like this ?
I don't have ready made circuits for sale. Ready made circuits are nowadays avaialble at video/hifi shops and form computer shops quite cheaply nowadays (3-10 Euros/Dollars). For example www.svideo2rca.com has this kind of devices for sale on-line.
Are there ways to improve S-video to composite video conversion ?
Some ICs that do S-video to composite conversion internally use luma trap to eliminate cross color artifacts. With a properly designed luma trap, the conversion works somewhat vetter than with my simple circuit. One IC that implements luma trap is AD725 from Analog Devices. The IC data sheet has information on luma trap design. When luma trap is used, the luma trap needs to match the video standard (PAL and NTSC) being used. For a filter that will work for both PAL and NTSC a means is required to switch the tuning of the filter between the two subcarrier frequencies.
My simple circuit described above works for all video standards without modifications. I have not designed any circuit that used this luma trap method myself and I have no plans to add this to my circuit.
What if my PC graphics card has a 7-pin S-video connector instead of 4-pin ?
The four pin S-video connector as shown above is the standard connector for carrying S-video. Those seven pin connectors seen on some PC graphics cards are non-standard connectors for carrying S-video. The use of the pins on those seven pin connectors is not standardized and can vary from manufacturer to manufacturer. (For some strange reasons some manufacturers in PC industry just keep constanly breaking the industry standars and create lots of confuzion to users when doing so).
Generally the four pins on those 7-pin connectors on the same places as the standard four pin S-video connector have practcly always the same fuctionality as those pins in S-video connector. The other three pins can have then some extra signals which are not part of S-video (usually some pins of those carry composite video and some control signals, but the use of those three extra pins vary quite much). So if you encounter 7 pin connector for S-video, then forget the three center pins... just use the four on the standard positions. The circuit shoudl work with those connectors as well.
I am using the adapter ans still do not get colors. What is wrong ?
This adapter is designed to convert S-video signals to composite video. And it has proven to work well on this. This circuit cannot solve other possible incompatibility issues that you might have. A typical problem that causes black and white video instead of color is incomatible video standards on the signal source and the receiver. If your video signal source (for example PC video card TV output) puts out NTSC video but your TV is designed to handle only PAL standard you get usually black and white image, and with some devices video signal does not sync at all. PAL signal to NTSC TV does not work either. One very common problem with computers that have TV putput is that the default output video standard is not right for your TV. If you get problems with computer TV output, configure your video output to right standard that your TV supports and try again. The exact details how o do this configuration varies between different computers and graphics cards. Consult your computer user's manual and other documentation for exact details.
Can the circuit used in other way ?
If you try to connect the circuit in opposite way so that you have a composite video signal which yoiu want to feed to S-video input then you might wonder would this circuit work also in that way. The answer is that the circuit sort of work also in this way. If you connect a comoisute video source to a S-video input of your TV using this circuit, you will get a full color picture on your TV screen. The downside of this is that the picture quality will be worse than if you were using the real composite vidoe input of your TV. The reason for this is that after the circuit the color information is still in the brighness signal, you you see some interference on the screen caused by color subcarrier which gets to the screen. This all means that you can use this circuit as last change in situations where you don't have a composite video input. The picture quality is degraded, but propably still usable for some not so demanding applications. A real well working solution would be much more complicated than this circuit (there are some commercial adapters based on two filters, band-pass and subcarrier frequency for C and color subcarrier band-stop on Y line). Please note that this kind of circuits are always video standard specific, meanign you need a different circuit for PAL and NTSC video standards. You can find one picture of the filter responsenses for NTSC system at http://www.epanorama.net/counter.php?url=http://www.smarthome.com/images/8290dgm.gif (filters out colro signal around 3.58 MHz frequency from Y component). The idea is the same for PAL, but the frequency here must be 4.43 MHz. There are both passive and active devices available to do this conversion.
Here are some links to some products:
Elektro Electronics magazine has published an active Video to S-VHS Converter circuit at their September 2001 issue. Due copyright reasons I can't publish the circuit here. You can find some information on the circuit at the magazine web page and you can even buy a copy of that article. This circuit design is designed for PAL video. I have tested this circuit and it works if you want go go from composite video to S-video.
Credits to Tom Tomi Engdahl <Tomi.Engdahl@iki.fi> - thanks for the circuit man, saved me a bunch of money and besides, none of the electronics shops nearby even knew what s-video was !!!
The NSA (the USA National Security Agency) worked with MicroSoft to build Vista
if you think they didn't add some kind of privacy- destroying, email tracking, watching behind your shoulder and tracking your every move on Earth kind of stuff to it to keep tabs on you then you're definitely INSANE. (I guess they don't trtack insane people anyway)
There is an option in the browser ( Internet Explorer , what else- use Firefox - just download from this page itself and install - try Mozilla Firefox - U'll like it) for Advanced AdBlock etc, which runs through MS severs.
What does this mean?
Well....
A) When you visit a webpage it has to be allowed to appear by MicroSoft, so you're double redirecting for EVERY web page you visit.
B) MS knows EXACTLY which sites you're going to at all times.
PLUS
The indexing system which was supposed to be one of the major assets to vista runs CONSTANTLY rather than just indexing once and adding index values as they become a part of your system.
This is a MAJOR reason why vista slows down and hogs an INSANE (they track normal people using insane software) amount of system resources.
Do your research. Google NSA Vista, VISTA indexing, VISTA holes.
Like I said, it's all up to personal taste but thank you very much I will stick with my streamlined XP SP2.
P.S.
Good luck getting all of your drivers/devices/programs to work on vista.
P.S.
This is not me speaking (except the crazy comments) - just something interesting I found
That's interesting ! Shutdownday.org didn't shut down today !
Not a good example to set for the 80,000 + people who said they'd shut down their computers.
It's a good thing blogger.com didn't shut down either. Or I wouldn't be able to sit here commenting on what a shame it is that shutdownday.org website didn't shut down !
"Practice what you preach", said somebody (who, I don't know - but somebody did). And the very website which started this campaign of shutting down other people's computers by a strange and complex manipulation of crowd mentality to supress the opinion of the individual and produce a peer pressure to act according to what the general public conciousness thinks is, let me say - quite interesting. ( I know the previous sentence is too long to be making any sense, but let me say the essense of what I mean is - mind control)
Yes, a massive attempt at world domination by controlling the minds of millions and millions of people (the world has more than 6 billion people right ?) to make them switch off their computers against their normal choices and thus take over the world !
So - mind control it is. The internet is like the matrix - all these humans plugged into the system and noone knows what is real.
What is real ? If real is defined as the webpages coming through your browser with information you can choose to trust or not, as emails full of junk and spam telling you to provide your bank account number and credit card info, or messages coming across and IM, or files though FTP, then real is just electrical impulses passing through miles and kilometres of wires, optic fibre cables, even thin air.
They could be just fake - absolutely fake information. Spam emails from hackers and crackers. IM bots trying to chat you up - you can never be sure what the virtual reality is ...
Back to the shutdown day thingie ...
What do they say ?
Just popped out to the real world. Back in **** minutes.
Help make the next Shutdown Day even bigger !
Well, atleast they say it's for a good cause.
We've teamed up with the National Laptop Foundation, a new non-profit organisation launching on World Earth Day, to help underprivileged children, the elderly and schools and doctors in third world countries have access to the internet, by recycling & refurbishing old unwanted & broken computers. We want to raise $100,000 to help this cause and to start work on the next Shutdown Day and organise events in cities around the world. Please help be a part of this.
Dennis Bystrov and Michael Taylor from shutdownday.org
wanted to see how many people could go without computers for a day. And shut down their computers - finda alternative uses for their laptops (believe me - somebody wants to play basketball with their laptop - there's a video of it on youtube !)
See what a dude in Engadget has to say about shutdown day - that is today !
Hold on there, big guy. You want us to STOP using computers for a day? How about we all decide to hold our breath for 24 hours, too? Yeah, that's right, we're not giving up our gadgets for anyone. We know that some day our computers will kill us (either by rising up against us or by getting us so sucked into a six day-long WoW marathon that we forget to eat), but hey, you gotta die from something right? At least we'll go out knowing we spent every waking moment indoors doing something worthwhile like reading RSS feeds and downloading porn. Those are truly the hallmarks of a life well-spent, wouldn't you agree? Anyway, we're going to show the Blame Computers First crowd what's what and use our computers TWICE as much on March 24th -- even if that means grabbing two machines and then typing with our fingers and toes at the same time.
A few suggestions from the middle path :
(not my suggestions - just some that I found interesting. I don't endorse any view expressed here)
How about we meet halfway and put our computers on standby for 12 hours ?
If they have my favourite band playing that Saturday, I would support this initiative with my friends in the club and in the bar afterwards.Wait... I still need computer to buy tickets, print out directions and... nevermind
I don't see anything wrong with this. It's on a Saturday, so unless you're working you really have no reason not to at least give a halfhearted attempt to participate.Unless you live in some craphole like New York where there's nothing to do that isn't computer related.
I think we should all support this to our friends and relatives.And queue a LOAD of torrents the night before because that's going to be a good day for downloads.
Let's just kill off all our hospital patients who rely on monitoring and life support through computers as well.
I realize it's a Saturday and all, but do they just expect businesses to just come to a screeching halt or something? "I'm sorry, I can't check our inventory right now, I'm participting in Shutdown Day! Try back on Monday.""Oh, no, I can't take a credit card today. The company that validates them has decided to turn off all of their computers for a day."
so.... does my moto Q count or even an xbox360/PS3... cause those are nearly computers. so many items are in a grey area these days as to what they are, so how do you classify a computer anymore?
It is obvious that people would find life extremely difficult without computers, maybe even impossible. If they disappeared for just one day, would we be able to cope?
Be a part of one of the biggest global experiments ever to take place on the internet. The idea behind the experiment is to find out how many people can go without a computer for one whole day, and what will happen if we all participate!
Shutdown your computer on this day and find out! Can you survive for 24 hours without your computer?
Thus says the message on shutdownday.org .
By the time a good number of people read this, it is already past shut down day. Because it's just 3 hours from now !
What is shutdown day ?
It's a day (March 24th, 2007) when a lot of people shut down their computers for 24 hours just to see if they can live without computers for a day.
And what is the response ? A lot of people said they can - 54007 and a few said they cannot 8561 at about 3 hours from t-0
Yes, it is. Definitely crazy ! But what stuff can you do with an invisible battery ?
Made in Waseda University by who some may descibe as mad scientists, this is cool but probably useless.Gizmag reported that researchers at the University have developed a so-called "organic radical" battery that's flexible and transparent. The battery apparently takes only one minute to charge and can last over 1,000 cycles.
With transparent circuits and OLEDs also already in the works, it seems like it's only a matter of time before all our gadgets are invisible. Think of it, bumping into your car which is invisible.
And what about an invisible cellphone ? But who would want an invisible ceelphone anyway - they're already too small to be visible.
Excellent ! Now space is not just a government only area. Privately owned space exploration company SpaceX successfully launched its Falcon 1 rocket. The rocket was developed entirely by SpaceX without government funding or the related lack of government funding. According to company founder Elon Musk, who previously co-founded Zip2 and PayPal (wow, that's cool !), the Falcon 1’s success will drive the cost of space access down “ultimately by a factor of 10.”
