Prashant Jethani's Web Blog: August 2006

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

What is e-Passport

Now a day’s news about e-passport is making the rounds. So what is this e-passport?
Well this is a new technology for making the passports more secure (I doubt). Research has been going on for past few years in US and some other countries for the implementation of this technology.

Basically a RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) chip will be embedded in the back cover of the passport. The New passport will be similar to the current passport and photo of the holder will be present on it. The chip will basically contain all the information of the holder along with digital photo in it which can be scanned by a reader. In event of chip being damaged the new passport can still be used like ordinary passport.

The reason why this is being done is to make forging of passports virtually impossible. As claimed the specially designed chips will contain some kind of key that cannot be hacked.

But there are apprehension regarding the security of such passports, as they work on radio frequency identification technology, fears are the personal information can be read from a distance by anyone carrying a reader capable of reading RF chips. Even though the RFID chips can be read from about 20-30 feet’s (240-360 inches), these specially designed chips can be read only from 4 inches and not more.

As per the plan, US might be able to implement the system completely by the end of 2006, but people in US are not too much confident of this technology and still it is very highly debated among the authorities.

Also as per the latest reports some consultant has been successfully able to clone the chips though he was not able to make any changes to the data. So lets wait and watch the vulnerabilities of this technology.

Monday, August 14, 2006

Artificial Intelligence

For a long time i wanted to write something about Artificial Intelligence. It's one of my favorite subjects. So let’s see what AI (Artificial Intelligence) is all about. As the name suggests, Artificial Intelligence is about intelligence that is artificial in nature i.e. intelligence exhibited by a system other than human. And degree of intelligence will be compared with humans. It's been over 50 yrs since this term has been coined and billions invested to design a system that will be comparable to humans in terms of behavior & intelligence, but we have still to see such a system. So what is so fascinating about this. Well Imagine systems that can learn by themselves, those have the ability to think. We can create robots and train them to be doctors to perform surgeries or train them to help us in our daily chores at home. The possibilities are limitless.

Attempts have been made by companies to devise systems which can exhibit some of these traits like the Deep Blue super computer system designed by IBM for playing against the world chess champion Gary Kasparov. It had defeated the champion in few matches. This was one of the greatest advancements in the field of Artificial Intelligence, because finally it was proved systems can be designed that can defeat humans. Also few other examples can be that of robots used in assembly plants. Though they do not exhibit height level of Artificial Intelligence but still they are worth talking about.

But majorly systems are being developed with limited ability of AI that is very specific to their business needs. This helps the organization to take better decisions.

The goal is to develop systems that can exhibit common sense. But as we all know, common sense is not so common, so this is one of the most challenging parts that researchers have to face while designing Artificially Intelligent systems.

And how exactly we can achieve Artificial Intelligence is by designing systems that

are faster and writing intelligent programs that can take care of the human part i.e. learning, thinking. Even though the current systems available to us are fast enough, but we are in desperate need of writing intelligent programs. That is the biggest challenge. Programs that can emulate humans.

And again we have the world divided over pros and cons of building systems having intelligence of humans. Though the dangers of a system that can think by themselves is enormous, it would be a challenge to build systems without their dark side like we have.

Some links related to Artificial Intelligence :
Google will use Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence in Music
CCortex - Simulation of human cortex
IBM to simulate brain
Note : While writing this article i have referred different websites and gathered knowledge about this technology. I'm not an expert in this field. The article has been written by me and has not been copied. Please do let me know of any copyright violations and the content will be removed.Images reffered from USA Today.

Saturday, August 12, 2006

NanoTechnology

Recently i've been quite amazed at future prospects of nanotechnology in all fields of life right from medical use to mitlitary use. This actually is a very interesting technology which can change the way we live in this world. It can make this world a better place. But right now i guess it's still in its infancy where many new things have to be explored and new ideas to be thought of. But the possibilities are limitless. It all depends how far the human imagination can go. So what does this term Nanotechnology mean. I'll try to explain from whatever little knowledge i have and things i've gathered by reading about it.

Nano is one billionth or 10-9. It is something that is very very small. Also it refers to a nanometre (nm). One nanometre is a millionth of a millimetre or about one eighty thousandth the width of a human hair.

This technology facilitates in fabricating components of extremely small size whos

e possiblities of using it in various fields is limiltless. This would change the face of the world in next 100 years. Basically people can build tiny machines which will be powerful. The components that will be used for building these tiny machines will be different depending on their usage like for building something like a Tiny Camera which can be injected into a human body we need materials that are soft and does not harm the human body.

Lots of companies are researching this technology for building new products like
1) A Tiny Capsule Camera which can be swallowed and pictures can be sent wirelessly.
2) Nanotechnology can be used in future to grow teeths that are fully decayed within minutes.
3) Tiny Robots that can be used to crush stones like Kidney Stone, Bladder Stones inside the human body.
4) Nano Batteries which can have shelf of 15 yrs if not used.
5) Creating Diamonds which will make it cheap and affordable.
6) Developing flexible flat panels for TV, Computer Display etc. that can be folded.
7) Developing powerful computers by designing small powerful chips. I hope someday my pocket pc would be as powerful as a supercomputer.
8) Concepts like Nano Factories where a machine as small as a printer would start producing a product in bulk like printers, mobile phones etc just like a printer prints a paper.

But right now this technology is the most debated one in the world as people are divided over its use vs misuse. The possibilites of misues are also endless but i guess every technology has its pros and cons. So its upto us to decide whether we need to go further and invest billions of dollars to bring a revolution for the betterment of mankind or to sit back fearing the dangers of this technology

Some links related to Nanotechology:
Nano Technology Motor & Gears Movie
NanoKids
Capsule Camera
Capsule Robot
Curing Cancer
Growing teeths in no time
Nanotechnology at Intel
NanoBattery
Note : While writing this article i have referred different websites and gathered knowledge about this technology. I'm not an expert in this field. The article has been written by me and has not been copied. Please do let me know of any copyright violations and the content will be removed.
Images reffered from www.encinosmiledr.com, www.wikipedia.org