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indianexpress: THE task of carrying cylinder-shaped blocks across a game field and building a V-shaped formation of ‘islands’— seems to be a mundane activity except that it will not be performed by humans but by teams of remote-controlled robots. 

The act that would see teams of robots competing with each other would be a part of the the national round of the international robotics competition Robocon 2007,which will be hosted in Pune on March 2 and 3 by the Maharashtra Institute of Technology (MIT). 

The event will see 25 teams of robots vie for the top spot, controlled by their ‘masters’ - students from various colleges and technical institutes across the country, including the IIT’s. 

Robocon was initiated internationally in 2002 by the Asia Pacific Broadcasters Union (ABU). The ABU comprises over 100 broadcasters from 50 countries, including Doordarshan (DD) India, which gave rise to the Robocon India event. The event is now co-hosted by MIT and DD. While only seven teams took part in the event in 2003, this number has now risen to 25 in the current year. 

The winning teams in the Pune event will get to represent India at the international Robocon event to be held in Vietnam on August 26 this year. The theme for the international event will be the ‘Ha Long Bay Discovery’, based on the Vietnamese legend of the Ha Long Dragons, who landed in Vietnam to protect it from invaders. 

According to legend, the dragons sent from their mouths pearls into the sea, which turned into stone islands that blocked the invaders’ boats. The competition is based on this legend, wherein the cylinder-blocks represent the pearls, from which the robots have to build the stone islands to block the “invaders”. 

The duration of the game is three minutes. 

techtree: Just recently, Intel developed a ‘Tera Research Chip’ to deliver supercomputer-like performance while consuming less electricity.

And, it was a team of Indian engineers at the Intel India Development Center (IIDC) in Bangalore that played a key role in the development of this fingernail-sized chip.

The team comprises 20 members, and was led by Vasantha Erraguntla, an Intel veteran, who contributed almost half of the work that went into the chip in terms of logic, circuit and physical design, while the rest was done at the company’s other lab located at Oregon.

Talking about the achievement, Erraguntla said it feels great to lead and be part of a team that is contributing to Intel’s global innovation and to the future of technology. The capabilities of Indian engineering talent have been established without a doubt.

The 80-core chip is the result of Intel’s “Tera-scale computing” research aimed at delivering Teraflops (trillions of calculations per second) performance for future PCs and servers. It is the world’s first programmable processor from a single, 80-core chip, using only 62 watts of electricity, less than many single-core processors today.

IIDC was set up in 1998, and is Intel’s largest non-manufacturing site outside of the US. Reportedly, Indian engineers at IIDC work on the design of chips and chip sets, reference designs, system software and packaging technologies, and have full ownership of the development of key Intel chips for the server and mobile market.

techtree: Intel and Motion Computing have together come up with a new tablet style PC, C5, designed for use in hospitals and clinics around the world.

Motion Computing’s C5 is the first product based on Intel’s mobile clinical assistant (MCA) platform for healthcare, and has earned support from clinicians and nurses participating in pilot studies around the world, including El Camino Hospital in Northern California, Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust in the UK, and Changi General Hospital in Singapore.

C5 is lightweight, spill-resistant, drop-tolerant, and easily disinfected, and allows nurses to access up-to-the-minute patient records and document the conditions instantly. Weighing three-pound, it runs Windows XP or Vista operating system, and has features: 802.11 built-in wireless connectivity to access up-to-date secure patient information and physician’s orders; radio frequency identification (RFID) technology for easy, rapid user logon; digital camera to enhance patient charting and progress notes, to keep track of wounds as they heal; and Blue-tooth technology to help capture patient vital signs.

According to Intel, those who participated in the study appreciated the integrated handle; immediate anytime, anywhere access to secure patient information and orders; and the docking station that allows them to easily swap batteries to achieve shift-long use.

As part of the solution, Intel and Motion Computing worked closely with electronic medical record (EMR) and other clinical software companies to refine the applications

techtree: Microsoft has announced that consumers and small businesses can now order original software either on the telephone or online.

The company says that this initiative, which is aimed at providing customers with easier access to original software, has been made possible through partnerships with Indiatimes.com and Redington.

Talking about the initiative, Brian Campbell, Director - Genuine Software Initiative, Microsoft India, said, “One of the biggest blocks to using original software is lack of access, especially in a country like India with its geographical spread. The launch of this initiative, will not only provide customers with much needed access to original software, but as a filter down effect, it will also cause customers to ask for, and sellers to be more likely to provide, original Microsoft software.”

“The purchase and use of original software will allow our users to be protected from potential threats such as malware, which arise from the use of pirated software,” added Campbell.

It is learnt that Microsoft’s unique initiative to provide software online and telephonically is an attempt to educate discerning consumers about the value of original software and provide them with new channels to access it.

While buying online, customers can order retail packs of original Microsoft software from the e-shop that can be accessed at www.microsoft.com/india/original, wherein they can pay by credit card, cheque, draft, or wallet365. Moreover, customers buying through a credit card can pay in three months’ equated installments, with no interest.

And as far as buying the software on telephone is concerned, customers can call-in at and get Retail Packs of original Microsoft software delivered to their home/office. This facility is currently available in eight cities, including Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Pune, Ahmedabad and Hyderabad. Microsoft has plans to extend this to more cities in the next few months

cnet: Samsung is getting ready to produce extremely fast memory chips to be used on future graphics cards.

Customers are starting to get samples of Samsung’s 2GHz GDDR4 (graphics double data rate 4) memory, which will deliver 4GB of data per second, the company announced Friday. It is currently mass-producing GDDR4 memory with 2.4GB per second of bandwidth.

Most graphics cards from Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices’ ATI division currently use GDDR3 memory boost performance, and you’ll also find that type of memory in the Playstation 3. The leading-edge of the graphics card market is expected to start embracing GDDR4 over the next 12 to 18 months, Samsung said.