Alternative Automobile Technologies.

Considering the energy resources available these days, particularly in the automobile industry, alternative fuel options such as biofuels and electric technologies are kind of gaining a fast forward momentum. Political guns guarding the monopoly of conventional oil corporate giants remain a barrier yet to be crossed. It’s not the lack of wisdom which prevents the free run of these advanced masterpieces, but some selfish yet reasonable combination of matters related with demand and supply policies.

Electric:

Talking about the electric automotive technology, EV1 by GM stands out in history as the new age pure electric beast which could have definitely made a good difference, unless it was voluntarily destroyed by its own makers in 2002, almost a decade after its birth, by crushing every single car ignoring strong customer oppositions, owing to reasons still speculated within the conspiracy circles. It’s purely a result of the greedy brains of petro-politicians hypnotized by the oil corporate companies, who just wanted to deal business with the yet to be cleared oil reserves of our planet.

Considering the power of electric cars, Tesla Roadster is the one which undoubtedly grabs the limelight. With 250 hp electric engine powered by 450 kg lithium ion battery, matching with that of a Porsche Boxster, this all electric production sports car is one of a kind. If it’s the acceleration which catches your attention, then Tesla can do from 0 to 100 km/hr in 4 sec with ease. The concept of installing batteries to fuel engines instead of the usual petroleum or crude oil have been updated constantly ever since the inception of the electric car idea.

Hydrogen:

Pretty much in the same lane is the hydrogen fuelled ones such as the Honda FCX Clarity, which uses a fuel cell with hydrogen in combination with oxygen to produce electricity to power electric motors and emitting just water vapors. While the BMW Hydrogen Series 7 uses hydrogen to burn an internal combustion engine. Hydrogen is a potential energy fuel source but has the disadvantages such as the need to have considerable number of refueling stations and advanced storage facilities, as it requires cryogenic systems to compress or liquefy them which are laboursome. Unless there are measures from the government to take initiatives to invest a reasonable sum in setting up subsidies and infrastructures for the goodwill of our environment, hydrogen fuel engines won’t catch up fast.

Hybrids:

Then comes the hybrid legends such as the Toyota Prius, which crossed 2 million unit sales in 2010. This one was considered as the cleanest vehicle on the planet during its launch and has pretty much met the expectations, making it the most desirable green car in almost 70 countries worldwide. The strategy adopted in the hybrid propulsion system of Prius, is the switching from an electric engine to an internal combustion engine for accelerations over 25 km/hr. The good news is a plug in hybrid version of Toyota Prius was unveiled on the 2011 Frankfurt Motor Show, scheduled to be released on the market by 2012.

Biofuels:

Biofuels have safely secured a green card in the face of new age energy options with bioethanol and biodiesel having an exponential production statistics in the recent years. The factors associated with biofuels which could be considered worth worrying for include the food versus fuel needs, deforestation, soil erosion, loss of biodiversity etc. But they are just a speck of dust in comparison with the shocking green house gas emission rates, endangered fossil fuel reserves , energy security of the planet and of course the ever increasing oil prices.

Microbes:

The role of microbial bio engineering in the production of advanced new generation biofuels is of increasing interest opening a new window of unexplored natural scientific magic. Microbes did make some news with its potential in cleaning up nuclear waste recently, thanks to the researchers in Michigan State University. The timing, at which the efficiency of Geobacter species in clearing up radioactive debris grabbing the global attention, could not be more perfect, particularly being in the midst of continuing fears from the Fukushima reactor outbursts. The use of some fungal enzyme extracts to breakdown cellulose to produce cellulose ethanol, an advanced from of biofuel and the use of the fungus Gliocladium roseum in the production of a myco-diesel are major breakthroughs. Though biofuels have revolutionized a major sector of the road transport throughout the world, it was given a major facelift with its introduction in aviation sector by Virgin Atlantic in 2008. It was then followed by Air New Zealand, US Navy & Air force, Air China and the most recent one to join the league is the Air Alaska in November 2011.

However, the only part which could be a threat in this green revolution is the competency of fuel with the need for food. We have witnessed enough wars and destructions worldwide over oil to fuel our automobiles. Hope there won’t be any such cruelty for biofuels, as most forms of it needs land acquisitions to grow the crops, which might drive the corporate giants to claim farming lands ignoring people and our basic need, hunger posing a check on our food security.

The Moment of Life: LHC

Travelling down the matrix of Science, the origin of universe is one of the most mysterious paradox challenging both the religious and scientific world. Among all the scientific research themes ever known in history, the most high profile status belongs to the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a real life time machine. This brainchild was conceived by the creators of the World Wide Web, European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN). This mysterious scientific project brings together the theories of quantum mechanics and general relativity, collaborating 10,000 of world's best scientific minds from hundreds of countries and universities across the globe.

A major share of the world population is unaware of the role of God played by these people with the tremendous potential to destroy our planet. This giant underground high energy particle accelerator is located at less than 0.2 kilometers under the French-Swiss border in Switzerland. capable of shooting and smashing beams of high energy quarks at the speed of light, along a 27 kilometers long circular tunnel of space. The basic objective being the creation of new mass from energy, with head-on collisions so violent that it resembles the conditions existed during the Big bang. The entire process is not fool proof and is obviously capable of converting our universe into a particle soup. I wonder if millions of years later there would be a Jurassic Park movie with aliens digging human bones.

''Out of this door might come something, or we might send something through it," is how Sergio Bertolucci, who is the Director for Research and Scientific Computing at CERN addressed the reporters during a press meet at the CERN HQ in 2009. The questions and doubts that would arise within the commonsense of a normal man doesn't bother the scientific community until the collider disaster actually spell its power. We might have to helplessly wait for the scientists to convince themselves about the real risk of playing god, until the creation of black holes that are capable of sucking the entire earth; and the generation of antimatter explosions that could burn our planet like the sun.

I might sound like an eccentric crack criticizing the new possibilities of science. For the time being, let us ignore the negative possibilities. But i wonder, if spending billions of money and homework just to solve some puzzles in physics do justice to humanity. This one is obviously different from any other scientific project in being gigantic in structure, expenditure and scientific manpower. Still what would be the fate of 27 kilometers long tunnel associated with thousands of powerful magnets, detectors, compressors and incubators weighing thousands of tonnes, after the so called dream collision. CERN has planned to run the collider with half energy until the shutdown by 2013, to prepare the magnets to be more stronger for the proposed high energy run starting by 2014. Let us keep our fingers crossed while the scientific community expects the creation of a new mystery or rather a doomsday for the future history.

The Man behind Google+

Google has boldly revealed its new face on 28^th of June, 2011 by challenging the biggest social networking sites of our times, Facebook and Twitter. Google Plus has been in a process of development ever since the failure of Google’s first social networking site, Orkut. Several alternative ideas have been tested such as Google Buzz, Google Wave etc. but were not big enough to compete with its rivals. Never mind the struggles, the tough gets awesome by repeated attempts, and hence Google is back with a bang. We are yet to see whether it’s worth the present hype. However, Google+ is obviously a strong rival for Facebook, which has got over 750 million active users.  Google+ is fresh and fun. With the initial survey reports, there are 280% active registrations going on worldwide for Google+. The interesting fact is, large communities of Facebook users are still unaware of the new Google magic.

Now to break the silence, the master brain behind Google+ is that of an IIT (Indian Institute of Technology) graduate from India. It’s none other than Vic Gundotra, the Senior Vice President of Social for Google. Born in 1968, he fell in love with the power of software in his childhood days. He joined Microsoft in 1991, and later became the General Manger of Platform Evangelism, a part of Microsoft. He specialized mainly on Windows Live services and MSN to compete with the Web based software applications of Google. In 2006, he signed an agreement with Google and resigned from Microsoft. After spending 1 year in charitable endeavors due to a Microsoft employee non-compete agreement, he joined Google in 2007.

At Google, he has played a major role in the realization of Google Real-time Search, Google Buzz, Development of Android applications, Google Gadgets, Google Gears etc. The biggest contribution being the inception of Google+.

Google+ is an integration of Google profiles and Google Buzz along with new additional features such as +1, Circles, Hangouts, Sparks and Huddles. Google+ is way much advanced in comparison with Facebook in areas such as E-mail, Voice & Video chats, News features etc. Though Facebook has recently integrated Skype, its way much behind the Video call experience offered by Google+.

+1 is a feature much similar to the ‘’Like’’ of Facebook.

Circles, is the revolutionizing feature of Google+ offering a new social networking experience enabling users to group people without any social obligations. This is much different from the traditional friends list used in Facebook. It helps users to categorize the people into separate circles without letting the people know where exactly they have been placed. The user’s advantage here is in having the privacy of not revealing how many and what all circles he/she has. Hence other users could see the list of friends in ones profile as in Facebook, but they will be completely unaware of the circles. This eases and adds more fun to the networking experience.

Hangouts, is actually an enhanced version of the conference video calling in Skype.  It comes with more user friendly features like having around 10 people in a group video chat at any given time.

Huddle, is a messaging or chat like feature within any given circle, available in Android and i0S mobile devices.

         Instant upload is a feature for mobile devices enabling users to store pictures and upload when they wish to.

            Sparks, is an enhanced Google search feature which works in a customized fashion.

Personally I find Google+ more advanced in every possible way. Am loving its fresh and simple interface. It was Orkut which took me into the world of social networking and was an active user for almost 3 years. Then, to keep up with the race, I finally configured a space in Facebook. In between I got into Twitter and LinkedIn. Social networking sites have always been an integral part of our lives with lots of personal attachments mainly owing to the people involved. One thing which we should keep in mind, no matter what social network we are into, is nurturing and prospering with our real life relationships.