Autodesk: The Secret Star Behind Oscar-Winning Visual Effects

INCEPTION 2010

No matter which film walks away with the Oscar for Best Visual Effects on Sunday, one organization that has previously made Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies list will be a clear winner: Autodesk. Every single movie nominated this year--from Alice in Wonderland to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1, Herafter to Inception to Iron Man 2--used its software to craft some portion of their effects.

And while Autodesk is best known for its architecture tools, less well known is its Media & Entertainment line of products, which are used to create effects in films, television, and video games. The tools are so well highly valued within the industry that they have been part of the toolbox used to construct scenes in every single film that has won Best Visual Effects at the Academy Awards in the last 15 years.

Autodesk’s MotionBuilder, for example, was central to last year’s Avatar. The tool was able to instantly transform the motion data it was capturing into an image of what the characters and scene would look like in the final film. So while Sam Worthington and Zoe Zaldana romped around the set in black suits and funny-looking headgear (see video, below), director James Cameron could watch a monitor where blue Na’vi characters were performing the scene against the Pandora landscape. That meant he could see the movie--in real-time--essentially as it was going to appear in its final form, and make any adjustments right there and then.

Autodesk’s Maya was used to map Brad Pitt’s performance onto the older version of himself in 2008’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. MudBox, which was originally created by New Zealand’s Skymatter and later acquired by Autodesk, was used to sculpt the ape in 2005’s King Kong. And Maya was used as far back as 1997, in Titanic, to place virtual characters on top of the doomed ship as it sailed out of harbor. That film also used Inferno, a compositing software that allowed the filmmakers, for example, to add smoke to the Titanic’s smokestack and have it track tightly with the ship’s movement.

Much of the core competency Autodesk brings to the table lies in developing complicated mathematical models of how objects look and behave in the real world, then baking that into the software, so that artists and designers can essentially push a button to run an algorithm and have the result applied to the element on screen--a much more sophisticated version of what happens when you apply an effect to an image in photo editing software.

“Our job,” Jos Stam, senior research scientist at Autodesk and inventor of Maya Fluid Effects, tells Fast Company, “is to hide all the math.”

But he’s humble about the tools’ ultimate contribution to what viewers see at the movies.

“We create these tools,” he says, “and I’m always amazed by what the artists can do with them. It’s like creating brushes and then seeing a Rembrandt. You can improve the brushes, but it still takes an artist to really create amazing effects.”

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from Fast Company

Google Invades Microsoft Territory, Integrates Google Docs With Office Products

Although Google has pushed hard to make Google Docs a worthy competitor to Microsoft Office, there's always been a sense that Docs just couldn't stack up. As a web-based program, Google Docs lacked the features, ease-of-use, and stability of Office--it's an online convenience, certainly, but no where close to a replacement for Microsoft's suite of products.

But today, Google took steps to grow its role beyond just an online supplement to Office--and, in doing so, is going right into Microsoft's backyard. 

On Thursday, the search giant unveiled a new tool to sync Microsoft Office with Google Docs, creating a seamless transition from one program to the next. Called Cloud Connect, the plugin installs to the toolbar of any Office application, whether Word, Excel or PowerPoint, and enables users to "share and simultaneously edit" documents. Using the Google plugin, all files and revisions are synced to the cloud and continuously backed up through Google. 

Rather than try to reinvent the wheel, it appears Google is trying to better integrate itself with market leader Microsoft by doing what it does best: cloud computing and real-time collaboration. As an ad for the new plugin says, "You gain all the benefits of the cloud without learning anything new or updating existing software." 

Similar plugins already exist, but none that pose as much a threat to Microsoft as Google. If the product were to ever to become popular, it'd be a huge branding coup for Google: a Google toolbar incorporated prominently into one of Microsoft's most ubiquitous programs.

And we've seen this strategy before from Google. Remember when it first added the Google search toolbar to Internet Explorer? Or when it added Google Desktop on Windows?

Unless Microsoft is careful, Office might be next--regardless of whether ol' Clippy has been able to fend off competitors in the past.  

The 3-D Sound Revolution

Pixar's animated hit, Toy Story 3, goes for a Best Picture Oscar. And it was an innovative new series of sound channels that let Buzz Lightyear be even buzzier.

When the celebrities walk the red carpet at the Academy Awards on Sunday, you might miss the stars of sound who helped 3-D storytelling take a giant leap forward this year: Dolby Laboratories. Last June, Dolby unleashed Surround 7.1 in conjunction with Best Picture nominee Toy Story 3. For the first time, it enabled viewers of 3-D movies to feel like they were inside of the action and inside of the sound.

Pixar came to Dolby as they were preparing the latest installment of the Woody-Buzz franchise, Dolby technical marketing manager Stuart Bowling tells Fast Company. For years, there had been limitations on what sound designers could do, based on how sound was delivered to speakers inside the theater. Pixar wanted to know if Dolby could create a new system, one that would let designers better break up where the sound took place inside the theater, to better recreate sound from real-world environments.

The historical limitations were due to the limited capabilities of physical film, which could only carry so many sound channels. As a result, sound in the back of the theater couldn’t be separated from the sound on the sides--the same channel was delivered to each set of speakers. But digital systems have much more bandwidth, so now Dolby could add more channels, and then send it to different sets of speakers (see image, below), which in turn allowed designers to move sound around the theater--the effect is closer to the way we experience sound in real life. 

"In an initial test, we remixed the sequence from Toy Story 2 where the toys are crossing the road, inside orange cones," Bowling says. "The amount of immersion you get from that is that you really feel the claustrophobia of the toys inside the cones. You literally feel the cars drive over you. You’re hearing the cars come from the screen, running right down the right and left surround, [and then off the back]. We couldn’t do that before." 

The new system, which is now in about 1,300 theaters worldwide, has meant that movie makers, like Pixar, have more choices with what they do on the screen.

"In live action films, whenever you hear someone speak, you predominantly hear them speaking from the center of the screen [where a set of speakers is located]," Bowling says. "But Pixar likes to have their characters move around the room. So now Slinky, the dog, can walk across the screen. He can start talking on the left channel, and then in the center. And then the front of him can disappear off screen [to the right]. You’re hearing him talking on the right wall, while you’re still seeing his legs in front of you."

[Diagram: Dolby Laboratories]
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You'll believe anything you read online, won't you?

In July, 2010, one corner of the blogosphere erupted with the seething, burning rage that online communities seem to have a unique ability to muster.


The spark that lit bloggers' fuse was a decision by SEED Media Group decision-makers to allow a team of writers from PepsiCo Inc. to operate a blog about nutrition and global health on its popular ScienceBlogs.com blogging network. Many of ScienceBlogs' other writers felt this choice had leapt across the ethical line. Some thought the Pepsi-authored blog wasn't labelled clearly to let readers know what they felt it was – advertising in disguise. Some felt that by staying, their reputations, and their credibility, would be diminished.


While SEED did eventually reverse its plan, the damage had been done. The network began haemorrhaging writers, losing nearly a quarter of its roster before the week was out. Blogging as a platform flies on wings of trust, and it seemed that ScienceBlogs - one of the first, and certainly the most prominent science blogging network - had flown too high.

The fiasco – dubbed Pepsigate as the saga unfurled – revolved around two major issues: traditional notions of the advertising-editoral divide that have plagued publishing for ages, but also a new struggle stemming from a lack of understanding of how readers assess the credibility of blogs. Knowing how readers decide to believe a blog post could help make sense of Pepsigate, and whether or not giving a clearer biography of the Pepsi blog's authors would have made any difference.

One recent study by Thomas Chesney and Daniel Su tried to dig in to the factors people use to judge blogs by focusing on pseudonymous* blogging and the impact it might have on perceived credibility.

Chesney and Su gave 269 undergraduate students – 182 in the UK, 87 in Malaysia - a fake story chronicling a blogger's discovery of, and subsequent battle with, nail fungus (ew?). The posts were identical except for the blogger's biographical information running along the top. Here, the researchers had three types of bio: 1) a pseudonym only 2) a pseudonym, age, and sex, or 3) the blogger's “real” name, age, sex, email address and photograph.

The students rated the blogger's perceived credibility, successfulness, trustworthiness, and reputation, along with whether they thought the writer had “an interest in important affairs,” integrity, and had “information of superior quality.” Each of these terms was judged out of seven and combined to give a one-number measure of the bloggers perceived credibility, with one being believable and seven being a skeezy dirtbag.

It turned out, much to the surprise of the researchers, that having a full set of biographical information, or having nothing but a nickname (KrystalKidd, or another similarly creative pseud) made absolutely no difference on how credible the students thought the blogger was.

"I wasn't expecting that at all,” said Chesney, a researcher at the University of Nottingham. "I thought it would make a difference, this idea of having not just a name but also a photograph, but it didn't. There was no difference.”

Pseudonymous bloggers were rated with a 4.40 +/- 0.93, pseud, age and sex earned 4.28 +/- 0.79, and fully identifiable bloggers got 4.26 +/- 0.89. In other words, all three set-ups left the bloggers somewhere in the middle of the seven point scale.

"Whatever the reason," said Chesney, "the implication of [the study] for bloggers is that, should they wish to publish anonymously, they can do so without a loss of credibility."

But in my mind, this is only one possible way of looking at the results. Yes, it could be that people are sympathetic to anonymous bloggers. Or, maybe it's just that the level of trust for blogs isn't up for discussion. So it might not be that bloggers aren't losing credibility by being anonymous, but rather that even by having a photo, an email address and all the rest, bloggers just aren't capable of gaining any points. Chesney said he's sympathetic to the two different interpretations.

"I think that's exactly right. This study doesn't shed any light on which of those it is, but it could be either," he said.

Chesney said there is at least one strong reason why the results may not be perfectly applicable to blogging today, however. He said the research was conducted in around 2006, "before it became known in the mainstream that news organizations were willing to look at blogs, Flickr streams, and microblogs as valid information sources."


He said that at the time, it might have been that, despite their growing prominence, “blogs perhaps were not seen as something worth attention.”

But, Chesney and Su's findings seem to fit within previous research into the perceived credibility of websites in general. The pair wrote that in a study by Eysenbach and Köhler, which looked at how people get health information online, that "few participants were able to name the website where they had eventually found information, and none of them had checked any ‘disclaimer’ or ‘about us’ section of the websites they looked at."


The research, along with a pinch of extrapolation, suggests that for the average browsing reader, the one who will come across a story from Twitter, Facebook, Reddit or any other source, will hardly even notice – let alone care – whose blog they are currently reading. They will read the post, and decide what to make of it based on the content. And then, just like when people learn bad science from movies, they will probably forget where they found the information in the first place.


My point in tying this research to the Pepsigate scandal is to suggest that those who happen to be in charge of giving bloggers an expanded platform (like by being on a blogging network run by a magazine company), need to be particularly ethical in regards to who they hand a keyboard. If the research shows that readers don't look at biographies or check an author's credentials, then the practice of running disguised advertising is a huge breach of their obligations to their audience.


With the default credibility of blogs running so low, and there being little a blogger can do to improve it, they need to be especially protective of any gains they manage to make – a lesson SEED may have learned just a little too late.

*The authors refer to anonymous blogging throughout their study, but technically the research seems to refer to pseudonymous blogging - blogging under a nickname. Anonymous bloggers would be completely unidentified.
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article by Colin Schultz
taken from scientificamerican.com

The V8 Engine

Now a  days we all talk about V8 engines. Every sports car today has it. But what exactly to an engineer a V8 engine means? What does 8 cylinders provide that 6 cylinders engine are not able to provide except power and all that general stuff???? This article will talk about it.

The V8 Engine of Porsche 911 carrera convertible

New Porsche 911 with Direct Fuel Injection and Double-Clutch Gearbox


Stuttgart. Starting on 5 July, Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche AG, Stuttgart, is introducing the next generation of the 911 model series. The four new models – two Coupés and two Cabriolets – with classic rear-wheel drive offer an even higher standard of dynamic performance thanks to their all-new flat-six power units displacing 3.6 and, respectively, 3.8 litres. And the introduction for the first time of direct fuel injection on a Porsche sports car, together with the optional double-clutch gearbox Porsche-Doppelkupplung (PDK), makes the new 911 even more sporting and dynamic.

At the same time these new technologies enhance the already outstanding efficiency of the 911 to an even higher level than before: Featuring PDK, the Carrera Coupé offers outstanding fuel economy of 9.8 litres/100 kilometres, equal to 28.8 mpg imp. And with all new Carreras remaining significantly below the fuel consumption benchmark of 11 litres/100 kilometres, equal to 25.7 mpg imp, CO2 emissions are down by up to 15 per cent.

Maximum output of the 911 Carrera with its 3.6-litre power unit is up by 20 bhp to 345 bhp (254 kW). Output on the 911 Carrera S with its 3.8-litre power unit is equally impressive, up by 30 bhp to 385 bhp (283 kW). With this extra power, the Carrera S Coupé now offers a top speed of slightly over 300 km/h or 186 mph.



The new generation of the 911 is available for the first time with the new Porsche-Doppelkupplung (PDK), Porsche’s double-clutch gearbox. Offering no less than seven forward gears, the new gearbox combines the driving comfort of a converter automatic transmission with the dynamic gearshift of a sequential racing gearbox. And since PDK also boasts an automatic gearshift function, it replaces the former Porsche Tiptronic S automatic transmission on both the Carrera and Carrera S. Through its optimised and adaptive gearshift programs, PDK improves the car’s acceleration and reduces fuel consumption to a level even lower than before.

Porsche developed this gearshift principle featuring two clutches to shift gears without the slightest interruption of traction and pulling power and without even the slightest break in between gears no less than 25 years ago for motorsport. Porsche works drivers benefiting from this technology were able to accelerate faster than their competitors and keep both hands on the steering wheel while shifting gears, thus avoiding even the slightest distraction while shifting. The pioneering achievement from back then now gives the new 911 Carrera even better performance: Equipped with seven-speed PDK, the Carrera S Coupé accelerates in 4.5 seconds from 0-100 km/h, another 0.2 seconds faster than with a manual six-speed gearbox. And the customer in search of optimum driving dynamics even has the option to combine PDK with Porsche’s optional Sport Chrono Plus including Launch Control. The result is high-speed acceleration free of slip from a standstill and a racing gearshift, with the car accelerating to 100 km/h in a truly outstanding 4.3 seconds.


The new generation of the 911 stands out clearly at first sight through innovations in design both front and rear as well as new lights with LED technology. LED daytime driving lights and bi-xenon headlights now standard on all new models in the Carrera range give the silhouette of the 911 even more distinctive style and a truly unique look, interacting with new LED rear lights to ensure an unmistakable and striking appearance also at the rear. And as a further safety option, Porsche now also offers Dynamic Bending Lights on all models.


Prices start at Euro 69,600.- for the Carrera (Euro base price). The Carrera Cabriolet and Carrera S both retail at Euro 78,000.- (Euro base price), and the Carrera S Cabriolet is entering the market at Euro 88,000.- (Euro base price).
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source distrocar.com

VW Beetle History

The First People cars created by ferdinand porsche.....
History of The Volkswagen Beetle




In 1934, Adolph Hitler announced that a car shouldn't just be a privilege of the wealthy. He summoned Ferdinand Porsche to talk about his plans for a car. Hitler said it should be small, durable and air cooled. Hitler called it Volkswagen, which means the peoples car and stipulated it should be less than 1,000 marks, about $250.


Although, Porsche had the same idea a few years earlier and had built several prototypes, he was sure the low price couldn't be met and dismissed the crazy idea of the dictator. He didn't know that Hitler planned on using the car as a political ploy to attract citizens to his regime.


Soon, Hitler ordered Porsche to make three prototypes. Porsche came to America in 1935, he toured manufacturing plants. He took notes of all of the tools and dies used on assembly lines. By 1936, three prototypes were ready and tested.

The Beetle was officially designated as the Volkswagen Type 1 and was marketed in Europe by the designations Volkswagen 1100, 1200, 1300, 1500, or 1600 – denoting its engine size. The model became widely known in its home country as the Käfer, German for "beetle", and the model ultimately took the same nickname in English.


In the 1950s, the Beetle was more comfortable and powerful than most European small cars,[citation needed] having been designed for sustained high speed on the Autobahn. It remained a top seller in the US, owing much of its success to high build-quality and innovative advertising,[citation needed] ultimately giving rise to variants, including the Volkswagen Karmann Ghia and the Volkswagen Type 2 van.



Along with cars including the Morris Minor, Fiat 500, Renault 4CV and Dauphine, and Citroen 2CV, the Beetle pioneered the modern continental economy car – and later served as the benchmark for the initial two generations of North American small cars, the first wave which included compact cars such as the Chevrolet Corvair and Ford Falcon and the later wave of subcompact cars such as the Chevrolet Vega and Ford Pinto.



The Beetle had marked a significant trend led by Volkswagen, Fiat and Renault whereby the rear-engine, rear-wheel drive layout had increased from 2.6 percent of continental Western Europe's car production in 1946 to 26.6 percent in 1956.[4] The 1948 Citroen 2CV and other European models marked a later trend to front-wheel drive in the European small car market, a trend that would come to dominate that market. In 1974, Volkswagen's own front-wheel drive Golf model succeeded the Beetle, and in 1998 VW introduced the "New Beetle", built on the Golf platform with styling that recalled the original Beetle.



In a 1999 international poll for the world's most influential car of the 20th century the Beetle came fourth after the Ford Model T, the Mini, and the Citroën DS.

Design overview




Illustration of the Beetle's engine cooling and exhaust systemsThe Beetle featured a rear-located, rear-wheel drive, air-cooled four cylinder, boxer engine in a two-door bodywork featuring a flat front windscreen, accommodating four passengers and providing luggage storage under the front bonnet and behind the rear seat – and offering a Cx or coefficient of drag of 0.41. The bodywork attached with eighteen bolts to its nearly flat chassis which featured a central structural tunnel. Front and rear suspension featured torsion bars along with front and rear stabilizer bars – providing independent suspensions at all wheels. Certain initial features were subsequently revised, including mechanical drum brakes, split-window rear windows, mechanical direction-indicators and the non-synchronized gearbox. Other features, including its distinctive overall shape, endured.

Its engine, transmission, and cylinder heads were constructed of light alloy. An engine oil cooler (located in the engine fan's shroud) ensured optimal engine operating temperature and long engine life, optimized by a thermostat that bypassed the oil cooler when the engine was cold. Later models of the carburetor featured an automatic choke. Engine intake air passed through a metallic filter, while heavier particles were captured by an oil bath. After 1960, steering featured a hydraulic damper that absorbed steering irregularities.

Indicative of the car's simple, no-nonsense design, the interior featured painted metal surfaces, a metal dash consolidating instruments in a single, circular binnacle, adjustable front seats, a fold-down rear seat, swing-out rear windows, front windows with pivoting vent windows, heating via air-to-air exchange manifolds operating off the engine's heat and a windshield washer system that eschewed the complexity and cost of an additional electric pump and instead received its pressurization from the car's spare tire (located in the front luggage compartment) which was accordingly overinflated to accommodate the washer function.

While the overall appearance of the Beetle changed little over its life span, it received over 78,000 incremental changes during its production.


"The People's Car"


Porsche Type 12, 1931/32 by Zündapp, NurembergStarting in 1931, Ferdinand Porsche and Zündapp developed the Porsche Type 12, or "Auto für Jedermann" (car for everybody). Porsche already preferred the flat-4 cylinder engine, and selected a swing axle rear suspension (invented by Edmund Rumpler), while Zündapp used a water-cooled 5-cylinder radial engine. In 1932, three prototypes were running. All of those cars were lost during the war, the last in a bombing raid in Stuttgart in 1945.


The Zündapp prototypes were followed by the Porsche Type 32, designed in 1933 for NSU Motorenwerke AG, another motorcycle company. The Type 32 was similar in design to the Type 12, but had a flat-4 engine. NSU's exit from car manufacturing resulted in the Type 32 being abandoned at the prototype stage.



In 1933, Adolf Hitler gave the order to Ferdinand Porsche to develop a Volkswagen (literally, "people's car" in German, pronounced [ˈfɔlksvaːɡən]). The epithet Volks- literally, "people's-" was also applied to other Nazi sponsored consumer goods such as the Volksempfänger ("people's radio"). Hitler required a basic vehicle capable of transporting two adults and three children at 100 km/h (62 mph). The "People's Car" would be available to citizens of the Third Reich through a savings scheme, or Sparkarte (savings booklet),[9] at 990 Reichsmark, about the price of a small motorcycle (an average income being around 32RM a week).



Erwin Komenda, Porsche's chief designer, was responsible for the design and style of the car. But production only became worthwhile when finance was backed by the Third Reich. War started before large-scale production of the Volkswagen started, and manufacturing shifted to producing military vehicles. Production of civilian VW automobiles did not start until post-war occupation.


VW over the years



1932 Volkswagen Beetle Prototype

 

1956 Volkswagen Beetle

 

1955 Volkswagen Beetle Prototype

Famous Engineers Part - 1

FERDINAND PORSCHE

Ferdinand Porsche(3 September 1875 – 30 January 1951) was an Austrian automotive engineer and honorary Doctor of Engineering. He is best known for creating the first hybrid vehicle (gasoline-electric), the Volkswagen Beetle, and the Mercedes-Benz SS/SSK, as well as the first of many Porsche automobiles. Porsche designed the 1923 Benz Tropfenwagen, which was the first race car with mid-engine, rear-wheel drive layout.


He made a number of contributions to advanced German tank designs: Tiger I, Tiger II, and the Elefant. As well as the Super-Heavy class Panzer VIII Maus tank, which was never put into production. In 1937, Porsche was awarded the German National Prize for Art and Science, one of the rarest decorations in Nazi Germany.
In 1996, Porsche was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame and in 1999 posthumously won the award of Car Engineer of the Century.


Ferdinand Porsche was born to German-speaking parents in Maffersdorf (Czech: Vratislavice nad Nisou), northern Bohemia, during the time of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, today in the Czech Republic.


He showed high aptitude for mechanical work at a very young age. He managed to attend classes at the Imperial Technical School in Reichenberg at night while helping his father in his mechanical shop by day. Thanks to a referral, Porsche landed a job with the Béla Egger Electrical company in Vienna when he turned 18.In Vienna he would sneak into the local university whenever he could after work. Beyond auditing classes there, Porsche had never received any higher engineering education. During his five years with Béla Egger, Porsche first developed the electric hub motor.

In April 1931 Porsche founded his consulting firm, Dr. req. h.c. F. Porsche GmbH, Konstruktionen und Beratungen für Motoren und Fahrzeugbau, in Stuttgart, where he returned. With financial backing from the Austrian advocate Anton Piëch and Adolf Rosenberger, Porsche successfully recruited several old co-workers he befriended at his former places of employment including Karl Rabe, Erwin Komenda, Franz Xaver Reimspiess, and his son, Ferry Porsche.
Their first project was the design of a middle class car for Wanderer. Other commissioned designs followed. As the business grew, Porsche decided to work on his own design as well, which happened to be a reincarnation of the small car concept from his days at Daimler-Benz in Stuttgart. He financed the project with a loan on his life insurance. Later Zündapp decided to help sponsor the project, but lost interest after their success with motorcycles. NSU then took over the sponsorship, but also lost interest due to the high tooling costs.


With car commissions low in the depressed economic climate, Porsche founded a subsidiary company Hochleistungs Motor GmbH (High Efficiency Engines Ltd.) in 1932 to develop a racing car, for which he had no customer. Based on Max Wagner's mid-engined layout 1923 Benz Tropfenwagen, or "Teardrop" aerodynamic design; the experimental P-Wagen project racing car (P stood for Porsche), was designed according to the regulations of the 750 kg formula. The main regulation of this formula meant that the weight of the car without driver, fuel, oil, water and tire was not allowed to exceed 750 kg.


In 1932 Auto Union Gmbh was formed, comprising struggling auto manufacturers Audi, DKW, Horch and Wanderer. The Chairman of the Board of Directors, Baron Klaus von Oertzen wanted a show piece project, so at fellow director Adolf Rosenberger's insistence, von Oertzen met with Porsche, who had done work for him before. At the 1933 Berlin Motor Show, German Chancellor Adolf Hitler announced two new programs:

• The people's car: Hitler made it his political agenda to motorize the nation, and that every German should own either a car or a tractor in the future.
• A state-sponsored motor racing programme: to develop a "high speed German automotive industry," the foundation of which would be an annual sum of 500,000 Reichmarks to Mercedes-Benz.

In June 1934, Porsche received a contract from Hitler to build three prototypes from designs Porsche already had, such as Porsche's 1931 Type 12 car. The three cars were completed in winter 1936. However, the original car designs follow from the innovative ideas of Hans Ledwinka, which resulted in a lawsuit by Tatra, against Porsche and his collaborators; settled by Volkswagen only several years after WWII. Daimler-Benz was contracted to build an additional 30 prototypes. A new city, "Stadt des KdF-Wagens", near Fallersleben was founded for the factory. The city is named Wolfsburg today and is still the seat of Volkswagen.

The Cult of Apple Will Outlast Steve Jobs's Reign: Survey

The big news......

The Cult of Apple Will Outlast Steve Jobs's Reign: Survey

 According to a new report, 84% of consumers say a Jobs-less future would not change their Apple-buying habits.

Last month Apple announced that its founder, CEO, and resident ninja Steve Jobs would be taking a medical leave of absence. As soon as the news leaked, the tech world went bonkers over how Apple would fare without its super star chief exec at the helm. Would Apple's image be tarnished? Could it remain as innovative? Would its value and stock share begin to fall?

Well, according to a new report from RBC Capital Markets and ChangeWave, Apple may actually have nothing to worry about, beyond Jobs' personal well-being. In the survey, some 3,091 respondents were asked whether their interest in purchasing Apple products would diminish if Steve Jobs were to depart. An astonishing 84% of those surveyed said his departure would have no effect at all on their future Apple-buying intentions, while another 8% were unsure if it would have an effect. Just 7% of respondents said they'd be less likely to buy Apple products in the future.

Those promising figures have risen over the years, likely boosted by Apple's strengthened market position. In June of 2008, only 68% of respondents said Jobs' absence would have no effect on their decisions to buy Apple products--while 18% said they would be less likely to purchase its products in the future, and another 14% were unsure. Since then, thanks to the resounding success of the iPhone, iPad, and App Store, it appears consumers have become far more comfortable with (or addicted to, as the case may be) Apple, regardless of whether its founder is still running the show.

And it might not simply be the magical aura of Apple that will keep fans around for years to come. As analysts pointed out, Apple has near-unparalleled management in the industry--if Jobs' were to permanently leave, many have confidence that potential successors like Tim Cook would be able to effectively take up the reins. In fact, Apple Insider points out that the last time Jobs went on medical leave, the company's stock managed to jump 144% and revenue increased by 20%. And despite its fearless leader taking leave this last earnings call, Apple still boasted $26 billion dollars in revenue, crushing Wall Street estimates.

Of course, a strong case could be made that both periods of earnings were riding Jobs-ian waves, from the 25 million iPhones shipped during his last medical leave to the 7.3 million iPads sold during this past quarter. The question isn't whether consumers are likely to continue purchasing Apple products without Steve Jobs; rather, the question is what those Apple products will look like without Steve Jobs.

To keep the cult of Apple alive, the company must continue to imagine industry game-changers such as the iMac, iPod, iPhone, and iPad--and avoid producing anything like a Newton. 

taken from fast company.com

Mom i dont want to drink Milk......

Every body might have used this statement at least once in a life time.
Every one is differently able to digest lactose. The evolution of the ability to 
digest lactose conferred such an advantage it probably spread through populations within a few dozen generations. But 

Just How Big A Deal Is Milk Drinking?

The ability to digest milk as adults, and as infants, actually, is due to the expression of an enzyme called lactase. Individuals who don’t express this enzyme can’t digest that complex sugar a.k.a lactose.

Can we put a number on the evolutionary importance of lactose tolerance? “The selective pressure was quite remarkable. We actually estimated it to be about 10 percent. So you’re more likely to have 10 percent more offspring essentially.” That’s the University of Pennsylvania’s Sarah Tishkoff at the AAAS conference in Washington DC on February 20th, talking about the recent evolution of lactose tolerance in different human populations within the past 9,000 years. 

How strong is that? Look at population genetics to see how fast a trait will spread that develops in one individual in a population and that confers a 10 percent reproductive advantage. A mathematical analysis reveals that in just 100 generations, such a trait can be found in 95 percent of the individuals in the population.

That time period could be less than 2,000 years for humans. “I’m often asked the question, are humans still evolving? I would say the answer is absolutely yes.”

—Steve Mirsky
taken from scientificamerican.com

 

Personality Psychology

Defining Personality:

Personality is made up the characteristic patterns of thoughts, feelings and behaviors that make a person unique. Personality arises from within the individual and remains fairly consistent throughout life.
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Theories of Personality:

A number of different theories have emerged to explain different aspects of personality. Some theories focus on explaining how personality develops while others are concerned with individual differences in personality. The following are just a few of the major theories of personality proposed by different psychologists:

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Trait Theories

• Gordon Allport's dispositional perspective
• Hans Eysenck's three-trait model
• Myers-Briggs Types
• "Big Five" Personality Dimension

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Psychoanalytic Theories

• Freud's Theory of Psychosexual Development
• Erikson's Theory of Psychosocial Development
• Horney's Theory of Neurotic Needs

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Behavioral Theories

• Classical Conditioning
  
• Operant Conditioning

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What Are the Big Five Dimensions of Personality?

What Are the Big Five Dimensions of Personality?

There are five broad categories of personality traits. While there is a significant body of literature supporting this five-factor model of personality, researchers don't always agree on the exact labels for each dimension. However, these five categories are usually described as follows:

1. Extraversion: This trait includes characteristics such as excitability, sociability, talkativeness, assertiveness, and high amounts of emotional expressiveness.
2. Agreeableness: This personality dimension includes attributes such as trust, altruism, kindness, affection, and other prosocial behaviors.
3. Conscientiousness: Common features of this dimension include high levels of thoughtfulness, with good impulse control and goal-directed behaviors. Those high in conscientiousness tend to be organized and mindful of details.
4. Neuroticism: Individuals high in this trait tend to experience emotional instability, anxiety, moodiness, irritability, and sadness.
5. Openness: This trait features characteristics such as imagination and insight, and those high in this trait also tend to have a broad range of interests.

These dimensions represent broad areas of personality. Research has demonstrated that these groupings of characteristics tend to occur together in many people. For example, individuals who are sociable tend to be talkative. However, these traits do not always occur together. Personality is a complex and varied and each person may display behaviors across several of these dimensions.

 

 

When Photos Are Painkillers

When Photos Are Painkillers..

Looking at a picture of a loved one can dull physical pain

Many mothers offer their young children a hand to squeeze as they brave a vaccination in the doctor’s office. We instinctively know that contact with a loved one can help mitigate pain—and the scientific evidence concurs. Now two recent studies show that a mere reminder of an absent beloved—a photograph—can deliver the same relief.

A Psychological Science study in 2009 first showed the effect. Psychologist Sarah Master of the University California, Los Angeles, and her colleagues studied 25 women and their boyfriends of more than six months. The researchers subjected the women to different degrees of thermal stimulation—a sharp, prickling sensation—as they either held their boyfriend’s hand while he sat behind a curtain, held the hand of a male stranger behind a curtain, viewed a photograph of their boyfriend or viewed a photograph of a male stranger. Holding their partner’s hand or viewing his photo decreased the women’s pain significantly more than touching or viewing a stranger—and the photo was just as effective as the physical contact.

A more recent study in the October issue of PLoS One peered inside the brain to better understand how love soothes pain. Neuroscientist Jarred Younger of Stanford University and his colleagues recruited 15 students who were in the first nine months of a new and passionate relationship. While lying inside a functional MRI machine, the participants focused on photographs of their partners or on pictures of similarly attractive acquaintances, or they played a word association game. During these dis­tractions, the experimenters applied mild, medium or painful temperatures to the students’ palms. Images of attractive acquaintances were not very effective painkillers, but gazing at the faces of significant others and playing the word game reduced reported pain on average between 36 and 44 percent and high pain between 12 and 13 percent.

Only photos of loved ones, however, sparked activity in reward centers within the amygdala, hypothalamus and medial orbitofrontal cortex. The faces of romantic partners also decreased activity in major pain-processing areas, such as the left and right posterior insula. Because the reward centers did not flutter in response to the distracting word game, the researchers argue that the salve of romantic affection is not mere distraction—it is a bliss as potent as that of drugs such as cocaine, which invigorate the same pleasure pathways.

A photograph may not need to show a significant other to produce analgesic effects—any loved one could do, thinks neuroscientist Lucy Brown of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University, who was not involved with the study. “Whether a photo of a boyfriend or girlfriend works better than one of your spouse, child or beloved pet, I’m not so sure,” she says. So the next time you have to squeeze into a cramped airplane seat or trudge to work with a bad cold, consider bringing a picture of someone you love to make things more bearable.

for more info visit scientificamerican.com

For Laughs......

How To Catch A Lion.??????

One of the oldest and good mail i ever recieved....

Newton 's Method:

Let, the lion catch you.
For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
Implies you caught lion.

Einstein Method:
Run in the direction opposite to that of the lion.
Due to higher relative velocity, the lion will also run faster and will get tired soon.
Now you can trap it easily.

Software Engineer Method:

Catch a cat and claim that your testing has proven that its a Lion.
If anyone comes back with issues tell that you will upgrade it to Lion.

Indian Police Method:

Catch any animal and interrogate it & torture it to accept that its a lion .

Rajnikanth Method :

Keep warning the lion that u may come and attack anytime.
The lion will live in fear and die soon in fear itself.

Jayalalitha Method:

Send Police commissioner Muthukaruppan around 2AM and kill it, while it's sleeping !

Manirathnam Method (director):

Make sure the lion does not get sun light and put the lion in a dark
room with a single candle lighted.
Keep murmuring something in its ears.
The lion will be highly irritated and commit suicide.

Karan Johar Method (director):

Send a lioness into the forest.
Our lion and lioness fall in love with each other.
Send another lioness in to the forest, followed by another lion.
First lion loves the first lioness and the second lion loves the 2nd lioness.
But 2nd lioness loves both lions.
Now send another lioness (third) into the forest.
You don't understand right... ok....read it after 15 yrs, then also u wont!

Yash Chopra method (director):

Take the lion to Australia or US.. and kill it in a good scenic location.

Govinda method:

Continuously dance before the lion for 5 or 6 days.

Menaka Gandhi method:

Save the lion from a danger and feed him with some vegetables continuously.

George bush method:

Link the lion with Osama bin laden and shoot him!!!

Ravi Shastri method:

Ask the lion to bowl at u.
U bat for 200 balls and score 1 run
Lion tired and surrenders.....

Have some more interseting methods feel free to comment....

Making own PCB at home.

Making own PCB at Home

What you should know????

While making PCB's at home isn't particularly difficult, it's not a trivial undertaking. You need to acquire some kind of PCB layout program, and build or buy some specialized equipment. There's also a bit of a learning curve to it, especially the PCB layout tool. There's nothing stopping you from using resist-pen, or even a simple computer paint program to define the traces. The downside is that this will limit you on the complexity of the circuit you can lay out, and make it harder to incorporate changes down the line. Moreover something wrong in the procedure may increase your cost. Good thing is its equipment are mostly one time buy for some who needs to make PCB regularly and immediately.

Equipment Required

Depending on how resourceful you are, you can spend a little or a lot on etching equipment. Using what's known as the "toner transfer method", where you print your board layout onto a special paper using a laser printer, then "re-fuse" the toner onto a blank copper board using a laminating machine. Then you soak the paper off, leaving the toner behind. The etchant can't eat through the toner, so any copper covered with toner remains behind as circuit traces or component pads. Seems simple, and it is. But there are a few gotchas that will make or break the success of this process. 

The Process

Step 1.

The first step is to transfer the schematic to the schematic capture part of the layout program.

Step 2.

After the schematic is entered, the PCB layout program
is used to place the parts on the board and route the copper
traces.





 

 Step 3.

After the first few parts are routed, the "ratsnest"
begins to clear up. If you're lucky, you get a PCB that
requires no external jumper wires.

Step 4.

When the layout is done, the board layers are printed 

onto special toner transfer paper with a laser printer.
This board "image" is transferred to the bare copper board
with a laminating machine, or a hot clothes iron.


Step 5.

After laminating, the board with the paper stuck to it
is soaked to remove the paper, leaving only the toner behind.

 Step 6.

Below is a photo of the raw copper board with toner
remaining, after the transfer paper has been soaked off.

Step 7.

Inside the etch tank, two aquarium pumps circulate etchant
(Ammonium Persulfate) over the copper boards while two
aquarium heaters keep the solution at 110F.This process can take
anywhere from 10-30 minutes depending on the freshness of the
solution and thickness of the copper.  

Step 8. 

After etching, the toner is removed with solvent and the board is tinned using a soldering iron and a small piece of tinned solderwick. Tinning isn't absolutely necessary but it improves the appearance of the board, and prevents the copper from oxidizing before it's time to solder the parts to the board. 

Step 9. 

At this point, holes are drilled for any leaded components
and mounting holes. 

The Completely finished PCB will look like:

 
 

Article:

Busting the 8-Hour Sleep Myth: Why You Should Wake Up in the Night 

Taken from livescience.com

More than one-third of adults wake up in the middle of the night on a regular basis. Of those who experience "nocturnal awakenings," nearly half are unable to fall back asleep right away. Doctors frequently diagnose this condition as a sleep disorder called "middle-of-the-night insomnia," and prescribe medication to treat it.

Mounting evidence suggests, however, that nocturnal awakenings aren't abnormal at all; they are the natural rhythm that your body gravitates toward. According to historians and psychiatrists alike, it is the compressed, continuous eight-hour sleep routine to which everyone aspires today that is unprecedented in human history. We've been sleeping all wrong lately — so if you have "insomnia," you may actually be doing things right.

 "The dominant pattern of sleep, arguably since time immemorial, was biphasic," Roger Ekirch, a sleep historian at Virginia Tech University and author of "At Day's Close: Night in Times Past" (Norton 2005), told Life's Little Mysteries, a sister site to LiveScience. "Humans slept in two four-hour blocks, which were separated by a period of wakefulness in the middle of the night lasting an hour or more. During this time some might stay in bed, pray, think about their dreams, or talk with their spouses. Others might get up and do tasks or even visit neighbors before going back to sleep."

References to "first sleep" or "deep sleep" and "second sleep" or "morning sleep" abound in legal depositions, literature and other archival documents from pre-Industrial European times. Gradually, though, during the 19th century, "language changed and references to segmented sleep fell away," said Ekirch. "Now people call it insomnia." 

You can blame the shift in your sleeping habits on Thomas Edison's lightbulb and the Industrial Revolution.

[Infographic: The data from Wehr's sleep study]

Wehr concluded that biphasic sleeping is the most natural sleep pattern, and is actually beneficial, rather than a form of insomnia. He also inferred that modern humans are chronically sleep-deprived, which may be why we usually take only 15 minutes to fall asleep, and why we try our best not to wake up in the night.

One benefit of biphasic sleeping may be that it makes it easier to recall and access dreams. Wehr's study subjects normally awakened from REM sleep, which is the deep sleep stage during which dreams occur. According to Ekirch, the historical evidence bears that out. "Waking up directly after dreaming afforded people a pathway to their subconscious," he said. "With morning dreams we don't have the opportunity to let our dreams settle. The light goes on and we get out of bed immediately. So in short, we have lost what people in the past regarded as a critically important part of their lives – their dream life."

Sleepers set in their ways

Wehr's and Ekirch's results are becoming more and more widely known, and psychiatrists and sleep specialists are beginning to implement them. However, the behavioral paradigm shift has been slow to take hold. According to a recent article in Psychiatric Times  by Walter Brown, a psychiatrist at Brown Medical School, "Working against the clinical application of [Wehr's and Erkich's] findings is the extent to which they fly in the face of current thinking. The general public seems to regard 7 to 8 hours of unbroken sleep as a birthright; anything less means that something is awry. Sleep specialists share this assumption."

But, Brown wrote, this is changing. Clinical psychiatrists are finding that if they can make their insomnia patients stop seeing their sleep as problematic, their condition becomes more tolerable. "If they perceive interrupted sleep as normal, they experience less distress when they wake at night, and fall back to sleep more easily."

In other words, if you wake up in the night, don't worry about it. "Waking up after a couple of hours may not be insomnia," wrote Wehr. "It may be normal sleep." Ekirch added, "If people don't fight it, they'll find themselves falling asleep again after roughly one hour."

Ekirch explained that in the past, and especially during winter, darkness spanned up to 14 hours each night. Except for those affluent enough to burn candles for hours, folks were left with little to do but go to bed early, and this gave a great deal of flexibility to their nightly sleep requirements. Segmented or biphasic sleep patterns evolved to fill the long stretch of nighttime, and as observed by anthropologists, segmented sleep continues to be the norm for many people in undeveloped parts of the world, such as the Tiv group in Central Nigeria.

In places with electricity, though, artificial lighting has prolonged our experience of daylight, allowing us to be productive for longer. At the same time, it has cut nighttime short, and so to get enough sleep we now have to do it all in one go. Now, "normal" sleep requires forgoing the periods of wakefulness that used to break up the night; we simply don't have time for a midnight chat with the neighbor any longer. "But people with particularly strong circadian rhythms continue to [wake up in the night]," said Ekirch.

In the 1990s, a sleep scientist named Thomas Wehr discovered that everyone sleeps biphasically when subjected to natural patterns of light and dark. In Wehr's well-known study, he subjected participants to 14 hours of darkness per night, and found that they gradually shifted to a routine of taking two hours to fall asleep, then sleeping in two four-hour phases separated by about an hour of wakefulness—a pattern that exactly matched Ekirch's historical findings.

 information taken from livescience.com

How to Create an RSS Feed

from wikiHow - The How to Manual That You Can Edit

RSS is a method of distributing links to content in your web site that you'd like others to use. In other words, it's a mechanism to "syndicate" your content.

Steps

1. What is RSS?
   
   • How does RSS syndication work? Say you publish a new web page about a particular topic. You want others interested in that topic to know about it. By listing the page as an "item" in your RSS file, you can have the page appear in front of those who read information using RSS readers or "news aggregators". RSS also allows people to easily add links to your content within their own web pages. Bloggers are a huge core audience that especially does this.
     
   • What does RSS stand for? There's a can of worms. RSS as introduced by Netscape in 1999 then later abandoned in 2001 stood for "Rich Site Summary." Another version of RSS pioneered by UserLand Software stands for "Really Simple Syndication." In yet another version, RSS stands for "RDF Site Summary."
     
   • History buffs might be interested that there's been some rivalry over who invented RSS. This is why we have both different names and indeed different "flavors" or versions of RSS.
     
2. At the heart of an RSS file are "items." No matter what version of RSS you settle on, your file will have to include at least one item. Items are generally web pages that you'd like others to link to. For example, let's say you just created a web page reviewing a new cell phone that's being released. Information about that page would form an item.To enter your item into the RSS file, you'll need three bits of information:TitleDescriptionLinkThe title and description of your item need not match exactly the HTML title tag of the web page that the item refers to, nor the meta description tag, assuming you use these. You can write any title and description that you think will describe the page. However, using your page's title and meta description tag certainly makes it easy to copy and paste to build your RSS feed.In the case of our example page, let's say this is the information we settle on to define it as an item: Recent Changes - WikiHow
   Patrol all the edits that people have recently made to wikiHow!
   http://www.wikihow.com/Special:Recentchanges
   
3. Now we have to surround that information with xml tags. These are similar to HTML tags, with the exception that unlike with HTML, there's no set definition of xml tags. Anyone can make up a particular xml tag. Whether it is useful depends on the program that reads the resulting xml file. In the case of RSS feeds, they have their own unique set of XML tags that are defined. Use these correctly, and then anything that reads RSS will understand your information.Did that make your head spin? If so, don't reread - just carry on to see how simple it is. First, open a text editor like Notepad. We're going to build our RSS file using it.For your title, you need to start it with the tag.For your description, you do the same, starting out with the opening tag, then following with the actual description, then "closing" with the tag.Next, we add the link information, beginning with , following with the actual hyperlink, then closing with . That gives us this: 
   

   <title>Recent Changes - WikiHow</title>
   <description>Patrol all the edits that people have recently made to wikiHow!</description>
   <link>http://www.wikihow.com/Special:Recentchanges</link>

   Patrol all the edits that people have recently made to wikiHow!
   http://www.wikihow.com/Special:Recentchanges
   
4. Now there's one more thing we need to do. We actually have to define all this information as forming a particular "item," which we do using a special item tag.You place the opening item tag, "" at the top or start of all the information we've listed. You then place the closing item tag, "", at the bottom or "end" of the item information. The finished product looks like this:
   

   <item>
   <title>Recent Changes - WikiHow</title>
   <description>Patrol all the edits that people have recently made to wikiHow!</description>
   <link>http://www.wikihow.com/Special:Recentchanges</link>
   </item>

   
   
   Patrol all the edits that people have recently made to wikiHow!
   http://www.wikihow.com/Special:Recentchanges
   
   Congratulations! You've now made your first item. There's a bit more to do to finish our RSS file. First, what if we have other items we want to syndicate? Then we simply add more item elements, just as we did above. You can have up to 15 items. New items tend to be inserted at the top, with old items removed from the bottom, to make room for new stuff.
   
5. With our example, let's see how things look if we add two more items:
   

   <item>
   <title>Recent Changes - WikiHow</title>
   <description>Patrol all the edits that people have recently made to wikiHow!</description>
   <link>http://www.wikihow.com/Special:Recentchanges</link>
   </item><br><br><item><br><br><title>Main Page - WikiHow</title>
   <description>The main page of wikiHow!</description>
   <link>http://www.wikihow.com</link>
   </item>
   <item>
   <title>Help - WikiHow</title>
   <description>Need some help? This is where to go!</description>
   <link>http://www.wikihow.com/Help:Contents</link>
   </item>

   
   
   
   
6. Having defined items we want to distribute, we now have to define our site as a "channel." You'll use the same tags as with the items: title, description and link. However, this time the information will be about your entire site, rather than a particular page. That means our channel information would look like this:
   

   <title>WikiHow</title>
   <description>WikiHow - The How-To Manual That You Can Edit!</description>
   <link>http://www.wikihow.com</link>

   
   
7. Now, how does something reading our RSS file know that the information above is for our "channel" when it looks just like item information? Simple. As long as we don't surround this information with an opening and closing tags, it won't be seen as item information but rather as channel information.
   
8. There are a few last things we need to do. First, we need to add a tag at the very top of the file saying that this is written according to the XML 1.0 specifications. Right under this, we also have to say what RSS version we are using.So far, everything we've done is compatible with UserLand's popular RSS 0.91 version. However, it also matches UserLand's latest RSS 2.0 version, as well, so we'll define the file as meeting that specification. This will allow us to add other neat features in the future, if we want.Finally, after the RSS tag, we need to add an opening "channel" tag. That gives us this at the top of the file:
   

   <?xml version="1.0"?>
   <rss version="2.0">
   <channel>

   
   At the bottom of the file, after all the items we want to syndicate, we have to insert a closing channel and RSS tag, in that order. Those look like this:
   

   </channel>
   </rss>

   
   
   
9. This means our complete file looks like this:
   
   

   <?xml version="1.0" ?>
   <rss version="2.0">
   <channel>
   <title>WikiHow</title>
   <description>WikiHow - The How-To Manual That You Can Edit!</description>
   <link>http://www.wikihow.com</link>
   <item>
   <title>Recent Changes - WikiHow</title>
   <description>Patrol all the edits that people have recently made to wikiHow!</description>
   <link>http://www.wikihow.com/Special:Recentchanges</link>
   </item>
   <item>
   <title>Main Page - WikiHow</title>
   <description>The main page of wikiHow!</description>
   <link>http://www.wikihow.com</link>
   </item>
   <item>
   <title>Help - WikiHow</title>
   <description>Need some help? This is where to go!</description>
   <link>http://www.wikihow.com/Help:Contents</link>
   </item>
   </channel>
   </rss>

   
   
   
10. Saving The File - Now that we're done adding to the file, we need to save it. But what name shall we give it? As for the first part, that really can be whatever you like. For our example, let's say we just call it "feed.xml".Now that our file is saved, we can place it anywhere we want on our web server. Let's say we put it in the root or home directory. Then the address to our RSS file would be:http://www.wikihow.com/feed.xml
    
11. Adding the Feed to Your Page -
    There is one more thing left to do. To make it obvious that you have a feed on your page you should declare it in the head tag on your web page. To do this add the following code:
    
    

    <link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="WikiHow Feeds" href="http://www.wikihow.com/feed.xml" />

    If everything worked, you should see the little orange RSS icon in your browser's address bar.
    

Tips

• Getting started will take time and isn't that easy, but after you know the basics it gets easier.
  
• For more technical details on RSS, read the RSS 2.0 specification
  

Things You'll Need

• A computer
  
• Internet
  
• Webspace
• 
  
Article provided by wikiHow, a wiki how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Create an RSS Feed. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.