SAJETHA. S - IstYEAR - HOW COMPUTERS CHANGED OUR WAY OF LIFE?

Computers changed our life style in many different ways and in many aspects. Almost everyone depends on a computer to run effectively for one reason or another even if they themselves do not own one. Many of us carry around a mini computer in our pockets, in the form of a smartphone. Now a days even people cannot live without smart phones. There are only very few people that would say that their lives haven't been changed by computers.

Consider a world without computers - medicine and science would not be as developed as they currently are, and without internet, research would once again be dependent solely on books and other print publications, and movies that depend on computer graphics and animation such as The Hobbit, would not be made. In short, it would be very hard for us if we had to stop relying on computers because we have become dependent on them. However, it is important to remember that not every change is positive, as evident by the development of computer/internet addiction and the impact computers have on privacy. I have few thoughts on how computer technology will continue to changes our lives.

  • It change the way we work
  • It helps us to solve global challenges
  • It gives us smarter education
  • Digitization of everything
  • Machines teaching to themselves
  • Computers have even changed the way we think and act. Computers have truly become indispensable tools in our lives - we use them at work, in class, and at home. Our world has become one made up of blogging, chatting, and social networking. These sites provide a platform on which people can voice their opinions and start discussions. Computers have connected us to the world in unimaginable ways. We are aware of more world issues now then we were ever before. Computers enable us to see the devastation in some parts of the world, such as floods, famine, and war and this often motivates humanitarian action

    RANJANI. B. J - IstYEAR - BROWSER WAR

    A browser war is competition for dominance in the usage share of web browsers.The First Browser War was Microsoft's Internet Explorer against Netscape's Navigator during the late 1990s. Browser wars continued with the decline of Internet Explorer's market share since 2003 and the increasing popularity of other browsers including Firefox, Google Chrome, Safari, and Opera.

    With the introduction of HTML5 and CSS 3, a new generation of browser war began, this time adding extensive client-side scripting to the World Wide Web, as well as more widespread use of Smartphone's and other mobile devices for browsing the web. These newcomers have ensured that browser battles continue among enthusiasts, while the average web user is less affected by their choice of browser.

    The World Wide Web is an Internet-based hypertext system invented in the late 1980s and early 1990s by Tim Berners-Lee. Berners-Lee wrote the first web browser WorldWideWeb, later renamed Nexus, and released it for the NeXTstep platform in 1991.

    By the end of 1992 other browsers had appeared, many of them based on the libwww library. These included Unix browsers such as Line Mode Browser, ViolaWWW, Erwise, and MidasWWW, and MacWWW/Samba for the Mac. Even though these browsers tended to be simple HTML viewers, relying on external helper applications to view multimedia content, they provided choice to users both in browsers and platforms.

    On January 21, 2010, Mozilla released Mozilla Firefox 3.6, which allows support for a new type of theme display, 'Personas', which allows users to change Firefox's appearance with a single click. Version 3.6 also improves JavaScript performance, overall browser responsiveness, and startup times.

    In October 2010, StatCounter reported that Internet Explorer had for the first time dropped below 50% market share to 49.87% in their figures. Also, StatCounter reported Internet Explorer 8's first drop in usage share in the same month.

    Google released Google Chrome 9 on February 3, 2011. New features introduced included support for WebGL, Chrome Instant, and the Chrome Web Store. The company created another seven versions of Chrome that year, finishing with Chrome 16 on December 15, 2011. The first version of Chrome available to the public in 2012 was Chrome 17, which was released on February 15, 2012. In April 2012, Google browsers (Chrome and Android) became the most used browsers on Wikimedia Foundation sites. By May 21, 2012, StatCounter reported Chrome narrowly overtaking Internet Explorer as the most used browser in the world. However, troughs and peaks in the market share between Internet Explorer and Chrome meant that Internet Explorer was slightly ahead of Chrome on weekdays up until July 4. At the same time, Net Applications reported Internet Explorer firmly in first place, with Google Chrome almost overtaking Firefox as the second. In 2012, responding to Chrome's popularity, Apple discontinued Safari for Windows.

    Microsoft released Internet Explorer 9 on March 14, 2011. It featured a revamped interface, support for the basic SVG feature set, and partial HTML5 video support, among other new features. It only runs on Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows Phone 7. The company later released Internet Explorer 10 along with Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 in 2012, and an update compatible with Windows 7 followed in 2013. This version drops Vista and Phone 7 support. The release preview of Internet Explorer 11 was released on September 17, 2013. It supports the same desktops as its predecessor

    SRIRAM. K - IstYEAR - THE ART OF VOICE RECOGNITION

    As with any technology, what we know today has to have come from somewhere, sometime and someone. In fact, the first ever recorded attempt at speech recognition technology dates back to 1,000 A.D. through the development of an instrument that could supposedly answer "yes" or "no" to direct questions. Though this experiment didn't technically involve voice processing in any form, the idea behind it remains to be part of the foundation of speech recognition technology: using natural language as input to trigger an action.

    Centuries later, Bell laboratories worked to develop "Audrey", a system which was able to recognize the numbers 1-9 spoken by a single voice, and IBM developed a device that could recognize and differentiate between 16 spoken words. These successes brought about a higher prevalence of technology companies focusing on speech related technologies. Indeed, even the Department of Defense wanted to get in on the action. Slowly but surely, developers moved towards the goal of enabling machines to understand and respond to more and more of our verbalized commands.

    The history of speech recognition technology has been a long and winding one. Nevertheless, today's speech systems such as Google Voice, Amazon Alexa, Microsoft Cortana and Apple's Siri, would not be where they are today without the early pioneers who paved the way. Thanks to the integration of new technologies such as cloud-based processing as well as ongoing data collection projects, these speech systems have continuously improved their ability to 'hear' and understand a wider variety of words, languages, and accents. At this rate, it seems sci-fi writers' predictions of the future aren't as far off as we might think.

    How Does Voice Recognition Work? Surrounded by smartphones, smart cars, smart home appliances, voice assistants and more, it's easy to take for granted how speech recognition technology actually works. Why? Because the simplicity of being able to speak to digital assistants is misleading. Speech recognition is actually incredibly complicated, even now.

    Think about how a child learns a language. From day one, they hear words being used all around them. Parents speak to their child, and, although the child doesn't respond, they absorb all kinds of verbal cues; intonation, inflection, and pronunciation; their brain forms patterns and connections based on how their parents use language.

    VARSHINI. G -IstYEAR - REUSABLE ROCKET LAUNCH SYSTEM

    Reusable rocket launch system is intended to recover and reuse all or part of system. It is of two types-fully reusable sub-orbital system and partial reusable orbital system. Reusable satellites are intended actually to reduce the cost spent by expendable satellites. But in reality it was just opposite. It was more expensive than expendable satellites. North American X-15 was the first aircraft to attain sub-orbital flight. The first reusable vehicle to reach orbit was NASA developed space shuttle. The last shuttle was retired in 2011. The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket combines both reusable and expendable space shuttle. It has reusable first stage and expendable second stage. Mass ratio is defined as ratio of mass of fully fueled vehicle to the mass of vehicle when it is empty. The rocket equation says that the single stage to orbit vehicles need high mass ratio. One way to increase the mass ratio is to reduce the mass of the empty vehicle. This can be done by using very lightweight structures and high-efficiency engines. Another is to reduce the weight of oxidant carried. Two stage to orbit uses two vehicles, joined together at launch. Generally the second stage launcher is smaller than that of first stage launcher. All orbital vehicles to date have been launched vertically. Since because rockets have a very high thrust/weight ratio they are used for regime.

    At first single stage re-usable technology was too heavy and the rockets were expendable. The problem of mass efficiency could be overcome using multiple stages and both vertical-launch multistage rockets and horizontal-launch composite space planes were proposed. However the first re-usable stages did not appear until the advent of the US Space Shuttle in 1981

    There are various design issues while designing reusable launch vehicle. The issues are weight, re-entry heat shielding, development cost. The issue in weight is that any RLV is degrading the launcher's performance compared to ELV due to additional stage inert mass.

    Re-entry heat shields on these vehicles are often proposed to be some sort of ceramic and/or carbon-carbon heat shields, or occasionally metallic heat shields. Ablative heat shields offer light weight, but are not reusable. Since reusable satellites need to be robust as they are intended for more than one use their research and development costs are expected to be higher since more testing is required. Cost for launching becomes much cheaper as it reduces material cost due to reusability. Reusable rockets can also protect the environment by using kerosene as fuel. We can effectively reuse rockets similar to airplanes, hence space travel will become cheaper to a greater extent. Hence the reusable launch system has been proven as a innovative and indeed a great technical advancement in the field of satellite communication.

    UMA MAHESHWARI. S - IstYEAR - TRAVELLING

    A very pleasant noon to one and all present here. Myself Uma Maheswari from IT department first year and I'm here to talk about travelling. Everyone loves travelling right? Yeah! nowadays, travelling has become common to all sorts of people - tourists, students, politicians, businessmen and others. A tourist, for example, is interested in seeing places and observing the ways of other people in the world. Students go on educational tours with the intention of enriching their knowledge. Everyone who travels long distances, does so with some purpose.

    Travelling has great educational value. First, seeing places with our own eyes leads to assimilation of knowledge. The scene directly witnessed and observed makes a deeper impression on our minds than what we read in a book. When we travel to other countries, we come across different cultures, different customs and habits and different manners. We learn not only about these but all about the modern advancements in those foreign lands.

    Traveling is not something you are good at. It's something you always do…Like breathing! You know what they say, if something good happens, travel to celebrate and if something bad happens travel to forget and if nothing happens at all travel to make something happen.

    And finally I'd like to conclude by my own saying, "Searching for something that'll love me is called everyday life but searching for something that I'll love is called travelling." Thank You!!!