Advanced Pedometer app for Smart Phones

Well, everyone wants to be in a good shape, be it men or women. But sometimes it becomes impossible for some really ‘busy’ people (yes!! whom else I’m talking about...) to exercise a bit, to stay fit, to trim down cholesterol, to limit BMI, to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

Believe me! I understand.

Few days earlier, I came across this app that can act as a pedometer whenever you are walking, thus measuring how much calories you have burnt, how much distance did you cover, how much Carbon footprint did you help reduce by walking etc… etc... 

Generally, we all imagine that these apps cost a lot, but thanks to Sony, they have come up with an android app “WalkMate” that does all those sweet things for you (well!! Who wants it to, of course…) and all that for free.

                         If you have a smartphone (like: Samsung galaxy Grand I9082), you can easily install the app and start measuring your foot counts today.For those who love to train themselves, this app offers pretty cool features: speed, laps, calorie burnt, time taken to complete one lap etc. The training regiments can be configured too: light, moderate and intense.                                          If you can chip in few extra bucks for an armband to hold the phone to your arm, it will be a perfect daily trainer, or morning jogger etc. You can get those armbands from any leading online stores. Happy Walking!

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DailyRéalités #5

Do you know? Indian Space Research Organization(ISRO) is going to launch German, French, British, Canadian satellites in near months. ISRO will be launching EnMAP Sat of Japan, SPOT-7 Sat of France, two Canadian Sats, and three small Satellites of UK.

After the successful launch of Mars Mission (The ‘Mangalyaan’ or Mars Orbiter was launched on an Indian Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle(PSLV) from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, at Sriharikota, on the Andhra Pradesh coast, at 14.38 IST. ), Indian scientists are keen on taking some as complex tasks as 'Mangalayan' in near future. As per cost incurred in 'Mangalyaan' or Mars Orbiter, the mission cost $73 million (£45 million), compared with the United States’ ‘Curiosity’ mission to Mars, which launched in 2011 at a cost of $2.5 billion (£1.56 billion).

Mangalyaan

Curiosity

SOURCE: ISRO

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DailyRéalités #4

Did You know? A duck’s quack doesn’t echo, and no one knows why.

 But scientifically speaking, A duck's quack does echo (The term echo refers to the physical sending back of sound or other waves and the repetition of sound by reflection).
A duck's quack certainly echoes around a reverberation chamber (A reverberation chamber is a space with cathedral like acoustics). This leads to the most interesting question, why did the myth arise? There are a few possible explanations:

• The quack does echo, but it is usually too quiet to hear. When you want to hear an echo, you usually make a very loud noise to make sure the reflection can be heard. But a duck quacks too quietly, so the reflection is too quiet to hear.
• Ducks don't quack near reflecting surfaces. You need a large reflecting surface, a mountain or building for the sound to reflect off. Maybe ducks don't hang around reflecting surfaces.
• It is hard to hear the echo of a sound which fades in and fades out.

SOURCE: University of Salford

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Sixth Sense Technology - not a myth anymore!

How nice it would have been if you could paint digitally on any wall or capture a photo 'right there..right now', with a simple gesture of hand (without any hand-held device) or simply play racing games on a piece of paper??  May be this sounds crazy, but not any more. An Indian-origin MIT researcher has found just the solution to eliminate the barrier of our world and digital world (well, per say..!).
Pranav Mistry, an IIT-B and MIT alumnus, has proven that with the little use of technology all the a fore-mentioned phenomena are possible.
With a small camera and a very small projector hanging from neck and few RGYB (Red-Grren-Yellow-Blue) pointers(can be worn on fingers), we can soon combine the digital world with ours.

 The camera understands your hand gestures (through pointers), analyses it and reflects back through the projector on any wall or piece of paper. Also, you can actively select any image from any book, take it to another paper, add articles and boom!! it's ready to print.

 All these can be done without any 'big-headed computer', just your finger gestures. Let's say, you are in Elliot park and you see a perfect 'ready-to-shot' scenery. Now, without flipping out your phone camera and clicking a picture (which can lead to loss of 'exact' moment.), you will simply do the following gesture to capture the shot instantly.

 This technology is truly amazing and ground breaking. And according to Pranav, all the parts required to build it, are very cheap.
Pranav is currently the Director of Samsung innovations, no wonder, Samsung Galaxy gear is his brain child. If you want to know more about this technology and Pranav, visit here.



SOURCE: Science Daily and TED Talks

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Cuisine #1 : Baked Potato with Egg on Top (suitable for: Breakfast or snacks)

Last week, mom went to visit my cousin, so I had the privilege of using 'her' kitchen. It was Sunday and a fine mood to experiment something new. So without any delay, after getting all the necessary ingredients, I started experimenting (or rather, destroying kitchen *wink*) a recipe that I learnt somewhere on the net.

The Recipe:

To cook this recipe "Twice baked potato with egg on top" all you need are as follows:

• 2 large potatoes (increase the number if you think fit - these will make 4 servings for breakfast)
• 1 medium onion (dice it properly)
• 4 small eggs (for 4 servings)
• 3/4 cloves of garlic (finely chopped)
• 150 g grated cheese
• 1 tbsp butter
• Fresh chives (or onion herb chopped)
• Salt (according to your taste)
• ground black pepper
• Aluminum foil

Procedure (steps):

1.  Clean the potatoes well and put them on a steel sieve-like pot. Place the whole arrangement on a bowl of boiling water for 10 minutes, keeping the sieve-like pot covered with any steel plate.

2. Check if the potatoes are soft, otherwise keep them for another 5 minutes. Then let them cool naturally.

3. Take a frying pan and heat 1 tbsp of butter, add chopped onion and garlic. Stir them until soft (this takes a mere 10 minutes on medium flame).

4. Now, cut each potato vertically in two pieces.

5. Scoop out some potato flesh from 4 pieces, keeping the outer skin.

6. Add potato flesh, grated cheese, onion-garlic mixture, dust black pepper in a frying pan, add salt and stir well for 12/13 minutes.

7. Fill the scooped out potato shells with this mixture tightly and make a little curve ON the center part to fit the egg properly.

8. Spread some chopped onion herb loosely on the prepared potato shells and crack eggs on each of it.

  

9. Lastly, on low flame, give 1 tbsp of vegetable oil (or any cooking oil) on frying pan, place the aluminum foil on it and place the prepared "egg on potato" on it gently. Cover the pan and bake for 8/9 minutes.

And, ..... Taadaah!!!!

NB: I used gas-oven for the whole recipe. If you want to use micro-oven, I suggest you follow this.

IMAGE: homecookingadventure.com

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DailyRéalités #3

Did you know? Astronauts has to lie down near a fan to get a good night sleep in space?

Artificial gravity is created in a space station by rotating its wing-type regulatory panel in anticlockwise motion. The chambers are located at the far end of those ‘wings’. But generally speaking, if an astronaut has to sleep and wake up ‘successfully’ in the next morning, he/she needs to lie down near a fan or a well-ventilated room. Otherwise, the CO₂ he/she breaths out, will form a bubble around nose and ear. The astronaut might end up having a bad headache in the morning or in the worst case scenario, he/she might die.

The fans or any ventilated room helps the oxygen supply to circulate around and make life up there, sustainable.

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DailyRéalités #2

Did you know? there is actually a word ‘Tongue Print’?

Yes, like ‘Finger Prints’, every human being has a unique tongue print that can be used to detect suspects in case of any investigation. (So, don’t keep your tongue hanging around while walking *wink*)

Interestingly, in a human body, tongue is the only organ that has muscles, not attached to both ends! (Well, dogs have them too, but all humans are not dogs… right?)

SOURCE: Know4Now and wiki

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DailyRéalités #1

Did you know? Our stomach has to produce a new layer of mucus every two weeks otherwise it will digest itself.

 

The inner surface of the stomach is lined by a mucous membrane known as the gastric mucosa. The mucosa is always covered by a layer of thick mucus that is secreted by tall columnar epithelial cells. Gastric mucus is a glycoprotein that serves two purposes: the lubrication of food masses in order to facilitate movement within the stomach and the formation of a protective layer over the lining epithelium of the stomach cavity. This protective layer is a defense mechanism the stomach has against being digested by its own protein-lyzing enzymes.


Advice from Doctors: Consume food with atleast 3 hours gap in between, it will keep your BMI at healthy level; and always take a walk after food consumption (helps in secretion of enzymes that dissolves fat).



SOURCE: Britannica

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Project Loon - Balloon Powered Internet

Meet Project Loon : a unique project from the Google, which is being developed and will be available in few months. The project uses high-altitude balloons placed in the stratosphere at an altitude of about 20 km (12 mi) to create an aerial wireless network(AWN) with up to 3G-like speed.

The Balloons will be able to travel around the world three times, or for a period of 100 days. They are maneuvered by adjusting their altitude to float to a wind layer after identifying the wind layer with the desired speed and direction using wind data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Users of the service will connect to the balloon network using a special Internet antenna attached to their building. The signal travels through the balloon network from balloon to balloon, then to a ground-based station connected to an Internet service provider (ISP), then onto the global Internet. The system aims to bring Internet access to remote and rural areas poorly served by existing provisions, and to improve communication during natural disasters to affected regions.

These balloons must be exceptionally resilient to heat and cold, expansion and contraction, UV radiation, so that they can withstand anything that comes their way (..needless to say, not missiles *wink*)


SOURCE: News Tabloids and Wikipedia

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