Now, computer software that can tell age just by looking at your face

Women who’re not comfortable revealing their age should stay miles away from University of Illinois-developed computer software that reveals a person’s age just like humans do—by looking at his or her face.

The software, developed at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, could analyse an image of your face to verify your identity or run a commercial according to your interest.

"Age measurement is very difficult. If you use the face to estimate age we can really get the apparent age, or how old a person looks," Discovery News quoted Thomas Huang, the lead developer, as saying.

For developing the software, the researchers trained their computer algorithm using 1,600 different people with five pictures of each person, for a total of 8,000 images. 

The age of the people in the pictures ranged from one year to 93 years old.

While the computer was not told what to look for, it still searched the faces and used its own software to determine which features best determined the person’s apparent age.

One of the features the computer took into account was gray scale— it saw how dark or how light each pixel was compared to other pixels, and then guesses the apparent age of the individual.

"A woman wearing makeup should get a younger age. A smoother skin texture will register as younger-looking," said Huang. 

The software also looked at the shape of the face—the relative positions of the eyes, nose, ears, the shape of the mouth, all change over time and can help indicate a person’s age.

"If you use the real age as the ''''ground truth'''', then the accuracy is quite low. But if we estimate [a person’s age] to within 10 years, then the accuracy is about 80 percent," said Huang. 

He said that face-recognition software might benefit fast food companies that want to know how many male teenagers buy a particular sandwich or clothing companies that could run a different ad catering to people of all age-groups.

"If you can estimate the gender or the age of the viewer you can change the display. For a younger viewer you might want to display one type of commercial, and show a different commercial for an older viewer," said Huang. 

Face-recognition software would also be useful for security. The system could tap into existing security cameras to capture images, which would then be run through the software.

Also, Huang is now upgrading his software so that it could read face images at different angles. In his opinion, his software is just as good as humans at age estimation. (ANI)

   Regards,

vignesh.kumar                     

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

Forget Windows: Midori is coming

WINDOWS is a name that has ruled the whole computer world since its first launch in November 1985. Since then it is like a trademark of Microsoft Corporation.

With many advanced versions of Windows available today such as Windows XP, Windows Vista, it is the most used operating system in the world. In 2010, Microsoft is going to launch WINDOWS 2007, but now here is time to experience a yet another technology of operating systems.

Yes, MICROSOFT is working on a new generation of operating systems called Cloud-Based Operating System and rumors are there that MIDORI will be their first such operating system, which will replace Windows fully from computer map.

WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE

MIDORI is an offshoot of Microsoft Research's Singularity operating system. In this the tools and libraries are completely managed code. MIDORI is designed to run directly on native hardware (x86, x64 and ARM), will be hosted on the Windows Hyper-V hypervisor, or even be hosted by a Windows process.

MIDORI can be also seen as MICROSOFT'S answer those competitors who are applying "Virtualization" as a mean to solving issues within contemporary computing.

The main idea behind MIDORI is to develop a lightweight portable OS which can be mated easily to lots of various applications.

IMPORTANCE OF MIDORI

For knowing the importance of MIDORI you have to think about, how an operating system is loaded on a computer. Actually operating system is loaded onto a hard disk physically located on that machine. In this way, the operating system is tied very tightly to that hardware. As Windows is dependent on hardware, it might face opposition from contemporary ways of working because people are extremely mobile in using different devices in order get diverse information.

Due to this trend installing different applications on a single computer may led to different compatibility issues whenever the machine require updating. The new operating system will solve these problems by the concept of Virtualizing. This will solve problems such as widespread security vulnerabilities, unexpected interactions among different applications, failures caused by errant extensions, plug-ins, and drivers and many more.

ERIC RUDDER, Senior Vice President, Technical Strategy

The importance of this project for MICROSOFT can be understood by the fact that company choose Eric Rudder , former head of Microsoft's server and tools business and a key member of Chairman Bill Gates' faction of the company, to handle it.

WHEN WILL IT BE LAUNCHED
Just Wait and See. Microsoft has not declared any such date about launching of MIDORI, but there are rumors that this project is in incubation phase.

Regards,

Vignesh kumar,

(II BSC CS)......

Web Design Techniques

Here are some of the techniques to make your website user friendly and search engine friendly.

1. Create user-friendly navigation. Make the menus simple and straightforward. Connect every page in the website to at least one other page so that they can be found by the search engine crawlers. Keep the navigation and basic page design consistent through out the site unless you have a very large site and have a specific reason.

2. Use user-friendly colors, font-sizes and formatting styles  for your fonts, images, symbols and backgrounds. Ensure that your site is accessible to even people with certain disabilities such as color blindness or vision problems.

3. Make the pages visually appealing but without compromising the basic purpose of what you wanted to display in the page.

4. Avoid information clutter. Avoid using too many graphics or memory intensive flash images that would slow down the page downloads. Keep the total number of links on a page to a maximum of 100.

5. Ensure that all the links are active and alive.

6. Use correct html tags and client side scripts.

7. Keep the browser variations in mind while creating the web pages.

8. Make the pages search engine friendly.

9. Ensure that the pages download within a reasonable time into be browser on slow networks.

10. Use alt tags for all your images.

11. Provide a site map so that your site visitors can have an over view of what is available at your site.

12. Avoid using image maps or hot keys to link your site pages.

13. Create contact forms and submission forms with proper client side and server side validation and let the visitor know in advance which fields are required fields. Ensure that the forms are functional.

14. Provide adequate help information to the users wherever there is a possibility of user interaction.

15. Create a privacy policy for your site and post a link to it on each and every page.

16. Create a term of use agreement and post a link to it prominently on every page.

17. Provide some information about your site and its purpose to the site visitors.

18. Create your website for the users not the search engines. Ultimately it is the quality of your site which will determine its success and ensure its survival.

19. Avoid posting too many banners and inserting pop ups and pop downs.

20. As far as possible if you are posting commercial links along with general links, let the customers know which are which so that they would not feel deceived.

21. Design your website keeping in mind the least efficient browser, modem and network speed, unless you have specific audience in mind.

22. Give due credit to the content writers and creators.

23. Create appropriate meta tags, titles and keywords for each page.

Regards,

K.RAVIPRASAD,

3rd B.sc..

Virtual Screen before your eyes

Wondering how to view the screen virtually? View your mails, status updates in social networking without even looking into mobile, pc, smartphone, etc.? Yes here is the solution that you expect.

Technology has got another flash. Now wear a lens that is similar to the contact lens which you were for replacing specs (or fashion even!) which has a built-in LED lights and an Antenna is named as SUPER-LENS. Lets see how it works:

These Super-lenses are with wi-fi connection to a mobile phone is worn on to your eyes as the normal contact lenses. Then Newsfeed on the mobile phone is transmitted to lens and the data is displayed using a small LED light which recreates the signals to words. Thats it..! Now the story flashes in front of your eyes like a VIRTUAL SCREEN.

It is a creation of Professor Babak Parviz who is specialised in creating parts that is thousand times smaller than your hair. Imagine his works. He himself wore a contact lens. So far the lens is tried in Rabbit's retina and its not a miles away to reach you.

Regards,

Vijay Sankar N,

3rd B.sc,
cpsforum.blogspot.com

The Future of Your PC's Hardware (1) : Memristor: A Groundbreaking New Circuit

What is it? As its name implies, the memristor can "remember" how much current has passed through it. And by alternating the amount of current that passes through it, a memristor can also become a one-element circuit component with unique properties. Most notably, it can save its electronic state even when the current is turned off, making it a great candidate to replace today's flash memory.

Memristors will theoretically be cheaper and far faster than flash memory, and allow far greater memory densities. They could also replace RAM chips as we know them, so that, after you turn off your computer, it will remember exactly what it was doing when you turn it back on, and return to work instantly. This lowering of cost and consolidating of components may lead to affordable, solid-state computers that fit in your pocket and run many times faster than today's PCs.

Someday the memristor could spawn a whole new type of computer, thanks to its ability to remember a range of electrical states rather than the simplistic "on" and "off" states that today's digital processors recognize. By working with a dynamic range of data states in an analog mode, memristor-based computers could be capable of far more complex tasks than just shuttling ones and zeroes around.

When is it coming? Researchers say that no real barrier prevents implementing the memristor in circuitry immediately. But it's up to the business side to push products through to commercial reality. Memristors made to replace flash memory (at a lower cost and lower power consumption) will likely appear first; HP's goal is to offer them by 2012. Beyond that, memristors will likely replace both DRAM and hard disks in the 2014-to-2016 time frame. As for memristor-based analog computers, that step may take 20-plus years.

source: www.pcworld.com

Regards,

Vijay Sankar N,

3rd B.sc,
cpsforum.blogspot.com

Inside Ur PC (8) : MotherBoard

Inside Your Motherboard:

This motherboard parts introduction explains the main goal of your motherboard in your computer. The most important parts are explained with only a brief introduction to the technologies behind them not to bore the newcomer who may be confused.

For those who are seeking more advanced information you will find links throughout the content and at the bottom as how to install a motherboard.

The Main Goal of Motherboard :

Click to enlarge

The main goal is to connect all the hardware together like hard drives, memory modules, CPU, etc...

A computer mother board is made of several parts, and each one has a hardware that can be connected to it. On the right, the image is showing a modern motherboard with all its parts.

If you click on the link under the image, you will find a larger image with the motherboard parts name.

Learning about your motherboard parts help to understand how upgrade able it is.

The Processor Socket :

Sockets are the home for your Central Processor Unit (CPU). Several types of socket exist, but only 2 of them are really used, and both of them are used by Intel and AMD. The Pin Grid Array (PGA) and the Land Grid Array (LGA).

CPU Socket

With the type PGA, the CPU will have pins to fit in the socket holes, but with the type LGA, the CPU will not have such pins and will just sit on the socket.

I am discussing this subject in more details in the CPU socket type guide.

To know the form of CPU your motherboard can use and the range of powers and FSBs, look in your motherboard's book. The book that comes with your motherboard has a chart about it in the socket or CPU chapter. That information will give you an idea to how far you can upgrade your CPU.

• CPU Socket Specifications
• How to install cpu step by step

Slots and Connectors :

Memory Slots :

Memory slots also call memory banks are for Random Access Memory modules (RAM). Each memory bank can receives a RAM module designed for a specific pc mother board. Ranging from 2 to 4 banks, you will encounter single and dual-channel technologies.

Memory Banks

With single-channel, you can use 1, 2 or 3 Ram modules, and it should work perfectly. On the other hand, with dual-channel technology, if you fill only 1 bank, you will lose some strength from your module.

To get the most of it, you need to fill 2 banks with the same module types, from the same manufacturer with exactly the same memory amounts.

If you want 1GB of memory, you need to use 2 512MB modules from the same manufacturer with the same technology type. This way, motherboards use the modules strength to its full capacity. Otherwise it may not work at all.

Like the socket, to find out the type, the manufacturer and the total MB or GB quantity you can use, take a look in your motherboard's book. You should be able to find everything you need.

• Introduction to Desktop Computer Memory
• How to Install Computer Memory step by step

Main Power Connector And The 4 Pins Connector :

The main power connector is uses to get the electric energy from the power supply which the motherboard require to function properly.

24 Pins Main Power Connector

There are 2 main power connector types for those motherboard parts. The 20 pins + 4 pins (2 separate connectors on the same motherboard), and the 24 pins.

Not all power supplies have the 2 types, but it is possible to work around the problem if you run into an incompatibility situation. Which will be discussed in a future power supply guide about how to install it and where to plug the connectors.

• Introduction to Computer Power Supplies

IDE, ATA And S-ATA Interface Connectors :

Many interface standards have been created throughout the years, maybe too many for discussing about all of them. I will then talk about the ATA and the S-ATA only as the IDE is the same thing as the ATA, only the name has changed. Also I will be brief because it is more a hard drive topic than anything else.

IDE/ATA And SATA Interface

The Advance Technology Attachment (ATA) interface is used to connect hard drives and optic drives. You can attach 2 drives on the same ribbon, 1 master and the other slave, and it supports almost all modern hard drives storage capacities.

Modern computer mother boards have the new interface called Serial Advance Technology Attachment (S-ATA). It is faster than the ATA and only 1 device can be attached to it. The wire is thinner than his predecessor and surely help at the cooling process inside the computer case.

I cover the topic in more details in the What Is SATA Interface guide.

Floppy Drive Connector :

Floppy Drive Connector

Plug your "3.5" floppy drive there. Not really used now, they are going to disappear completely very soon.

32 bit PCI Slots, AGP And PCIe :

32 bit slots Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) are used to install sound cards, graphic cards, Ethernet cards and modems.

PCI, AGP or PCIe Ports

The motherboard parts Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP) and PCI Epress (PCIe) focus on graphic cards only. AGP standards use x2, x4 or x8 technologies. AGP 8 being the best, it is highly boosting your graphics and video performances. In Comparison with his old brother PCI, it is day and night.

PCIe standard is even better than AGP standard, and mostly the only one used right now. Some like to say, PCIe is a AGP standard at x16 and it is the #1 choice for gaming machines right now.

More motherboard content will be written on it, especially for graphic cards.

Back Panel Connectors :

Back Panel Connectors

When the computer is mounted, those motherboard parts show up at the computer case back panel. They are used to plug the mouse, keyboard, monitor, printer, sound system and any other peripherals you may have.

More about Connectors and Chips :

1 - Firewire header

Firewire is also known as IEEE 1394. It is basically a high performance serial bus for digital and audio equipment to exchange data. The technology preceded USB but yet is faster than any current USB port. Often used for transferring digital video to the PC straight from a digital camera. The FireWire header onboard means you can install a FireWire port on your machine. Again these cables are often supplied as an optional extra which you will need to check with the retailer to see if they are supplied with your board.

2 - PCI Express 16x slots

Now the most common slot for Graphics cards, the PCI Express 16x slots provides 16 separate lanes or data transfer. PCI express 1.0 slots offer a data transfer rate of 250MB/s the second generation of PCI express (PCI Express 2.0) offers twice the data rate at 500MB/s. Currently in development is PCI Express 3.0 which offers 1GB/s of data transfer. PCI Express 16x slots are also the basis for both SLI and Crossfire multi graphics card setups. With the increasing demands graphics cards are putting on systems, no less than a 16 lane slot will be good enough for any modern graphics card.

3 - PCI Express 1x Slot

Like the PCI Express 16x above the 1x slot uses exactly the same system but only has a single lane of serial data transfer. These slots are used for expansion cards that do no require the same amount of data transfer that a graphics card requires. You will usually find components such as tv tuners, network cards and sound cards make use of the PCI Express 1x slot. You will also notice the difference in size between the 1x and the 16x slots. The PCI Express 1x slot is noticeably smaller and easy to spot.

4 - Chipset - North Bridge (with heatsink)

The Motherboards chipset can be described as what sets it apart from other boards in its category. Different chipsets contain different features and components. A chipset is a number of integrated circuits built onto the board to provide specific functions e.g. one part of the chipset may be an onboard component such as a modem or sound chip. Other parts may be used to control the CPU functions. Most chipsets are designed to work with only one "class" of CPU although now many older chipsets support more than one type of CPU such as socket 7 which supports the Pentium, Cyrix 686, Cyrix MII, AMD K6 and K6-2. There are certain restrictions though to what type of processor a chipset can handle because of the logic that the CPU uses to access the memory and its cache etc. Since these chips are working harder with each generation, motherboard manufacturers have started to put heatsinks and active coolers (fans) on the main parts of the chipset to disperse some of the heat. For more information on chipsets see our What does a chipset doarticle.

5 and 8 - ATX Power connector

The standard ATX power connector, the cable for this will be coming from the PSU, a clip is normally provided to make sure you get them in the correct order. As a tip, don't try to push too hard if its stuck, check to see that it is in the correct way, I have seen plenty of power connectors where the pins have pushed out some of the connectors, these can be difficult to get back into place, so its best to be careful.

6 - CPU (Central Processing Unit) socket

All the CPU "sockets look very similar, however they are different in the way they have different amount of pins and in different layouts. There are currently two major CPU socket types PGA and LGA. PGA or Pin Grad Array uses a system of pins on the CPU and holes on the socket to line up and hold a CPU in place. The introduction of the ZIF (Zero Insertion Force) socket for PGA types allowed the CPU's to be lined up without any pressure on the CPU until a level is pulled down. LGA or Land Grid Array uses a system of gold plated copper pads that make contact with the motherboard. It is very important to read your motherboard manual to discover what types of CPU's you motherboard supports as most motherboards are aimed at a specific type of CPU.

7 - DIMM (Double Inline Memory Module) slots

DIMM's are by far and away the most used memory types in today's computers. They vary in speeds and standards however and they need to match up to what your motherboard has been designed to take. The four standards of DIMM's being used at the moment are SDR (Single Data Rate), DDR (Double Data Rate), DDR2 and DDR3. The speeds of memory can vary between 66Mhz to 1600Mhz.

9 - Motherboard controls

Not available on all motherboards, but some allow direct control of the motherboard via simple buttons. Power switch, error checking, CMOS clearing, passwords and more features can be accessed directly on the motherboard on some models.

10 - Chipset - South Bridge

When we talk about chipsets you mainly only ever hear about the North bridge. Even those into PC technology have a hard time naming the south bridges without looking them up. Names like Nforce 2 and KT600 are North bridges. The South Bridge does an important job as well. It handles things like the PCI bus, onboard Network and sound chips as well as the IDE and S-ATA buses.

11 - Serial ATA Connector

Serial ATA or more commonly seen as S-ATA is a new way of connecting your Hard Drives to your PC. S-ATA drives have the capability of being faster than the IDE counterparts and also have smaller thinner cables which help with the airflow of the system. S-ATA hard disks are fast becoming the norm for hard drive technology. Current motherboards feature both IDE and S-ATA connectors to facilitate all types of storage hardware.

12 - USB 2.0 header

As well as having USB ports on the rear of the motherboard, motherboard manufacturers often add a couple of USB headers so you can connect optional cables for extra USB ports. These cables are often supplied and you only need to add them on if you need the extra connectivity. USB 2.0 replaced USB 1.1 as a much faster solution. It is backwards compatible meaning all USB 1.1 devices will work in these new USB 2.0 ports.

13 - Motherboard Battery

The battery gives the board a small amount of power in order to store some vital data on your machine when the power is off. Data stored is that like the time and date so you don't have to reset them every time you boot the machine up. Motherboard batteries are usually long lasting Lithium batteries. Removing this can reset all the data on your machine including the BIOS settings, however not replacing this correctly can lead to irreparable damage to the motherboard. Only remove the battery if it is dead or if you can't have access any other way to resetting the data on your machine by use of the clear CMOS jumper or something similar.

14 - PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect) slot 

The PCI bus (not PCI express) is now an older technology and although the PCI slots are still available, they have decreased in number and are being replaced by the PCI Express 1x slots. Its unlikely that you will get a motherboard without a PCI slot at the moment due to the fact that a lot of components still use the standard PCI slot. It would be awkward to upgrade to a system without PCI slots as it may mean upgrading more components than you would like to,

15 - Floppy Drive Connector 

More simple than the IDE connector you only have to remember to get the red line to pin 1 of the connector and the red line to pin 1 on the floppy drive, This port is only to be used with floppy drives. You may not have a floppy controller on your motherboard as its slowly being phased out as more people are using writable CD's and DVDs to transfer data, to store data and to use as boot up discs.

16 - IDE connector Not on Diagram

The connector to which you will insert an IDE cable (supplied with motherboard) IDE cables connect devices such as hard disks, CD Drives and DVD Drives. The current 4 standards of IDE devices are ATA 33/66/100 and 133. the numbers specify the amount of data in Mb/s in a max burst situation. In reality there is not much chance of getting a sustain data rate of this magnitude. Both the connectors and devices are backwards compatible with each other, however they will only run at the slowest rated speed between them. All IDE cables will come with a red line down one side, this red line is to show which way it should be plugged in. The red line should always connect to pin one of the IDE port. Checking your motherboard documentation should show you which end is pin one. In some cases it will be written on the board itself.

In the case of ATA 66/100/133 there is a certain order that you plug devices in, the cable is colour coded to help you get them in the correct order.

• The Blue connector should be connected to the system board
• The Black connector should be connected to the master device
• The Grey Connector should be connected to the slave device

  
  

17 - BIOS (Basic Input Output System) Chip - Not on Diagram

The BIOS holds the most important data for your machine, if configured incorrectly it could cause your computer not to boot correctly or not at all. The BIOS also informs the PC what the motherboard supports in terms off CPU etc. This is why when a new CPU is introduced that physically fits into a slot or socket you may need a BIOS update to support it. The main reason for this is that different CPU's use different logics and methods and so the BIOS has to understand certain instructions from the CPU to recognise it.

Regards,

Vijay Sankar N,

3rd B.sc..