Monday, December 22, 2008

ISRO posts stunning lunar flyby videos

ISRO has posted two stunning Lunar flyby videos which can be accessed from http://isro.org/pslv-c11/videos/tmc.htm and http://isro.org/pslv-c11/videos/tmca.htm.

The videos are combining multiple images taken from Terrain Mapping Camera (TMC) on the Chandrayaan-I.

You will need windows media plugin for your browser to watch these videos. In short, its better watched on a windows box. Hope that they can use flash next time ;)

MeTA Studio: minor update

Another minor update is available. Again, only online update is the only way to get the latest.

This version fixes some bugs reported by users. And adds some small new functionalities (mostly for my convenience ;))..

As usual, check: http://code.google.com/p/metastudio/ for more info.

Sunday, December 21, 2008

I am using a Mac!

I had always thought that I would never own a Mac. Well that is still partly true, but now I do have an old Mac that I bought for $260. When I was in India, I did think that, given the price factor of a new Mac, I would never buy a Mac. But recently I moved over to Oz and though that investing about 3K on MacBook Air would be good idea. But then I dropped the idea completely as the only reason for which I wanted to get it (the Nvidia mobile 9600 graphics processor) was not really good: it only had 128MB VRAM. That meant I would not really be able to do CUDA programming on it.

As far as laptop was concerned, my Mi Leap-L (now dual booted with Vista and Ubuntu 8.10) are great for my work and for communication back home. But I still wanted to try Mac. And Lol, the CS department came out with an old Mac sale :) This is iBookG4, 12.1" (not the new Intel once), but pretty cool .. Am testing it out, so may post some more info. at a later time :)

Thursday, December 11, 2008

MeTA Studio: maintainance update

Minor update of MeTA Studio is available through online updates (MeTA Studio v2.0.12122008).
This addresses some of the issues noted in http://code.google.com/p/metastudio/issues/list. There is no source / full binary update at this time.

Check back for some interesting new addition in coming few weeks :)

Tuesday, December 09, 2008

On Google Earth, Mumbai and the PIL

Its been recently reported (e.g. in TOI) that a PIL has been filed in a Mumbai court for complete ban on Google Earth and other related mapping services in India (not sure if it include GPS too), under the pre-text that these maps were used for planning the recent attack on Mumbai.

Though appearing to be logical at the first look, it is a completely flawed argument for banning a free and extremely useful service for the general public like Google Earth. To me Google Earth and especially Google Maps (mobile version) has been extremely useful in going to places in recent times, and I guess it is so for a large number of people too. Given the lack of accurate maps available form the government it self, I think private services like these (which are in fact free) are extremely useful. Many technologies like Google Earth are many a times dual use technologies, you can benefit from them and at the same time be harmful to you. But this does not mean that we stop using Petrol since it pollutes our environment. If we go by the argument presented by the respected Advocate Amit Karkhanis, we would end up even banning Petrol!! To me this is highly illogical, and higher judiciary should take a correct decision.

With due respect to the unfortunate people caught up in the Mumbai attack, I must say that a technology or service cannot be banned, for good. Only it should be used with caution.