Sunday, July 25, 2010

The old technology but not used everywhere, we often have heard about: VoIP (Voice Over internet Protocol)

The term VoIP means Voice over internet protocol. This technology is used for the transmission of voice over internet that means it will use the so called broadband service in your telephone. Ethernet or any kind of PSTN could be used for this VoIP. The names of this VoIP is: IP telephony, Broadband Telephony, Intenet Telephony, Broadband Phone, Voice over Broadband(VoBB) etc.

This process includes some steps that we dont know about and how mere a telephone could be connected with the ethernet or internet and communication process goes on. Better to say that VoIP uses PSTN as its path and moves on. In a regular telephone when we speak that speeches are carried out by dedicated telephone lines and those signals are analog signals and reaches to recieving end as an analog signal. No conversion happens at the time transmission. But in this telephony conversion happens when the ssignal is transmitting. When speaker speaks at that time the “SPEAK” (Signal) converted to digital signal and those signals forms a packet which is divided in several packets and then transmitted through the PSTN to the reciever. The signal got also compressed and sent it over the IP protocol and the whole process gets reversed at the recieving end.

Now people must think that as it is a VoIP so does it own a IP address dedicated for this VoIP?

Or how the process goes on as it is said PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) as its path?

Well, for those answers I must give some information about Switching. That is in a plain networking switching refers to a communication between two or more computers but dedicated path.Here's also the same route is adopted i.e. Dedicated lines between talkers and there are 2 satges with which they can setup (Set-Up Phase) their lines and talk over it and at the end it will execute the Tear Down phase. And as well as when the signal got transformed to digital signal, it must have to use some audio codec to transform, it has a variety of codecs in audio signals and that varies between the several implementations of VoIP. And for the first question that does it need any IP Address? Well, no we dont need that beacause, it should be connected to the computer and specially it is not supporting mobility.

Another point I must include that VoIP supports session protocol which means it does senses the line continuously for its activieness but when it sense that the line is idle for some long time it will automatically cut the line off. We need to reconnect the line to move on. For the connection you need to have three mandatory thing:
1. ATA (Analog Telephone Adapter): The work of that adapter is to connect two lines one is analog phone line and another is for the computer or DSL Broadband line and the adopter must be at a static location. Both lines performs when we talk. eg. Vonage, AT & T CallVantage are the phones which comes free with the service. Sometimes it has some softwares to setup the phone but anyhow those software setups are very easy and straight forward.

2. Dedicated VoIP Phones: The specialized look of the the phone is nothing but ut has a small screen at buttons that to cradle. But instead of RJ-11 connectors the phone has RJ-45 Connectors to connect with the broadband. Ip phones can be directly connected to the router and it has all ecessary softwares and hardwares in it onboard. It needs to be paid to get the service from VoIP providers.

VoIP PHONES

3. Computer to Computer: The certainly most easiest way to make a call for a long distance you need to have computer, a software, Internet Connection, Sound Card that's it. Companys even dont charge of any kind for a the call except the monthly fee.


VoIP DIAGRAM


Using these stuffs you can do VoIP calls but at a lower cost (if needed). There is a lot of difference between normal analog telephone and a VoIP telephone. We are talking a lot about this but we haven't mention yet that why should we use VoIP telepehones? We should use this service because, the cost of time depends a lot. Now-a-days human being gives more cost for time than any item. This leads us to a new technology VoIP. In a normal telephone it requires almost a lot of time whereas in VoIP the time becomes less to talk.
Lets give an example, suppose a man talks to a man for 10 minutes. But think the call makes a route from New York to Los Angeles means a 3000 Mile. So in a normal telephone what happens when some body makes a call that call goes through a set of switches which is scattered throughout the city. In this case it happens so and it travels a 3000 mile copper wire and holds the line for 10 minutes. Think how much cost we are paying for a mere 10 min call. Why does it take 10mins? Bacause the line is made of copper and less efficient to carry out the signals and data compression not supported by this regular telephone system. But if the conversation needs 10mins in a regular line it will take only 3.5 mins in a VoIP line means, in internet telephony.
Save time to Save Money.

On the other hand as VoIP uses packet switching which gives us the provision of sending signals or for communication a little cost for a little time. For a 10mins phone call we consumed 10 full minutes for transmission timeat a cost of 128Kbps. But with VoIP that same call takes only 3.5 minutes of transmission time at a cost of 64Kbps, leaving another 64Kbps free for that 3.5 minutes plus another 128 Kbps for the remaining 6.5 minutes. That means easily another 3 or 4 phone calls can be placed using the same conventional line.
Some steps of this VoIP communication is:

1. reciever is picked up and which sends a signal to ATA (Analog Telephone Adapter)

2. the adapter recieves a signal and sends a dial tone to sender. In this case it simultaneously makes you know that you are connected to the internet.

3. Phone number is dialled and that number goes to the VoIP company's call processor and before that it is being digitized by ATA adapter.

4. The processor checks its validity and makes the call after mapping it and translated it into a IP address.

5. The soft switch (the software that comes with the adapter and handset) connects two devices on either end of the call. On the other end the signal goes to receiver's ATA telling it to ask the connected phone to ring.

6. Once riciever picks up the phone a session is established between them and packets are sent via the path. In the middle of that call the call is handelled by the internet infrastructure just as a email or a webpage. Both the sender and reciever should use the same protocolto communicate.

7. When the call is on the go the packets are being transmitted by the ATA to analog audio signal at each end at each transmission.

8. At the end of the call the session has ended the switch is closed.


This technology is such a boost to the huge communication system still it is not available for some possible reasons like: viruses, hacking, NANP calls, and most significant drawback is power means, if power goes out the phone dies immediately.

We hope that these drawbacks will be filled soon with the solutions and will enter our life and will save our money that is “TIME”................. :) :) :)

Saturday, July 10, 2010

Novice Phone Lovers it’s for you: iOS 4




iOS (iPhone Operating System), is the software that is installed in iPhone, iPod Touch, and now recently hyped material in the world of tablet computer yes! The iPad. For small information I want my readers to know about the OS. Its first revealed in January 9, 2007. And released in June in that year. This is a derivation of MAC OS X, which is a OS of notebooks and Macbook mini, MacBook etc. It shares the Darwin foundation, and is therefore looks like a Unix based OS by nature. This name first came in the eyes of few people who visited an Expo at Macworld Conference & Expo. That year Apple named that OS is “iPhone uses OS X”. After that it uses it in its iPhone first generation, and get surprisingly hype and it was sold more than 2 million. After seeing this in a press conference Mr. Steve Jobs announced that its modifying version is coming up and this OS doesn’t need any third-party hardware support. It will run independently. It was announced also that Apple is making a SDK for this OS support in iPhone. After the rapid development in OS it released this OS in iPod Touch that has a capability of the iPhone without the feature of Video Phone hardware.
Apple has its own way for representing things and for that on January 27,2010 Apple announced the release of iPad which has a broad Display than iPhone and iPod Touch. With a bumper sale of 1 million product in 1st month Apple gets the way to go through and later it licecse the name iOS from Cisco Inc. Apple has 225,000 applications in its app store for this OS. Which still doesn’t support any third-party hardware. iOS has four layers in its architecture :
1. Abstraction Layer (helps the OS to hide the process of binding of the code and data)

2. Core Services Layer (it helps the OS to run the services run by itself)

3. Media Layer (Helps to run the multimedia features in its body)

4. Cocoa Touch Layer (Helps the user by providing the multi touch gestures in the display)

So, we have now know much about iOS that is now developed that the final (not last) version is running all over that one: iOS 4. This makes some additions in Apple made iPhone 4. Previous versions of iPhone were much boring where as now those stuffs building an interest in peoples face. As it added some features but still lagging behind somewhere. Its like this:

1. Multi-tasking:-

the all new iOS 4 supports finally multi-tasking, i.e. much needed for a user.first generation versions are not compatible with this feature not will be. Now user can jump into another app while doing action in other app. Need not to open it again and again.
iPad also supports multi-tasking.



2. iAd (Revolutionising the world of Mobile Advertising) :-

Well it’s all started with buying a company (Quattro) of mobile advertising last year. From there the development starts and new feature added by Apple in iPhone. It is a launching iAd kind of application to help to change the way of mobile advertising goes on. Suppose you are general movie show time app and suddenly you see that there is a toy stroy is trying to poking his head out the bottom. Peel the bottom layer and you get an application with in an application. It stands for suppose you are in a website where you get a short ad of going to get to a new website. That’s it.





3. Gaming Center:-

Apple is supporting the games also where it launched a social network where you can play games as well as making partners in same kind of games, if you are not getting a partner this app will find a partner for you. Isn’t it cool!



4. Folders for your icons:-

are you getting bored with the so called icons on your home screen? Then just feel free because Apple gives you the freedom of choosing the icons of your folders. And can name them whatever you want but can’t name them like”System32” it will not represent the OS sub folder. And when you create a folder you can sum up all the apps as you choose and access them as you want.




5. Unified the inbox:-

the iPhone has evolved slowly-somebody said. Because, Apple makes an update is that you don’t have to jump in or out again and again for seeing your mail. Apple made it unified all into one place-thankfully coinciding the announcement that users can have more than one exchange account on it’s devices. Just like gmail and facebook and orkut you can work in your inbox and as well as you can with your friends as all the conversations are threaded. Attachments can be done in your emails.




6. iBooks comes all the way:-

The all new element that is added in iPad and iPhone is iBook where you will be able to download the books and read them. Better you say that it is an app for reading PDFs’. Apple has a rival: Adobe. So it will never use Acrobat Reader in Steve Jobs iPad. Everything has an app in the way PDFs’ and e-books have.




7. No flash:-

Mr. Steve Jobs think that flash has several disadvantages which is not implacable in his device so he is strongly denied to Flash. So, its a bad news for Farmville, Fishville, cafe world players. Maybe there will be some app called “iflash” in near future. Anyways development is on the way.

So still apple lags behind in some fields. iPhone 4 will be a worth of buying with certain price. iPad is already sold so much. 3 million iPads in last 3 months. Not a joke!!!!! So, here we can get an all over idea that Apple is trying tomake its own house with it’s own furniture and carpets. Let’s see when the whole world will see an “i”. This is all about iOS 4 which gives you a new feeling of handling your iPhone r tablet Computer iPad. Hope there will be more updates in iOS 4 and will be launched soooooooooooooooooonnnnn...........

Monday, July 5, 2010

Technology won’t end, not for a while....So it’s taking on our skin now: SKINPUT

As I told you pals in my previous blog that Chris Harrison is rising star of this battle field. So again he proved this. He concluded the study of Scratch Input but as I told that research is yet not finished, for that one another technology comes up in our techno zone that comprises with Scratch input as well as a new one i.e. SKINPUT.

In this research it’s said that the easiest device to get in touch with almost everyone and to do our job what is we do with mobile phones. It’s believed that most of us don’t want to carry more things with us. So for that, we need to get those things which we don’t have to hold, such as bands which we can wear but we need not to worry about that, oh! Where is it? Where I have left it? Blah blah blah................ in that case we forget or better say we overlooked that surface where we can apply all the inputs and can do our work, can carry out every small functions, can implement the technology scratch input. That overlooked surface, which happens to travel with us all time, is: OUR SKIN. This can be used as an input, means, a kind of ray will be in your hand which has some buttons of your mobile phones, the mobile phone is chosen because we have the surface area not so broad but is very good for placing any buttons or numbers.

Numbers are shown palm

Forehand is being used as an Input Surface

Now let’s take a look in the sensors which actually senses about the taps or drags done by our fingers. Sensors are built with very much difficulty because; we don’t have those sensors which can measure the wave passes in the bones of human body. There are so many bio-sensors like: EEG(electro encephalography), functional near infrared spectroscopy(fINAR) etc. fINR is used by HCI(Human-Computer Interaction Institute). There are other heart beat measuring equipments, other brain signal catching technologies. But there is no technology which can measure the consciousness of mind, concentration power of our mind. Here we need those sensors which can measure the wave that passes by the bones. Researchers got a bit deeper for that need; they got electromyography (EMG). But this one didn’t work also. And there after two new sensors comes up but they are also not capable of taking the waves from bones. Finally, bone conduction microphones and headphones- now common consumer technologies-represents an addition bio-sensing technology that is relevant to the present work. Now with the immense help of this technology we entered the new threshold of touch. Here skin is used as an input surface area. For an example forearm is used to represent this technology.

SENSOR


SENSORS FROM INSIDE


Sensing

When we tap our forearm with a finger tip a signal transverse the forearm and it propagates the wave. That wave is technically measured with the sensors (modified from bone conduction microphones and headphones) and it determines where from the tap comes from and then it catches the intersection point from where the signal generates and it does its action according to the configured commands. Those sensors are then modified again to catch the low frequency signals (below the human voice) for that cantilevered sensors comes up. It is so small and able to catch the waves through bone. Now to place those sensors an armband is configured. It’s so comfortable with the arm and easy to remove also. Now after wearing the armband it becomes partly mobile. Now we can do this experiment a ray falls upon our forearm, it falls with some buttons and numbers, we tap one of them and it transverse a signal through the bone and the processing is done according to the wave. So ,in this way we can operate our mobile phone. But here some questions remains in our mind that where are the speakers? Where are microphones and all that?


Idea

However, we can easily say that this research brings us new technology, can be used with our skin. This one gets so closer. We are technology prone human beings now days. In our daily life we never put a step without any gadget but this is extreme. Now it reaches to our skin also. Its now time to see that what comes next?

All the details came from Chris Harrison official site: http://www.chrisharrison.net/projects/skinput
The demonstration video of this project is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3XPUdW9Ryg&feature=player_embedded
I f you want to download the research paper then go to the above site and unveil the next generation of Technology. All credit goes to Chris Harrison for all his upcoming projects and researches.