Chandrayaan mission called off formally

THE CHANDRAYAN I mission is over and India's honeymoon in lunar space came to an abrupt end. The actual lifetime of Chandrayaan 1 is 2 years but everything came to end in just 312 days.The country’s space agency has lost radio contact with the lunar craft Chandrayaan-1 at around 1:30 AM on August 29th.Data from Chandrayaan-1’s last orbit was transmitted until 12.25am on Saturday to the Indian Deep Space Network at Byalalu near Bangalore.With communication totally lost, there is no transmission or receipt of signals between Chandrayaan-I and ground control stations.

Nearly 95% of Chandrayaan’s scientific goals had already been accomplished in less than a year. At Rs 386 crore, the mission that put India in the global space league of six nations, was launched on October 22. Chandrayaan-I aimed to take high-resolution, three-dimensional images of the lunar surface, especially the permanently-shadowed polar regions.The craft carried payloads from the United States, the European Union and Bulgaria. One of its objectives was to search for evidence of water or ice and attempt to identify the chemical composition of certain lunar rocks.

Chandrayaan-1’s temperature raised to over 50 degrees Celsius, prompted ISRO to switch off most of the 11 instruments it was carrying. The ‘star’ sensor, unable to bear the heat, collapsed.Though there was no official word on the cause of the loss of contact, space experts, said it could be due to a power problem in the spacecraft, or the spacecraft being hit by a some space object. Earlier this year, the Indian government increased the federal budget for space research to about $1 billion from $700 million.

Motorola to test 4G in India

What? 4G, In India? We have had a torrid time implementing the 3G spectrum and license and now that first of the 3G Services have started trickling in, Motorola wants to do a trial run of 4G in India! Technology changes with day and our slow government took lot of time selling 3G mobile phones and wanted to raise about Rs 35,000 crores from trading radio frequency for the existing version. But now, Motorola brings in the next level 4G phones. This could mean spoiling the broth for the government’s plans.

4G can offer upto 70 Mbps download speed on a mobile phone. We don't have those kinds of speeds even on our broadband networks today. That is in a normal broaband network, whereas it takes 4-5 hours for downloading an film with an average space of 700 MB- 1.5 GB, with the advent of 4G, the same movie can be downloaded in 10-30 minutes. Ofcourse, it will come our way with a huge premium, but it could also save lots of online time. This technology is known as Long-Term Evolution(LTE). Lots of research on this technology has been done by American electronics majors Motorola, Verizon and also by Japan's NTT DoCoMo which has a JV with Tata Communications for rolling out 2G GSM services across India.

The DoT(Department of Telecom) is understood to have prepared a concept paper on 4G. Apart from Motorola, other telecom vendors are also in the process of trials in India. Many services providers would wait and watch the growth of 4G. This may affect the enthusiasm for getting spectrum from the government for 3G networks. Government had earlier planned to rake in Rs.35,000 crores by auctioning 3G spectrum. More the delay in the 3G auction, more the pain for Government's exchequer.

It also shows how slow the government process can be in India . When countries around the world are all providing high quality 4G network, getting started with 3G network in India is in itself proving to be a big hurdle. In the end, people are the real sufferers because they are forced to use hapless 2G GSM network which is quiet inferior in speed and voice quality when compared to 3G, leave alone 4G.

Microsoft warning: Security hole in Video ActiveX control

Microsoft has warned of a flawed software in Internet Explorer that hackers can exploit to take over some computers. The vulnerability affects Internet Explorer users whose computers run the Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 operating systems.If a victim visits an infected website, hackers can remotely take control of their machine.

Microsoft said it was working with partners to patch the weakness in ActiveX Video Control involved in capturing, recording or playing video and is also a main component of Windows Media Center.Microsoft advised users to deactivate ActiveX Video Control until a fix is available.

However, the good news might be that the buggy ActiveX Control doesn't affect any major functionality in IE.At worst, the ActiveX Control bug, which affects several versions of Windows, including Windows XP and Windows Server 2003, allows attackers to infiltrate a user's system to download malicious code, typically information-stealing Trojans.Attackers taking advantage of the vulnerability could install programs; view, change or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights.

Microsoft said in its advisory that it was working on a fix for the bug, which will either be released in its monthly Patch. Internet Explorer versions 6 and 7 are at risk, but people running IE 8 are not vulnerable.

Download a movie in an hour-Airtel launches 16 Mbps broadband

Bharti Airtel has announced 16 Mbps broadband – which the company claims to be the fastest wireline broadband on DSL in the country.Telecom consumers in India can experience broadband in the true sense, withconnections which offer speeds of 16 Mega Bits Per Second (Mbps) — that’s twice that of the current highest speeds available for the retail segment anywhere in the country.
With 16 Mbps speed, consumers can download a 4 GB high-definition movie within 30 minutes compared with more than 12 hours that a 256 Kbps connection takes.Powered by Airtel’s Carrier Ethernet Network the service will be available in Delhi NCR, Chennai and Bangalore with phased roll-out to additional cities of Hyderabad, Pune, Mumbai and Kolkata. Airtel delivers its broadband service to customers through a fibre backbone of Carrier Ethernet Network with last mile delivery on copper using ADSL2+ technology.

Customers can gain access to 16 Mbps broadband by choosing from 2 Tariff Plans – Speed Combo 2999 (20GB transfer limit) and Speed Combo 4999 (50GB transfer limit). The press release claimed Airtel offers its broadband services across 95 cities in the country with approximately 9.92 lakh broadband customers as on December 31, 2008.

11 digit mobile numbers soon

If remembering 10-digit mobile phone numbers is hard task for you, soon you'll have an addition to the problem. The Department of Telecom, or DoT, is considering making mobile phone numbers to contain 11 digits.With phone operators expected to run out of 10-digit mobile numbers soon, the Department of Telecom (DoT) is now considering this proposal.

According to industry, given the current rate of growth of subscribers in the country, another 150-200 million can be added before the 10-digit quota is consumed.In India, the first numbering plan was announced in 1993 when mobile telephony had not yet begun.
In 2003, the DoT had come out with a 30-year numbering plan. However, the rapidly growing subscriber base has forced it to review the plan in six years.
The current growth rate in telecom is expected to continue as firms extend their reach to rural India and new technologies such as high-speed 3G enter the country.

So, get ready for your 11 digit mobile number....

ISRO to launch remote sensing satellite

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will launch a remote sensing satellite equipped with high-resolution cameras and advanced scientific instruments later this month.Slated for launch on April 28, Cartosat-2A, the all-weather reconnaissance satellite, will be used for urban and rural development planning.

The satellite will be launched by a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle from the Sriharikota space station.Similar to the mapping satellite Cartosat-2, launched in January 2007, the 680-kg (1,500-pound) Cartosat-2A will be placed in a polar orbit at an altitude of 630 km (391 miles). It can also be used for intelligence gathering.
Along with Cartosat-2A, the PSLV will also carry a Third World Satellite (TWSAT) and eight nano satellites