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Nuclear energy and its discontents

Nuclear energy and its discontents

                               By  SUNIL  KEWALRAMANI

                                      CHIEF INVESTMENT OFFICER,  GLOBAL MONEY INVESTOR

                                                                                                                                  September 11, 2009

 Chart : First electricity production by nuclear energy
Experimental Breeder Reactor EBR-I, 20 Dec.1951, Arco, Idaho, USA

 At the outset, the Indo-US nuclear deal appears path-breaking and allows India to regain its techno-commercial independence and sovereignty that we lost in 1978. The deal is supposed to contribute to sustainable development, energy sustainability and fight against climate change.  Unlike solar and wind energy, nuclear technology is the only one that can meet power demand 24 hours a day, although disruptive innovations in solar and wind energy can change that.  It is believed that a stable, prosperous, ecologically balanced India is good for the sustainability of the world.  However, it takes time to buy and set up new nuclear reactors.  Cases in mind are French reactors in China and Russian reactors in Koodankulam India.  The Olkiluto 3 reactor being built in Finland is more than two and a half years behind schedule, and cost overruns exceed Euros 2.5 Billion.

  Nuclear power provides 77 per cent of France’s and 19.4 per cent of United State’s electricity today.  According to French President Nicolas Sarkozy, each EPR (European Pressurized Reactor) that replaces a natural gas-fired electricity plant saves two billion cubic metres, or 70.6 billion cubic feet, of natural gas each year, and that each EPR that replaces a coal-fired plant reduces CO 2 emissions by 11 million tons.

   On June 26, 1954, at Obninsk, Russia, the nuclear power plant APS-1 with a net electrical output of 5 MW was connected to the power grid, the world’s first nuclear power plant that generated electricity for commercial use. On August 27, 1956 the first commercial nuclear power plant, Calder Hall 1, Eng-land, with a net electrical output of 50 MW was connected to the national grid.

As of 30 June 2009 in 31 countries 436 nuclear power plant units with an installed electric net capacity of about 370 GW are in operation and 48 plants with an installed capacity of 42 GW are in 15 countries under construction.

As of end 2007 the total electricity production since 1951 amounts to 59,450 billion kWh. The cumulative operating experience amounted to 12,750 years by the end of 2007.

Charts :

Nuclear power plants under construction, June 2009 (IAEA 2009, modified)

Nuclear share in electricity generation, 2008 (IAEA 2009, modified)

Number of nuclear reactors worldwide by age as of March 2009 (IAEA 2009)

Nuclear Power Plants, energy availability factor 1991 – 2008 (IAEA 2009)

Nuclear energy provides about 15 per cent of the world’s electricity. Some 30 nations generate nuclear power; 10 to 20 are expected to join them in the next 10 years. At present there are 370 reactors in operation. The International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations watchdog, reckons that 1,400 new reactors may be built between now and 2050.

  This expansion is creating a conundrum for western policymakers, one with which the US administration is now urgently grappling. Nuclear power may be necessary to help the world meet climate change goals and guarantee energy supply. But it also brings with it considerable security concerns. Detaching peaceful nuclear energy from devastating weaponry is sooner said than done. The fuel for most modern nuclear power stations – enriched uranium – in more potent forms is used for nuclear arms. Washington and its allies do not want the expansion in civil nuclear power to allow any more nations to diversify into atomic weapons.

MIDDLE EASTERN MARKETS :  The lucrative fusion of politics and business

In a few weeks Abu Dhabi will write nuclear history when it unveils the winner of a multibillion dollar tender, writes Peggy Hollinger. With the initial reactors set to launch around 2016, the Emirate will be the first Arab state to have nuclear power. Where Abu Dhabi goes, others will follow: Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and Jordan have all voiced desire for nuclear power.

The budding new market has drawn considerable political and commercial interest. Political concerns may be of the highest order; how lucrative the nuclear business opportunities really are remains unclear.

The international interest in the Middle Eastern market far outstrips its commercial value, says Steve Kidd, of the World Nuclear Association. According to WNA estimates, outside of Iran only two nuclear reactors will be operating in the region by 2020 and just four by 2030. “It is not a lot compared to China where you could win contracts for up to 40.”

One of the main reasons is clearly political. Nowhere is this better demonstrated than in France, home to some of the world’s leading nuclear companies such as EDF, GdF-Suez and Areva. These firms – all among the bidders in Abu Dhabi – are key tools in President Nicolas Sarkozy’s nuclear diplomacy in the Middle East: tough on Iranian enrichment ambitions, but open to selling know-how to those countries willing to abide by international rules. “It is the best way to show Iran that we are not against the Middle East having nuclear technology,” says one French government official.

France also believes that there could be huge wider commercial gains to be had from nuclear deals, especially in defence and infrastructure. The Elysée has sent Philippe Marini, a senator, to the region to explore ways of bolstering French interests. The recent decision to open the share capital of state-owned Areva to sovereign wealth funds was one early result. “Civil nuclear power is clearly closely tied to political strategy,” notes Mr Marini. Meanwhile, several Middle Eastern funds have struck deals with French companies.

The 1979 accident at the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania and the 1986 explosion at the Chernobyl plant in the Ukraine, as well as the anti-nuclear movie “The China Syndrome” paint a rather grim scenario of what a nuclear accident could entail.  The new generation of nuclear plants is designed to be safer, using fewer pumps and piping and relying more on gravity to move water for cooling the hot nuclear core.  Nuclear reactors are contained inside a huge structure of reinforced concrete with walls as much as five feet thick to make sure that even if a serious accident does occur, radiation is not released into the environment. The Chernobyl reactor did not have such a structure.  Even with these advances;  in July 2008;  at a nuclear plant in Provence, France; 163 pounds, or 74 kgs, of untreated uranium leaked from a faulty tank during a draining operation, seeping into the ground and then into rivers that flow into the Rhone.  After this incident, a burst underground pipe at another site north of Tricastin,  which leaked a tiny amount of uranium inside plant grounds, and another accident at Tricastin itself, when 100 employees were contaminated by radioactive particles that escaped from a pipe. 

    The US nuclear industry has itself suffered from decades of stagnation, with an ageing labour force and little entrepreneurial motivation.  USEC, a company that had a monopoly on producing the electric utilities’ fuel of the future, is itself facing a brownout.  It’s stock price has plummeted from $ 11 two years back to $ 5 today. It has alienated its utility industry customers and spent vast resources on construction of a complex new plant that has not met its original projections. The US Energy Policy of 2005 provides loan guarantees up to 80 per cent of the project cost, production tax credits of $ 18 per MWe for new nuclear capacity through 2021 and insurance protection up to $ 500 million against delays during construction. It is surprising that despite the industry being in existence for over 50 years, it has still not been able to stand on its own legs.

 According to the Department of Atomic Energy, India has enough indigenous uranium for 10,000 MW of nuclear power for 30 years. Present mismatch in uranium availability is a consequence of poor foresight and inadequate prospecting and mining.  Besides, the planned 40,000 MW of nuclear power will cost no less than $ 100 Billion or Rs 4 lakh crores.

   Nuclear power plants emit virtually no carbon dioxide, no sulfur, no mercury. Even when taking into account “full life-cycle emissions”—including mining of uranium, shipping fuel, constructing plants and managing waste—nuclear’s carbon-dioxide discharges are identical to the full life-cycle emissions of wind and hydropower and less than solar power.  However, one study has determined that to make a significant contribution towards stabilizing atmospheric carbon dioxide; about 21 new 1,000-megawatt nuclear plants will have to be built each year over the next 50 years, including those needed to replace existing reactors, all of which are expected to be retired by 2050.  This indeed calls for a tall order.

 For two AP-1000 nuclear plants designed by Westinghouse for Florida utility Progress Energy, the estimated cost is $ 14 Billion (over $ 6000/kW). MidAmerican Energy Holdings, a power utility owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, shelved its own nuke plan earlier this year, saying it no longer made economic sense.

   There are only two vendors (Japan Steel Works and France’s Creusot Forge, part of Areva) who are able to supply critical reactor components. The biggest bottleneck is in the huge reactor vessels that contain a plant’s radioactive core.  At present, only one plant in the world is capable of forging the huge vessels in a single piece, and it can produce only a handful of forgings a year.  Besides, there is a severe shortage of nuclear engineers.

    Of concern in any nuclear deal is the how the disposal of waste products can be handled safely and economically.  When you produce enriched uranium, you also produce depleted uranium, which is less radioactive than the original ore, or natural uranium.  This comes in the form of uranium hexafluoride, which is a solid at room temperature.  The villain of the piece in depleted UF6 is the fluorine, which, when it disassociates from uranium, becomes a corrosive gas. Most UF6 in the US is being stored in slowly rusting metal containers in the open air, not a preferred solution for what becomes a corrosive gas if exposed to the atmosphere. The US government is building two facilities just to deal with the government’s own inventories of depleted UF6.  Those are over 700m kgs.  The drawback is that the government’s process produces uranium oxide and hydrogen fluoride, which is not as pure as that required for industrial application.

    Reprocessing is a problem because it can produce separated plutonium which is easier to divert for weapons production than plutonium contained in highly radioactive fuel. Case in mind is North Korea. Besides, commercial reprocessing plants produce so much plutonium that keeping track of it all is rather cumbersome and next to impossible. This makes it easier to divert plutonium enough for weapons without the loss being detected.

   The progress of the global industry is by no means guaranteed. Several factors may impede it. Public opinion may harden against nuclear power. Private sector investors may refuse to commit the vast sums that will be needed. A worldwide shortage of skilled engineers and manufacturing facilities for essential components is likely to be the greatest obstacle to delivering reactors fast enough to meet demand. Practical solutions for the long-term storage of radioactive waste remain elusive.

  Yet the most serious concern of all over the nuclear renaissance remains the link to proliferation. Power stations are not, in themselves, much of a risk – the problems lie in the uranium enrichment process, which can be employed to develop both civil and military versions of nuclear power.

To understand why this issue is at the centre of the US administration’s international programme, it is important to focus on the three key factors inspiring the nuclear renaissance.

First, there is security of supply. Driven by the development of emerging economies such as China and India, global energy demand could rise by as much as 45 per cent by 2030, according to the International Energy Agency, which represents rich energy-consuming countries. As concerns have grown about the future availability of fossil fuels, which will be increasingly provided by a small number of large suppliers, energy consumers have come to see the virtue in diversifying their sources of supply.

Second, there is economics. The economics of nuclear power are fiercely contested, and highly sensitive to changes in variables such as construction costs. What is unarguable, however, is that it provides an energy source not linked to the oil price.

Even for oil- and gas-rich countries, such as Iran and the UAE, another Middle Eastern country keen to build civil reactors, nuclear generation makes sense because it frees up more of their hydrocarbon resources for export. The earnings from those exports “would easily pay for investment in nuclear energy”, says Hans-Holger Rogner of the IAEA. Given likely long-term oil and gas prices, “It makes economic sense.”

Finally, there is the growing pressure to meet climate change goals. The US and its allies accept that the global struggle to cap greenhouse gas emissions means nuclear energy options must be available. Nuclear energy is almost free of emissions and, if growing energy consumption is not to lead to soaring concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, it is likely to play an increasingly important role.

 New processing technologies are being developed to limit the amount and accessibility of weapons-grade materials.  At an international level, governments need to strengthen current international anti-proliferation efforts to give the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) more information about a country’s nuclear-related activities and IAEA inspectors greater access to locations. Plants that enrich uranium for power plants can also be used to enrich for bombs; this is the path Iran is suspected of taking in developing a weapons program.  An ambitious expansion of nuclear power would require a lot more facilities for enriching uranium, thus enhancing the potential risk.  A nuclear renaissance is expected to be led by countries in Middle East and Africa—where a nuclear-energy programme could lead to development of surreptitious weapons. 

    To safeguard its monopoly, USEC (United States Enrichment Corporation) and affiliates in the US government imposed trade barriers on foreign, principally European producers of uranium enrichment services.  This, in turn motivated Europeans to build competing uranium enrichment plants in the US.  Since the Europeans are using proven centrifuge enrichment technology, which has substantially lower energy requirements than USEC’s ancient gaseous diffusion plants; in an era of conservation of precious energy, the European technology deserves careful attention should the government feel going nuclear is indeed the way to go. Urenco, the Dutch uranium enrichment company is building its new plant in New Mexico. Areva, the French nuclear engineering group, is setting up shop in Idaho. Each of the new facilities will produce initially, 3m Separative Work Units, or SWUs per year. 

  The IEA has estimated that to keep the increase in global temperatures to acceptable levels, the world’s nuclear capacity might have to increase more than five-fold by 2050.

Growing international moves to put a price on carbon dioxide emissions, likely to be given fresh impetus at the forthcoming UN climate conference in Copenhagen in December, also make nuclear power look more attractive.

Opponents counter that even a large expansion of nuclear power would have only a small impact on the overall global level of emissions. Pro-nuclear experts acknowledge that, while it may not be a crisis-solving “silver bullet”, it can be one of several “silver buckshot” that, combined, can make a difference.

India, a nation of 1.1 billion people—and one beset both by crushing poverty and a tumultuously expanding economy—has 15 nuclear power reactors already at work. Eight more are under construction, more than in any other nation. The Department of Atomic Energy lauds the greenhouse benefits of nukes, but the main impetus is sheer gigawatt lust. That would include building reactors such as those at Kaiga Generating Station in a clearing in the jungled Western Ghats mountains about 20 miles inland from southwest India’s seacoast. Coming upon the two 220-megawatt, pressurized heavy-water reactors is like stumbling into a thumping big factory in the middle of Yellowstone National Park. The region gets more than 15 feet of rain yearly, and its forest is home to increasingly threatened species.

Back near the Indira Gandhi center a 500-megawatt breeder reactor is under construction and set to start up in 2010. Four more are to follow by 2020. India is very efficient at manufacturing plutonium fuel from their original uranium fuel load, which greatly increases the amount of energy they produce. But critics worry that the plutonium could possibly get in the wrong hands.

In part because of proliferation concerns, the U.S. has sworn off such breeder reactors for the time being. But outside powers have little leverage over India’s nukes. With few exceptions they are entirely homegrown. India gave itself little choice about going it alone. In 1974, it set off an underground nuclear explosion using plutonium surreptitiously diverted from a test reactor that Canada helped it build in the 1950s.

India became a nuclear pariah. Other countries suspended technical assistance, and Canadian engineers walked off a job in Rajasthan. The Indians finished the plant themselves.

India is now enthusiastic masters of all things nuclear. The uranium fuel in Kaiga’s reactors comes from mines west of Calcutta; workshops in the south provide the plant with gleaming, 65-foot-high, 110-ton steam generators that drive electric dynamos. Control systems, zircaloy fuel tubes, and 22-ton reactor components arrive from Hyderabad.

The Obama administration and its main allies, believe they must strengthen the rules of the game before the next wave of reactors is built. The focus of their attention is a conference next May in New York, which will review the 40-year-old nuclear non-proliferation treaty. More than 160 countries will attempt to broker stronger rules that widen the use of civil nuclear power, while penalising those states that try to diversify their programmes into weapons production. However, suspicions and resentments between the members of the nuclear club and those aspiring to join it mean reaching an agreement will not be easy.

Securing tougher rules is only one part of US strategy. Other ideas being considered include an IAEA proposal to create a small number of huge nuclear fuel banks that will supply a large number of reactors. The merit of this idea is that it will mean most countries have no justifiable reason to enrich their own uranium in the way Iran is currently seeking to do.

Separately, other ideas are being promoted to ensure the safety of nuclear materials. In particular, the US wants to promote a nuclear security conference in Washington next March, one that aims to ensure nuclear materials do not fall into the hands of terrorists.

 There are signs that some countries are prepared to stay out of uranium enrichment. The UAE, for example, has said it has no interest in acquiring fuel cycle capability, and is open to the idea of importing fuel from an international supplier.

But there is also resistance. Some states that may want to develop nuclear power, such as developing countries belonging to the Group of 77 and the Nonaligned Movement, say they need the confidence that a reliable supply of nuclear fuel will be available. A small number of fuel banks, they say, cannot provide that.

Others, including such leading emerging economies as Brazil and Egypt, have refused to sign the NPT’s “additional protocol” that gives the IAEA the power to conduct unfettered inspections of a nation’s nuclear facilities. Almost every country in the world, including Iran, has signed the NPT – except India, Pakistan and Israel. However, only 123 have signed the additional protocol and only 91 have brought it into effect.

There is some scepticism about the chances of a deal being reached at the NPT review conference in May. Suspicion that the US and other nuclear powers are setting the rules to suit their own ends remains high. The last NPT review attempt in 2005 ended in a flop. Four years on, the stakes have been raised. If the 2010 conference goes the same way, the consequences will be grim – for the world’s security, prosperity and climate.

 

Note : Mr Sunil Kewalramani is a WHARTON BUSINESS SCHOOL MBA and Chief Investment Officer, Global Money Investor.  

About the Author

Mr Sunil Kewalramani is a Wharton Business School MBA, a CPA, CA and a leading consultant for multinational companies on global asset management, strategic planning and cross-border mergers and acquisitions

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GENERAL KNOWLEDGE Pt. III

• WHY IS AN MP3 FILE CALLED SO?

MP3 is acronym for MPEG audio Layer-3. MPEG is the acronym for Moving Picture Experts Group, which developed compression systems, used for video data like DVD movies and HDTV broadcasts. The MP3 format is a compression system for music. It helps reduce the number of bytes in a song without affecting the quality of the sound. The goal of the MP3 format is to compress a CD-quality song by a factor of 10 to 14 without noticeably affecting the sound quality With MP3, a 32-megabyte (MB) song on a CD compresses to about.

• WHICH FAMOUS BIRD HAS A ‘LAUGHING’ AND ‘BLUE-WINGED’ VARIETY?

The famous bird kookaburra has a ‘laughing’ and a ‘blue winged’ variety The laughing kookaburra, D novaeguineae, is slightly larger than the blue-winged kookaburra with a slightly longer bill. The blue-winged kookaburra also has a head streaked white, with a white rather than dark eye, and no dark patch behind the eye. The blue-winged kookaburra has a bright-blue wing patch and rump. The call is also quite different.

• WHAT IS GUTTATION?

Guttation is the loss of water in the form of water droplets from hydathodes (small pores) on the leaf margin of a small herbacious plant. Water has the ability to rise up to 2 feet on its own through the xylem of the plant. During the evening or early morning, when the rate of absorption by roots exceeds the rate of transpiration (evaporation) by leaves, a lot of water gets accumulated in the plant body which can damage the cells. Plants have hydathodes at the end of the veins, through which this excess water is lost in the form of droplets. It takes place mostly in small plants like banana, rose, etc.

• WHAT IS GNOTOBLOLOGY?

Gnotobiology is the science of study of animals or other organisms raised in environments free of germs or those which contain only specifically known germs. Scientists compare gnotohiotic animals with ordinary animals whose bodies carry many germs, like bacteria, viruses and parasites. In this way, scientists can determine more precisely how specific germs affect a body.

• WHAT IS BUFFERING IN INTERNET?

Buffering is a situation which occurs when a streaming media player is saving portions of a streaming media file to local storage for playback. Most streaming media players buffer a small percentage of a streaming media presentation before beginning to play it. Buffering also may occur in the middle of a presentation when available bandwidth does not match the presentation’s required bandwidth.

• WHAT IS A BIOMETRIC SECURITY SYSTEM?

In security terminology, a biometric security system is an authentication technique that relies on a computer system to electronically validate a measurable biological characteristic which is physically unique and cannot be duplicated. Various types of biometric security systems are being used for real-time identification; the most popular are based on face recognition and fingerprint matching, iris and retinal scan, speech, facial thermograms, and hand geometry.

• WHERE ARE FILES AND WEBSITES ON THE INTERNET STORED?

The internet is a collection of a large number of client-server based systems. So all files and other resources on it are stored on secondary storage devices of the re- spective servers. Servers of websites are termed as web servers. So when you type in a URL of a website in the address bar of your browser, it makes a connection to that web server which in turn fetches the data from the secondary storage device (such as the hard disk) that they must be using and returns it to the respective browser. The same holds true for any other resource (image, MP3 file, zipped file, etc.) that you access on the internet.

• WHY IS THERE NO B DRIVE IN A COMPUTER?

It’s not that computers don’t have B drives. Initially, (hardly two decades ago), personal computers didn’t have hard discs — they were equipped with two floppy drives called drives A and B. Later, a hard disk was introduced and was labelled as the C drive. Other drives like the CD drive, DVD drive, flash drive and others were labelled D, E, etc. If you have a computer having two floppy drives, then they are called A drive and B drive.

• WHAT IS E-WASTE?

All obsolete electronic devices such as computers, servers, printers, monitors, TVs, cellphones, calculators, CDs, floppies, chips, processors, motherboard, PCB etc. end up as e-waste. E-waste contains many hazardous substances like PVC, plastics, heavy metals, Brominated Flame Retardants etc.

• WHAT ARE EFT MONITORS?

Generally all types of monitors are a strain on our eyes. EFT, or Eye Fresh Technology, monitors have a vital coating on the rear that emits anions and far-infrarorf r-o-fresh and ease the strain on the eyes and relax the eyes and body.

• WHY ARE THE FREQUENCY OF FM CHANNELS GENERALLY BETWEEN 90 AND 110 MHZ?

The term FM is slightly misleading because it stands for Frequency Modulation, a technique to broadcast radio waves. The frequencies between 80MHz to 110MHz, generally used to broadcast FM across the world, all fall in the VHP frequency range of 30Mhz to 300Mz. However, the first FM transmission took place in the US in the 1940s in the frequency band 42 to 50MHz. Later in 1945, the Federal Communications Commission allocated bands from 88 to 106MHz for FM broadcasting, citing reasons for its non-interference with other radio bands in and around a city Later, in western Europe, because of the already congested medium wave band, broadcasters preferred to migrate to the usual standard FM bands. In the UK, BBC broadcast for the first time in the FM band in 1955. Since then, FM has almost become an international standard for local broadcasts within city boundaries and the frequency range being used across the globe have been in the 88 to 106 MHz range only.

• WHAT IS THE ORIGIN OF THE WORD ‘ROGER’ IN TELECOM?

It has its origin from the Morse code in which the end of communication was marked with dih-dahdih (.-.) which incidentally is a code for ‘R’. For voice communication, people used an equivalent for every letter (e.g. Omega-Pie-England-Norway for OPEN). For R the equivalent was Roger. Hence, all the communication ended with .-.,i.e. Roger, meaning ‘this communication is over’.

• WHAT IS AN ENCODER AND DECODER?

An encoder is a device, which transforms the data into some bits known only to it and the decoder, is a device, which transforms those coded bits to generate the original data again. These two are mainly used in computer technology but the underlying concept can be used anywhere. For example, the name ‘Delhi’ can be coded as ‘ihleD’ or ’45#1278′. Later, the decoder regenerates the original ‘Delhi’ from this code as it knows the coding scheme.

• WHAT IS IMEI?

• WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A SUBWOOFER AND A WOOFER?

There are no stark differences between these two speaker systems as both are used to reproduce lowfrequency sound notes. Subwoofers are designed to reproduce a band of frequencies below 30Hz level and woofers produce sounds above it. At times, the bands may overlap. The smallest diaphragm of a decent halfway woofer is 8 inches, in a subwoofer it is 12 inches.

• WHAT IS A SIMPUTER?

The word ‘Simputer’ is an acronym for ‘simple, inexpensive and multilingual people’s computer’. It is a small, inexpensive, handheld computer, intended to bring computing power to developing countries. It includes text-to-speech software and runs the GNU/ Linux operating systems. The device was designed by the Simputer Trust, a non-profit organisation formed in November 1999. Simputers are generally used in environments where computing devices such as PCs cannot be used.

• WHAT IS BLUE TOOTH TECHNOLOGY?

Bluetooth is a low cost, low power radio interface standard for wireless communication over short distances. It’s an open standard for allowing intelligent devices to communicate with each other. This allows any sort of electronic equipment (from computers and cell phones to keyboards and headphones) to make its own connections, without wires, cables or any direct action from a user. It could allow for replacing many propriety cables that connect one device to another with one universal radio link.

• WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ELECTRICAL AND ELECTRONIC DEVICES?

• WHEN WAS WINDOWS OPERATING SYSTEM CREATED?

The earliest avtar of Microsoft Windows was Interface Manager, which was being developed in September 1981. The first ever version of Windows operating system was announced on November 10, 1983. It was an extension of MS DOS, and sported a graphic user interface. Windows  1.0 was finally released into market in November, 1985.

• WHAT IS BETA TESTING?

Typically, software goes through two stages of testing before it is considered finished. Only users within the organization developing the software often perform the first stage, called alpha testing. The second stage, called beta testing, generally involves a limited number of external users. Beta testing is the formal process of soliciting feedback on software still under development. Beta testing is usually the last step a software developer takes before releasing the product to market.

• WHAT IS SPYWARE?

With reference to last week’s answer, I’d like to point out that spywares don’t come typically named spy ware. exe like spyware32,exe, ispyexe or such. It can be kazaa.exe, msbb.exe, newsupd.exe, dider.exe, etc. Deleting all registry keys is ownright suicidal because the operating system (Windows) would be dead without any registry keys. If the statement is supposed to mean deleting “all infected/ spyware modified” registry keys, that’s still a tough call because unless the user is an expert about that particular spyware, it’s impossible. More than one anti-spyware software is neededto keep one’s PC spyware-free.

• WHY IS IT ADVISED TO SWITCH OFF THE MOBILE PHONE IN PETROL PUMPS?

Cell phones are asked to be switched off at petrol pumps as they are a potential ignition source to the flammable vapours in that atmosphere. This step has been followed after acceptance of the fact that there is risk of fire accidents due to ignition of batteries of cell phones. As a result manufacturers as well as service providers of the cell phones ask users to keep the cell phones in “off” mode.

• WHAT IS SPYWARE?

Spyware is a malicious program which does harm to the computer and invades your privacy. Spyware include Trojans, Adware, Trackware, dialers, Keyloggers and some viruses. Spyware can pluck confidential infor- mation from your computer and slow its performance to a crawl. This threat copies its file(s) to your hard disk, its typical file name is: Spyware.exe. This problem can be solved manually by deleting all registry keys.

• WHAT IS A TFT MONITOR?

Thin Film Transistor (TFT) Liquid Crystal Display technology does away with the traditional bulky Cathode Ray Tube (CRT). LCDs use a strong backlight as the light source and control how much of this light is allowed to reach the dots (pixels) by selectively allowing the light to reach each pixel. LCDs achieve this by taking advantage of a key property of ‘twisted’ liquid crystal molecules; their ability to naturally block polarised light butthen let it through by degrees when a small electric field is applied. LCD cells are accurately controlled and arranged in a Hat matrix of rows and columns.

• WHAT IS A “FIREWALL” IN COMPUTER TERMINOLOGY?

In computer security, a firewall is a device that blocks unauthorised access to an organisation’s local area network. A firewall can reside on the administrative computer, the server that acts as the LAN’s gateway to the Internet. The firewall keeps track of every file entering or leaving the local area network in order to detect the source of viruses and other problems that might enter the network.

• WHY IS SPAM IN EMAIL JARGON CALLED SO?

The term spam is derived from the popular Monty Python song ‘Spam sketch’, set in a cafe where everything on the menu includes Spam luncheon meat. The chorus repeats ‘Spam, Spam, Spam’ over and over again, drowning out all conversation. Since ‘Spam’ involves sending identical messages to a large number of recipients without their permission, it has been called so. The correct term for it is Unsolicited Commercial Email (UCE).

• WHAT ARE CHICKEN SWITCHES?

Chicken switches are switches that can disable optimisations on the chip (such as caches) to isolate problems. When we throw all the “chicken switches”, we put the processor in “tinkertoymode”. If it still isn’t working, the problemjsjikely to reside elsewhere, in external memory for example. We do the same sort of thing in software – provide settings to disable caches and other forms of optimisation in order to isolate problems.

• WHAT IS A HANDSHAKE IN COMPUTERS?

Handshake is the process by which two computers initiate communication. A handshake begins when one sends a message to another indicating that it wants to establish a communication channel. The two computers then send several messages back and forth that enable them to agree on a communication protocol. Two modems perform a handshake each time they meet, to help them determine how they will exchange information. If the modem speaker is on, we can actually hear the handshake — the series of squeals and signals.

• WHAT IS CDMA TECHNOLOGY?

CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) is a digital cellular technology that uses spread-spectrum techniques. Unlike competing systems, such as GSM, that use TDMA, CDMA does not assign a specific frequency to each user. Instead, every channel uses the full available spectrum. Individual conversations are encoded with a pseudo-random digital sequence. CDMA consistently provides better capacity for voice and data communication than other commercial mobile technologies, allowing more subscribers to connect at any given time, and it is the common platform on which 3G technologies are built.

• CAN A COMPUTER HAVE MORE THAN ONE HARD DISK?

There are two main hard disk types used today — IDE (Integrated Drive Electronics) and SCSI (Small Computer System Interface) hard drives. The IDE drives are used in PCs and SCSI in servers. Motherboards usually come with two embedded IDE ports. Each port can have two devices connected to it on the same data cable for a total of four devices. CD and DVD.units are also connected to the IDE ports and counted as one of those four devices. Once you have four devices, then you can add a PCI IDE controller to have more ports to add devices. SCSI hard drives are connected to a PCI SCSI controller that will be able to accept seven devices for standard SCSI and 15 for the newer, wide SCSI.

• HOW DOES A LASER PRINTER WORK?

A laser printer uses the phenomenon of static electricity as a temporary glue. The core component is the photoreceptor, typically, a revolving drum or cylinder. This is made of highly photoconductive material that is’discharged by light photons. The printer coats the drum with a positively’ charged toner — a fine, black powder. Since it has a positive charge, the toner clings to the negatively discharged areas of the drum, but not to the positively charged ‘background’. With the powder pattern affixed, the drum rolls over a sheet of paper, which moves along a belt below. Before the paper rolls under the drum, it is given a negative charge by the transfer corona wire (charged roller). This charge is stronger than the negative charge of the electrostatic image, so the paper can pull the toner powder away. Since it is moving at -the same speed as the drum, the paper picks up the image pattern exactly To keep the paper from clinging to the drum, it is discharged by the detac corona wire immediately after picking up the toner.

• WHICH COMPANY PRODUCED THE FIRST LAPTOP?

Designed in 1979 by William Moggridge of Britain for Grid Systems Corporation, the Grid Compass was one-fifth the weight of any model equivalent in performance and was used by NASA on the space shuttle programme in the early 1980s. A 340 kilobyte bubble memory laptop computer with die-cast magnesium case and folding electroluminescent graphics display screen, this is probably the first laptop ever produced.

• WHAT IS GREENSTONE DIGITAL LIBRARY SOFTWARE?

Greenstone is a software suite which can serve digital library collections and build new collections. It runs on Windows, UNIX and Mac OS X and provides a new way of organising information and publishing it on the internet or on CD-ROM. Greenstone is produced by the New Zealand Digital Library Project at the University of Waikato, and distributed in cooperation with Unesco and the Human Info NGO. It is a open source software. The New Zealand Digital; Library website contains numerous examA pie collections, all created with the Greenstone software.

• WHICH WAS THE FIRST CELLULAR SERVICE PROVIDER?

On October 13,1983, the first call on a commercial cellular system was made in Chicago, and Cellular One service in the Washington, D.C. / Baltimore area began in 1984.

• WHICH COMPANY PRODUCED THE FIRST LAPTOP?

Designed in 1979 by William Moggridge of Britain for Grid Systems Corporation, the Grid Compass was one-fifth the weight of any model equivalent in performance and was used by NASA on the space shuttle programme in the early 1980s. A 340 kilobyte bubble memory laptop computer with die-cast magnesium case and folding electroluminescent graphics display screen, this is probably the first laptop ever produced.

• WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ELECTRICAL AND ELECTRONIC DEVICES?

The distinction between electrical and electronic components/ elements is two-fold. The former, like electric wires/ cables, resistors, etc. are passive i.e. they do not require a power supply for operation. Secondly, the output power of the signals applied to them can never exceed the input power i.e. there is no power amplification. Electronic components like valves, transistors; ICs, etc. are active components. They need their own power supply for operation and also, depending on the design, may or may not provide power amplification.

• WHY DON’T CDMA PHONE HAVE SIM CARDS?

CDMA phones have phone numbers programmed in the handset just as the operator programs numbers in SIM cards. The latest phones have both options. Since all CDMA phones are network locked, there is no necessity for the SIM card provision. As GSM phones are compatible with any operator, who provides the SIM card which enables connectivity to the network. This makes the phone independent of the operator.

• WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN LINUX AND UNIX?

Unix developed by Ken Thompson is a multi-user, multi-tasking operating system that could be used remotely and was portable. Dennis Ritchie and Thomson rewrote Unix in C programming language. Linux, developed by Linus Torvalds of Finland, is a variant of Unix. It has all the features of Unix in addition to a few more like incorporating graphical user interface environments. It is particularly strong in networking and internet-related features and works with a wide variety of hardware and peripherals, something Unix can’t due to its target area of application. The open source feature of Unix has been retained; anyone can access the Linux source code irrespective of its version.

• WHAT IS GREENSTONE DIGITAL LIBRARY SOFTWARE?

Greenstone is a software suite which can serve digital library collections and build new collections. It runs on Windows, UNIX and Mac OS X and provides a new way of organising information and publishing it an the internet or on CD-ROM. Greenstone is produced by the New Zealand Digital Library Project at the University of Waikato, and distributed in cooperation with Unesco and the Human Info NGO. It is a open source software. The New Zealand Digital Library website contains numerous example collections, all created with the Greenstone software.

• WHAT IS CLICK FRAUD WITH REGARD TO SEARCH ENGINES?

Click fraud is the practice of artificially inflating traffic statistics to defraud advertisers. In the pay-per-click system, advertisers pay a fee for each click on their link. By using automated clicking programs (called hitbots) or employing low-cost workers to click on links, the perpetrators create the illusion that a large number of potential customers are clicking the advertiser’s links, when in fact, there is no likelihood that any of the clicks will lead to profit the advertiser. Click fraud scammers often take advantage of the affiliate programs offered by some search engines.

• HOW DOES A GLOBAL POSITIONING SYSTEM WORK (GPS) WORK?

The basic principle of a GPS operation is that any point on Earth can be located if it is monitored from four different locations. For this, the GPS system uses 24 satellites in six different orbits at an altitude of 18,000 kms. So, at any time, any location is monitored by four different satellites. The GPS device sends its signal to the four satellites. These satellites have a database that contains information of all the locations on earth. These four satellites, in turn, send back the latitude, longitude and altitude of that particular location by referring to its database.

• WHAT IS FM?

FM stands for frequency modulation. Attaching it to a carrier wave in radio frequency transmits the sound signal. The frequency of the radio wave is varied or modulated suitably. When the modulated wave is received by a radio set, the radio wave is filtered to reproduce the audio signal. FM are less susceptible to noise compared to AM or amplitude modulation where the mixing is done by varying the amplitude. In TV signals, the sound is frequency modulated while the picture signal is amplitude modulated.

• WHAT IS FUZZY LOGIC?

Fuzzy logic is a process used in computer science to solve problems that involve ambiguous data such as the room temperature is too hot, too cold or just right. It uses multivalued logic to arrive at a more precise and weighted answer. In contrast, binary logic understands only two states: on or off, yes or no, one or zero.

• HOW DO INTERNET SEARCH ENGINES WORK?

Search engines use automated software programs know as spiders or bots to survey the web and build their databases. Web documents are retrieved by these programs and analyzed. Data collected from each web page are then added to the search engine index. When you enter a query at a search engine site, your input is checked against the search engine’s index of all web pages it has analyzed. The best uris are then returned to you as hits, ranked in order with the best results at the top.

• HOW DOES A GLOBAL POSITIONING SYSTEM WORK?

The GPS receiver is only a receiver, without any transmitting capability. The satellites does not contain any databases about the locations or anything. They contain highly precise atomic clocks which generates some code which it keeps transmitting to the earth. The GPS receiver gets that code from multiple satellites which are slightly time-shifted due to difference in the distances of satellites. Using this difference the receiver calculates the longitude and latitude.

• WHAT IS THE FULL FORM OF TFT IN COMPUTER AND MOBILE SCREENS?

Thin Film Transistor (TFT) is a type of LCD flat-panel display screen. It’s called so because each pixel is controlled by transistors. TFT technology provides the best resolution of all the flat-panel technologies, but it is also the most expensive. TFT displays are usually designed to run at a specific resolution.

• WHAT IS EDGE TECHNOLOGY IN MOBILE PHONES?

EDGE technology is a modulation technique for GSM networks. An Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution (EDGE) is used to increase network capacity and data rates in mobile networks. EDGE provides data rates up to 384 Kbps.

• WHO INVENTED THE QWERTY KEYBOARD?

WERTY keyboard (also known as universal keyboard) is used in modern computers. The name QWERTY comes from the first six letters in the top row. It was invented by C L Sholes in 1872.

• WHAT IS A HOLOGRAPHIC VERSATILE DISC?

A Holographic Versatile Disc is an advanced optical disc technology still in the research stage. It employs a technique known as collinear holography, whereby two lasers —one red and one blue-green are collimated in a single beam. These disks have the capacity to hold up to 3.9 terabytes (TB) of data. The HVD also has a transfer rate of 1 Gbit/s.

• WHAT IS A PICONET?

A piconet is a collection of devices connected via Bluetooth technology in an ad hoc fashion. A piconet starts with two connected devices, such as a portable PC and cellular phone, and may grow to eight connected devices. All Bluetooth devices are peer units and have identical implementations. However, when establishing a piconet, one unit will act as a master and the other as slave for the duration of the piconet connection.

• WHAT IS A MICROCHIP?

• WHAT IS AN E-R DIAGRAM?

The E-R diagram (entity-relation) is a diagrammatical representation of a data model based on a perception of the real world that consists of a collection of basic objects called entities and of relationships among these objects. It is widely used in database design. The E/R diagram was introduced by P P Chen. An entity is a tangible object that exists in the real world, about which some relevant information may be stored. The qualities of an entity which can be stored as information are called the attributes. For example, if teacher is an entity then the teacher’s ID, name, etc. are all its attributes. An association among several entities is called a relationship.

• WHAT IS A DEAD PIXEL?

• WHAT DOES VOXML STAND FOR?

The acronym VoxML stands for Voice extended Markup Language. It is a combination of IVR (Interactive Voice Response) technology that deals with digitizing of sound and the Internet technology. Using VoxML, it is possible to hear the contents of a website without using a computer– all you need is a phone.

• HOW BIG IS A VIRUS?

Viruses are called non-living molecules for two reasons; they are parasitic and show no signs of life till they enter a host. They are tiny creatures. The herpes virus measures 100 nanometers or 100 billionth of a meter. In comparison, bacteria are 10 to 100 times bigger than the viruses.

• WHAT IS THE ORIGIN OF THE WORD ALGORITHM?

A formula or a set of steps to carry out arithmetic manipulation is called an algorithm. All computer programmes are based on algorithms. The origin of this word is from the name of an Arabic mathematician — Al Khwpresmi. The actual word is ‘algorism. With the influence of the Greek word ‘arithmos’ which means mathematics, ‘algorism’ changed to ‘algorithm.

WHAT IS WYSIWYG?

WYSIWYG stands for ‘What You See is What You Get. This phrase was popularized with the advent of digital typesetting or desktop publishing with the help of the computer. Initially, the print enhancements such as bold type, italics etc. were not visible on the computer monitor but could be reproduced by the printer. The modern word processors display the text as it appears in print.

• HOW IS MUSIC STORED IN A CD?

Sound consists of waves whose intensity varies from zero to a fixed value in a continuous manner. The intensity is converted to an equivalent electrical signal. This signal is sampled at a very fast rate. The instantaneous value of the electrical signal is then digitized and stored in the Compact Disk using a computer-controlled device. A reverse process then reproduces the sound. The faster the sampling rate, the better is the quality of music.

• IS IT POSSIBLE TO HACK A STANDALONE COMPUTER?

It is common knowledge that a computer hooked to a network; a network of networks or the Internet is vulnerable to computer hackers. In other words, information stored in these computers is never safe. Prof Ross Andersen of Cambridge University has, however, illustrated that picking up the radio signals emitted by the video monitor can break into even a standalone computer.

• WHY DO ALL MOBILE NUMBER START WITH THE DIGIT 9.

According to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), local numbering allowed is in the range of 2-8. While 0 is used for STD access, 1 is used for special numbers. So, the only digit left is 9.

• HOW DOES A COMPUTER KEEP RECORD OF THE TIME EVEN WHEN IT IS SHUT DOWN?

Our computers are not run by a single operating system, but also the BIOS (basic input output system) which resides pernianently in the chips of the motherboard to which virtually every computer hardware is connected. The BIOS is kept powered by a button cell (1.5 V approximately) or any variant. The cell remains present on the board and helps the BIOS remember not only the time but other hardware settings as well; the GUI (graphical user interface) syncs with the BIOS time every the computer is booted up and hence shows the computer shows the correct time.

o        WHAT IS BLACK BOX TESTING?

Testing software based on output requirements and without any knowledge of the internal structure or coding in the program is known as black box testing. Black box testing, concrete box or functional testing is used in computer programming, software engineering and software testing to check that the outputs of a program, given certain inputs, conform to the functional specification of the program. A complementary technique, white box testing or structural testing, uses information about the structure of the program to check that it performs correctly.

• WHAT IS MEANT BY INTERNET SURFING?

When you want some information on a subject from your internet connection, you will have the choice to use many search engines and many websites. You open them one by one and gather information on the subject that is of special interest to you. This is referred to as surfing.

• WHAT IS JAVA?

Java is claimed to be the universal computer language that will be used to operate all devices, including those used in households, like toasters, ovens, irons and geysers. The word ‘Java’ represents coffee, which is exported from the Asian country to the US.

• WHAT IS HTTP?

HTTP stands for ‘Hypertext Transfer Protocol’. It is a protocol that governs the pages designed in HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) that allows a user to access information stored in many computers independent of their geographical location. HTTP has revolutionized the field of information technology and is the backbone of the Internet or the information superhighway.WHO COINED THE TERM ‘WORLD WIDE WEB’? WWW or the World Wide Web, a synonym for the information superhighway or the Internet, was, surprisingly, coined by a group of nuclear physicists working at the European Centre for Nuclear Research in Geneva.

o        WHAT ARE SUPRA-GLACIAL LAKES AND WHERE CAN WE FIND THEM?

Supra-glacial lakes are those found on the ice surface of glaciers early in the melt season. They are found on the surfaces of temperate glaciers.

• HOW DOES CYBERSQUATTING WORK?

Under a 1999 US federal law known as the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, cybersquatting means registering, trafficking in, or using a domain name with bad-faith intent to profit from the goodwill of a trademark belonging to someone else. It refers to the practice of  buying up domain names reflecting the names of existing businesses, intending to sell the names for a profit back to the businesses when they go to put up their websites.

o        HOW DOES A JERK-O-METER WORK?

It is a speech and tone recognition pattern that helps rate how engaged a person is in a conversation. It is rated on a 1 to 100 scale. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) are developing software for cell phones that analyses speech patterns and voice tones to do this. It is seen as an important tool for improving relationships and has a lot of potential in telemarketing.

o        WHAT IS NEALE’S BALL TOKEN INSTRUMENT?

Designed by Neale, an engineer with the GIP Railway (presently Central Railway), it is an electro-mechanical instrument provided at each station on single line railway ections. It ensures safety in train operations by dispensing tokens which are handed over to train drivers as authority to enter a block section. The tokens are spherical steel balls, which are issued in such a manner that only one token can be issued for one direction at a time after ensuring that previous train has already cleared the section and there is no other train between the stations. Each station has one such instrument for each direction, which are electrically connected to similar instruments provided at the adjoining stations on either side. This ensures that only one train can enter the block sections at a time.

• WHO INVENTED THE T9 DICTIONARY USED IN MOBILE PHONES?

The inventors of the predictive T9 dictionary used in cellphones are Svensson Henrik Brun (Denmark) and Williams Stephen (Finland). This predictive text input method helps in efficient typing of SMS messages. It improves on the common multi-tap method since fewer total button taps are needed. It’s achieved by using a small, quick-access dictionary to automatically display the word most often desired for a sequence of keystrokes.

• WHAT IS A CRYSTAL RADIO?

A crystal radio is the basic form of a radio, which can detect radio signals without a power supply. It has very few parts and it can be built in a short time with commonly available items. It works best if there is a transmitter within 40 km of the set. Simple crystal radios are often made with a few handmade parts like an antenna wire, tuning coil of copper wire, crystal detector and earphones. A crystal radio receives programmes broadcast from radio stations which convert sound into radio waves and send out the signals everywhere. The crystal radio antenna, a very long wire, picks up the signals and passes them through the set as an electronic current. It uses a crystal detector to convert this radio wave electricity to sound electricity. The detector can be made from a special rock of galena in a holder. It uses earphones to convert the sound electricity to the sound you can hear.

• WHATS THE WORLD’S FIRST SOFTWARE?

Ada Lovelace wrote a rudimentary programme for the analytical machine designed by Charles Babbage in 1827, but the machine never became operational, hi 1949, the language short code appeared. It was the first computer language for electronic devices and required the programmer to change its statements into Os and Is by hand.

• HOW IS A SATELLITE PHONE DIFFERENT FROM A CELLULAR PHONE?

Satellite and cellular phones are wireless devices. They almost look alike but the way they work is totally different. A cellular phone functions on the basis of cells, and hence is called cell phones. The whole network area is divided into small areas and an antenna is installed in each area. These are also called towers. When a cellular phone is moving, it enters from one cell to another. When it crosses the border of one cell, the phone sends a signal to the MTSO (Mobile Telephone Switching Office). With the help of control channel the database of the MTSO relocates the phone in a new cell or area. Satellite phones use Low Earth Orbiting (LEO) satellites. When a satellite phone is turned on, a signal goes up to any number of satellites of a group the phone is registered with. When a person makes a call from the handset, a signal goes to the nearest orbiting satellite. The satellite connects to the gateway or ground station. Then the gateway takes the call to the destination.

• WHAT IS THE 3RD SPACE VEST?

These vests help users endure virtual blows, literally An American surgeon has invented a vest that lets computer game users feel physical attacks like shots, stabs, etc. while playing games. The vest uses air pressure and feedback from the computer to simulate thumps on those regions of a person’s torso, which would have been hit if the person were actually fighting in a battle. It’s designed by Mark Ombrellaro and was originally intended for medical purposes.

• WHY IS THE SYMBOL @ USED IN E-MAIL ADDRESSES?

An e-mail address identifies a location to which e-mail messages can be delivered. The first electronic mail delivery engaging two machines was done in 1971 by Ray Tomlinson, a programmer at Bolt, Beranek and Newman, an engineering company in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He needed a way to separate, in the e-mail address, the name of the user from the machine the user was on. He wanted a character that would not, under any conceivable circumstances, be found in the user’s name. He looked down at the keyboard and chose the @ sign among various punctuation marks available on his Model 33 teletype keyboard. He had no idea that he was creating an icon for the wired world. Today, e-mail is the most used application on the internet. Each e-mail account has a unique address. A general format for an e-mail address is: username@computer_name. The part before the @ sign is the local part of the address, the user name of the recipient, and the part after the @ sign is the domain part which is a host computer name.

• WHAT IS INTERPLANETARY INTERET?

If the internet allowed users to get. Information from any corner of the world, then the interplanetary internet will allow users to access information and even control experiments taking place far away from Earth. Vinton Cerf, considered the founding father of the internet and a co-creator of the interplanetary internet, is currently working on standards to guide internet communications in the space era.

• WHAT IS CYBERSLACKING?

It’s a slang term used to describe employees who surf the net, write e-mail or indulge in other inter’ net-related activities at work that are not related to their jobs. These activities are performed during periods of time when they are being paid by their employer. The individual is called a cyberlacker, while the act is cyberslacking,. It’s. also called as cyberloafing.

• WHAT IS CRYOPTOGRAPHY?

It is the practice of enciphering and deciphering messages in secret code in order to render them unintelligible to all but the intended receiver It may also refer to the art of cryptanalysis, through which cryptographic codes are broken. Collectively, the science of secure and secret communication, involving both cryptography and cryptanalysis, is known as cryptology. Today, the principles of cryptography are applied to encryption of fax, TV and computer network communications. The secure exchange of computer data is of great importance to banking, government and commercial communication.

• WHAT IS A ‘VOCAL JOYSTICK’?

The ‘Vocal Joystick’ has been developed by researchers at the University of Washington. It is a computer software which allows the disabled, who can use their voice but not their hands or arms, to control a cursor using sounds. This joy stick detects sounds 100 times a second and converts it into movement on screen.

• WHAT IS AN ELECTRONIC SPIDER?

An electronic spider, also called a web crawler or a web robot, is a programme that can visit the pages, on the world wide web in a methodical automatic manner. They are most commonly employed by search engines for browsing the web and copying new pages so that the indexes of the engine are updated periodically The spiders are also used by some sites for maintaining their pages, to ensure that the hyperlmks are updated and the HTML code is valid. They are also said to be used by spam creators for capturing e-mail addresses contained in web pages.

• WHAT IS WEB 2.0?

— The internet as we know it has been around for over 10 years now. It has principally been used for searching, browsing and reading static information. Now, it is evolving into something quite different. We are now in what is called the Web 2.0 era, where the internet is more about interactivity. The concept began with a brainstorming session between O’Reilly and MediaLive International in 2004. Web 2.0 can be defined as a set of technologies which enable collaboration and sharing between internet users. The tools of Web 2.0 are web pages, web-based communities or hosted services such as social-networking sites, online encylopaedias like Wikipedia, blogs and podcasts, etc.

• WHY IS JUNK MAIL CALLED SPAM?

One possible origin is Monty Python’s famous song Spam-loving Vikings sketch which goes ‘spam spam spam spam spam spam lovely spam, wonderful spam…’ As spam is repeated several times till one tires of hearing it, it’s chosen to refer to worthless and repetitive e-mail. Also, canned luncheon meat called spam, made by Hormel, is disliked in America and most Americans consider it nutritionally worthless to be set aside at the first opportunity. A computer group at a university was supposed to have described unsolicited junk mail as spam, as it shares many properties with this meat.

• WHAT IS A ‘NANO-FACTORY’?

Researchers in Japan have invented a tiny brain which can act as a remote control for swarms of nano-machines. They simultated eight such nano-machines to create a ‘nano factory’. According to experts; nano-machines could also be used to boost the processing power of future computers. They also have high hopes for nano-machines in treating diseases. The machine is made from 17 molecules of the chemical duroquinone. Each one is known as a ‘logic device’.

• WHAT IS CYBERSQUATTING?

Cybersquatting is registering a website in the names of popular brands. The word squatting in this context means unauthorised occupation of someone else’s property In the internet domain, techsavvy entrepreneurs register websites in the names of popular brands, whose owners do not have websites of their own. This can lead to misrepresentation in the internet media about the products or services the brand sells in the market. The brand owners naturally would like to buy the domain either to give authentic information about products and services or to stem the ill-effects of such misrepresented sites. The person who first registered the brand name sells the site and makes a profit. The ethical and legal aspects of such practice are ambiguous as the intention of the original owner of the site can either be genuine or fraudulent.

• WHAT IS MYSQL?

MySQL (pronounced’my-ess-cueel’) is an open source, true multiuser, multi-threaded relational database management system (RDBMS), that uses Structured Query Language (SQL). MySQL was developed by two Swedes and a Finn — David Axmark, Allan Larsson and Michael Widenius. It was written in C, C++, and was first released in 1995. Currently, MySQL has more than 11 million installations. MySQL is fast and flexible enough to allow storing logs and pictures in it. Its main goals are speed, robustness, and ease of use. MySQL is open source, 100% GPL (General Public License) database. This provides a great opportunity for the open source cornmunity and for those who are developing open source software.

• WHAT IS SONET WITH REFERENCE TO AN OPTICAL NETWORK?

Sonet (Synchronous Optical Network) is a high-speed, physical layer network designed to carry large volumes of traffic over relatively long distances on fiber optic cabling using lasers or lightemitting diodes (LEDs). It provides a standard interface for communications carriers to connect networks based on fiber optic cable to handle multiple data types (voice, video, and so on). Sonet defines a technology for carrying many signals of different capacities through a synchronous, flexible, optical hierarchy This is accomplished by means of a byteinterleaved multiplexing scheme. Byte-interleaving simplifies multiplexing and offers end-to-end network management. Sonet was proposed by Bellcore in the mid-’80s arid now an ANSI standard. It is a successor to other wellknown communication technology implemented on fiber optics network called PDH (Plesiochronous Digital Hierarchy). It possesses several characteristics that make it good for the internet today: It defines clear interoperability standards between different vendors’ products. It can carry nearly any higher-level protocol (including IP), and includes built-in support for ease of management and maintenance. Sonet has emerged as a powerful protocol which is extensively used for large and high performance networks.

• WHAT IS A SEMAPHORE?

A semaphore (pronounced as sehm uh fawr, invented by Edsger Dijkstra) in computer science is a classic way of protecting shared resources to multi-programming environments like Unix systems, semaphores are a technique for coordinating or synchronising activities in which multiple processes compete for the same operating system resources. A process needing the resource checks the semaphore to determine the resource’s status and then decides how to proceed. Depending on the value found, the process can use the resource or will find that it is already in use and must wait for some time before trying again, thus avoiding deadlocks.

• HOW DOES A LASER MOUSE WORK?

A laser mouse is a type of optical mouse. It uses a laser beam which is invisible, or nearly invisible, to the human eye. The beam emitted by the laser mouse moves with the user’s hand, triggering an optical sensor system. It works in tandem with a system which tracks how far the mouse has moved by bouncing hundreds of images every second, constantly updating the position of the mouse and the subsequent position of the cursor on the screen.

• WHO INVENTED THE PEN DRIVE?

A pen drive is another term for USB (Universal Serial Bus) flash drive and is basically a data storage device. The pen drive was invented in 1998 by IBM, with the intention of replacing the floppy drive in its ThinkPad line of products. The first flash drive was manufactured by M-systems under contract with IBM and was called the disgo. The disgo came in various sizes: 8 MB, 16 MB, 32 MB and 64 MB. Following the launch of disgo, a number of pen drives of different sizes, types and brands came into the market. Today pen drives are used in a range of devices such as mobile phones, video-game consoles and digital music players.

• WHAT IS THE BEER GOOGLE EFFECT?

The Beer Google effect refers to the tendency to google information on someone we meet for the first time. This generally happens when one consumes alcohol, and under its influence, he looks up the person on the internet. For example, I met Geeta at ABC bar for the first time and she tells me that she works for XYZ Inc. Immediately on returning home, I beer-google her using the search string ‘Geeta XYZ Inc’.

• WHICH IS THE EARLIEST SOCIAL NETWORKING SITE?

The earliest social networking site was classmates.com which was established in 1995. It introduced the concept of user profiles and of short messages sent and received by friends on the website. The basic purpose was to keep in touch with old friends. Sixdegrees.com which came in 1997 is considered to be the first social networking website to have all features in one complete package.

• WHAT ARE APPLETS?

An applet is a little application. Prior to the World Wide Web, the built-in writing and drawing programmes that came with Windows were sometimes called applets. On the Web, using Java language, an applet is a small programme that can be sent along with a Web page to a user. Java applets can perform interactive animations, immediate calculations, or other simple tasks without having to send a user request back to the server.

• WHAT DOES BLOATWARE REFER TO?

Bloatware, also called junkware, adware and demoware, refers to pre-installed software and trial software that come with Windows computers. While it’s a ploy to get consumers to buy the software, most users regard it as junk and get confused by various icons or toolbars that pop up on their computers. Bloatware can also clog up the system and slow it down.

• WHAT IS THE TIME PREFERENCE THEORY OF INTEREST?

The Time Preference Theory of Interest is also known as The Agio Theory of Interest. It was presented by Bohm Bawerk, who said that interest is an agio (reward) or (premium) for time preference. People prefer present income, present consumption and present satisfaction of wants, which means that people are impatient to spend. To induce them to postpone their consumption, they are to be compensated by paying interest. People prefer present to the future because future is uncertain and wants of today cannot be satisfied tomorrow. Irving Fisher improved upon this, stating, “The rate of time preference measures the rate of interest.” The higher the time preference, the higher the impatience to spend, and hence, the higher the rate of interest; the lower the time preference, the lower the rate of interest. According to Fisher, people with low level of income, uncertain about their future and are spendthrifts will demand high rate of interest whereas their opposites will demand low amount of interest.

• WHY IS BLU-RAY DISC BLACK ON TOP?

The Blu-ray disc uses a blue technically violet) laser operating at a wavelength of 405 nanometre (nm) to read and write data. Conventional DVDs and CDs use red and near infrared lasers, at 650 nm and 780 nm respectively. Because the Blu-ray disc data layer is closer to the surface of the disc, compared to the DVD standard, it was at first more vulnerable to scratches. The first discs were housed in cartridges for protection. Now, the rewritable media are spin-coated with a scratch resistant and antistatic coating, which gives the surface of the disc its black colour.

• WHAT IS A GOOGLE BOMB?

A google bomb is an effort to inflate a website’s search ranking for a particular term. Google gives importance to pages linking to a particular page for ranking purposes. In case of Google bombing, pranksters use a phrase to link to a particular page from their sites multiple times, to push that page to the top of search results.

• WHAT IS GRID COMPUTING?

Grid computing is a parallel processing architecture in which CPU resources are shared across a network, and all machines function as one large supercomputer. A wellknown example is the ongoing Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence in which thousands of people share the unused processor cycles of their PCs in the vast search for signs of rational signals from outer space.

• WHAT IS BLUEJACKING?

Bluetooth is a radio wireless technology that allows computers, cell phones, laptops, etc. to talk to each other in a limited range. Bluejacking is the term based on two words — bluetooth and hijack. It refers to sending unnecessary and anonymous messages by using bluetooth enabled devices as a contact.

• WHAT DOES PHARMING REFER TO?

Pharming involves rerouting the traffic of a particular website to a bogus one. This is done by exploiting the weaknesses of the site’s Domain Name System server. Pharming poses major concerns to corporates and e-commerce sites.

• HOW MUCH DATA DOES THE INTERNET CONTAIN?

Estimating the data the Internet contains is complicated but there are a few estimates. According to one, the quantity is approximately equal to 500 crore pages. Another assesses the total amount of digital data in the world by 2010 would amount to 12 piles of pages, each of which would be twice as long as the distance between the Sun and Pluto.

• WHAT IS VIRAL MAIL?

A viral email is an online chain letter, which is sent from person to person, almost like ancient talking drums. The term ‘viral’ comes from virus, meaning pass-along. Viral mails are generally humourous in nature, which a person can forward to friends or they can be used to spread a socially important message that can reach across the world rapidly These mails are also used for commercial purposes — called viral marketing or advertising.

• WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A COMPUTER SCREEN AND A GAMING CONSOLE?

The primary device for the PC is a keyboard and mouse, while all console systems come with game pads used to control movement within the game. Technically, a computer game can be thought of as one composed of a computer-controlled virtual universe. A video game is a computer game where a video display is the primary feedback, which is displayed on a television screen.

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