Techipedia

What problem does RSS solve?

Most people are interested in many websites whose content changes on an unpredictable schedule. Examples of such websites are news sites, community and religious organization information pages, product information pages, medical websites, and weblogs. Repeatedly checking each website to see if there is any new content can be very tedious.

Email notification of changes was an early solution to this problem. Unfortunately, when you receive email notifications from multiple websites they are usually disorganized and can get overwhelming, and are often mistaken for spam.

RSS is a better way to be notified of new and changed content. Notifications of changes to multiple websites are handled easily, and the results are presented to you well organized and distinct from email.

RSS works by having the website author maintain a list of notifications on their website in a standard way. This list of notifications is called an "RSS Feed". People who are interested in finding out the latest headlines or changes can check this list. Special computer programs called "RSS aggregators" have been developed that automatically access the RSS feeds of websites you care about on your behalf and organize the results for you. (RSS feeds and aggregators are also sometimes called "RSS Channels" and "RSS Readers".)

Producing an RSS feed is very simple and hundreds of thousands of websites now provide this feature, including major news organizations like the New York Times, the BBC, and Reuters, as well as many weblogs.

It is simple. Just login into google.com/reader and login through your Google account. All your subscribed RSS feeds would have lined up.

A torrent is a file sent via the BitTorrent protocol. It can be just about any type of file, such as a movie, song, game, or application. During the transmission, the file is incomplete and therefore is referred to as a torrent. Torrent downloads that have been paused or stopped cannot be opened as regular files, since they do not contain all the necessary data. However, they can often be resumed using a BitTorrent client, as long as the file is available from another server.

Torrents are different from regular downloads in that they are usually downloaded from more than one server at a time. The BitTorrent protocol uses multiple computers to transfer a single file, thereby reducing the bandwidth required by each server. When a torrent download is started, the BitTorrent system locates multiple computers with the file and downloads different parts of the file from each computer. Likewise, when sending a torrent, the server may send the file to multiple computers before it reaches the recipient. The result is a lower average bandwidth usage, which speeds up file transfers.

Did you ever think to question the Playstation’s combination of square, circle, triangle and X? Here's the answer.

From the Nintendo era onward, the vast majority of video game controllers have named their face buttons after letters in the alphabet — almost always picking from A, B, C, X, Y and Z — with the exception of the Sony Playstation and its progeny.

I never thought to question the Playstation’s combination of square, circle, triangle and X, but the folks at Famitsu magazine did. 1UP relays the magazine’s conversation with Sony designer Teiyu Goto:

We wanted something simple to remember, which is why we went with icons or symbols … I gave each symbol a meaning and a color. The triangle refers to viewpoint; I had it represent one’s head or direction and made it green. Square refers to a piece of paper; I had it represent menus or documents and made it pink. The circle and X represent ‘yes’ or ‘no’ decision-making and I made them red and blue respectively.

(As Kotaku points out, circle’s representation of “yes” is prevalent in Japanese culture, but not in America. Stateside, X is the common decision-making button, because we tend to think of a controller’s bottom button as the main one.)

Anyway, this got me thinking of whether the particulars of button nomenclature really matter. I guess we won’t know for sure until someone tests memorization time for several controllers among a large pool of newcomers. Personally, I’ve committed all controller layouts to memory, but I can’t say the Xbox 360 took more or less time than the Playstation 3. In the heat of an intense gaming moment, I’m more likely to rely on rote memorization than the implied meaning of symbols. (I will say Playstation’s placement of a triangle button on top is rather intuitive, because it looks like an up arrow. Maybe the best button names resemble their orientation.)

Function aside, Playstation’s buttons have arguably been most useful as marketing. The four symbols, when used together, are instantly associated with the Playstation brand. You can’t say that about A, B and C.

 Hygroelectricity, or humid electricity could be the next big power source. We’re already making great progress in pulling electricity from the motion of the air & from the photons that stream through it, but what about pulling electric charges right out of the air itself?

With 3G technology doing miracles in every corner of the world, advent and evolution of 3G technology is very much welcomed. Third generation technology has influenced electronic equipments to get onto their feet. 3G technology is widespread all over the world today. After achieving enormous success in 3G, various firms across the globe thought that 3G can be used to keep track of environment related issues, by practically get involved in it.

How did they get involved? Well, that is history. But the outcome of it is what the world wants. Now, 3G equipped Drones to monitor water usage by amalgamating UAV's (Unmanned Automated Vehicles) with 3G wireless water meters.

One company which is making great advancement towards this project is Arad Technologies.The battery-operated hand-launched drone can cover a large area in far less time than manual meter readers, then once its battery runs low it returns to earth using a parachute. Winter sees possibilities for the drones beyond meter reading, including traffic signal monitoring, and downloading data from security cameras.

Amazing thinking and amazing invention. Isn't it??

Comments welcome!!