Taser International Corporation announced that they have teamed up with iRobot Corporation to produce a new generation of robots that will be capable of delivering a shock charge to people. As it is already visible, the robot can be used in sentry operations. May be these will be the new generation of robots carrying a weapon, non lethal for the time being, but seems that the fictions are going to come true.

In preliminary discussions it has been revealed that this prototype will be sold to police or military and will be used in situations where use of lethal weapons is not possible. In cases of demobilizing a suspect in everyday police operations or while pinning down a terrorist in military activities this prototype can be proved very useful.

For the time being this robot will require a human interfere in its operation. Before it tries to subdue a victim it needs a human instruction. But with the advancement of AI it is inevitable that sooner or later the software used will be smart enough to decide go along without fleshy interference. When this robot will be off the assembly line is yet to be decided. The first place of its deployment is also not confirmed. But its operations are confirmed and critics all over the World are worried about a probability of science fictions coming true. Can you sniff a Terminator 3: rise of machines story readers?

Source: Slipperybrick

We are losing our family life, and children are the worst sufferer. A recent survey has proved it and has created great anxiety among parents all over the world. The report revealed that children who spend too much of their times watching television or surfing Internet are greedy and unhappy.

The report also says:

These children argue more with their families; have a lower opinion of their parents, and lower self-esteem than other children.

The problem starts as early as among the students of the primary schools but remain suppressed till they enter their teenage. When the symptoms get prominent, the entire war has been lost. UK has been flooded by terrific teenage drug addiction, drinking, and under age sex problems. Before the matter goes out of control, it is high time we find out the deep rooted cause behind this problem.

The main reason is parental negligence. The lifestyle of parents has changed a lot during the years and that has seriously affected the time they share with their family. But the fundamental needs of children have not changed during these years. They still require food, shelter, and sleep. But moreover, they need an adult supervision to grow up. They need to know that there is someone caring for them while they grow up. But here we leave everything to the machines, like electronic baby sitter and in a later stage we depend on the kindergartens to help the kids grow up. But as they grow up, they need more attention and company of their parents, but parents need to rush through their daily life for earning more and more comforts for their families. And, they’re able to achieve it also, but at what cost?

This parental carelessness is the prime cause of increasing child depression. But at the same time they also have no option but to rush at break neck speed. They are also confined in some new age troubles like inflation rate, high mortgages, lower quality of living, and long working hours. To survive in this corporate world, they need to follow exactly the same regime everyday, resulting to their isolation from their own family. It is observed in nuclear families today that all members live under same roof, but they are very much isolated by heart. The emotional bond that keeps a family together is vanishing rapidly. Children spend their entire day mostly gazing on TV, or playing games at game station. This is certainly not what we call a life.

Sociologists all over the world have expressed deep concerns over this matter. But the solution is quite complex. We just cannot drop our lifestyle all of a sudden. At the same time, if this tendency prevails, then there will be a time when there will be no family at all. Children are having a tuff time these days in a social scenario like this and we need to take care of them. Otherwise the next generation will not be intelligent and bright enough to go forward and bring glory to our country.

Source: Dailymail

Ants are simple beings, but when foraging they present complex structures which inspire interesting solutions in this field (Soft Computing)

Marco Dorigo
This is the main reason why Marco Dorigo has devoted his life towards the research work into ‘Ant Colony Optimization and Ant Algorithms‘ since last fifteen years. His work with robots imitating ant activities he has received a prestigious Marie Curie excellence award.

There are some works that can not be done individually, but with combination of several people, the job becomes quite easier. Ants exhibit a brilliant social structure in terms of foraging. The following figure depicts their behaviour in finding shortest route between food source and their nest. The following is the snapshot of a ground breaking experiment, named ‘Double Bridge Experiment‘ to cultivate the bio inspired behaviour of ants. This demonstrates how they find the right track by tracing pheromone trail density.

Part of the research works of Dorigo is being exploited in the project swarm-bots, where he himself is the coordinator of the entire project. The main idea behind this project is to show that robots can mimic some activities performed by social insects, like ants. These robots are capable of doing jobs by linking up in various ways that a single robot can not perform. Their usefulness and simplicity through hardware and software implementation are their most promising features.
These robots can be used in disaster management or in space environments, where using human being becomes too risky an operation. In his own lab IRIDIA Marco Dorigo is focusing on swarm intelligence research that involves the highly complicated swarm behaviour in the colony of social insects.

Source: ICT

Recently in another movement in England, Borders bookstores across the country have decided to remove the novel from children section and will place it in the adult graphic novel section keeping in view the racial context of the novel. The Commission for Racial Equality said that it is unethical and unacceptable for any bookstore to stock or sell this particular novel due to its content. While sighting an example a spoke person mentioned the incident when in the novel Tintin Is made chief of an African village because he is a ‘good white man’ and a black woman bowing to Tintin saying: “White man very great ... white mister is big juju man!” In today’s context these terms are considered vulgar and extremely racial with colonial touch. She found saying

This book contains imagery and words of hideous racial prejudice, where the ’savage natives’ look like monkeys and talk like imbeciles... How and why do Borders think that it’s OK to peddle such racist material? This is potentially highly offensive to a great number of people

Not only racism, this novel is also accused of portraying vulgarity towards animals. The allegation is accepted, if we consider it in today’s point of view. But back in 1930, the situation was somehow different. Harge has later claimed that he was just depicting the social structure of that time. When the novel was re drawn in 1946, Herge made sure to remove traces that highlighted the fact that Congo was ever a Belgian colony. However, this never satisfied the critics. Today they feel that the novel should be placed in a museum with a sign accompanying it saying ‘Old fashioned, racist claptrap’.

The entire controversy started with a petition filed by David Enright, a solicitor. while shopping with his African wife and two sons he came across the novel in the children section and was stunned that this kind of novel can be accepted in that particular section. Later he told

I was aghast to see page after page of representations of black African people as baboons or monkeys, bowing before a white teenager and speaking like retarded children

After his petition, the Commission for Racial Equality issued an instruction to the Borders chain of shops to remove the book from their list. Borders later has removed the book from the child section and put it in the adult graphics section. A spoke person said they really do not believe in removal f the book. They want to make the customers have the final say. So they have removed it from the children section, but have not withdrawn it from the store.

While racism is a burning issue today, it is not legal and human to use racist comments these days. But back in 1930 the situation was definitely different. If a novel depicts the scenario of that time, be it in a humorous mood, will it be ethical to call it racist and ask for its withdrawal? The publishers have already issued an illustration with the first publication of the colour print of the book explaining the attitude of the society back in 1930. Still if there is a controversy, it is better to leave the entire matter to the readers rather than putting pressure in certain shops to withdraw the books from the store. Let the people decide what they want.

Source: The Guardian

So performing consistently is the key of survival in this million dollar industry. The performance is rated by being hit and flop of a movie, and thus we decide the fate of the actors associated with it. People, especially the media is ready to criticize even a single flop from an actor, which influence the huge mass, and their feelings about the person. We have seen many lost heroes, all of whom were definitely not poor actors. Now it is Ajay Devgan whose head in the guillotine.

After a series of flops, Ajay Devgan is being taunted as not so dependable in the industry by a section of the gossip mills. But they are not to be blamed. The distributors themselves are backing off from taking his movies for distribution. The back to back debacles in the name of Cash and Ram Gopal Verma ki Aag have shaken his grounds severely. The first movie that has suffered is Halla Bol, whose presenter and distributor Studio 18 have already left the project. Quite pathetic, but it is true that even a genius performer like Devgan also had to suffer these things in the industry.

Ajay Devgan has been a classic actor in almost all his roles. In a later stage of his career he was fully shown and in films like Gangaajal and Omkara he actually has given an outstanding performance. This is really unfortunate for the Indian showbiz industry to put his project in turmoil, but we are quite confident that with a single hit, he will once again come back in his full form and restore his position in the industry. Actors like him are rare in any country, and they should be treasured, not demolished by constant negligence.

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Thanks to the regular live telecasts of the parliament sessions in television, people are being more and more concerned about what is happening behind their back. The same person selected from their territory gets himself involved in various eerie activities and unfortunately they seem to have no interest in doing the jobs they are appointed for. Work culture is missing from every single part of Indian life. Indian parliament and the dignified MPs are the worst example of the statement.

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I’m not making a sequel to ‘Heyy Babyy’. When I saw the announcement on television, I said okay this is what I am doing... I want to make an actioner next. I’ve lived with this idea for very long. In fact, this is the film I wanted to make first. But then the ‘Heyy Babyy’ idea came up. I’ve been writing sequences for it in my head. And now I’ve to make it

So it is action time now Sajid? This fellow is an extremely popular television anchor and his recent film shows he has quite good idea about movie direction stuff. His directorial debut Hey Babby was a different kind of experiment. But the final thing is the audience liked the new concept. So when he is up to an action packed movie, we can of course hope that he will have some special stints in his action movie as well. Being involved in entertainment industry for quite a long time he has very clear ideas about the mood of the audience, and has the ability to predict the upcoming mood swing as well. So he knows if he gets stuck in a particular genre, it will be very difficult for him to move out. May be this is the reason why he is thinking of changing gear just after his directorial debut. He has chosen the most accepted genre of all times. Action movies seldom fail, unless they are made without any comprehensive story. Sajid is intelligent person, doesn’t look like he will make the stupid mistake in his movie. So audience, get ready, upcoming is an action packed entertainer to theaters near you, from the person who created myth in small screen, Sajid Khan.

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My head would spin if I chose to dance round and round trees

He is different, so comes obviously straightforward answers, without caring much about diplomacy and even his image. He knows his limits. He is not a mainstream actor. In commercial films he has a higher probability of messing it up. But for any period movie, when a special care is required to portray a character or in experimental roles like in ‘The Namesake’ he is simply the best.

September 7th has seen release of his latest film ‘Apna Asmaan’. Knowing his nature, it is undoubted he has a long way to go through the glory of success. Our best wishes with him.

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This is something I have never done before. I am absolutely thrilled at being tested in this form of creativity which is to me really satisfying as an actor

There were rumors, much before the movie’s release. It was being hailed that Amitabh Bachchan had always have some kind of inclination to play the character of Gabbar Singh himself. Ram Gopal Varma ki Aag was nothing but a tribute of the director not to the original classic, but to Big B himself.

If Bollywood equations are considered, Ramu needs the entire Bachchan family in his Sarkar sequel. At this point, he could not have afforded irritation from the Bachchan family. Amitabh went die hard for Gabbar Singh, where as Sarkar is the dream project of Ramu’s. At the same time, he had the unique scope to try his hands on the all time super hit movie on Indian soil. He played a gamble, and as expected by the millions of fans of the original epic, Aag fumbled terribly. Aag has fumbled, but Ramu has achieved his target. In recent interviews Amitabh is saying openly about his liaison with Ramu will continue, and in this current interview he appeared quite happy about his role in Aag. Who cares if the movie is flop? He is happy with his role as an actor. It seems a long term relationship between Ramu and Bachchan family is on its way.

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Indeed it is a golden opportunity for Celina to work in this project. She is quite a reputed brand name in Indian market. Now it is time for her to go for the International screen. Her career in Bollywood was exciting and always appreciated by the audience. She has shown enough passion to her works and dedication to earn respect from the competent directors from India and abroad.

However as a relief to her fans in India, she is not saying goodbye to Bollywood. Her aim is to work simultaneously in Indian and foreign projects.

She adds;

Bollywood will always remain a priority for me. I have taken a conscious decision to do two good Bollywood films and one international film every year. I will be very selective about the kind of films; I want to be associated with. I will focus on quality; it’s every actors dream to be taken seriously as an actor.

She is talented but in this current Bollywood scenario is facing problems to find her place back in the industry. She has been struggling to have regular roles in here. So this could be a smart move for her to get her place back. Remember Shilpa Shetty comeback incident? When she won Big Brother, just before that she was completely neglected in Indian cinema and was about to go for extinction. But she came back brilliantly with Big Brother thing. Celina still did not face that much negligence by this moment, but if she gets ground at her feet in foreign audience, she will surely come back strongly in Indian market also. Our best wishes with you Celina.

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