why smart grid?

The title makes a presumption that the reader is already aware of what a smart grid is. But I will take a couple of paragraphs to explain just what it is, why was it conceived and how it will help the world at large, if at all.

The term 'smart grid' was introduced in 2005 and like the elephant story, it means different things to different people. And that has also been the main source of confusion for its acceptance. I met a senior expert in the field last week and he said they have been doing the automation related work for decades now. No one noticed it till the catch-phrase 'smart grid' was introduced. But it is not that grids have been non-existent or even dumb before that time. So we will see what is so smart about it and what makes it different from earlier grids. But let us understand first what a grid really is. Let us trace the journey of power as it generated in a power plant till it reaches you for use. Power plants can be of many types, thermal, coal, hydro- or nuclear. Be that as it may, the generated power from the power plant is fed through power transformers. From the power transformers, it is received by the transmission substation. The journey of transmission grid terminates here. From here, the power is fed into the distribution substation. From the distribution substation, the power is transmitted to distribution transformers and to residences or commercial or industrial outfits.

Transmission lines mostly use three phase alternating current (AC), although single phase AC is sometimes used in railway electrification systems. High-voltage direct current (HVDC) technology is used only for very long distances (typically greater than 400 miles, or 600 km); submarine power cables (typically longer than 30 miles, or 50 km); or for connecting two AC networks that are not synchronized.

Electricity is transmitted at high voltages to reduce the energy lost in long distance transmission. Power is usually transmitted through overhead power lines. Underground power transmission has a significantly higher cost and greater operational limitations but is sometimes used in urban areas or sensitive locations. Power transformers are up transformers and transform the voltage from typically 12KV to 380KV. Through distribution substations this is down transformed to 220KV to 110KV, 25KV, to 20 KV and eventually to 230V that most of us use.

A key limitation in the distribution of electricity is that, with minor exceptions, electrical energy cannot be stored, and therefore it must be generated as it is needed. A sophisticated system of control is therefore required to ensure electric generation very closely matches the demand. If supply and demand are not in balance, generation plants and transmission equipment can shut down which, in the worst cases, can lead to a major regional blackout, something we are used to in India. To reduce the risk of such failures, electric transmission networks are interconnected into regional, national or continental wide networks thereby providing multiple redundant alternate routes for power to flow should (weather or equipment) failures occur. Much analysis is done by transmission companies to determine the maximum reliable capacity of each line which is mostly less than its physical or thermal limit, to ensure spare capacity is available should there be any such failure in another part of the network.

Energy demand is expected to grow by 55% by 2030. CO2 emissions grow faster than energy demand. An inefficient energy chain with 2/3rd of primary energy lost mostly due to power conversion. Between 7 and 15% of the electricity generated is lost on all networks.

Four major power regions of the country namely, North-Eastern, Eastern, Western and Northern are now operating as one synchronous grid (same frequency). Southern Regional grid is connected to this synchronous grid through HVDC links. For overall improvement and better grid management in the country, Power Grid Corporation of India has modernized all the Regional Load Dispatch Centers (RLDCs). The RLDCs correspond to the region and namely are : southern RLDC, northern RLDC, western RLDC, eastern RLDC and north-eastern RLDC besides the national LDC. These modernized RLDCs are greatly contributing to bring quality and economy in the operation of the power system besides improving data availability, visibility and transparency. With the adoption of state-of-the-art operational practices, proactive preventive maintenance, implementation of availability-based tariff, the modernization of RLDCs coupled with training & deployment of expert manpower and round the clock vigil for grid management, no major grid disturbances in the country have been encountered for the last 6½ years. Further, tripping of lines and minor grid disturbances in regional grids have come down so significantly that it can be reckoned as a benchmark achievement. For overall co-ordination, National Load Dispatch Center (NLDC) at Delhi,with back up at Kolkata, has been successfully commissioned. The power grid has spearheaded the implementation of Availability Based Tariff (ABT) across the country, which has a built-in commercial mechanism to reward proper grid behavior. This has significantly stabilized vital grid parameters, i.e. voltage and frequency thereby improving the quality of power.

So much about what it is. Why need to make it strong? In its present form, is it dumb? No it is not. But maybe, the answer lies in the meaning of the word smart. As per the dictionary, when used as an adjective it primarily means to be 'capable of quick and prompt action'. That is what is the crux of the function of smart grid. A 'quick and prompt action' requires a quick and prompt input to take an action. Smart grid enables this through a two-way communication between distribution and customers. A smart grid is a form of electricity network utilizing digital technology. A smart grid delivers electricity from suppliers to consumers using two-way digital communications to control appliances at consumers' homes; this saves energy, reduces costs and increases reliability and transparency. It overlays the ordinary electrical grid with an information and net metering system, that includes smart meters. Smart grids are being promoted by many governments as a way of addressing energy independence, global warming and emergency resilience issues. A smart grid is made possible by applying sensing, measurement and control devices with two-way communications to electricity production, transmission, distribution and consumption parts of the power grid that communicate information about grid condition to system users, operators and automated devices, making it possible to dynamically respond to changes in grid condition. Of course, I have given the definition which primarily stems from the distribution requirement of the transmitted power. You will hear totally different definition of smart grid from transmission experts and it is important to be aware of the distinction.

So just why it is important to have a smart-grid and why its existence is inevitable today than ever before? Reasons are many

1. Response to many supply-demand conditions: A smart grid could respond to events which occur anywhere in the power generation, distribution and demand chain. Events may occur generally in the environment, e.g., clouds blocking the sun and reducing the amount of solar power or a very hot day requiring increased use of air conditioning. They could occur commercially in the power supply market, e.g., customers change their use of energy as prices are set to reduce energy use during high peak demand. Events might also occur locally on the distribution grid, e.g., an MV transformer fails, requiring a temporary shutdown of one distribution line. Finally these events might occur in the home, e.g., everyone leaves for work, putting various devices into hibernation, and data ceases to flow to an IPTV. Each event motivates a change to power flow. Latency of the data flow is a major concern, with some early smart meter architectures allowing actually as long as 24 hours delay in receiving the data, preventing any possible reaction by either supplying or demanding devices.
2. Smart energy demand - Smart energy demand describes the energy user component of the smart grid. It goes beyond and means much more than even energy efficiency and demand response combined. Smart energy demand is what delivers the majority of smart meter and smart grid benefits. Smart energy demand is a broad concept. It includes any energy-user actions to enhancement of reliability, reduce peak demand, shift usage to off-peak hours, lower total energy consumption, actively manage electric vehicle charging, actively manage other usage to respond to solar, wind, and other renewable resources, and buy more efficient appliances and equipment over time based on a better understanding of how energy is used by each appliance or item of equipment. All of these actions minimize adverse impacts on electricity grids and maximize consumer savings. Smart Energy Demand mechanisms and tactics include: smart meters, dynamic pricing, smart thermostats and smart appliances, automated control of equipment, real-time and next day energy information feedback to electricity users, usage by appliance data, and scheduling and control of loads such as electric vehicle chargers, home area networks (HANs), and others.
3. Peak load management and time of day pricing - To reduce demand during the high cost peak usage periods, communications and metering technologies inform smart devices in the home and business when energy demand is high and track how much electricity is used and when it is used. To motivate them to cut back use and perform what is called peak curtailment or peak leveling, prices of electricity are increased during high demand periods, and decreased during low demand periods. It is thought that consumers and businesses will tend to consume less during high demand periods if it is possible for consumers and consumer devices to be aware of the high price premium for using electricity at peak periods. This could mean making trade-offs such as cooking dinner at 9pm instead of 5pm. When businesses and consumers see a direct economic benefit of using energy at off-peak times become more energy efficient, the theory is that they will include energy cost of operation into their consumer device and building construction decisions.
4. Real-time monitoring of grid performance will improve grid reliability and utilization, reduce blackouts, and increase financial returns on investments in the grid.

Finally, it boils down to whether we have sufficient electricity to meet demand. The answer is an affirmative no and hence focus shifted on optimal use of electricity. Starting from simple things like switching off lights and fans and AC when not required to shifting to CFLs and LEDs, each one of us can contribute a lot. From the utility side, the smart-grid will also offer similar benefits to the end-user while offering a platform for the utility to manage demand side requirements. The business case is clear for smart-grid and many Indian utilities are now looking at moving into smart grid implementations, not just because it makes the grid smart, it makes the business smarter too.

Time for resolve

After a hiatus of around 3 months, it is time for me to get back to the Innotomy blog articles again. It is completely inconsequential and surely unsolicited on my part to get into the reasons for this break. There can be many depending upon degree of confidence that I can attach to. Starting from as absurd as "there was no time" to saying "I got busy" (the two statements have different connotations although similar meaning!) Be that as it may, one can fit any theory to a set of observations and theories can be speculative but observations are never. The fact is that I could not write and the fact is that I intend to do a lot better than the last time I was forced into a break. And what better time to choose than the start of a new year! A title like "Time for Resolve" has lot more forceful intent than say a "Resolution time" which almost sounds rhetorical and almost implicitly gives you a exit clause from the resolution.

There is another reason why this should be time for resolve, rather than just a resolution time and that is because there is something about 2011 than it just being another new year ! It happens to be the year before 2012 - the much (in)famed doomsday year. Why not be resolute now for you may never get a chance to be one again! There is zero scientific evidence that anything at all will happen in 2012 but there are many things that could happen and easily threaten homo sapiens in the year 2012. Why 2012 ? These could even happen in 2011. There could be geomagnetic reversal, there could be an asteroid strike, or supernova. Or just a bad bout of H1N1 or a flu pandemic of another hitherto unknown viral strain or even a destructive nuclear dimension. Either ways, the time window to be doing good things is shrinking and it should be seen and used as a time for definite resolve!

So time is good and opportune alright but what to resolve? For a start and maybe for an end, as far as this space is concerned, the resolve is definitely to continue to contribute to this space at least twice a month. If I can do better than that in a month, it will be bonus but resolution time should be about setting realistic goals that can be measured - and two a month for next 12 months is a fairly concrete and achievable task.

What does 2011 have in store for us? Many things can happen - Here is a laundry list (actually only a sampled one) of what they could be from many domains..

1. India's 'green revolution' has other meanings too. While the one in early 1970s was focused on transforming the agricultural industry, the one in 2011 is more on focusing technologies that make the planet green. The focus on energy efficiency and her baby steps in bringing energy revolution will be debated alright but will bear significant fruits in making India a role model. India's energy revolution is replete with stories of innovation and self-discipline. India's generation capacity can not match its consumption capacity and in a sense the revolution is thrust upon us.
2. While energy is being focused because of both compelling international and domestic pressures, what India will learn is to focus on its other natural resource hugely mismanaged and that is water. While clean drinking water is a proverbial necessity of most Indians even today, the management of our fresh water, whether through rain water harvesting, management or through self-discipline will become need of hour.
   
3. Both of energy and water revolutions will need plenty of funds and economic recovery and India getting back to 8-9% GDP growth are good signs. The bull market returns and generally brings in lots of positive sentiments in the markets.
   
4. Venture Capital returns. energy sector, smart phone apps, social networking are amongst the leading domains that will attract VCs. Hopefully in 2011, VCs will be the the blue-sky optimists.
   
5. German management model returns. The Rhineland model of capitalism will start looking very appealing across the Indian landscape. Lots of mid-sized companies, with huge technical expertise, low debt and skilled workforces exporting niche products to the whole world. This model will guide the entrepreneurs in India through 2011
   
6. Apple backlash starts. It started showing signs with 4G in 2010 itself but Apple will soon learn the hard way, the downside of being a monopolist and will start facing the backlash that Microsofts and IBMs have witnessed in the past for precisely those reasons.
   
7. While Apple rides a trough, Android will ride a crest. Apple has graduated to being a monopoly, but Android is still in its early infancy of cool start-up idea and will continue to ride the wave and offer compelling alternative to Apple. The developer community of Android will have field days in 2011.
   
8. Iceland teaches world a lesson - and no not for its green marketing but interestingly enough for a role model that was thrust upon it. Unlike other countries, it could not sustain to bail out its banks during the economic slowdown. What resulted was a lot of pain for the country but it is showing signs of business recovery. The only conclusion being - its not necessary to bail out banks for recovery.
   
9. Russia comes into force at world stage so that the world will talk more of BRIC than of BASIC group. A raw materials supplier with a dictatorial government will soon be the technology power house that the world can not live without. The brains of Russia were never in doubt and have been known for a long time to be scientifically advanced. If they can leverage that into today's global economy, they can make BRIC look like bRic.
   
10. And many other miscellaneous things that may not have necessarily to do with this space but could bring joy to all of us - maybe an Indian victory in the Cricket world cup.
    

Hopefully each time I write this year, I would be able to write on each of above.. For now, it feels good to have started and I take this opportunity to wish you and your family a very happy, wealthy and healthy new year..

The Physical divide!

'Digital divide' refers to the gap between people with effective access to digital and information technology, and those with very limited or no access at all. There have been many theses and books written on this topic. I want to instead talk of the 'physical divide' which I would define as the gap between people living in a physical world with effective access to enhanced reality with digital technology and those with only a physical world. The difference between the two is subtle and needs to be explained. Its not that when we talk of digital divide, that there is no physical world. Its just that when I want to talk about the physical world I want to talk of the world itself rather than digital technology but I want to talk of the real world enhanced by use of digital technology. The so-called physical divide is addressed through a branch of computer vision and image processing generally referred to as 'augmented reality'. Augmented reality refers to the technology of combination of a real scene viewed by a user and a virtual scene generated by a computer that augments the scene with additional information. Mobile augmented reality which refers to providing augmented reality experiences on the mobile is the most developing and evolving technology today and has been described by MIT and Gartner in different studies as one of the top five disruptive technologies that will take centrestage in next 5 years.

We have heard of virtual reality. Without getting into the philospophy of 'reality', in contrast to virtual reality there is augmented reality. While virtual reality refers to computer-generated simulation environments that can simulate some places in the real (and imaginary) world, whereas augmented reality refers to augmentation or blending of real world scenes with computer generated additional information. On the spectrum between virtual reality, which creates immersive, computer-generated environments, and the real world, augmented reality is closer to the real world. This is why I chose to call it as a technology that addresses the physical divide. Augmented reality adds graphics, sounds, haptic feedback and smell to the natural world as it exists. Both video games and cell phones are driving the development of augmented reality. To take this to the horizon, let me give two examples of what this could mean in future. Think of a computer game that lets you drive a car on an F1 track. That would be virtual reality, but imagine instead of a video that has an actual recording of an F1 event which is augmented with your car which you are driving in a real F1 environment! Many of us know the Wii Nintendo game which was a pathbreaker in many ways. If you were to play, for example, a game of tennis in Wii, it would still be virtual reality. But imagine you playing a Wimbledon game with Roger Federer. If you could ever do that, that would be due to augmented reality.

As you can imagine, the applications are many. Augmented reality has extensive applications in the fields of medical science, entertainment, military training, engineering design, robotics, manufacturing, maintenance and repair, consumer design, hazard detection amongst others.

There are two commonly accepted definitions of augmented reality (AR) today.

1. Azuma's definition says that AR has three components : it combines real and virtual, that it is interactive in real-time and that it is registered in 3D
2. Milgram and Kishino defined in 1994 actually coined the term 'augmented reality' while defining what they called a reality-virtuality continuum. The continuum expands from a pure real world to a pure virtual world which is punctuated by mixed reality covering augmented reality, virtual reality and augmented virtuality.
   

To combine the physical and virtual world we need precise models, locations and optical properties of the viewer (or camera) and the display. The calibration of all the devices must be precise and need a mechanism to combine all local co-ordinate systems centered on the devices and the objects in a scene in a global co-ordinate system.

The biggest challenge for AR is a requirement of a very detailed description of the physical scene. Today AR struggles from finding optimal methods for registration of two distinct sets of images and keep them registered in real-time . Computer vision is sourcing some of the algorithms in this area for AR. AR also needs displays that can merge these two images.

Augmented reality systems are expected to run in the real-time so that the user can freely move in the environment, and are expected to show properly rendered augmented images. Thereby, implying that the two primary performance related issues with AR today are related to the update frequency of generating the augmented image and accuracy of the registration between the real and virtual image. While these may be easily stated, the challenges come from the technology barriers today for both registration and generation of augmented images.

Failure in proper registration and/or rendering leads to hardly desirable defects in the augmented scene and can show the real scene as less real than more virtual. AR requires that the augmentation has to have positive effect and that is a huge challenge today, not unsurmountable given the human desire to innovate always.

There are many AR solutions available today. The SixthSense augmented reality system lets you project a phone pad onto your palm and fingers and phone a friend -- without removing the phone from your pocket/purse.Some of the other AR solutions include the Arhrrrr - the augmented reality shooter, ARIS - the mobile media learning games, ARsights, eTreasure, LearnAR, SciMorph and the wikitude world browser.

Wireless applications are increasingly driving this technology into the mobile space where they offer a great deal of promise. Initially, AR required unwieldy headsets and kept users largely tethered to their desktop computers. The camera and screen embedded in smart phones and other mobile devices now serve as the means to combine real world data with virtual data; using GPS capability, image recognition, and a compass, AR applications can pinpoint where the mobile’s camera is pointing and overlay relevant information at appropriate points on the screen.

For example, the Wikitude World Browser is an augmented reality (AR) browser for the Android platform based on location-based Wikipedia and Qype content. It is a handy application for planning a trip or to find out about landmarks in your surroundings; 350,000 world-wide points of interest may be searched by GPS or by address and displayed in a list view, map view and “Augmented Reality” cam view. The latest version of WIKITUDE World Browser includes an Augmented Reality Photo Feature, which allows you to capture and share the AR camera view you experience through your mobile.

While I do not know when in future, if at all, we would be able to play up a tennis match with Roger Federer or Steffi Graf, AR is here to stay and has in many small ways has already helped many application areas. Outside of entertainment, in essential services such as medicine and surgery, there are already applications that help surgeons have a better view of the patient. Mobile AR will create many applications that will alter tomorrow's horizon. Like digital divide, whether physical divide continues to exist, we many never be able to tell, but changes are that the line between physical and virtual world will continue to blur in future.

I Write Like Isaac Asimov!

"I Write Like" is an online tool that helps you find your inner author. The website "I Write Like" (http://iwl.me) has erupted online and scores of writers are tempted to go and check it online to see just who they write like. I Write Like is both entertainment and education. I have read Charles Dickens a lot in my life and he may have influenced a writing style subconsciously. So I was determined to find who I write like. The way the site works is simple. You go to the website and cut-and-paste your writings and press "analyze" button. And the website, without any explanations, tells you, that you write like ABC or XYZ. I pasted one of my older blog articles and the analysis had it that I write like "Arthur C Clarke". Hmm.. I thought I wrote some serious thought provoking proses and not science fiction! So I submitted a few of my other paragraphs from other older articles. The analysis indicated that I wrote, at times, like Isaac Asimov, at other times like Dan Brown and still at other times like Stephen King!

Who does not like to be an Arthur C Clarke, Isaac Asimov and Dan Brown all in one ! I would not mind a bit ;-) But then being the curious one, I started looking for pattern and it was obvious, not for once, the IWL analysis ever said I wrote like a famous English literateur. I was never quite close to Charles Dickens for sure, never close to Ernest Hemingway, not D H Lawrence, not Forsyth, not even Robin Cook. The pattern started emering. All of my blog articles are related to articles on technology and science and may be that is why names like Arthur C Clarke and Isaac Asimov sprang. Just to test this notion, I pasted a paragraph from a letter I had written to my parents some time back (not about technology and science) and lo and behold. It said I wrote like Charles Dickens!

So much about entertainment. Surely the concept is catchy and provides interesting insights for any one curious enough. Equally surely, it can not be an exact science, and it is not. But simply the idea of an algorithm that can provide traces of influence in writing has proven wildly popular.

Who is behind IWL? Though the site might seem the idle dalliance of an English professor on summer break, it was created by Dmitry Chestnykh, a 27-year-old Russian software programmer currently living in Montenegro. Though he speaks English reasonably well, it's his second language. In his own words, Dmitry wanted it to be educational. Chestnykh modeled the site on software for e-mail spam filters. This means that the site's text analysis is largely keyword based. Even if you write in short, declarative, Hemingwayesque sentences, its your word choice that may determine your comparison. Most writers will tell you, though, that the most telling signs of influence come from punctuation, rhythm and structure. I Write Like does account for some elements of style by things such as number of words per sentence.

Chestnykh says “Actually, the algorithm is not a rocket science, and you can find it on every computer today. It’s a Bayesian classifier, which is widely used to fight spam on the Internet. Take for example the “Mark as spam” button in Gmail or Outlook. When you receive a message that you think is spam, you click this button, and the internal database gets trained to recognize future messages similar to this one as spam. This is basically how “I Write Like” works on my side: I feed it with “Frankenstein” and tell it, “This is Mary Shelley. Recognize works similar to this as Mary Shelley.” Of course, the algorithm is slightly different from the one used to detect spam, because it takes into account more stylistic features of the text, such as the number of words in sentences, the number of commas, semicolons, and whether the sentence is a direct speech or a quotation.”

Chestnykh has uploaded works by about 50 authors — three books for each, he said. That, too, explains some of its shortcomings. Melville, for example, isn't in the system. But Chestnykh never expected the sudden success of the site and he plans to improve its accuracy by including more books and adding a probability percentage for each result. He hopes it can eventually be profitable.

Whatever the deficiencies of I Write Like, it does exude a love of writing and its many techniques. The site's blog updates with inspiring quotations from writers, and Chestnykh — whose company, Coding Robots, is also working on blog editing and diary writing software — shows a love of literature. He counts Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Agatha Christie among his favorites.

Whatever the strengths and weaknesses of IWL, it is sure that the algorithm does work and work well for almost any writing you submit. It analyzes with a certain probability and brackets you the author with someone well known. It is expected that each article we write has a different style and probably what is really required is another meta-level algorithm that can take various articles from an author and rather than saying that one writes like Arthur C Clarke, other like Isaac Asimov and Dan Brown, it should say your set of articles have a writing style like Isaac Asimov (I would like to hear it that way ;-)

Be that as it may, the educational value is there. This is by far the best known example of Bayesian classification I have heard and another point in the case for making teachings of quantitative methods in probability and statistics more interesting than it is !

Theory and practice

The FIFA world cup and schools reopening in India after summer were both partially responsible for my slump in the frequency of my blogs in the last month. Coming out of hibernation of sorts, I felt this time I should touch upon a topic that spans across all my technology domain areas. While I have written earlier about the role of innovation, this time around, I want to focus on a point that addresses whether, in any domain, theory indeed precedes practice. That is, for any technology, whether theoretical foundations are worked upon first before they are put into practice. This is a highly debatable and questionable topic - all the more reason I thought I should share my viewpoint on this.

When Computer Graphics, as an area was still evolving and still in its early days, I happened to read a column titled "Jim Blinn Corner" that used to appear in the IEEE transactions on Computer Graphics and Applications in early 1980s. Jim Blinn was considered a father-figure in the area, having worked on simulations of NASA JPL's Voyager project, as well as the 3-D simulations for the TV series Cosmos by Carl Sagan and for his research into many areas of computer graphics algorithms including shading models.

In one of his articles (dont recall specifically which one), he was discussing the topic of the title of this article. He argued whether theory should be developed first and only then algorithms should be developed. Considering that rasterization and implications of continuous domain into the discrete ones were not fully understood then, his primary goal was to solve the problem at hand. That meant carrying out some or the other simulation successfully. This required him to experiment a lot and developing theory was not necessarily an option for him at the time. His explanation that one should experiment a lot and when one is happy with an algorithm, then use all the governing laws and principles in the area to explain why it should work anyway, had a kind of an impact on me that has also shaped my later years. This is counter to the premise that theory precedes its applications and kind of puts the cart before the horse and argues that even theoretical development of the domain is aided when it is supplemented by practical products in the area.

While Jim Blinn was talking about graphics in that era, when he made the comment, it is clearly a generic comment that applies to all evolving domains that need practical solutions. Let us look at some of them I am working on and see how that can help

1. Computer vision is much like computer graphics and derives much of its first principles from there, so surely all algorithmic development under image processing and computer graphics can happen first followed by a theoretical explanation of why it should work anyway.
2. Mobile handsets is another areas. In an era of Apple iPhone, and android phones and many other intuitive designs, it is difficult to evolve the technology first. Solutions are made and then theory is used to explain why it will work anyway.
3. I talked of harnessing solar energy (and also other renewable energy forms such as wind) in my last article and also addressed why research has not been complete in the area. There is a case for developing products, intuitive or counter-intuitive first, and then use our knowledge of physics and semiconductors to explain why it should work anyway.

While am completely aware of the fact that theoretical physicists frown upon their experimental counterparts and least likely are going to be impressed by the thesis in this article, the idea really is to take the debate beyond the boundaries of theory and experimentation, and take it to a point where it only helps solve a problem. More likely, the concept of innovation always operates in technological domains where groundwork in terms of development of theoretical concepts is always in inphancy and as a rule one needs to look at an approach to develop the domain. Computer graphics is richer because of Jim Blinn's thought process then, and many areas will benefit simiarly if we come out of the traditional thought process.

Technology, by definition, works at applying concepts evolved in science and engineering for day-to-day use in such a way that the human race benefits overall. In such a scenario, for a technology success, solving peoples' problems becomes the stated problem. That problem can be solved either by developing theory first (if we are lucky) or by developing products first and then explaining in theory, why it should work anyway.

In the larger scheme of things, theory and practice are both mere tools and they need to used intelligently and judiciously. It can then be left as a matter of personal opinion whether one approach is right against the other.

Fathomless sun!

As a source of energy, nothing matches the Sun. It out-powers anything that human technology could ever produce. Only a small fraction of the sun’s power output strikes the Earth, but even that provides 10,000 times as much as all the commercial energy that humans use on the planet. If one believes the big bang theory, then the sun has been around at least as long as the Earth has been and its been that way for around 4-1/2 billion years approximately. Also ever since humans stepped on to this planet, they have been witness to the daily cycle of days and nights. Sun has been accepted as a great source of energy since ancient times and still as yet it has been glowing away to glory to showcase the human limitations in harnessing that energy. There is limited success alright but largely there are only gaps in the technological solution.

Let us look at this in perspective. The earth receives 174 peta Watts (1 energy unit = 1KWh, 1PWh = 10^12 units) of solar radiation at the upper layer of the atmosphere. Of this, approximately, 30 percent is reflected back into the space, whereas the rest is absorbed by the clouds, oceans and land masses. So there is plenty to harness, but technological limitations are brought to the fore and to me, in essence, they bring to the fore the limitations of the otherwise celebrated human brain. Sure, there are many achievements that the human race can be proud of, but the bar is set by the Sun. The problem is there and known, resources in the form of solar energy are there and plenty, but the solution in the form of harnessing them are far fewer. The solar power has the potential to provide over 1,000 times total world energy consumption, though today it provides only around 0.02% of the total.

India's power sector has a total installed capacity of approximately 1,46,753 Megawatt (MW) of which 54% is coal-based, 25% hydro, 8% is renewables and the balance is the gas and nuclear-based. Power shortages are estimated at about 11% of total energy and 15% of peak capacity requirements and are likely to increase in the coming years. In the next 10 years, another 10,000 MW of capacity and investment of about Rs. 24 lakh crore are required.

Fortunately, India lies in sunny regions of the world. Most parts of India receive 4-7 kWh of Solar radiation per square metre per day with 250-300 sunny days in a year. India has abundant Solar resources, as it receives about 3000 hours of sunshine every year, equivalent to over 5,000 trillion kWh. India can easily utilize the Solar energy or Solar Power. Today the contribution of Solar power with an installed capacity of 9.84 MW, is a fraction (< 0.1 percent) of the total renewable energy installed 13, 242.41(as on 31st October 2008 by MNRE - the Ministry of New Renewables Energy). Solar power generation has lagged behind other sources like wind, small hydropower, biomass etc. By the way, India is only an example. The scenario is no different world-wide. In the US, this percentage is only around 1 %.

Solar power, is a term largely related to the generation of electricity from sunlight. This can be direct as with photovoltaics or indirect as with concentrated solar power (CSP), where the sun's energy is used to boil water, which is then used to generate electricity. Photovoltaic materials convert light energy to electricity using semiconductor materials like Silicon. When certain semiconducting materials, such as certain kinds of silicon, are exposed to sunlight, they release small amounts of electricity. This process is known as the photoelectric effect. The photoelectric effect refers to the emission, or ejection, of electrons from the surface of a metal in response to light. It is the basic physical process in which a solar electric or photovoltaic (PV) cell converts sunlight to electricity.

A typical PV system is made up of different components. These include PV modules (groups of PV cells), which are commonly called PV panels; one or more batteries; a charge regulator or controller for a stand-alone system; an inverter for a utility-grid-connected system and when alternating current (ac) rather than direct current (dc) is required; wiring; and mounting hardware or a framework.

Concentrated Solar Power, on the other hand, uses the concept of focused sunlight. CSP plants generate electric power by using mirrors to concentrate (focus) the sun's energy and convert it into high-temperature heat. That heat is then channeled through a conventional generator. The plants consist of two parts: one that collects solar energy and converts it to heat, and another that converts the heat energy to electricity. Within the United States, over 350MW of CSP capacity exists and these plants have been operating reliably for more than 15 years. The amount of power generated by a concentrating solar power plant depends on the amount of direct sunlight at the site. CSP technologies make use of only direct-beam (rather than diffuse) sunlight.

CSP can use the conventional and ubiquitously available flat solar panels, or parabolic troughs, or even power towers for concentrating the solar light.

The problem with human technology in harnessing the solar energy has been in the area of efficiency of conversion. Typically it is no better than 10-20%. Given their manufacturing costs, modules of today’s cells incorporated in the power grid would produce electricity at a cost roughly 3 to 6 times higher than current prices, or 18-30 cents per kilowatt hour. To make solar economically competitive, engineers must find ways to improve the efficiency of the cells and to lower their manufacturing costs.

Prospects for improving solar efficiency are promising. Current standard cells have a theoretical maximum efficiency of aroud 30 percent because of the electronic properties of the silicon material. But new materials, arranged in novel ways, can evade that limit, with some multilayer cells reaching 34 percent efficiency. Experimental cells have exceeded 40 percent efficiency.

Another idea for enhancing efficiency involves developments in nanotechnology, the engineering of structures on sizes comparable to those of atoms and molecules, measured in nanometers (one nanometer is a billionth of a meter). Recent experiments have reported intriguing advances in the use of nanocrystals made from the elements lead and selenium. In standard cells, the impact of a particle of light (a photon) releases an electron to carry electric charge, but it also produces some useless excess heat. Lead-selenium nanocrystals enhance the chance of releasing a second electron rather than the heat, boosting the electric current output. Other experiments suggest this phenomenon can occur in silicon as well.

Theoretically the nanocrystal approach could reach efficiencies of 60 percent or higher, though it may be smaller in practice. To the core, lies the problem of engineering advances and in turn human inability to harness the Sun. These advances will be required to find ways of integrating such nanocrystal cells into a system that can transmit the energy into a circuit.

Even if the engineering challenges are overcome and advanced solar cells become available for generating electricity cheaply and efficiently, a major barrier to widespread use of the sun’s energy remains the need for storage. While there is sunlight roughly 50% of the time in a daily cycle, its usage in night hours requires us to store all the energy captured during the day. Then, there is the cloudy weather that interrupts solar energy’s availability. At times and locations where sunlight is plentiful, its energy must be captured and stored for use at other times and places.

Many technologies offer mass-storage opportunities, but none perfected yet. Pumping water (for recovery as hydroelectric power) or large banks of batteries are proven methods of energy storage, but they face serious problems when scaled up to power-grid proportions. New materials could greatly enhance the effectiveness of capacitors, superconducting magnets, or flyweels, all of which could provide convenient power storage in many applications.

Another possible solution to the storage problem would mimic the biological capture of sunshine by photosynthesis in plants, which stores the sun’s energy in the chemical bonds of molecules that can be used as food. The plant’s way of using sunlight to produce food could be duplicated by people to produce fuel.

For example, sunlight could power the electrolysis of water, generating hydrogen as a fuel. Hydrogen could then power fuel cells, electricity-generating devices that produce virtually no polluting byproducts, as the hydrogen combines with oxygen to produce water again. But splitting water efficiently will require advances in chemical reaction efficiencies, perhaps through engineering new catalysts. Nature’s catalysts, enzymes, can produce hydrogen from water with a much higher efficiency than current industrial catalysts. Developing catalysts that can match those found in living cells would dramatically enhance the attractiveness of a solar production-fuel cell storage system for a solar energy economy.

Fuel cells have other advantages. They could be distributed widely, avoiding the vulnerabilities of centralized power generation.

If the engineering challenges can be met for improving solar cells, reducing their costs, and providing efficient ways to use their electricity to create storable fuel, solar power will assert its superiority to fossil fuels as a sustainable motive force for civilization’s continued prosperity.

So what I have outlined above are the challenges for harnessing. solar energy Generally, the technological innovation is required while tapping scarce resources. But here is a case of plentiful. There is so much to tap and unfortunately it only exposes the brazen limitations of human mind.

It is possible, that historically where the technological innovations happened most, that is in the western world, there may not have been focus on this subject much as they dont get much of sunlight and the sun - but temperate countries like India are offered with an opportunity on the platter.

There is a need, the reserves of coal are limited, nuclear energy can only generate that much but the demand will never cease. In times of increased pressures on deploying green technologies, what better opportunity, than tapping the Sun and meeting all of the requirements? Here is an opportunity for India and similar countries to showcase her innovation capabilities in coming up with solutions that the world can then follow!

Emotion recognition

For centuries, art lovers have wondered about the Mona Lisa's mysterious smile, and what Mona Lisa may have been thinking or feeling the time she was painted. Now, scientists in The Netherlands have used emotion-recognition software to determine the Mona Lisa's emotions while sitting for her portrait by Leonardo da Vinci.

Computer vision is an extremely difficult subject because it tries to mimic the human cognitive faculties. Technically, computer vision is about mimicking the human visual system not just by seeing, for the camera is akin to the eye, but the interpretation of what we see through the eye, the way we relate it to surroundings and use our past knowledge of situations, associativity etc to understand what we saw. That is the hardest part to put into an algorithm. Strictly speaking emotion recognition should not be part of computer vision and is not, but is closely related. The difference is that we are not trying to figure out by measuring the geometry of her face to ascertain whether she was smiling or not, but using even deeper knowledge of relationship of this geometry to emotions and figuring out what emotions were being displayed ! This background was necessary to state the complexity and uniqueness of this experiment, which is one of its kind surely.

Why this is unique is because the chances of errors are very high. Robustness is another issue. It can not just work on the Mona Lisa. It should work on many or all other human faces.

Coming back to emotion recognition. Recognition part is easy to understand but the "emotion" is really a colloquial term and needs formal approach. Research in psychology has shown that human emotions can be classified into six archetypal emotions: surprise, fear, disgust, anger, happiness and sadness. Facial motion plays an integral part in expressing these emotions. The other part that completes this expression is speech. But is outside of this scope, for no one quite has Mona Lisa's audio tapes!

An interesting research from psychology was to understand the role speech and facial motion play in understanding each of the emotions. The findings showed that while sadness and fear can be made out from speech data, whereas the video or the facial clues provided clues on anger and happiness.

There have been countless theories of fans of The Da Vinci Code who know that the Mona Lisa smile isn't the only mystery associated with Leonardo's masterpiece. In 1509, he collaborated with mathematician Fra Luca Pacioli and artist Piero della Francesca on a book about the golden ratio: If a line is divided into two unequal lengths, in such a way that the ratio of the longer segment to the shorter segment will be the same as the ratio of the whole line to the longer segment, the resulting number will be something close to 1.618. Some art historians say that within the painting, the relationship between the Mona Lisa's right shoulder and cheek and her left shoulder and cheek forms a golden triangle whose shortest sides are in divine proportion to its base.

Now advances in computer vision have facilitated whole new generation of software programs and point in case is an algorithm developed that can now map a person's face onto a mesh computer model and calculate facial expressions based on facial points such as lip curvature, eyebrow position, and cheek contraction. The algorithm claims it detects happiness, disgust, fear, anger, surprise and sadness with 85 percent accuracy, but researchers don't yet have the technology to detect more subtle emotions.

So any guesses when the algorithm was subjected to the famed Mona Lisa painting? It analyzed it and found this. The Mona Lisa's expression is 83-percent happy, 9-percent disgusted, 6-percent fearful, and two-percent angry!

The researchers also found that George Bush was feeling surprise, fear and sadness during a speech regarding the war in Iraq. Michael Jackson was 33-percent fearful in his mug shot and angry and disgusted as the press snapped pictures after his trial.

Any invention has to lead to practical use and this invention of the algorithm can become an innovation if used appropriately. For example, emotion-recognition technology may be used to detect that a driver is getting sleepy at the wheel and have an alert signal and to detect how you feel about certain items while you're shopping ... Proof it takes a look at the past to pave the way for the future. Other applications of emotion recognition software might be to detect terror suspects on the basis of their emotions, not just on their physical characteristics.

The inventors of this same program were hired by Unilever, the food and consumer goods giant, to work on a project that could probably change the face of marketing. At the Unilever outlets, around 300 women faces were willingly photographed in 6 European cities to capture their facial expressions while tasting five food types: vanilla ice cream, chocolate, cereal bars, yogurt and apples. Not surprisingly, ice cream and chocolate produced the most happy expressions.

Not surprisingly, the software registered fewer smiley faces for healthy foods. Apples produced 87 percent neutral expressions, with Italians and Swedes registering disappointment when eating them; yogurt didn't fare much better, evoking "sad" expressions for 28 percent of Europeans.

This is not necessarily a new research, but has been picking up recently in last 3-4 years. Why it was interesting to report was because of the 'fun' and 'educational' elements therein. Serious research can be quite a challenge and more innovation in terms of its applications to other areas hiterto unexplored, may be even more tricky and challenging.