Showing posts with label India. Show all posts
Showing posts with label India. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 02, 2009

Virtualization and the Indian Driver.

After the conclusion of a recent 3-week vacation in India, I feel compelled to state that virtualization as a concept has been practised in India much before VMware (NASDAQ: VMW) came on the scene in 1998, and even before the advent of the virtual machine by IBM as VM/360 in 1972.

Consider lane markings. Lane markings are a way to physically partition a road so as to promote effective sharing of the road. However, drivers in India routinely ignore lane markings probably because they feel they can promote better sharing of roads without paying the needed amount of attention to the markings. How else can you explain the following driving behavior?
A driver prefers to drive on a road so that the lane marking is at the center of the moving vehicle span. Indeed, many drivers seem to make an attempt to use the lane marking as a guide to keep the center of the vehicle right on top of the lane marking.
An illustrative behavior arising from the use of the virtualization concept can be seen in the following style of driving.
A vehicle A is going on an undivided road 2-lane highway at a certain speed. (For planning purposes, the maximum speed you can expect on most Indian roads is 30Km/hour, and that is a separate subject). Another vehicle B close behind A determines that it needs to overtake A, unmindful of whether there is a vehicle C coming in the opposite direction in the other half of the road. You as a passenger in the vehicle B squirm in your seat. However, this is where virtualization happens! Thanks to the honking by vehicle B, drivers of vehicles A and C promptly swerve away from the median mark towards their respective shoulders and a clear virtual lane in the middle is formed for vehicle B. In other words, what was a 2-lane highway to begin with is now transformed into a 3-lane highway, the lanes now virtual.

Clearly, this is partly in jest, but you get the idea.

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Typing in Indian Languages in Gmail, Blogger, etc.

A large percentage of the Indian population can now start communicating in their local languages through computer, thanks to the recently announced availability of Indic language typing from within the Gmail compose screen.

Nearly 1 billion of the world's population has a new, easier, way of making use of computers and the Internet.

And, for the 35 million or so Kannada-speaking population: ಸಿರಿಗನ್ನಡಂಗೆಲ್ಗೆ.

Tuesday, September 14, 2004

Telecommunication Equipment Production in India

It appears that the Indian IT sector is getting seriously into the act of augmenting the needs of telecom equipment providers, rather than assist only telecom service providers. And, this realization has occurred at the highest levels of the Central government, as this quote from IT and Communications minister, Dayanidhi Maran, indicates:

" ... India can emerge as the global hub for making telecom equipment ..."

This could mean a highly accelerated growth in this IT sector: telecom equipment providers, worldwide, please take note.

Saturday, August 07, 2004

India, July 2004

In July 2004, I had occasion to travel in India and Europe with my children and niece. This is the first time I had such a travel spanning several countries and continents.

Telecommunication infrastructure is still in early development stages in India. For a general information on India, please see my travelogue at http://india2004.blogspot.com.