Virtual Desktop - A Wonderful Technological Sensation

“What the mind of a man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.”

Sitting at one place consistently working and pondering over the same thing often leads to an indisputable distraction tough to overcome and many years ago, few technologies did rolled out to access computers outside our office but the work-accommodated laptops with annoying slow and buggy system proved it unreliable and fickle.

Virtual desktop is like any normal desktop but with the potential to be reached from anywhere in the world. The operating system and the personal data are all stored up in the network and like any traditional desktop, your programs and history stay intact as you left it at the end of your workday. 

The two major procedures for the expansion of virtual area of the screens are Switching desktops and Oversized desktops.

Switchable desktops were introduced to a larger set of audience by Tom LaStrange in swm in 1989. Being placed in a position x,y position on the computer’s display, windows of running applications are then placed at x,y positions on a given virtual desktop “context” instead. A switching desktop provides a pager for the user to switch between "contexts", or pages of screen space, only one of which can be displayed on the computer's display at any given time. 

Oversized  virtual desktop environments do not offer discrete virtual screens, but instead make it possible to pan around a desktop that is larger than the available hardware is capable of displaying. This facility is sometimes referred to as panning, scrolling desktops or view-port.

The virtue of this technology is its possible implementation in different ways. Desktop as a Service (DaaS) securely delivers virtual apps and desktops from the cloud to any location; either by public or private cloud-service. A form of Virtual Desktop Infrastructure hosted on clouds, there are no constraints of own premises data centres or managing infrastructures.

Virtual Desktops have their own set of advantages:

Easy Access Anywhere. Desktop Virtualization offers on demand access to resources anywhere anytime. Tasks completed with more efficiency and preciseness.

Increased security. Human minds can if they think about inventing a tremendous software, it has the power to develop its destruction. Previously antiviruses and firewalls were effective enough but now they are supplemental to network security. Since, data and backup are stored online, so corruption and data loss is near to impossible. Hackers would need credentials which will be tough for them to figure.

Centralizing sound the virtual desktop will directly affect the infrastructure costs eliminating the costs of servers, complicated hardware saving any enterprise millions of bucks.

Consider improved efficiency about completion of tasks with lower infrastructure costs; more liking icing on a cake.

Microsoft announced “Emerging Cloud PC” virtual desktop service rolling out in 202. It's a new offering built on the top of Windows Virtual Desktop to deliver Desktop as a Service. It provides business customers a modern flexible cloud-based Windows experience. Microsoft also plans to make “cloud pc” a Microsoft-365 experience where pricing is the key. According to an online article, where Windows Virtual Desktop pricing revolves around Azure consumption, Cloud PC sounds like a set subscription free.

This pandemic situation has made the world stop for a moment but neither our brain has stopped working nor our hands and legs and thus our work should not stop also. Virtual Desktop Service is a boon in this condition where one can resume his/her work right from the state he/she left where this global epidemic was announced. Indeed, these inventions are masterpieces like our minds.

Now, answer me this: What are the top three threats in the cloud and their accounted percentages according to Cloud Security Alliance?

“Sounds intriguing enough! We are going to ask you questions from our previous blogs and high-tech every Thursday and you have to answer it in the comment section. As we keep the count, the reader with the most number of correct answers gets a shoutout at the end of every month and exciting hampers at the end of the session. Do not miss this opportunity to increase your tech knowledge and win hampers at the same time.”

And yes! Do not forget to share this article with others and here are the references from where you can learn more:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_desktop
https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-is-working-on-an-azure-powered-cloud-pc-service/
https://www.helpmepcs.com/virtual-desktops-businesses-work/
https://redmondmag.com/articles/2020/07/20/microsoft-cloud-pc-virtual-desktop.aspx

VOLCANUS SYMPHONIA

You must have seen a volcano, like a normal one or a super active volcano or whatever. Have you ever seen a guitar-shaped volcano? I can bet most of you have not.

Somewhere around 100,000 BCE, there was an island in the heart of the pacific ocean. The waters were deeper than the memories of the elder days. The skies seemed to be just above the oceans and clouds formed rings of smoke near the water surface. 

There was a portentous mountain-shaped piece of rock at the center of the Ocean. No one knew what exactly it was, until one day Zoe saw some strange musical fireworks emanating from the topmost part of the giant boulder. She was stunned by the view. It was as if, the Olympians had won a war and the universe is celebrating for it. 

She thought why not go on a quest to explore the paradigm of beguiling grace. She wanted to know if there is napalm inside because the island on the other side looked green. She named the island Volcanus Symphonia. 

The next day she went there, the place was breathtakingly beautiful. Zoe could hear a symphony playing in the background and it had it's hypnotizing effect on her. It was a relaxing and harmonious tune. 

When she saw the boulder from the ground, it looked like a musical instrument being played by the Gods. She then saw an old lady, with a hunch, wearing a cloak and she had a dagger in her hand, she was reciting some chants, which Zoe couldn't understand.

She was a sorceress. That to a very powerful one. Zoe threw a stone at her and sensed that the music in the background cannot be heard anymore and she had caused some trouble to the witch, by injuring her eyes. 

Zoe is going to be dead. The witch raged and shrieked, which left Zoe's ears bleeding. She could not hear anything. She ran and dived into the ocean. She swam deeper and deeper, then she saw an enormous drum glimmering with faint white and blue light. 

She saw a red button on the top of it and pressed the button. Nuclear fuel was stored inside the drum and when she pressed the button, a huge explosion immersed the entire symphonic, harmonious, mystical, hypnotizing island and shredded it to pieces, of which now only some precious stones could be found. 

Volcanus Symphonia still can be found in the depths of the Pacific Ocean.

“I am a soldier; I fight where I am told and I win where I fight!”

We are able to sleep peacefully on our beds only because some rough men and women are ready to protect us at all cost. Today, in the year 1999, India successfully took the commands of the high outposts which had been lost to Pakistan.

Fought for over 60 days, the day”Kargil Vijay Diwas” marks the victory of Indian Defense and now it's been two decades, we pay our tribute to the martyrs for their astounding courage and determination. Their lives, their contribution will be remembered forever and we are fortunate for them as our inspiration.


#KargilVijayDiwas #salutetosoldiers

FinFET : Saviour of Moore's Law

“We just need more creativity and a big dose of confidence.”

Look around, what do you find yourself with, or other people around you...gadgets, isn't it? Practically each & everybody is cling to some new tech devices and engrossed in the indefinite clocking of the time.

It's really interesting to see how semiconductors revolutionized an era and gifted humanity with the power of electronics. The sheer majesty of thousands of transistors attached in a single board, the numbers don't stop here, is mesmerizing. 

Have you ever wondered what are those tracks doing in the motherboard, or how the processor's speed took a leap into GigaHertz and the fabrication into nanoworld. It is all crucially related to each other- the size, the speed, and the power.

There is this observation, that the number of transistors on a chip doubles roughly every two years. And this fact was given by Gordon Moore in the year 1965. Generally, because the size of the transistors is reducing on a scale. 

Shrinking transistors, where will it take us…a few decades back we could have not imagined the road to go this long, even with the decreased sized transistors. 

Had it not been for Chenming Hu, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of California, Berkeley, we wouldn't be having FinFETS.

The same FinFET which is the saviour of ongoing Moore’s Law, smooth and efficient as it had been. But how do the design and idea of the FinFET arouse in a mind? 

We will take you back in history to the childhood of the “Father of FinFETS”, a child full of curiosity and challenge, doing chemical experiments and dismantling clocks in his house. 

Doesn't all stories have an interesting child interested in building something bigger in the future, and it revolves around a basic idea. 

How any electronic gadget is driven? The answer is Current. And it turns out that transistors manipulate the flow of electricity in computer chips, sending signals to make devices perform certain functions.

Every transistor has a source, a drain, a conductive channel that connects them, and a gate to control the flow of current down the channel.

But by the mid-1990s, with the average feature size around 350 nm, the prospects for being able to shrink transistors further had invigorated a fury of worry as it was in the state of saturation.

No one thought that after 100nm the Moore’s Law will be alive in the structures as the main problem was power. As features grew smaller, current that leaked through when a transistor was in its “off” state became a bigger issue. 

This leakage is so great that it increased—or even dominated—a chip’s power consumption which is not desirable in any form of circuitry.

The whole world was racing against the odds to fit in the transistors, their solutions had involved thinning the gate’s oxide layer, which reduces the leakage current giving better control over the channel. 

It was Hu, who could see the flaw in this smooth and simple transference of the electrons; that making the oxide layer sufficiently thin would allow the electrons to jump across it into the silicon substrate, forming yet another source of leakage. Back to where it started, so he could see a limit to this method. 

For Hu, the fundamental problem as quite clear—making the channel very thin to prevent electrons from sneaking past the gate. 

The other approaches were, involved making it harder for the charges to sneak around the gate. It was achieved by adding a layer of insulation buried in the silicon beneath the transistor. That design came to be called a fully depleted silicon-on-insulator, or FDSOI. 

The other involved giving the gate greater control over the flow of the charge by extending the thin channel vertically above the substrate, like a shark’s fin, so that the gate could wrap around the channel on three sides instead of just sitting on top. 

This structure was called as FinFET – named for a vertical fin-like component. It takes up less surface area than conventional two-dimensional transistors, allowing engineers to fit more on each chip. 

After Hu's invention, companies like Intel have used FinFET to expand the boundaries of digital processing capabilities to smaller, more powerful devices.

Post FinFET's manufacturing, when they were revamping the industry, Hu was asked what did he do differently he had a very subtle reply “I think the difference was that we looked at it and said, we want to do this not because we want to write another paper or get another grant, but because we want to help the industry. We felt we had to keep [Moore’s Law] going.”

420 VS. 421

Galactica Brigand 420

Welcome to the universe of robbers. Here you will find a variety and creativity in heists. This particular galaxy is a duplicitous pirate in the ocean of the universe. 

Intriguingly they do not steal money or precious elements neither do they ransack spaceships, they embezzle time! 

I have covered one such bewildering heist for you. Hold tight because you are stepping into the realm of alienated and dreadful robbers. 

Barbarossa was planning a maestoso attack on galaxy 421 when he stumbled across an idea of destroying it with a snap of his fingers. 

He consulted his friend Jack, who's the well-known dacoit in the entire universe. They assembled a team of renowned galactic brigands and started training them. 

This was going to be the stupendous heist in the history of the universe. 420 vs 421.

Galactica Ruffian 421

The silence was still, under the flawless light of stars. The colossal galaxy stood stunning in the vast expanse of space. The galaxy was about to meet its end and the wrath of time. But 421 ruffians were clever. 

They had their spies, who informed them of a secret attack by the brigands of 420. Peaceful they seemed, but this was the silence before a catastrophe. 

As the 420 alien bandits installed their time embezzling instrument, they were attacked by ruffians of 421.

A bullet was fired from the gun of Qamara, the obsolete foe of Barbarossa. The bullet landed right into the forehead of Barbarossa and with that ended his plan to go for a time heist. 

The mighty, legendary, God of brigands was dead. Jack was delighted, now he won't have to share the wealth with someone. 

It was all his own. As they initiated the accelerator of the weapon, 421 ruffians smashed the time stone with the scythe of Odin. All the time that 420 brigands had stolen, was eradicated and everything was torn apart.

The other galaxies they had looted before were formed again which was inhabited by a new species, homo sapiens. It was a bizarre, and a diverse specie. 

421 ruffians decided to protect the universe from brigands like 420 and maintain peace and harmony in the universe. The humans named this cataclysmic event of destruction of time stone, the big bang theory. 

They are very strange creatures. They predict things and somehow prove them. I mean it is easy to predict and prove, but they never tried to comprehend the truth behind the creation of this colloquial realm they live in.

No restrictions, no protocols, just their own rules started by them and for them. They have immense potential to transform the facade of the entire cosmos and make things just as they were in elder days. 

GREEN AI : Time for AI to Become Greener

The last few years have seen many new advancements in the field of artificial intelligence(AI), one of the most prominent ones were in areas like object recognition, machine translation, and most importantly the red AI. 

The massive carbon footprint left by the training of today’s resource-hungry machine learning models has captured the main concerns of AI critics.

According to certain reports, it is believed that it has the potential to transform environmental sustainability for good by bringing an algorithmic approach to that work. And so now is the high time for AI to become greener.

Oren Etzioni, CEO of Allen Institute for AI says  "..... The computations required for deep learning research have been doubling every few months, resulting in an estimated 300,000x increase from 2012 to 2018, and these computations have a surprisingly large carbon footprint.

If we don’t want AI research to become electricity-hungry as bitcoin mining, we need to do things differently. ..." A recent study from the Allen Institute for AI proposed a "Green AI” initiative that would focus on the energy efficiency of these future systems.

Here's the link for downloading the research paper by Allen Institute  :

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1907.10597.pdf

“Optimizing efficiency rather than accuracy”. The AI2 researchers classify models as either environmentally friendly “Green AI” or as the (dominant) “Red AI” research, where Red AI seeks to improve accuracy through the use of massive computational power while disregarding the cost —this accuracy, at the cost of measures of efficiency such as speed or energy cost eventuates for the need of a way towards the greener approach.

Although these red projects are leading science towards a major step in natural processing, computer vision, and other computer areas of AI, unfortunately lately these projects are not sustainable. 

So a simple, easy-to-compute efficiency metric that could help make such research greener and more inclusive.

According to the AI2 researchers, green AI refers to research that yields results without increasing computational cost, and ideally reducing it. 

One of the major challenges in the process to achieve greener AI, yielding efficient models with minimal computational cost(hence making “efficiency” as an important evaluation metric), is that there are multiple potential measures of efficiency, each limited in various ways. 

For instance, the amount of carbon emitted by developing a given AI system is hard to measure accurately, and also it largely depends on the local electricity infrastructure. 

The red AI isn't all bad;  the carbon costs may look significant today but this is not an end to this research as researchers believe that it has valuable contributions to the field of AI and hence is on the rise (despite the well-known diminishing returns of increased cost). Of course, both Green AI and Red AI have their contributions to make.

The vision of Green AI is to reduce the computational expense with a minimal reduction in performance or even improve performance with the help of more efficient methods; thereby overcoming the past challenges in Red AI. 

Increasing research activity in Green AI, which is more environmentally friendly and inclusive, aims to shift the balance towards the Greener side.

CLONING GARUD

After receiving my honours from the Cambridge School of Business Management, I started missing my family and aroma of Indian cuisines. Now I am exhausted running behind my career and strategically planning my proceedings for a better career graph. It's time for this bird to reach its nest and laze.

When I discussed this plan with my parents, soon came a very big shopping list, demanding to buy all novelties and crockery being sold in London. Packing all my stuff, winding up all chores I have reached the airport.

The long checking lanes sulked me, as I couldn't restrain myself anymore. After wandering for three and a half hours at the airport, finally I boarded the flight. Only one thought "I will see my parents and my brother" is running in my mind.

I endeavoured a lot to kill the time, but nothing happened. I tried sleeping, listening to music, but I was accustomed to check the time passed. I don't know if it was fortune or misfortune, but then came a bird to add some spice to my journey.

The crew informed us, a bird was stuck in the airplane wheels, making it impossible for the pilots to land the flight. This line annoyed me the most. But I can't do anything, other than to face the circumstances.

Soon my co-passengers started screaming out of fits of impatience and fear, which tensed me a lot. I have noticed a few people chanting mantras, so that God comes in rescue, while others started thinking about their responsibilities, ambitions, and fantasies. Even I don't know when I started praying, being an atheist.

A few minutes later to my disguise the lights on the right verge of the plane started blinking, terrifying me again. I was very frightened, more than watching a horror movie night.

The pilots reached the nearby airport and the airport authorities were trying their level best to help. Through the front cameras inserted above the wheels, a prediction was made that a heavy bird was sitting on wheels, which made the landing impossible.

Then came an eagle, few people in my cabin started calling it Garud Vahan of Lord Vishnu which was sent to rescue them. I was perplexed whether to believe them or not. Many people started screaming, noticing the eagle heading towards the wheels.

Now all of a sudden they became chameleons calling the bird a devil. The bird flew around the flight a number of times and we were flabbergasted by the skin texture of the bird. We were eagerly waiting to see it every time, it approaches our side, but couldn't find anything significant about it, because of its flying speed.

It flew for about half an hour and by that time, I started imagining myself in the shoes of a fish caught in the cyclonic eye. By this time the pilots, started panicking about the emptying of fuel.

They predicted that they could fly for another twenty minutes in the air and not beyond it. I started counting my last. And it was very much difficult to go through the situations that I have never imagined. It was completely heartbreaking and disappointing.

At this moment, I started weeping, remembering my family, and the troubles I have been giving them being self-centered. I was left with ten more minutes.

I was sulking and on the other hand, pilots and crew were making arrangements for the emergency exit. I then started reading all procedures in the manual given and was boosting my confidence to do this.

Then we came to know that the bird sitting on the front wheel flew away. The pilots made all the arrangements for landing and to my fortune, we landed just two minutes before the end time.

All my co-passengers were overwhelmed by the success and all the credits for success were given to the bird which resembled Garud. Then I came to knew that it was a robotic bird that was designed to check that they are no birds in the landing zone, to make the landing smooth.

Then we were explained the way we were helped. It was made to fly continuously around the plane to detect the obstacles with the help of IR sensors inserted all over its body and with the cameras inserted in its eyes and wings.

The detected information is transmitted effectively through radio waves. And the bird is operated by engineers to constantly look for hurdles created and predict its way. The bird amazed me with its features.

And finally, I reached my place but was completely exhausted after traveling for 17 hours instead of 7.5 hours. And when I started opening everything I brought from Cambridge, I found a soup bowl broken in crockery brought.

But I'm glad that I reached my place safely and have learnt to maintain happy relations with everyone because we can't be judgemental about the turns that take in our life.

Quantum Phase Battery : A Milestone in the World of Quantum Computing

Hello readers! You might be au fait with the power of quantum computing through our blog  Quantum Supremacy in which we discussed how a Quantum computer beats even the best supercomputers in solving a specific problem.

And recently, the latest advancement as the next step in the world of quantum technology is the discovery of the first-ever quantum phase battery.

Now you might be wondering, how come quantum physics intervene in batteries, right? Let's rewind the basics once again!

Quantum technology works by using the principles of quantum mechanics (the physics of subatomic particles).In quantum technologies, circuits or devices are based on superconducting materials. The quantum phase battery represents an essential element for quantum technologies based on phase coherence.

The term "quantum phase battery" needs basic knowledge of some quantum physics-related terms supercurrents and phase coherence for the principle behind the working of this battery.

How does it work?

Before discussing this great discovery, the more obvious question to be answered is how does it work and what makes it different and better than classical ones.

Batteries have been there to power the circuits and we have been using them from the time it was just a classical battery, a Volta's Pile, the first electrical battery that could continuously provide electric current to the circuit, to the Li-ion batteries most commonly being used in everyday life. 

These batteries convert the chemical energy into a voltage, which can then be used as a power source for the working of electronic circuits.

But what if the current could be made to flow without the need of any applied voltage. Is this possible? In quantum technology, such currents are termed as Supercurrents. 

The term got the super attribute for the fact that these currents do not exhibit any energy losses and are not dependent anymore on any voltage to be applied. 

They are induced not from a voltage but from a phase difference of the wave function of the quantum circuit, which is directly related to the wave nature of the matter.

A quantum device that could be able to provide and maintain a persistent phase bias to the wave function can be seen as a quantum phase battery, which induces supercurrents in the electronic circuits.

Hence the quantum technology provides such materials that could power the circuits with these Supercurrents therefore there will be no need for those classical batteries anymore.

This is exactly what a team of researchers has claimed to build out of this theory and have proposed the experimental and theoretical results that led to the fabrication of the first quantum phase battery; which consists of Indium Arsenide (InAs) nanowire in contact with aluminum super leads. 

The n-doped InAs nanowire forms the core of the battery (the pile) and Aluminium superconducting leads as poles. The battery is charged by applying an external magnetic field, which then can be switched off.

Sebastian Bergeret from the Mesoscopic physics group at the Materials Physics Center (CFM, CSIC-UPV/EHU), a joint initiative of Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) and the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), and Ilya Tokatly, Ikerbasque Professor in the Nano-Biospectroscopy group of the UPV/EHU, both Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC) associate researchers had devised the idea of such a quantum phase battery in 2015.

They proposed a theoretical system with the properties needed to build the phase battery. Bergeret and Tokatly's idea of such a device consisted of a combination of superconducting and magnetic materials with an effect, called spin-orbit coupling.

Spin-orbit coupling (SOC) can be regarded as a form of effective magnetic field 'seen' by the spin of the electron in the rest frame.SOC is one of the relativistic effects and it occurs whenever a particle with non-zero spin moves around a region with a finite electric field.

A few years later Francesco Giazotto and Elia Strambini from the NEST-CNR Institute, Pisa, identified a suitable material combination and fabricated the first quantum phase battery.

Scientists noted, “…...We find that the ferromagnetic polarization of the unpaired-spin states is efficiently converted into a persistent phase bias φ0 across the wire, leading to the anomalous Josephson effect. 

We apply an external in-plane magnetic field and, thereby, achieve continuous tuning of φ0. Hence, we can charge and discharge the quantum phase battery.

……. Our results demonstrate how the combined action of spin-orbit coupling and exchange interaction induces a strong coupling between charge, spin, and superconducting phase, able to break the phase rigidity of the system.”

Cristina Sanz-Fernández and Claudio Guarcello also from CFM adapted the theory to simulate the experimental findings.

This battery is further being improved at CFM premises in a collaboration between the Nanophysics Lab and the Mesoscopic Physics Group. 

Some researchers have proposed a new idea that these quantum batteries could use qubits built either from superconductors or from semiconducting quantum dots.  

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic".Quantum technologies have been turning this aspect around -what if we use quantum physics to build quantum devices.

This device like other quantum devices contributes to the advancements made in the quantum technology world and it is now expected to see quantum technology revolutionize more and more in the near future.

This was all about the latest advancement in Quantum Computing and we hope you found it informative and interesting. Do like and share this blog with all your tech geeks and your suggestions in the comments will be highly appreciated!