Current Affairs: Colombipra's Paulina Vega wins Miss Universe title

Colombia's Paulina Vega was crowned Miss Universe on Monday, beating out contenders from the United States, Ukraine, Jamaica and The Netherlands at the world's top beauty pageant in Florida.

The 22-year-old model and business student triumphed over 87 other women from around the world, and is only the second beauty queen from Colombia to take home the prize. The last time Colombia won the crown was in 1956 when Luz Marina Zuluaga took home the title. Vega, wearing a long silver sequined gown, was beaming and tearful as she accepted her sash and crown from reigning Miss Universe, Venezuelan Gabriela Isler. She edged out first runner-up, Nia Sanchez from the United States, hugging her as her win was announced. Vega spoke proudly of her country, and said in the question round Colombia has been a role model for the rest of the world. We are persevering people, despite all the obstacles, we keep fighting for what we want to achieve. After years of difficulty, we are leading in several areas on the world stage. Vega won highest possible score of 9.9 in every presentation at the Miss Universe Colombia contest, according to the pageant's website. The five-foot-nine (180 centimeter) model from Barranquilla is the granddaughter of legendary tenor Gaston Vega and 1953 Miss Atlantico, Elvira Castillo. She beat out Ukraine's Diana Harkusha, Yasmin Verheijen from the Netherlands and Miss Jamaica Kaci Fennell, who were also top five finalists. The 63rd edition of the Miss Universe pageant, held at Florida International University, geared up with the traditional parade of eye-catching national costumes before a full house of enthusiastic fans. Ten judges were tasked to select this year's winner, including Cuban-American music mogul Emilio Estefan, Cuban soap opera star William Levy and Philippine boxing great Manny Pacquiao. The event is actually the 2014 Miss Universe pageant. The competition was pushed back until now to try to get a bigger television audience. The contest, owned by Donald Trump, is watched by about 600 million worldwide, pageant officials say. There was some criticism of the USD 2.5 million contribution that the city of Doral made to the pageant, as local politicians were divided over whether the promotion for the city near Miami is worth that money.

read more http://www.sakshipost.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=52597&catid=30&Itemid=178&pfrom=inside-sakshi-post

The Xiaomi Mi4 is one of the biggest handset : a review

The Xiaomi Mi4 is one of the biggest handset releases in China this year, so we just couldn't resist testing one out

Rating: 

3.5

Typical Price: 

£240.00

Pros: 

Amazing build quality, Fast software, Excellent hardware

Cons: 

No Micro SD card slot, Design is a clear copy of the iPhone

Verdict: 

Incredible power and a gorgeous design make this one of the best phones of 2014-15, as long as you can put up with snatches of Chinese text

Xiaomi might not be a name that is instantly familiar to most western mobile users, but in its native China, the company sells more smartphones than Apple and Samsung. Despite being quite a young firm –– it was only established in 2010 –– Xiaomi is now the dominant force in its homeland and it has achieved this stunning success by emulating the world's most famous tech brand: Apple. 

In 2014 the company experienced unprecedented growth in its native China. Handset sales grew by 227% and cemented the company as one of the fastest growing handset manufacturers on the planet. And, in the spirit of striking while the iron is hot, Xiaomi has just completed its first round of funding in the US where it raised $1.1 billion and earned itself a market cap of $45 billion. Not bad a company that is just four years old. 

"Xiaomi sold 60.8 million smartphones in 2014 and is holding 14.97% of the market," reports Android Headlines. "Samsung is ranked second in this report, this Korean company has sold 58.4 million smartphones and has a 14.38% market share in China. I actually expected that the difference between the two companies will be even more pronounced considering that Samsung's profits took a 50% dive in Q3 2014, as far as China is concerned, but Samsung is really close second."

Xiaomi Mi Note AND Mi Note Pro Launched

If the Mi4 has got you all hot behind the collar for Xiaomi then you might want to check out its two latest handsets: the Xiaomi Mi Note and Xiaomi Note Pro. Designed as legit iPhone 6 Plus killers, the handsets really do have to be seen to be believed. Specs. Hardware. Looks. These things HAVE IT ALL. 

It's not all sunshine and cider, though. In 2014 the company was also forced to stop selling its handsets in India until February 5 after a patent dispute with Ericsson. Xiaomi is being investigated by Hong King officials too, following claims the company sent user data without consent back to servers in mainland China. Still, company founder Xiaomi Lin Bin is very optimistic about the future –– and he has every right to be too.

Xiaomi's attempt to imitate Apple is almost slavish; the firm even holds Apple-like press conferences complete with a "Just one more thing" slide at their conclusion. Xiaomi's Android-based operating system MIUI has, in its latest iteration, blatantly ripped off the look of iOS 7 and 8. However, while Xiaomi clearly wears its inspiration on its sleeve, it hasn't tried to clone Apple's hardware –– until now, that is. 

Viewed from afar, the Xiaomi Mi4 looks like a massive iPhone 5s. It has the same chamfered metal edges, the same familiar front layout and an identical "Home" button symbol. This is brand worship taken to a hitherto unseen level, but the most amazing thing is that Xiaomi has actually pulled it off; the Mi4 is arguably one of the best-made Android handsets available right now. It also manages to combine amazing specs with excellent custom software and all at a price which is almost a third of the cost of an actual iPhone.

And all of this seems to be working for the Chinese company in its home country, as it is now listed as the third biggest mobile manufacturer on the planet behind Apple and Samsung, as noted by IDC's latest research: "Xiaomi jumped into the top 5 list for the first time at the number 3 position thanks to its focus on China and adjacent markets, which resulted in triple-digit year-over-year growth. Key to its success was the launch of its Mi4 smartphone in August, which was positioned as a high-end alternative to the status quo. What remains to be seen is how quickly the company can move beyond its home territories to drive volumes higher."

Xiaomi Mi4 Review: Design & Display 

Ever since the iPhone launched, rival tech firms have taken large amounts of inspiration from Apple, but the Mi4 really does take things to an entirely new level. It's a shameless copy of the iPhone 4 and 5's design, with a metal chassis fronted by a Gorilla Glass screen and backed with a plastic rear panel. Along the bottom you'll find a single speaker –– again looking like the one seen on the iPhone 5 –– and a rather odd USB port. The phone uses MicroUSB-B, whereas every other mobile on the planet (aside from the iPhone, of course) uses MicroUSB-A. The USB-B connection will still fit, however, but there's the added danger of inserting it upside down here. 

Once you've got over how similar the phone is to Apple's world-famous handset, you slowly but surely begin to fall in love with the Mi4. The build quality is fantastic, and the use of metal elevates this to a standard with isn't usually seen in the Android arena (outside of HTC's all-metal devices, of course).

Tech Buzz: Beijing team proposes effortless phone charging with light beams

go by Nancy Owano

A prototype implementation of AuthoCharge. Top: the charger side components. Bottom: the smartphone side components. Credit: Yunxin Liu et al.

"Hurry up, my phone's dying." A familiar wail heard on the move. Cutting-edge smartphones pose charging headaches faster than the smartphone owner likes, with their powerful multicore CPU and GPU cores, screens, high-speed wireless network interfaces, energy-expensive apps and continuous sensing tasks. Can a light beam ease the charging exercises to effortlessly charge a smartphone? Three researchers think so.

Yunxin Liu, Zhen Qin and Chunshui Zhao of Microsoft Research, Beijing, have written a paper on their work, "AutoCharge: Automatically Charge Smartphones Using a Light Beam." They have named their approach AutoCharge and, like its title suggests, is designed to relieve the smartphone owner of the burden of any explicit effort to juice up the phone. Two steps are involved, detection and charging. Think of their approach as a "solar charging" technique but applied indoors with a wireless lightbeam. Think of it also as an image-processing technique designed to detect and track smartphones on a desk for automatic charging. Their paper reports the prototype that they designed and implemented, discussing the light charger and the smartphone detection and tracking system. The AutoCharge results: the prototype was able to detect the presence of a smartphone in seconds. Charging time was as fast as existing wired chargers.

and more at http://phys.org/news/2015-01-beijing-team-effortless.html

TECH BUZZ: Metasurface solves calculus problems as an analog computer

Plot of the reflection coefficient, r, as a function of nanobrick dimensions. The inset shows a gold nanobrick on top of a glass spacer and gold substrate. This study marks the first time that the amplitude and phase of the reflected light …more

Scientists have demonstrated that a 2-D man-made material called a metasurface can perform spatial differentiation and integration, the two main types of calculus problems, when illuminated by a laser beam. Essentially, the metasurface transforms the shape of the incoming light wave profile (the input) into the shape of its derivative or integral (the output). The achievement requires very precise control of light at the nanoscale—specifically, controlling both the amplitude and the phase of the reflected light at the same time.

read more at http://phys.org/news/2015-01-metasurface-calculus-problems-analog.html

Schedule of Osmania University Ph.D. Eligibility Tests : 2014,download admit card from 12/1/2015,link

Schedule of Osmania University Ph.D. Eligibility Tests : 2014,download admit card from 12/1/2015,link

S.No. Day & Date 9.30 am to 11.00 am 12.30 pm to 2.00 pm 3.30 pm to 5.00 pm

1

Tuesday

20-01-2015

517 - Zoology

123 - Telugu (Oriental)

605 - Electronics & Communication

 Engineering

121 - Arabic (Oriental)

124 - Urdu (Oriental)

101 - Ancient Indian History

 Culture & Archaeology

155 - Psychology

122 - Hindi (Oriental)

251 - Management

621 - Pharmaceutical Science

506 - Chemistry

509 - Geography

512 - Mathematics

154 - Political Science

113 - Telugu

2

Wednesday

21-01-2015

518 - Computer Science

106 - Islamic Studies

401 - Law

302 - Physical Education

503 - Biochemistry

201 - Commerce

510 - Geology

631 - Chemical Technology/

 Chemical Engineering

156 - Public Administration

513 - Microbiology

158 - Sociology

505 - Botany

603 - Computer Science and

 Engineering

152 - History

516 - Statistics

3

Thursday

22-01-2015

602 - Civil Engineering

301 - Education

511 - Geophysics

157 - Social Work

112 - Sanskrit

507 – Environmental Science

604 - Electrical & Electronics Engineering

153 - Library & Information Science

111 - Philosophy

515 - Physics

104 - English

514 - Nutrition & Dietetics

606 - Mechanical Engineering

641 - Information Technology

632 - Bio-Technology

 (Faculty of Technology)

634 - Textile Technology

4

Friday

23-01-2015

103 - Communication and Journalism

108 - Linguistics

115 - Urdu

501 - Applied Geochemistry

502 - Astronomy

508 - Genetics

633 - Food Technology

151 - Economics

601 - Bio-Medical Engineering

102 - Arabic

105 - Hindi

107 - Kannada

109 - Marathi

110 - Persian

114 - Theatre Arts

504 - Biotechnology (Faculty of Science)

_____

 DIRECTOR

Note: The Hall Tickets of OU Ph.D. Eligibility Tests – 2014 for downloading will be made available in the website by 12.01.2015