Wednesday, April 1, 2015

Recent Technologies in the World of Computers

As with any industry or sector such as the automobile industry and the media sector, the computer industry has improved with time and new technological innovations are consistently introduced to the world. These new technological innovations and recent technological changes are diverse in nature and monumental in their impact. Over the decades, since the mid-1900s until the present year, computer technology and associated sectors have experienced tremendous development and as mentioned above, this has influenced the entire modern society in a highly significant manner. When analysing this significant influence on society, it is evident that one of the most common factors of this influence is the constantly lower costs of computer hardware and software. Today, most households in developed nations as well as in developing nations possess personal computers while many companies also depend on computers. Furthermore, the world of business as well as most industries, from banking institutes to military organisations, operate with the assistance of computing technologies.
One of the computer technologies that are widely covered by media, including leading websites of the Internet, is “cloud computing”. The term "cloud computing" can be defined as a system through which users share computer resources. These computer resources can include a variety of different entities, ranging from business applications to hardware storage space. According to several studies, there are a number of benefits that users as well as organisations receive due to cloud computing. One of the major benefits of cloud computing is the reduced responsibility of managing the hardware and software that is being shared. This is due to the fact that special vendors of cloud computing handle these tasks and therefore users do not have to be completely responsible for the hardware and software.
Apart from this benefit, another primary advantage of utilising the technology of cloud computing is the efficiency of expenditure of a user or an organisation. With cloud computing, users and organisations only pay for the resources and quantity of resources that they actually use. This results in an efficient mechanism of spending monetary resources. Traditionally, a user or organisation would purchase and use hard disks available in the markets even though they do not actually use the full capacity of these hard disks. Due to cloud computing, the costs are calculated only for the capacity of storage used and this reduces the amount of money spent. Furthermore, specialised vendors and retailers provide business applications such as customer relationship management (CRM) tools and human resources management (HRM) software through cloud computing. As the vendors and retailers provide state-of-the-art and well-tested and proven computing software, it is beneficial for business organisations to use these cloud-hosted applications rather than purchasing available software or creating their own software. Using software solutions via cloud computing leads to lower costs and higher productivity and support.
Another innovative technologies seen in computer systems today are touch screen displays. Touch screen technology is now popular in computer systems and a touch screen can be defined as a display that interacts with a finger or stylus pen. Touch screens have been in use for years in smartphones, ATMs, and car navigation systems but these have not yet become widely used in computer systems. It can be said that touch screens initially became popular in society in 2007 when the first touch screen was introduced in handheld devices. There are many advantages created due to the integration of touch screens in computer systems. Users can use a computer touch screen easily and this eliminates the use for traditional computing hardware accessories such as the computer mouse and keyboard. This would reduce the strain on users as well as increase the speed of operating computers. At present, several touch screen integrated displays and laptops are available in the market but due to the relatively high prices of these new devices, only a limited number of people use them. However, in the future, touch screen computer systems could be highly used worldwide.
When discussing recent technologies in the world of computing, it is vital to analyse "augmented reality". This particular technology, which is simply known as "AR", is a technology that is categorised as a type of virtual reality. Augmented reality in computing tries to create or duplicate an actual environment within a computer. Augmented reality in computer systems generally provide a display or view to the user in which the user can observe a created or virtual reality world of an actual environment. This concept is utilised widely in several industries including the computer sector as well as in construction, military training, and robotics. The video as well as audio in addition to other types of data is duplicated by augmented reality computer systems. Even though the concept of augmented reality has been discussed and researched for several years, major developments in this particular field are yet to be accomplished. With the development of augmented reality in computer systems, medical operations, military tasks as well as other activities can be accomplished in a more effective manner.
As evident from the technologies discussed above, the new technologies and trends in the computer industry have created a number of benefits for society. However, this also would result in several negative consequences for society. One such negative effect is the higher level of industrial waste generated as more and more computer systems are disposed. Furthermore, several health issues could occur due to extensive usage of computers. While it is important for us to stay in touch with recent trends in the world of technology in order to use new technologies effectively and efficiently, it is also important to be aware of any negative effects of these technologies so that these effects could be avoided.  Despite these disadvantageous issues, computer technology helps to develop the world around us constantly. The future would lead to a large number of a variety of different new technologies that aim to make our lives more convenient and also help us in our academic and professional work.


Thursday, September 6, 2012

Sri Lankan Cricket Awards 2011/12

It was yesterday when CEAT cricket awards were presented. But I had problems with the picks and I am going to pick my choices. This is only on International mens cricket as I follow only that.

TEST

Best Batsmen 

Nominees 

  • Kumar Sangakkara
  • Thilan Samaraweera
  • TM Dilshan
Best Batsmen - KUMAR SANGAKKARA

Best Bowler

Nominees
  • Rangana Herath
  • Suranga Lakmal
  • Chanaka Welagedara 
Best Bowler - RANGANA HERATH

ODI

Best Batsmen

 Nominees
  • TM Dilshan
  • Mahela Jayawardene
  • Angelo Mathews
Best Batsmen - MAHELA JAYAWARDENE

Best Bowler

Nominees
  • Nuwan Kulasekara
  • Lasith Malinga
  • Rangana Herath
Best Bowler - NUWAN KULASEKARA

Best Allrounder

Nominees
  • Angelo Mathews
  • Thisara Perera
  • TM Dilshan
Best Allrounder - THISARA PERERA

T20

Best Batsmen

Nominees
  • Angelo Mathews
  • Mahela Jayawardene
  • Thisara Perera
Best Batsmen - ANGELO MATHEWS

Best Bowler

Nominees
  • Lasith Malinga
  • Thisara Perera
  • Nuwan Kulasekara
Best Bowler - LASITH MALINGA

Best Allrounder

Nominees
  • Angelo Mathews
  • Thisara Perera
  • TM Dilshan
Best Allrounder - TM DILSHAN

Emerging Cricketers

Emerging Batsmen

Nominees
  • Lahiru Thirimanne
  • Dinesh Chandimal
  • Tharanga Paranawithana
Emerging Batsmen - DINESH CHANDIMAL

Emerging Bowler

Nominees
  • Suranga Lakmal
  • Shaminda Eranga
  • Sachithra Senanayake
Emerging Bowler -SHAMINDA ERANGA

Emerging Allrounder

Nominees
  • Jeewan Mendis
  • Kosala Kulasekara
  • Seekkuge Prasanna
Emerging Allrounder - JEEWAN MENDIS


Monday, August 27, 2012

Ruhuna, Uthura, Basnahira walkaway empty-handed as Wayamba, Uva, Kandurata and Nagenahira to clash in the Semis.

The inaugural SLPL is now on its peak time as the Semi finals are to be began ob few days later.

The surprise was the teams who were looking to win the title lost their way in the tournament. Basnahira, which Dilshan captained, had a great side but failed in the league as the couldn't win a match after their win in the first match.
Everyone went to say Ruhuna will fancy their chances as Malinga and Afridi were in their side. But they were also failed to make the semis.
It was not a good series for the Uthura team as they couldn't find proper combination and their master Murali didn't come to best.

But nevertheless Wayamba Made the semis with no trouble. It was spectacular to watch how their youngsters coped in the league.
Uva and Nagenahira came through to the semis with ups and downs, but however Kandurata's come back made the tournament more interesting. It happened after Jayasuriya's comeback and he turned his team's fortune's around.

WAYAMBA UNITED - Mahela Jayawardene
KANDURATA WARRIORS - Sanath Jayasuriya
UVA NEXT - Thilina kandamby
NAGENAHIRA NAGAS - Angelo Mathews

Thursday, August 23, 2012

Official Sri Lankan Squad announced for WCT20 2012

It was yesterday(23rd) when we announced our dream team for WCT20 and today we have received the official team for the world cup. It was only the inclusion of Dilshan Munaweera challenged our dream squad instead of kapugedara's conclusion. Mahela captains the team.

Akila Dananjaya and Dilshan Munaweera has been called in for the National team for the first time and Ajantha Mendis gets call back.

Here is the official team for the ICC T20 World Cup 2012-Sri Lanka

1.Mahela Jayawardene (Captain/Bat)
2.Angelo Mathews (vice Captain/All)
3.Kumar Sangakkara (Bat/Wk) [Subject to fitness]
4.TM Dilshan (All)
5.Lasith Malinga (Bowl)
6.Nuwan Kulasekara (Bowl) [Subject to fitness]
7.Ajantha Mendis (Bowl)
8.Thisara Perera (All)
9.Rangana Herath (Bowl)
10.Dinesh Chandimal (Bat/Wk)
11.Jeewan Mendis (All)
12.Lahiru Thirimanne (Bat)
13.Shaminda Eranga (Bowl)
14.Dilshan Munaweea (Bat)
15.Akila Dananjaya (Bowl)

Nuwan Kulasekara and Kumar Sangakkara are categorized under subject to fitness, but they will be available for the WCT20 as we all think.

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Isuru_thiwa announces the dream team for WCT20 2012 - Sri Lanka


My Dream team for the ICC T20 World Cup - Sri Lanka

1.Mahela Jayawardene (Captain/OpeningBat)
2.TM Dilshan (OpeningBat/SpinBowl)
3.Dinesh Chandimal (Bat/WKeeper)
4.Kumar Sangakkara (Bat)
5.Angelo Mathews (ViceCaptain/Bat/SeamBowl)
6.Lahiru Thirimanne (Bat)
7.Jeewan Mendis (Bat/SpinBowl)
8.Thisara Perera (Bat/SeamBowl)
9.Shaminda Eranga (SeamBowl)
10.Akila Dananjaya (SpinBowl)
11.Lasith Malinga (SeamBowl)

12.Ajantha Mendis (SpinBowl)
13.Nuwan Kulasekara (SeamBowl)
14.Chamara Kapugedara (Bat)
15.Sachithra Senanayake (SpinBowl)

I think the top 11 is well Balanced and if changes are needed due to pitch conditions, you can either take Ajantha Mendis in a Spinning track, can take Kulasekara in order to swing the bowl. I believe Chandimal should bat at No.3. Senanayake is a handy bowler who can bat a bit can replace a batsman also because the team seems high batting weighed. Kapugedara is a frequent choose as he is a big hitting batsman and is in good form in SLPL. The rewards should be given to Shaminda Eranga and Akila Dananjaya for their top performances in SLPL. Otherwise the same, frequent team for SL.

cheers, isuru_thiwa

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Martin Wickramasinghe and Sinhalese literature

http://www.sundayobserver.lk/2001/pix/PrintPage.asp?REF=/2010/06/13/mon03.asp

"My body grew like that of any Sinhala villager. My mind, however, developed differently. The benefit of private education from a centre of learning or from learned pundits were not available to me. I resorted to leaning by directly exploring my world and by eagerly reading books" - Martin Wickramasinghe.
In this week's column, I want to examine the life and times of Martin Wickramasinghe and his overarching influence on Sinhalese literature. As we celebrate his 120 birth anniversary, it is pertinent to look back, at least briefly, on the literary legacy of Martin Wickramasinghe.
Martin Wickramasinghe is Sri Lanka's greatest authors and intellectuals. He began to write in his mother tongue at the age of 13 years and continued to write both in Sinhala and English until the age of 86. Some of his major novels and short stories have been translated into English, Russian, German, Dutch, Chinese, Romanian, and Tamil Languages.
Martin Wickramasinghe published his first novel "Leela" in 1914. "Gahaniyak" (A Woman).Of his work, the most prominent Gamperaliya (Village in Transition) was published in 1944. He has published 14 novels. Martin Wickramasinghe has written and published a total of 107 short stories. The first collection was published in 1924 under the title
Martin Wickramasinghe was born in 1890 in the pastoral village of Koggala in the Sothern province of Sri Lanka. Like many authors of universal fame, Wickramasinghe was greatly influenced by the surroundings of his native habitat, its panoramic beauty and the down-to-earth life led by its inhabitants. Although he subsequently migrated to Colombo and spent a large part of his life there, Wickramasinghe could not forget the village of Koggala and its unassuming villagers and socio-cultural life, particularly, at the tail end of colonialism in Sri Lanka.
The village of Koggala and its folks were vividly captured in his literary productions in general and in Gamperaliya in particular.
Martin Wickramasinghe was, by and large, a self-educated (auto-didactic) intellectual who dominated the milieu. His multi-faceted personality spread over diverse areas such as journalism, literary criticism, public sphere as a cultural intellectual, philosophy and anthropology. As a cultural critic, Martin Wickramasinghe played a pivotal role in introducing psychoanalysis and some of the scientific concepts such as Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, for the first time, to a Sinhalese readership. He was in the forefront of inventing Sinhalese wardsfor English scientific terms such as evolution, at a time when the medium of instruction was switched over to vernacular from English.

Milieu in transition

Martin Wickramasinghe' enduring legacy should be examined against the milieu he was born into as he grew up to become a formidable cultural and social intellectual. When Wickramasinghe was born, it was the hay day of British colonialism in Sri Lanka. The collapse of feudalism and emergence of capitalism with the political and economic independence in the horizon was indeed an eventful era, marked by unprecedented socio-economic upheavals. One of the salient characteristics of the time was the dismantling of the monarchy and the British who conquered the island, developing the rudimentary infrastructure as a part of the British Empire.
The education which was primarily aimed at producing a local English educated bureaucracy to support the British administration, led to the formation of a class of professionals such as clerical workers and teachers and the emergence of a business class. This, then turned the socio-economic order dominated by landed gentry topsy-turvy . It was this transition of the milieu which Martin Wickramasinghe vividly captured as a sub-text in his trilogy Gamperaliya (Village in transition), Kali Yugaya (era of Kali) and Yuganthaya (End of an era).

Gamperaliya as a seminal literary work

Apart from its rich Sinhalese colloquial idiom, the novel Gamperaliya marked an important millestone in the evolution of Sinhalese fiction in general and in the genre of novel in particular. The pre-independent era in Sinhalese fiction was marked by literary productions, which were primarily used as vehicles for political propaganda.
For instance novels by Piyadasa Sirisena, who wanted to instil morale values in the readers and to stir patriotic sentiments, were inundated with long harangues and rather incredible plots. The language and the idiom in those novels were also monotone and artificial. Some of the characteristics of the early Sinhalese novels were the absence of evolution of characters, artificial dialogues, deliberately inserted diatribues, and the deliver of sermons to the readers.
Gamperaliya which is now widely accepted as the first ever Sinhalese novel was a marked departure from the hitherto established tradition of Sinhalese novel. For the first time, Martin Wickramasinghe set the precedence of realistic novel in Sinhalese literature.
It was through Gamperaliya that Sinhalese novels reached maturity in diverse aspects, albeit not an unblemished masterpiece in Sinhalese literature. Gamperaliya is marked for, among other things, use of colloquial Sinhalese idiom, application of psychological concepts in the evolving three dimensional characters and literary concepts such as inter-texuality (story within a story) and generation of novel tropes. Although the plot is, somewhat, similar in character to Anton Chekov's Cherry Orchard, Martin Wickramasinghe vividly depicted the socio-economic transformation that took place in the milieu as a sub-text of the novel.
The story revolves around the family of Kaisaruwattes who represents decaying feudalism and Piyal, a young bright teacher of English symbolises the emerging business class. In a way, in Gamperaliya, Martin Wickramasinghe has codified the post-colonial economic history of Sri Lanka in the most creative and artistic manner.
The author has exploited to the maximum, every avenues of creativity to arrive at the central theme. For instance, vividly realised descriptions of nature are often synchronised with the changing moods of the characters.
It should be stated here that the author has not used colloquial Sinhalese idiom in its raw form as some of the so called contemporary Sinhalese literary award winners would interpret to achieve their ends. In fact, Wickramasinghe adapted colloquial Sinhalese idiom into fiction in an ingenious manner.
Wickramasinghe further expanded his thesis in the two novels of the trilogy Kali Yugaya and Yuganthaya. One of the factors that made Martin Wickramasinghe a literary genius of Sri Lanka is that he was a bilingual who read voraciously to understand world literature. His wide ranging reading on diverse array of subjects such as literature, philosophy, science and psychology earned him the title of 'Sage of Koggala'. The enduring literary legacy of Martin Wickramasinghe continues to influence contemporary Sinhalese literary scene.
However, born in mind that the use of raw filth (bordering on pornographic literature) by so called post-modern Sinhalese literati, is not the refined colloquial Sinhalese idiom that Martin Wickramasinghe used in his corpus of writings. On the other hand, labyrinthine structure of a poor novel with equally poor syntax cannot be interpreted as a 'Post-modern novel'. Lessons are many to be learnt from the life and work of Martin Wickramasinghe.

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Injuries to challenge Sri Lankan chances to win WCT20

It has been heartbreaking to hear some players get injured as the world cup is just on the hands of all. It started from the indian tournament  as the legendary Kumar Sangakkara got injured in quite a bad way. It is said that it would take some time to recover for him.

While SLC lose Sangakkara, it is another concern that the Sri Lanka's best emerging allrounder is just on a injury, Thisara Perera.
In SLPL he is not bowling as much due to this injury.

Earlier ICC T20 no 1 ranked Ajantha Mendis was also on an injury and has recovered from it as he now plays in SLPL.


Team Likely to play in WCT20 2012 - isuruthiwa choice before the SLPL Sparks.

1.Mahela Jayawardene (c/bat)
2.TM Dilshan(all)
3.Dinesh Chandimal (wk/bat)
4.Kumar Sangakkara(wk/bat)
5.Lahiru Thirimanne(bat) / Bhanuka Rajapaksa(bat)
6.Angelo Mathews(vc/all)
7.Jeewan Mendis(all) / Angelo Perera(all)
8.Thisara Perera(all)
9.Shaminda Eranga(bwl) / Nuwan Kulasekara(bwl)
10.Ajantha Mendis(bwl) /Rangana Herath(bwl)
11.Lasith Malinga(bwl)