1 MIT Computer Users Group
SHARING KNOWLEDGE
BRIDGING GAPS
March 2015 MIT
COMPUTER
USERS
GROUP
NEWSLETTER
2 MIT Computer Users Group
Dear readers,
We are delighted to bring to you the 9th issue of the MIT Computer Users Group Newslet-
ter! We would like to begin by congratulating our newsletter team for their hard-work and
dedication. The work wouldn’t have been so great without your inputs!
Continuing the trend of articles featuring the latest trending technologies, the current issue
also highlights some remarkable ideas from the computer department, amazing ventures by
students of MIT as well as some of our MIT alumnus. We also highlight some heartwarm-
ing achievements from the computer department. Our aim is to bring forth such marvelous
initiatives and innovations and thereby provide our fellow students with food for thought
about not only cutting edge technologies, but out of the box thinking too!
Here’s hoping this issue lives up to the MCUG tagline “Sharing knowledge, Bridging gaps”
Let’s come together and make this newsletter an iconic platform for revolutionary ideas and
IT breakthroughs!
Thanks and Regards,
Anees RG and Rubal Jabbal
Editors, MCUG Newsletter.
The Editorial team:-
Anees RG
Rubal Jabbal
Madhusudan Saha
Prashant Kumar Singh
Yogesh Challawar
Kalpesh Khandare
Chaitanya Bhandari
Gauri Yewale
Nivedita Patil
Varun Patni
LETTER FROM THE EDITORS
3 MIT Computer Users Group
CONTENTS
Achievements
College Thinking Bright!
EduKitOnline.com
Pixurge
Fizzible
B.E. The Best
Protect Your Privacy
LimeLight
MCUG on the Run
Cutting Edge Technologies
Memristor
Project ARA
Cicrut Band
Voxel
3D Bio Printer
4 MIT Computer Users Group
Computer department won MIT’s Best Accredited Student Branch Award
Achievements
Our Council Members
Name Position Class
Nikhil Kawishwar Secretary for Development Discipline & Organization BE-I
Swetha Tatavarthy Secretary for Magazine/Library BE-II
Mukul More Secretary for Gymkhana BE-II
Rubal Jabbal Ladies Hostel Secretary TE-I
Gandharva’15
Name Award Class
Anupam Alur Best All Rounder (2011-2015) BE-I
Arya Kavale FE-Topper SE-I
Our Teachers
Name Award
Prof. Mrs. Pradnya Kulkarni Longest SBC
Active Participation – Young Member
Prof B.M. Patil Significant Contribution
Achievments
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Achievements Our Sport Stars
Name Class Event Position
Debajyoti Majumdar TE-I TABLE TENNIS
Sympulse’15, SCMS
1st
Anjali Deokate
Vinita Tibdewal
SE
SE
BASKETBALL
Runbhoomi,ISMB
Panache,Cummins Management
Zest,,COEP
!st
1st
2nd
Sakshi Uplenchwar SE-II ROWING
Summit, MIT
1st
Anupam Alur BE-I BASKETBALL
Summit, MIT
Melange, VIT
Dunk-a-delic, Symbosis
1st
2nd
2nd
Our Young entrepreneurs
Name Class Event Position
Shraddha Baranwal
Pratik Magar
BE-I
BE-I
MYOB,
Texephyr, MIT
1st
Nehali Shah
Pooja Sanga
SE-II
SE-II
B-PLAN,
Vishwapreneur’15, VIIT
3rd
Nishant Shuke
Pravesh Tora
Piyush Mishra
TE-II
TE-II
TE-II
COALESCENCE
BITS, Goa
5th
Our Cultural ems
Name Class Event Position
Akriti Upreti
Geeta Pawar
Piyush Dawande
BE-I
TE-I
TE-I
FOOTLOOSE
Melange, VIT
3rd
Achievments
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Believe in your ideas and ideas do come to reality"- DhiruBhai Ambani
"Educational kit" has been one of the strongest entrepreneurial initiatives started by MIT
students Saurabh Phaltane, Piyush Sonawale, Krishna Pawar, Prasad Saindane and team
down in 2010 which all began as a campus reselling platform in MIT and addressing the
needs of students by making available the entire set of educational instruments and Books
at very low rate. With more than 50,000 + students served till the start-up with the help of
few seniors is blossoming as an online venture that facilitates the reselling via an online
platform.
"When we started it was never about money but all for the student needs that we experi-
enced and we tried to addressed " adds Saurabh Phaltane.
The portal presently in ‘Beta’ phase and very few features rolled our presently, plans to
roll out maximum of its features list by June end.
We believe in bringing down the "Total cost of Sustenance" of the students by its unique
analytics framework of peer networks.
The needs of the students and the ex-
ploitation of the students right from
finding the accommodation, to finding
utilities of sustenance and educations in
new cities has been a big business for a
few but a big headache for the stu-
dents.
“With active involvement of MIT En-
trepreneurship cell Edukitonline is building a platform that address the issues to seniors
and directly do the transaction eliminating the middle man profits” adds Pooja Sanga
(member edukitonline.com).
The peer networks are not restricted the college, branch but are dynamic with respect to
persons interests, educations ,location etc. and all driven by Analytics.
We are getting connected in our friends networks and the same links driven ahead for e-
commerce can be driven to further stage by developing the peer networks and developing
a student community that addresses the needs of their peers is the concept the Team pres-
ently working on concludes Krishna Pawar.
College Thinking Bright
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How often do we create Facebook pages to display our masterpieces? How often do we
share those pages anonymously to get more likes? And how often do we give up on them
due to a monotonous response?
With the likes of Facebook, Instagram, Flikr etc. one can say that most aspects of image
sharing has been covered. However, a Facebook page may not benefit an amateur artist or
photographer to the fullest.
So what’s the alternative? Well, we need a portal that should promise to ‘break the internet’
not just with the mainstream image sharing, but with features that will take image sharing to
an all new tangent.
Here’s presenting to you a potential business module, which started with the idea of photog-
raphy using an apple device, and later implemented as a fully functional website. It’s none
other than pixurge.in, co-founded by Debarghya Chatterjee, Kalpesh Khandare, Rajat Kam-
ble and Rubal Jabbal.
Here’s a glimpse at pixurge.in
It’s a platform for Artists and Photographers, ranging from beginner to professional, not just
for sharing but also for competing with fellow aspirants.
With cool features like real time rank tracking, completing achievements for gaining credits,
unique ways of felicitating top images and users, and much more, we assure you that you
have never seen image sharing like this ever before!!
Trained 3k students under fizz PACE Pgm for Awareness of Computer& Electronics
raised funding of 8 million
Won TiE Pune round & stood third in international round held in Delhi with prize money of
$2.5k
College Thinking Bright
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Many of us have accidentally revealed some sensitive information (For e.g. cell phone num-
ber etc.) on the social media such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, WhatsApp etc. Online
Social Networks (OSNs) do not offer foolproof mechanism to protect the users’ sensitive
information. Currently, there are privacy add-ons such as Web of Trust (WoT) which works
as warning mechanisms to users .In order to educate the user about her privacy behavior on
the internet, to alert her about the risk associated with sharing specific information on web-
sites and to eventually change the pri-
vacy habits of the user we have creat-
ed a browser extension that acts as pri-
vacy monitoring layer and provide a
real-time warning to a general user or a
user of a specific web page, about the
sensitivity of the posted content. PyP
unlike WoT, is concerned with users’
sensitive information and intends to
warn the user from sharing the same. If
a user chooses to post the content de-
spite the warning, she would be per-
mitted to do on a personal profile. We
shall evaluate the impact of such priva-
cy controls on the accidental infor-
mation sharing.
Purpose
PYP will basically serve the purpose of a monitoring system which will monitor the user
activity both on desktop. It will notify and warn the user whenever he/she intends to share
sensitive information.
Protect Your Privacy
Fig. SYSTEM DESCRIPTION
Swetha Tatavarthy Meenal Khandelwal Devendra Lad Indraneel Bende
Under the guidance of Prof. L.B. Bhagwat…
B.E. The Best
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All of us like to watch movies. We all
end up predicting about a movie’s
performance before it even releases!
A lot of techniques are involved to do
this professionally.
Due to rapid digitization and emer-
gence of social media the movie in-
dustry is growing by leaps and
bounds. The number of movies re-
leased per year is more than double
when compared to the past century!!
So to make the movie profitable it be-
comes a matter of concern that the
movie succeeds.
This project unveils a prediction engine that would predict gross box office collection and
critics rating of upcoming films.
Difference between the available Predictive models and the model suggested by our
students:
Current models consider either classical factors
(actor, director, production house, etc.) or social
anticipation (data available about movie on so-
cial media). They tend to be about 46% accurate.
Their model takes into account both the classical
factors and social anticipation of movie
(YouTube hit counts, likes, dislikes, Wikipedia
page edit counts counts and viewcounts). It also
considers interrelationship among classical fac-
tors (e.g. Salman khan + action genre or Leonardo De Caprio + director Martin Sorcesse,
etc). This gives us an accuracy above 90%.
E.g. prediction of movie 'Gone girl' : Actual: gross:163 million dollars and 8.3 critics rating.
Predicted :Â gross:152 million dollars and 8.21 critics rating.
This project deals with statistics and predictive analytics. It can also fall in supervised ma-
chine learning and data mining domains. Major technologies used are: Python and Net-
workX tool, R language and R studio and 'shiny-server' for supporting web app.
LimeLight: Prediction of Box-office performance and
overall success of a feature film.
Under the guidance of Prof. Pranali Kosamkar…
Anand Bhave Himanshu Kulkarni Vinay Binamare
B.E. The Best
10 MIT Computer Users Group
Linuxication 2k15
Linuxication has been a trademark event of MCUG since its initiation. We took it a step
ahead by introducing Advanced Linuxication this year enlightened by our alumni Mr.
Vikram Wathodkar. Shar ing Knowledge with above 200 students, we Br idged the Gap
like never before. The event was organized on 13th , 14th and 15th of February by a team of
45 members of MCUG. We conducted various sessions. Mr. Zubraj Singha conducted an
enlightening session on kernel features. The success of the event was overwhelming and we
look forward to take it a step ahead next year.
Linuxication in PVG
Linuxication has been a success in MIT. However its fame is spread all across colleges in
Pune. One such instance was last year's linuxication in PVG. The collaborative team of
MCUG and Fizzible conducted a one day workshop in Pune Vidhyarthi Griha's College. A
team of 7 MCUG members conducted sessions on Linux. The team consisted of Vyas
Bhagwat, Manoj Sakhala, Prashant Kumar Singh, Debajyoti Majumdar, Anees RG,
Akriti Anand and Ajinkya Shendre. The success of the event was exceptional and was
supported by uplifting comments from the attenders.
MCUG ON THE RUN MCUG on the run
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Researchers at HP Labs have solved a decades-old mystery by proving the existence of a fourth basic element in integrated circuits that could make it possible to develop computers that turn on and off like an electric light. In 2008, scientists at HP invented a fourth funda-mental component to join the resistor, capacitor, and inductor: the memristor. Theorized back in 1971, memristors showed promise in computing as they can be used to both build logic gates, the building blocks of processors, and also act as long-term storage.
The memristor — short for memory resistor could make it possible to de-velop far more energy-efficient com-puting systems with memories that retain information even after the pow-er is off, so there's no wait for the sys-tem to boot up after turning the com-
puter on. It may even be possible to create systems with some of the pattern-matching abili-ties of the human brain. At its HP Discover conference in Las Vegas, HP announced an ambitious plan to use memristors to build a system, called simply "The Machine," ship-ping as soon as the end of the decade.
If HP can build such a computer, it may prove revolutionary. The memory hierarchy is, for many computing applications, the fundamental performance bottleneck. Memory can be very fast but very small, such as the cache on a pro-cessor, or very slow but very large, such as spin-ning hard disks. RAM (fast, small) and flash (slower but larger than RAM, faster but smaller than hard disk) fall somewhere in between. Shuffling data between these different kinds of memory, and ensuring that the right data is in the right place for optimal performance, is a significant bottleneck.
High-speed optical interconnects combined with memristor memory could shake all that up by alleviating, if not removing entirely, that size/performance trade-off. At Discover, HP said that this could enable, for example, databases that can handle hundreds of bil-lions of updates per second.
In tandem with the hardware development, HP is also working on a new operating sys-tem that'll be designed for machines that have vast amounts of near-instantly accessible persistent storage. Conventional operating systems aren't; they're built for the hierarchy of memory technologies that are found in current computers.
Memristor Cutting edge technologies
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The memristor has properties that cannot be duplicated by any combination of the other three elements. Alt-hough researchers had observed instances of memristance for more than 50 years, the proof of its ex-istence remained elusive - in part because memristance is much more noticeable in nanoscale devices. The crucial issue for memristance is that the device atoms need to change location when voltage is applied, and that hap-pens much more easily at the nanoscale.
This opens up a whole new door in thinking about how chips could be designed and operated. Engineers could, for example, develop a new kind of computer memory that would supplement and eventually replace today's commonly used dynamic random access memory (D-RAM). Computers using conventional D-RAM lack the ability to retain information once they are turned off. When power is restored to a D-RAM-based computer, a slow, energy-consuming "boot-up" process is necessary to retrieve data stored on a magnetic disk required to run the system.
Memristor-based computers wouldn't require that process, using less power and possibly increasing system resiliency and reliability. The memristor could have applications for computing, cell phones, video games - anything that requires a lot of memory without a lot of battery-power drain.
One goal of this work has been to move computing beyond the physical and fiscal limits of conventional silicon chips. For decades, increases in chip performance have come about largely by putting more and more transistors on a circuit. Higher densities, howev-er, increase the problems of heat generation and defects and affect the basic physics of the devices. Instead of increasing the number of transistors on a circuit, it might soon be possible to create a hybrid circuit with fewer transistors but the addition of memristors - and more functionality.
Instead of increasing the number of transistors on a circuit, it might soon be possible to create a hybrid circuit with fewer transistors but the addition of memristors - and more functionality.
The Machine isn't (yet) on any official HP product roadmaps; at its earliest, it might arrive in 2017, at its latest by 2020. Skepticism is warranted, as memristors have hitherto been on-ly a research project. Turning them into a viable, potentially mass-produced product hasn't been done before, and making that transition is rarely trivial. Over the years all manner of exotic memory technologies have been heralded as the next big thing, but while some, such as Ferroelectric RAM have come to market in limited quantities, none have managed to dis-place conventional DRAM and NAND flash. Memristors could be the one to buck the trend, but that's by no means a certainty.
Cutting edge technologies
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The smartphones is one of the most empowering and inanimate objects in our lives. Yet
most of us have little say in how the device is made, what is does and how it looks. And 5
billion of us don’t have one. What if you could make thoughtful choices about exactly what
your phone does and use it as a creative canvas to tell your own story?
Project Ara is the code-
name for an initiative that
aims to develop an open
hardware- platform for creat-
ing highly modular
smartphones. The platform
will include a structural
frame, such as a display,
camera or an extra battery. It
would allow users to swap
out malfunctioning modules or upgrade individual modules as innovations emerge, provid-
ing longer lifetime cycles for the handset, and potentially reducing electronic waste
The project was originally headed by the Advanced Technologies and Projects team within
Motorola Mobility while it was a subsidiary of Google. Although Google had sold Motorola
to Lenovo. it is retaining the project team who will work under the direction of the Android
division Google intends to sell a starter kit where the bill of materials is US$50 and includes
a frame, display, battery, low-end CPU
and WiFi. Google wants Project Ara to
lower the entry barrier for phone hard-
ware manufacturers so there could be
"hundreds of thousands of developers"
instead of the current handful of big
manufacturers.
Ara Smartphones are built using modules
inserted into metal endoskeletal frames
known as "endos". The frame will be the
only component in an Ara Smartphone
made by Google. The frame acts as the
switch to the on-device network linking
all the modules together. The frame uses
a bus called as Unipro Bus Interface to
establish the connection between differ-
ent modules and get them work.
Project ARA Cutting edge technologies
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Mobile phone vendors has increased the size of its smartphones considerably and has
made us familiar to the term ‘phablet’.
Although the screen sizes have in-
creased, our hands have remained the
same. And accidently dropping our
phones, or struggling to handle it with
one hand are some of the problems we
have learned to live with. Wearable
gadgets like SmartWatch,
Smart Bands, Glasses help us but it’s
not everyone’s piece of cake. What if
there was something less bulky, like a
bracelet which would project your mobile screen on your arm and allow you to use your
skin as a touchscreen.
The techies
at “Cicret” are turning
this idea into a reality
and have designed a
waterproof bracelet
which lets you do so by
projecting
the android interface on
your forearm
through activating the
band by twisting your
wrist. The bracelet
comprises of a Pico
projector which displays the interface on your forearm. Besides it, are eight proximity sen-
sors in a line, these sensors point towards the projected interface and detect the action done
by the finger or fingers of the users hand. It projects as a standalone device and can be acti-
vated just by twisting your arm, as said earlier. Cicret Bracelet will connect to your android
device via the Cicret App.
CICRET BAND Cutting edge technologies
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A voxel is a unit of graphic information that defines a point in three-dimensional space. Since a pixel (picture element) defines a point in two dimensional space with its x and y co-ordinates , a third z coordinate is needed. In 3-D space, each of the coordinates is defined in terms of its position, color, and density. Think of a cube where any point on an outer side is expressed with an x , y coordinate and the third, z coordinate defines a location into the cu-be from that side, its density, and its color. With this information and 3-D rendering software, a two-dimensional view from various angles of an image can be obtained and viewed at your computer. Voxels can easily do things that would otherwise be difficult for polygonal models. Voxels
are more malleable – for example, it’s surprisingly difficult to model holes with a triangular
mesh, but very easy with voxels.
Likewise, voxels enable models to take on
very fine details such as bumps and imperfec-
tions without resorting to graphical “hacks”
such as bump mapping, which merely simu-
late bumps by playing with how light inter-
acts with the surfaces of objects.
Voxels turn out to be a much more natural
way to digitally represent the real world.
General interest in voxels has increased in the past two years because of games like Mine-craft, Voxatron and Fez. These games are inspiring a whole new genre of titles based on the aesthetic look-and-feel of voxels.
Medical practitioners and researchers are now
using images defined by voxels and 3-D software
to view X-rays, cathode tube scans, and magnetic
resonance imaging (MRI) scans from different
angles, effectively to see the inside of the body
from outside.
Geologists can create 3-D views of earth pro-
files based on sound echoes.
Engineers can view complex machinery and
material structures to look for weaknesses.
With a generational change in technology, gamers also expect to move to a new level of in-teraction with the landscape. When you mention voxels, the thing that comes to a gamer’s mind is worlds that would finally be destructible, where you can blow up a wall and see the geometry change, revealing different layers of materials. However, the development for that dream is still under progress as every gamer continues to wait for this magnificent revolution.
VOXEL Cutting edge technologies
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3D bioprinting is the process of generating spatially-controlled cell patterns using 3D
printing technologies, where cell function and viability are preserved within the printed con-
struct.
3D printing is increasingly permitting the direct digital manufacture (DDM) of a wide varie-ty of plastic and metal items. While this in itself may trigger a manufacturing revolution, far
more startling is the recent development of bioprinters. These artificially construct liv-ing tissue by outputting layer-upon-layer of living cells. Currently all bioprinters are experimental. However, in the future, bi-oprinters could revolutionize medical prac-tice as yet another element of the New In-dustrial Convergence. Bioprinters may be constructed in various configurations. However, all bioprinters output cells from a bioprint head that moves left and right, back and forth, and up and down, in order to place the cells exactly
where required. Over a period of several hours, this permits an organic object to be built up in a great many very thin layers. In addition to outputting cells, most bioprinters also output a dissolvable gel to support and protect cells during printing. Bioprinting helps to replicate human organs. The long term goal is to create a whole organ.
However, this technology is in its rudimentary stage. As the system still lacks fine-tuning, it is not yet well-accepted in the mainstream medical field. With a regular ink-jet printer a car-tridge is moved back and forth on a petri dish. A liquid is kept in the petri dish and the car-tridges have cells inside them instead of ink. Inside, it has a crosslinker for binding. The crosslinker turns the liquid into a gel like substance over which the cells are deposited. This process is repeated with addition of liquid and more layers of cells. In this way, cells are structured for the formation of an organ. Newly developed bioprinters work at lower speed and can extrude cells individually from a micropipette. Applications
1. Drug Discovery Computer controlled 3D
bioprinting, com-bined with curable bioinks, has now en-abled the fabrication of 3D tissue, which moreover can sur-vive for significantly longer periods of time compared to their 2D counterparts, enabling longer term impact of a novel drug on human tissue cultures to be analyzed.
3D BIO-PRINTERS Cutting edge technologies
17 MIT Computer Users Group
2. Cosmetic/consumer product testing
The testing of products on animals has been banned and hence bioprinters are a great leap as testing products on a 2D object doesn’t give satisfactory results
3. Tissue implants Earlier transplant when the patient is healthier yielding better outcomes, reduced possi-
bility of organ rejection where the organ is grown from the patient's own cells Re-duced requirement for e.g. dialysis or other life supporting intervention, and Reduced need for lifelong medication to suppress the immune system.
In addition to detailing each of the technologies currently employed, together with their
state of commercialization, future application areas are discussed including: Medical - tissue
engineering, drug discovery, regenerative medicine, dental implants etc. Cosmetic/personal
consumer product screening, biosensors food and animal products.
HACKING THE prOS
(HACKINTOSH) In 2005, Apple decided to stop using Pow-
erPC processors and using intel.
A group of hackers developed a patch to em-
ulate an EFI environment, allowing to install
the Mac OS-X on x86 motherboards.
Many PCs are close enough to Macs under the hood that OS X can be tricked into
running on them.
Cutting Edge Technologies