AAKASH 2 FINALLY MADE ITS WAY IN INDIAN MARKET!

Aakash 2 is the latest version of Indian government Initiative aakash project which aims at providing tablet to every child of India. The tablet is named after Aakash which means sky or space in Hindi. The first phase suffers a huge setback of performance but the latest version is improved a lot. There is a detailed review of aakash 2. We had dissected almost every specification of the tablet in a detailed manner.

Hardware and Design of aakash 2 tablet

Aakash 2 tab is available in black color with boxy design. The weight of this tiny priced tablet is 350 grams. Its build solidly to cope with the frequent falls in the monsoon’s in the India. The dimension of Aakash 2 is 7.5 inch (190.5 mm) long 4.67 inch (118.5 mm) wide with a thickness of 0.62 inches (15.7 mm). The low weight and handy dimension of aakash makes it possible to carry in your pocket. Aakash  has 2 USB ports for plug and play connectivity of external devices. You can use any 3G USB data card to connect to Internet or you can use your Pen Drive to transfer data from it. A video co-processor is added for better rendering of graphics on video playback. No SIM card is provided in aakash 2 but its present in its commercial version Ubisalte 7+. 35% of hardware components of tablet will be outsourced from South Korea, 16% from the USA, 16% from India, 25% from China and 8% from other countries.

Performance and Battery life of aakash 2 tablet

Aakash tablet 2 is powered by a solid ARM Cortex A8 700 MHz processor which delivers you about 1500 MHz if we are comparing it with ARM 11 processor which is present in BSNL tablet. Means it’s about 1.5 times faster than BSNL tablet even with lower configurations on paper. In the testing phase IIT Rajasthan released the specification of 1200 MHz processor and 1GB RAM in aakash 2 which was not feasible in this budget. RAM of aakash tablet 2 is 256 MB which lets you to execute most of the aaps function smoothly. The internal Memory of the tablet is 2GB flash storage and with a use of simple memory card (SD) card you can extend it up to 32GB. The battery life is also enhanced than and instead of 2100mAh battery of aakash 1 you will get 3200mAh battery in Aakash 2 tab which can runs for 3-4 hours smoothly without any power supply. Aakash 1 has suffered a problem of low memory and frequent system freeze which are worked upon this newer version and looks better than before.

Display, Sound and camera of Aakash 2 tab

Aakash tab 2 display is much better than the previous version. Unlike the resistive touch screen of previous version this version owns capacitive touch screen of 7” inches (18 cm). The resolution of the screen is 800×600 which are fine for small screen. The 7” inch (18cm) screen size is measured diagonally. The tablet consists of a built in microphone for voice recording and voice chat while using any voice chat android app. A 3.5 mm jack is provided with aakash 2 for the connectivity of external speakers to enjoy the music and you can also use the earphones that comes along with the tablet. A headset control is also present in aakash 2. A front end VGA camera is also present in aakash 2 tab commercial version Ubislate 7+ but not in aakash tab.

Software Specs of akash 2 tab

Aakash tablet 2 runs on the Android 2.3 platform also known as Gingerbread. Aakash tab supports (DOC, DOCX, PPT, PPTX, XLS, XLSX, ODT, ODP,PDF), image (PNG, JPG, BMP and GIF), audio (MP3, AAC, AC3, WAV, WMA) and video (MPEG2, MPEG4, AVI, FLV) file formats and also you can access youtube with aakash 2 via a inbuilt android app. A special browser is made or the tablet by Datawind to send the data in compress form to speed up the data streaming even at lower bandwidth. It is expected that normal data will transfer about 6 times faster in this browser than other browser due to the use of advance data compression technology of Datawind. When this data is combined with server side data compression you can get speed about 30 times faster than normal. The commercial version of aakash 2 (ubislate 7+) can connect to Google Android market place for downloading of aaps but nothing is said about the aakash2 tablet. But it can connect to the upcoming government apps portal to download apps and content which are specially designed for aakash 2.

Network and Connectivity of akash 2

Aakash2 supports Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN or Wi-Fi). No SIM card slot is provided to enable any GPRS or 3G connectivity with aakash tab 2. But you can use any 3G stick or Modem of different companies to connect the device to Internet. A  Wi-Fi port (802.11 a/b/g/n) is provided to connect the tablet to internet using Wi-Fi.

Aakash tablet 1 vs aakash 2

There is much advancement from the aakash 1 in aakash 2:

1)      Processor of the tablet is improved a lot the architecture is improved and also the speed as it  runs faster about 3 times and performs quite well as a very less system freezes are observed.

2)      Battery life is improved to 50% i.e you can use the tablet for 3-4 hours without any problem.

3)      The Operating system is upgraded and it now runs Android 2.3 Gingerbread instead of 2.2 Froyo.

4)      Aakash 2 can be connected to Google Android Market place unlike aakash tab 1 which can download only from Getjar.

5)      Touch Screen in aakash 2 is now capacitive instead of Resistive in aakash tab 1.

6)      A front end camera is also predicted in aakash 2 but not yet confirmed.

Aakash 2 vs Ubislate 7+

Ubislate 7+ is the commercial version of aakash tablet 2. The tablet is manufactured by Datawind for Indian Public. The commercial variant of Aakash two is almost similar in specification except a few additional features. The additional features of Ubislate 7+ are

1)      Ubislate 7+ allows user to call i.e we can use it as a phone to call other phones.

2)      The SIM card slot allows to connect the tablet to internet without any external USB modem or Wi-Fi

3)      A front Camera is provided for video calling in the tablet also you can use this camera to capture photos and video (low quality)

4)      The integration of Skype or other Android Apps can enable you to connect to video conferencing or video chatting.

Aakash tab 2 Specifications :

Processor	700 MHZ
Video Processor	HD video co-processor
Connectivity	Wi-Fi( 802.11 a/b/g/n)
Screen Size	7 inch.
Screen Resolution	800×480
Screen Type	Touch Screen Capacitive
Internal Memory	2 GB
Random Access Memory (RAM)	256 MB
Expandable Memory	Upto 32 Gb with SD card slot
USP support	2 USB 2.0 Ports
Audio support	3.5 mm jack
File extension Supported	DOC,DOCX,ODT,ODP,PDF,TXT,XLSX,SLS,PPT,PPTX
Battery Life	3 hrs 3200mAh li-po battery
Dimensions	190.5 mm (7.50 in) Height 118.5 mm (4.67 in) Width 15.7 mm (0.62 in) Thick
Weight	350 gram (12 oz)
Warranty	1 Year replacement warranty

Scientists Build the First All-Carbon Solar Cell

Stanford University scientists have built the first solar cell made entirely of carbon, a promising alternative to the expensive materials used in photovoltaic devices today.

"Carbon has the potential to deliver high performance at a low cost," said study senior author Zhenan Bao, a professor of chemical engineering at Stanford. "To the best of our knowledge, this is the first demonstration of a working solar cell that has all of the components made of carbon. This study builds on previous work done in our lab."

Unlike rigid silicon solar panels that adorn many rooftops, Stanford's thin film prototype is made of carbon materials that can be coated from solution. "Perhaps in the future we can look at alternative markets where flexible carbon solar cells are coated on the surface of buildings, on windows or on cars to generate electricity," Bao said.

The coating technique also has the potential to reduce manufacturing costs, said Stanford graduate student Michael Vosgueritchian, co-lead author of the study with postdoctoral researcher Marc Ramuz.

"Processing silicon-based solar cells requires a lot of steps," Vosgueritchian explained. "But our entire device can be built using simple coating methods that don't require expensive tools and machines."

Carbon nanomaterials

The Bao group's experimental solar cell consists of a photoactive layer, which absorbs sunlight, sandwiched between two electrodes. In a typical thin film solar cell, the electrodes are made of conductive metals and indium tin oxide (ITO). "Materials like indium are scarce and becoming more expensive as the demand for solar cells, touchscreen panels and other electronic devices grows," Bao said. "Carbon, on the other hand, is low cost and Earth-abundant."

The Bao group's all-carbon solar cell consists of a photoactive layer, which absorbs sunlight, sandwiched between two electrodes.

For the study, Bao and her colleagues replaced the silver and ITO used in conventional electrodes with graphene -- sheets of carbon that are one atom thick -and single-walled carbon nanotubes that are 10,000 times narrower than a human hair. "Carbon nanotubes have extraordinary electrical conductivity and light-absorption properties," Bao said.

For the active layer, the scientists used material made of carbon nanotubes and "buckyballs" -- soccer ball-shaped carbon molecules just one nanometer in diameter. The research team recently filed a patent for the entire device.

"Every component in our solar cell, from top to bottom, is made of carbon materials," Vosgueritchian said. "Other groups have reported making all-carbon solar cells, but they were referring to just the active layer in the middle, not the electrodes."

One drawback of the all-carbon prototype is that it primarily absorbs near-infrared wavelengths of light, contributing to a laboratory efficiency of less than 1 percent -- much lower than commercially available solar cells. "We clearly have a long way to go on efficiency," Bao said. "But with better materials and better processing techniques, we expect that the efficiency will go up quite dramatically."

Improving efficiency

The Stanford team is looking at a variety of ways to improve efficiency. "Roughness can short-circuit the device and make it hard to collect the current," Bao said. "We have to figure out how to make each layer very smooth by stacking the nanomaterials really well."

The researchers are also experimenting with carbon nanomaterials that can absorb more light in a broader range of wavelengths, including the visible spectrum.

"Materials made of carbon are very robust," Bao said. "They remain stable in air temperatures of nearly 1,100 degrees Fahrenheit."

The ability of carbon solar cells to out-perform conventional devices under extreme conditions could overcome the need for greater efficiency, according to Vosgueritchian. "We believe that all-carbon solar cells could be used in extreme environments, such as at high temperatures or at high physical stress," he said. "But obviously we want the highest efficiency possible and are working on ways to improve our device."

"Photovoltaics will definitely be a very important source of power that we will tap into in the future," Bao said. "We have a lot of available sunlight. We've got to figure out some way to use this natural resource that is given to us."

Source-www.sciencedaily.com