{"id":102000,"date":"2020-05-06T16:08:49","date_gmt":"2020-05-06T23:08:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=102000"},"modified":"2020-05-06T16:08:49","modified_gmt":"2020-05-06T23:08:49","slug":"innovations-via-digitalization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/05\/06\/innovations-via-digitalization\/","title":{"rendered":"Innovations via digitalization"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>Aloysius Hettiarachchi<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n<p>Few days ago I was watching an interesting\nprogram hosted by ITN between 10pm and 12pm where the National Innovation\nCouncil chairman presented six innovations done by Sri Lankans. They were\nmostly the solutions related to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. The chairman\nstated that about 250 innovation have been brought to the council in recent\ntimes for assessment with a view for getting patents as well as funding\narrangements. The sudden upsurge in the interest towards innovations is a very\ngood sign that our youths want to catch up with the rest of the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Chairman was even advising the\ninnovators not to divulge their ideas as sometimes one single innovation can not\nonly change the fortunes of that inventor but that of the whole country. I\nfully agree with him. At the end of this write up I will give clues to two\ninnovations which I believe has great potential.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However the absence of any senior academic\nat least to explain what they are engaged on was &nbsp;conspicuous. Does that mean that there is no\ninvolvements of our academics from universities in the innovations?. I remember\nreading a news report in one of the national news papers that some Peardeniya\ndons got together and repaired a few ventilators that were not working and\nhanded over to the Ministry of Health for use in hospitals to fight Covid-19.\nIt was also mentioned that they could not repair few other ventilators due to\nthe lack of spare parts in the country. If the parts could be identified, then\nthey could easily order them from overseas or else they should be able to make\nthem locally. That is the type of innovations we are looking for from them. If\nthey can understand the functionality of the various parts of the system then\nthey can design and manufacture the relevant parts including the controller to\nsuit. I give below how one guy study the controller of a 3D printer and solve\nthe puzzle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Electronics Reverse Engineering Walkthrough - Hacking the Monoprice Select Mini 3D Printer\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/T-o-ibGUEoA?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>With only about three months reading of\nbooks left behind by my daughter who did an IT course and hands on experience I\nmyself was able to do the logic analysis of a simple devise (a Real Time Clock\nwhich I bought for Rs. 300) with a $12 logic analyzer and the results is shown\nbelow:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"775\" height=\"403\" src=\"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/digitalization.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-102001\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/digitalization.jpg 775w, https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/digitalization-300x156.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/digitalization-768x399.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 775px) 100vw, 775px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Following video explains the process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"#99 Logic Analyzer for I2C, SPI and many more protocols\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/7_gCUZg8nAo?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>I am sure our dons with PhDs and so on can\neasily do the replication of ventilator machines (or any other\ndysfunctional&nbsp; machine, but they may be\ntoo lazy to try it or are involved with trivial matters. For me this all\nstarted when I wanted to reset data in the toner control chips of an expensive\nprinting machine few months ago. As they say the necessity is the mother of\ninvention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In order to overcome the problem of lack of\nsufficient number of well trained personnel on the field of digital technology,\nI suggest we start teaching this subject right after the A&#8217;Level while they\nwait for the results for uni admissions. This can be conducted via a series of\nonline classes from a central location. Six months of teaching will be more\nthan sufficient to cover the digital logic and the microarchitecture levels of\nthe computer organization. It can also cover the history of the computer\ntechnology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>History of the making of the microprocessor\n(or the digital technology based on silicon) is interesting. I give below an\naccount of its development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/spectrum.ieee.org\/tech-history\/silicon-revolution\/the-surprising-story-of-the-first-microprocessors\">https:\/\/spectrum.ieee.org\/tech-history\/silicon-revolution\/the-surprising-story-of-the-first-microprocessors<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now about the two items of innovations\nwhere there can be huge potential:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We have sea right round our country. And we\nhave probably hundreds of deep sea fishing boats going out to sea. They scour\nthe sea without much clue as to where the fish shoals might be. It seems\nsometime they follow debris floating in the deep sea as possible locations\nwhere fish can be found. The scanning systems available that can be fixed on\nboard so far can only do so beneath the boat in a small conical prism. So, some\nscanning by sonar is probably the best to locate fish shoals within several\nkilometers. There are products from big companies like HP for analyzing the\necho using the mathematical Fourier series. In fact these are used in oil\nexplorations. One can easily google and find out about that technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Then there is another one that I myself am\ninterested. A clue can be found in the following video:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"5G Towers EFFECT Bees, Birds, Trees &amp; PEOPLE  |  FACT or FICTION ???\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/jOGGUM1M508?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>This video is about how the 5G mobile\ntransmissions affect us all particularly the bees.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Aloysius Hettiarachchi Few days ago I was watching an interesting program hosted by ITN between 10pm and 12pm where the National Innovation Council chairman presented six innovations done by Sri Lankans. They were mostly the solutions related to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. The chairman stated that about 250 innovation have been brought to the council [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[158],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-102000","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102000","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102000"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102000\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}