APNA SB

Details Published on Monday, 13 August 2012 06:24 We humans have the ability to hear sounds in the range of 80 Hz to 14 kHz, which is pretty good considering the small size of the ears we were given. However, as we get older this range is reduced especially at the top end of the spectrum. The frequency band of normal human speech is much lower than this. Typically, the frequency for male speech ranges between 85 Hz to 180 Hz and for female it is between 165 Hz to 255 Hz. When we speak to someone on the phone the frequency reserved for the telephone call is in the range of 300 Hz to 3 kHz. This is just enough dynamic frequency to ensure the speech doesn't sound like it is coming from the moon or through an underwater pipe. Background and Codecs All digital speech uses the concept of a codec. The word “codec” is an abbreviation combination of coder and decoder. This process describes the algorithm, which digitally encodes and compresses speech samples, so they can be tra...

Details Published on Friday, 24 May 2013 16:00   A large number of Asia Pacific CEOs see their organisations as ‘pioneers’ or ‘fast followers’ in adopting business- and IT-led innovation, says Gartner. The desire and intent to leverage technology better is tempered by some headwinds, as CEOs acknowledge they have IT departments that are still struggling with getting the basics right.           CEO “It is interesting that the Asia Pacific region, long seen anecdotally as more conservative in leveraging technology and driving innovation, has overtaken the global average of CEOs (26 percent) who describe their company cultures as being pioneering in the adoption of innovation,” says Gartner vice president Partha Iyengar.   “This means a larger number of CEOs than we would anecdotally expect are willing to take risks in the adoption of technology to get first-mover advantage. Half of them are focusing on creating a ‘digital strateg...

Details     Published on Thursday, 21 February 2013 05:29     Written by Craig Sutherland As a highly critical sector, the oil and gas infrastructure should be one of the most secure, both physically and digitally. This is not the case. A multi-billion dollar industry, trading one of the most valuable commodities on the market, is connecting its industrial control systems full of unpatched vulnerabilities to the Internet, where cyber criminals roam in all impunity. These systems are poorly protected against cyber threats – at best, they are secured with IT solutions which are ill-adapted to legacy control systems. “The lack of appropriate security has already allowed a number of destructive cyber-attacks to lay waste to some of the most high-profile companies in the industry,” says senior cyber security analyst Michela Menting. “Oil and gas companies have been the victims of sophisticated cyber threats since 2009. Many of these attacks have caused signifi...