Why Do Hard Drives/USB Drives Show Less Space Than Advertised When Plugged In?

When I bought my first USB flash drive a few years ago (2 GB), I was rather shocked to see that it only showed 1.95 GB as my total available space. Feeling robbed of the remaining 0.5 GB by the manufacturer, I looked it up on the Internet and found (admittedly, to my relief) that every other hard drive user had the same concern.

You can see this for yourself right now. Take any digital storage device (e.g., USB flash drive, hard drive, SD card etc.) and plug it into a Windows computer. You will notice that the total available space displayed on the computer is slightly less than the advertised capacity of the device. For instance, if you plug in a 16 GB USB drive, the total available space on a Windows computer would be around 15.6 GB – around 0.4 GB short of the advertised capacity.

Why does this happen? Why do Windows devices and some older versions of MacOS show a total available space that is different from what’s advertised? Some people might claim that this is a classic example of false advertising by marketers, or that the manufacturers are purposely lying about the capacity of hard drives, but is that really the truth?

Short answer: Common programs, including Windows, system BIOS and some old versions of MacOS, use the binary number system, where 1 GB amounts to 1024 MBs, rather than 1000 MBs, which leads to this anomaly in storage devices.

Before trying to understand the reason behind this anomaly, it’s important to know a thing or two about MBs, GBs and TBs – the units used to express the capacity of storage devices of different types.

Understanding the basics: kB, MB and GB

The smallest entity used to measure the capacity of storage devices is a rather aptly named unit called a ‘bit’. A sequence of 8 bits make up a ‘byte’; it is this sequence of 8 bits that is processed as a single unit of information. A cluster of 1000 bytes makes up a kilobyte (kB).

Many people might tell you that 1 kB has 1,024 bytes, and not 1,000 bytes, and that you should get your computer basics straight. However, those people are confused, just like millions of other computer users all over the world.

Decimal system vs. Binary system

Note that the amount of disk space consumed by a file depends on the file system itself. Now, many popular programs and operating systems, including Microsoft Windows (the most commonly used operating system for computers), system BIOS, FDISK and even some old versions of macOS follow the binary numbering system (with base 2). There is a reason behind that too, but for the scope of this article, suffice to say that it’s convenient within the computer to organize things in groups of powers of 2. Therefore, 1 kB contains 2^10 = 1024 bytes.

However, there’s a catch…. the metric prefixes (e.g., kilo, mega, giga) that we use for measuring the storage capacity of hard drives are all decadic, meaning that they are all expressed as powers of 10 (and not 2).

This prefix system is great for the decimal system, but in a binary system – the one that Windows and many other programs use – the terms kilo, mega, giga etc. do not even exist. Since they work with powers of 2, they use slightly different prefixes to express large numbers. For example, 1024 bytes make up 1 kibibyte, which is represented as KiB. Similarly, 1024 kibibytes make up 1 Mebibyte (MiB). Below is a table to help you understand this better:

A lot of confusion between the true storage capacity of a device stems from the way these units are commonly written or printed. People mistakenly use the units of the decimal and binary system interchangeably. For example, the unit ‘KiB’ is casually written as ‘KB’ and is therefore mistaken for ‘kilobytes’, but it actually represents ‘kibibytes’. The same goes for MiB and MB (mebibytes and megabytes) and TiB and TB (tebibytes and terabytes).

Do manufacturers falsely label their storage devices to show more capacity?

That answer is a big NO.

It is the manufacturers (and not programs like BIOS, Windows etc.) that correctly use the prefix mega and giga, i.e., they use the powers of 10 to express storage capacities when labelling their products.

Take a look at this picture of the back side of the packet of a USB flash drive that I recently bought:

Notice that it clearly mentions on the cover that 1 GB = 1,000,000,000 bytes. The best way to check the true capacity of your drive is to check the number of ‘bytes’, rather than MBs and GBs, as the latter could be somewhat confusing. For manufacturers, 1 MB is 1000 kB , but for Windows, 1 MB is 1024 KB (which is actually 1024 kibibytes). This is why, when you plug a storage device into a Windows computer, the total available space appears slightly less than what’s advertised.

Below is a table showing the anomalies in storage capacity as they appear on Windows:

Note that Windows could update their user interface and simply use the decimal system to display total capacity. That’s what Apple’s OS X has already done.

The next time you buy a storage device, such as an external hard drive, for your computer and notice that its available space is less than the space advertised on its packaging, don’t fret. Just check the packaging and verify whether its capacity is 2 TB or 2 TiB. Better still, check the number of ‘bytes’ that the hard drive can handle. At that point, you can easily calculate its correct total capacity. Also, if it’s a Windows machine that you’ve plugged it in, it’s bound to show less space than what’s printed on the cover. However, don’t jump to the conclusion that you’ve been cheated out of those 50 GBs by the manufacturer – they’re just trying to be honest!

How Does Wireless Inductive Charging Work?

Back in the day, when smartphones were not as ubiquitous as they are today, people relied on clunky telephones that only had two vital components – the dialer and the handset. In those days, people probably didn’t take the idea of a portable telephone that could be toted around in their pockets very seriously… it would have sounded like science fiction!

Fast forward to today, where it would be an uphill task to find someone who doesn’t carry a phone everywhere they go. However, a very common issue with smartphones is battery drain – their tendency to discharge their stored energy quite rapidly. Although recharging phones through wired adapters is still the most commonly seen method, wireless charging has signaled a new era of recharging phones’ batteries without the need for wires. In this article, we are going to look at how wireless charging works and whether it is safe.

Inductive charging

More commonly referred to as ‘wireless charging’, inductive charging works on the same principle as induction cooktops – electromagnetic induction, or simply induction.

A smartphone placed on a base plate for inductive charging (Photo Credit : Nebojsa Markovic / Shutterstock)

Electromagnetic induction results in the production of voltage across a conductor placed in a changing magnetic field or a conductor moving through a stationary magnetic field.

How does inductive charging work?

Induction chargers consist of two primary induction coils. One is housed in the ‘charging base’ (commonly known as the ‘mat’) and is responsible for generating an alternating current (AC) from within the base. The other is in the portable device in need of a charge (like a smartphone, tablet etc.). The coil might be in the form of a pad that clips to your phone, a circuit embedded inside your phone, or a replacement battery cover with a built-in charging coil that gets connected to the charging socket. Together, these two coils make up an electrical transformer.

When the power supply to the charging base/plate is switched on, AC flows through it and creates an electromagnetic field (a changing magnetic field) around the primary coil. When the secondary coil (the receiver coil, which is housed in the smartphone) comes in close proximity to the former, an electric current is generated within the coil. The AC flowing through the coil in the smartphone is converted into DC (Direct Current) by the receiver circuit. The DC generated in this way could ultimately be used to charge the battery of the smartphone.

Advantages and Drawbacks

One of the biggest advantages of inductive charging is that it’s wireless, so you don’t have to deal with all those tangled cables. Furthermore, its connections are all enclosed and thus protected, so you run a much smaller risk of electric faults.

There are a few reasons behind that. The biggest drawback of inductive charging is its low efficiency, as a great deal of energy is lost as heat. As a result, your device takes much longer than usual to charge. Furthermore, it’s more expensive than your regular wired chargers.

Some people find it a little inconvenient too, as you have to keep your device on the mat the whole time that it’s being charged. Therefore, you don’t have the luxury to use it while it’s being charged. However, this has been taken care of by WiTricity’s wireless chargers, which can charge your phone from a distance.

Are inductive wireless chargers safe?

We have a tendency to be scared of anything that emits ‘waves’ and ‘signals’, and we invariably presume that they must be harmful to us in some way (like a microwave oven, WiFi router, and even smartphones). However, like most of the things listed here, inductive chargers are absolutely safe.

The electromagnetic field that an inductive charger creates is not strong enough to do any harm to humans. In fact, these chargers might even be safer than the regular ones, since they don’t operate with any wires, which means that you’re protected from even the tiniest chances of sustaining an electrical shock.

Eminent scientist Nikola Tesla pioneered the idea in the late 1800s that power could be transmitted through an electromagnetic field between two objects. In effect, he had envisioned the concept of inductive charging almost two centuries before it came into existence. No wonder he’s dubbed ‘the man who invented the 20th century’!

How Does Google Maps Know About Traffic Conditions?

A few months back, I left my house in the wee hours of the morning to catch a train at 8 AM. A drive from my house to the train station typically takes around an hour and a half. To be on the safe side, I left my house at 6 AM – 2 hours before the scheduled departure time of the train. 45 minutes into the drive, the traffic began slowing down. I began to get a little nervous, as that route didn’t usually have much traffic, especially in the early hours of the morning. Gradually, the traffic slowed even further until I found myself at a complete standstill. It was the very definition of moving at a snail’s pace.

It continued like that for almost 30 minutes. Towards the end of the traffic jam, I saw that a truck had toppled over, which had caused some serious damage to the road and slowed down the traffic. Afterwards, I drove as fast as I safely could, but just as I reached the platform, I saw the very last car of the train pulling out of the station. I had missed it!

I learned a life-changing lesson from this experience: it’s practically a technological sin to not check the current traffic before embarking on a long or critical ride on the road.

In the past, the only way you could learn about how the traffic was moving on a particular road was to tune in to the hourly radio broadcasts. However, thanks to the level of sophistication that we’ve attained today, we can check the status in real-time via Google Maps. Many phone applications and programs rely on Google’s data to provide accurate information relating to your geographical location.

Finding locations is still not too difficult if you have access to a map of the area, but we still can’t know about traffic conditions without some help. Google Traffic does exactly that for you, but have you ever wondered how they accomplish it?

 

Short answer: Google used to rely on traffic sensor data, but now it collects traffic-related information from its own users who have toggled their location to ‘on’ in the Google Maps app.

Google has a special built-in feature called Google Traffic on its Maps app that shows traffic conditions in real-time on major roads in particular geographic locations. If you have the Google Maps app on your smartphone (or any other electronic device), you can access info on the current traffic conditions on any given road/highway.

How does Google Maps know about current traffic conditions?

Traffic sensors

Closed-circuit television cameras (Photo Credit: Adrian Pingstone / Wikimedia Commons)

Until 2009, Google collected data from traffic sensors and cameras on the roads that were mostly installed by government transportation agencies and certain private companies that compiled traffic data for various purposes. These traffic sensors used laser radar or active infrared technology that could detect how fast the overall traffic was moving by observing the general size and speed of automobiles. This information was then transmitted to servers, and regular traffic updates could then be announced. Google also obtained data from these sources and embedded it in their Maps app to inform users of the traffic conditions.

A sensing and monitoring system installed on a detection point for vehicle traffic surveillance and data gathering (Photo Credit: Cameramann / Wikimedia Commons)

Unfortunately, there were a number of drawbacks to this technique. Firstly, these sensors were only installed on important streets, i.e. the roads that were most prone to traffic. Therefore, if you wanted to take an alternate, lesser-used route to your destination, but there was an unexpected traffic jam on it, you wouldn’t know about it in advance. Furthermore, with traffic sensors, you could never get updates on the current traffic on a particular road instantaneously on your smartphone or other handheld device.

Crowdsourcing

In 2009, Google shifted to crowdsourcing – a sophisticated, quicker and much more reliable technique of obtaining real-time traffic data. Below is a simplified illustration of how crowdsourcing works:

First, a large number of people anonymously feed data into a server, which then sends useful, actionable information back to its contributors after some data crunching and analysis.

How does crowdsourcing help Google collect traffic data?

Crowdsourcing is a very interesting sourcing model to collect information. It works like this… suppose you want to provide real-time updates on traffic conditions to users. You first develop an application where users can get directions to places, i.e. a GPS. program. However, in order for a user to get information about the current traffic conditions, she would also have to (anonymously) share her own geographic location with the app. Aside from that one user, there are many other users who want traffic updates of the same route. Therefore, all of them would be required to share their geographic location with the app to access the traffic conditions on a given road.

This way, you (as the app developer) would get loads of information about a particular geographic location, including the number of active users in that area, the speeds of various automobiles where your app is currently in use (through GPS satellites), the “density” of automobiles and a number of other data points. Using all this information, you would provide real-time traffic updates to all of your app’s users by first obtaining information from them. This is how crowdsourcing works – you take information from your app’s users, create an aggregate of data, do some quick analysis and then transmit meaningful, actionable information back to your users.

This is precisely how Google tells you about the traffic conditions in your precise area. Once you toggle ‘My Location’ on in Google Maps, you will automatically start sending your location data to Google’s servers.

Photo Credit : GoogleMaps

While travelling on a busy road, you might be near other travellers who also have toggled their location to ‘on’ in the app, and are therefore automatically sharing traffic info with Google. When Google sees that there are a few slow-moving vehicles (or a lot of slow-moving, Maps-bearing smartphones) in a particular area, it indicates this with a yellow line on Maps. Similarly, if there has been an obstruction or a diversion resulting in a proper traffic jam, it indicates this hindrance with a red line in Maps.

You can always opt out of the system by choosing not to share your location with Google. Your privacy might be protected, but you won’t be able to learn if there’s a traffic jam on the road ahead!

It is important to note that Google claims that the sharing of your smartphone location is completely anonymous, so Google doesn’t know the exact source of the incoming information. This is extremely important, as it results in a reliable, secure ecosystem where users can share information for the collective good without compromising their own privacy.

TESLA TURBINE

We all know about Nikola Tesla, what he did for the human race. His ideas and inventions led us till the future where somewhere we are procedding.
still at this date his ideas are used and are in practice.

Today we are going to talk about one of his inventions that is the TESLA TURBINE.
This turbine has the highest efficiency ever recorded, still in this date also the turbine hold the 1st rank above all.

Here is a video about it. Check it out.

   

Here is an image about the efficinecy of this turbine.

 

I hope you got a glimpse of what this turbine has the capability to do. if this small turbine is connected with a small motor then it would help to generate power of 2.4V . Although if we use bigger turbine and connect it with bigger motor then this would give us desired power output.

Thank You 

Regards

Nishit Joshi 

What Is '' T I M E ''

BEYOUND GRAVITY AND FUTURE ALSO THE PAST AND PRESENT THERE LIES A CHAIN, A LINE OF CONTROL WHICH AFFECTS OUR DAY TO DAY LIFE CALLED T I M E 

Today we are going to talk about TIME beacuse although we are bound to it, yet we are not.

What ever we do where we do, it is TIME. it like Air which surrounded around us but yet we can not see it, though we can feel it.

TIME IS THE UNIT TO EVERYTHING EXISTING IN PAST PRESENT AND THE FUTURE. 

But how to understand time. It's simple what ever you do irrespective of anything anywhere it is recorded in TIME JUST LIKE A MEMORY. Except there are two copies of it one in the time and other in our counsicousness which will be carried out with us after death in other physical form.
And if one wants to know what happened in this era at this moment then, too there are various ways to know. Amongst which some are elisted below
-) DEEP MEDITATION
-) HYPNOTISM
-) TIME TRAVELLING. AND MUCH MORE.

So don't stick to the hands of TIME  as they will only give you loads of work, tons of stress and no relifment. if you want to enjoy time while being bound to it JUST BE YOU. AND DONT ACT. ITS THAT SIMPLE.

If you want to share your views please leave a comment in the comment box below. and I will surely reply to it.

REGARDS,
NISHIT JOSHI

Why Don’t We See Any Satellites In The Pictures of Earth?

We are often contacted by our readers with questions whose answers seem incredibly obvious. Posts like “Where does sugar go after being dissolved?“, “What is the ISS?” or “Where do fish come from in newly formed ponds?” are just some of the many articles that were attempts to answer such questions.

A few days ago, a reader wanted to know the answer to yet another seemingly basic, but very interesting question – why don’t we see any satellites in the numerous pictures of Earth taken from a great distance? If you’re not clear what we’re talking about, go ahead and look up ‘pictures of Earth’ on the Internet. To make it even more convenient for you, I’ll just put a collage of some pictures of Earth right here:

Do you see any satellites in any of them?

If you really think about it, it’s actually quite a valid question. I mean, there are a few thousand satellites orbiting the Earth, and these are just the man-made ones. If you consider every object orbiting our planet, the number would be much higher. There are about 21,000 objects (larger than 10 centimeters) and about 500,000 or so smaller pieces of orbital debris spinning around the Earth right now .

Why don’t we see any of that in our numerous pictures of Earth?

Short answer: The Earth is too big and these objects are too small in comparison to be visible in the same photograph. 

First, let’s briefly take a look at the number of ‘space objects’ circling our planet.

Objects orbiting the Earth

There are thousands upon thousands of objects spinning around the Earth. Some of them are very small (i.e. less than 10 centimeters across) while others are quite huge, relatively speaking.

Man-made objects

Let’s briefly talk about the numerous man-made objects around the planet. Take the ISS, for example.

Image Source: Nasa.gov

It’s approximately 109 meters (356 feet) by 73 meters (240 feet). To put in perspective, it’s slightly larger than a football field. This is the largest (and also, the costliest) man-made object currently orbiting the planet. Apart from that, there are thousands of man-made objects, including the Hubble Space Telescope, Astrosat, NOAA 18 and many other Earth-observation satellites constantly spinning around the Earth.

Space debris

A photo of space debris around Earth released by NASA (Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

Note that these are only the currently operational ones; there are a number of defunct satellites up there too that cannot be repaired. They’re basically going to have to stay up there until they gradually lose altitude and burn up in the atmosphere. These types of satellites add up to a huge amount of space junk, which is a big cause of concern for future space flights.

Natural objects

Apart from man-made satellites and space junk, there are also tens of thousands of celestial objects circling the planet. Such objects have sizes ranging from a couple centimeters to a few feet.

Paths of potentially hazardous asteroids near Earth

There’s one singular takeaway from all of this – there are a LOT of objects circling our planet.

Why are satellites and celestial objects not visible in pictures of Earth?

The answer is pretty straightforward – it’s because Earth is very, very big. It’s hard to say why, but people generally tend to underestimate the sheer enormity of our planet. Our planet is HUGE, in the real sense of the word. In comparison, the objects that orbit the planet are – for the lack of a better word to denote minuteness – puny.

Take the ISS – the biggest man-made object currently spinning around the planet – for example. It has a surface area of around 2,500 square meters or 0.0025 square km, which is almost equal to the size of a 6-bedroom apartment. In contrast, the surface area of the Earth is 510.1 million km squared. We can now calculate how many ISS’es would it need to completely cover the Earth’s surface by applying simple arithmetic.

So, it would take 204 billion ISS’es to entirely cover the planet! To have some idea of what this means visually, take a look at this picture:

A comparison between the size of Earth and the ISS (the biggest man-made satellite in space). (Note: The distance between these two is not to scale).

Note that the pictures of Earth do have satellites in them; however, they’re too tiny to be resolved in the image. Most images of our planet are only a few thousand pixels in diameter; so unless an object is of the order of a kilometer or more (which no object in the vicinity of the planet is), it would only be a fraction of a pixel, and thus invisible in the image. Furthermore, many satellites and a great deal of space debris are above the altitude of the ISS (which clicks a lot of pictures of our planet), so it’s not going to capture an enormous number of objects in the picture anyway, since they’re not there in the first place!

However, there are occasions when you can see a satellite in an Earth-picture, but it would be too small (yes, “magnifying glasses-small”), and practically indistinguishable from the stars in the backdrop.

So, if someone asks why they can’t see satellites in the images of Earth, ask them why a picture of their house doesn’t show the two dozen flies nearby, or why a full-body picture doesn’t show the huge number of bacteria and germs living on their body. Hopefully, that will help them understand!

Why Is Wet Paper So Weak And Easy To Tear?

Gather a bunch of used papers, pile them up and try to tear the stack in half. If you’re not an unusually powerful fellow, it’s highly unlikely that you could tear it. Now, put that same stack in a bucket full of water and let it soak for a while. Take it out a few minutes later and try to tear it again. You should be able to tear it very easily… why is that?

Why does paper become so incredibly weak when it’s wet?

Short answer: Paper is composed of fibers that are tangled together; they start to separate from each other when water is introduced.

What is paper made of?

You must have heard many times that we should conserve paper because “trees are cut down to make them”. Well, that’s exactly right. In essence, a piece of paper is just wood.

Wood is actually a heterogeneous substance; 40-50% of it is micro-fibrils of cellulose and 15-25%  is hemicellulose, both of which are held together by a natural glue called ‘lignin’.  To make paper out of wood, you first need to turn raw wood into ‘pulp’ – a watery soup of cellulose fibers, water, lignin and certain other chemicals used during the process. After the pulp is ready, it goes through several additional processes to ultimately take the form of paper as we know it.

Cellulose structure

You might have read or heard the term ‘cellulose’ many times in discussions pertaining to cotton, wood, dried hemp and other similar materials. It is the most abundant organic polymer (an organic substance whose molecular structure consists of a large number of similar units bonded together) on the planet. It is the chemical structure of cellulose, which happens to be the most important constituent of paper, that keeps the paper ‘rigid’ when dry and extremely fragile when wet.

Take a look at the structural formula of cellulose:

Cellulose consists of many hydroxyl groups (-OH).

The numerous hydroxyl groups (-OH) present in cellulose form hydrogen bonds with oxygen atoms on the same chain or a neighboring chain. Also, one thing you should know about hydrogen bonds – they are incredibly strong! They help hold the long chains of cellulose together and impart that ‘sturdiness’ to paper.

What happens when paper gets wet?

Introducing water to paper brings about a drastic change in its ability to ‘stand up straight’, which severely comprises its strength. You see, cellulose is hydrophilic , meaning that it has an affinity towards water and tends to dissolve in it. When water is added to paper, the hydrogen bonds holding the cellulose fibers begin to break down. This is because water molecules consist of oxygen and hydrogen atoms, which form hydrogen bonds with cellulose fibers, thus weakening their own hydrogen bonds in the process.

In short, you could say that adding water leads to the weakening of the fiber-fiber bonds of paper and leads to an unsteady equilibrium of fiber-fiber and fiber-water.

Wetting paper has a dramatic influence on the strength of paper, such that you could easily tear huge stacks of them apart with little effort. In fact, paper becomes so weak that it can disintegrate all by itself, which can be pretty bad in some cases.

We all know that wet paper is incredibly weak, so it should be handled with the utmost care. Still, now that you are equipped with a bit of scientific insight into how the disintegration of wet paper actually works, perhaps you’ll check your pockets twice before doing the laundry