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HALO 3

Halo 3 is a 2007 first-person shooter video game developed by Bungie for the Xbox 360 console. The third installment in the Halo franchise, the game concludes the story arc begun in 2001's Halo: Combat Evolved and continued in 2004's Halo 2. The game was released on September 25, 2007, in Australia, Brazil, India, New Zealand, North America, and Singapore; September 26, 2007, in Europe; and September 27, 2007, in Japan. Halo 3?'?s story centers on the interstellar war between twenty-sixth century humanity and a collection of alien races known as the Covenant. The player assumes the role of the Master Chief, a cybernetically enhanced supersoldier, as he battles the Covenant. The game features vehicles, weapons, and gameplay not present in previous titles of the series, as well as the addition of saved gameplay films, file sharing, and the Forge map editor—a utility which allows the player to perform modifications to multiplayer levels.

Bungie began developing Halo 3 shortly after Halo 2 shipped. The game was officially announced at E3 2006, and its release was preceded by a multiplayer beta open to select players who purchased the Xbox 360 game Crackdown. Microsoft spent $40 million on marketing the game, in an effort to sell more game consoles and broaden the appeal of the game beyond the established Halo fanbase. Marketing included cross-promotions and an alternate reality game.

On the day before its official release, 4.2 million units of Halo 3 were in retail outlets. Halo 3 grossed US$300 million in its first week. More than one million people played Halo 3 on Xbox Live in the first twenty hours. To date, Halo 3 has sold in excess of 14.5 million copies, making it the fifth best selling Xbox 360 game of all time, the second best selling game in the Halo franchise, the best selling Xbox 360 exclusive title and the best selling first person shooter on the console outside of the Call of Duty games.The game was also the best-selling video game of 2007 in the U.S.Overall, the game was very well received by critics, with the Forge and multiplayer offerings singled out as strong features; however some reviewers criticized single-player aspects, especially the plot and campaign layout. A prequel to the game, Halo 3: ODST, was released worldwide on September 22, 2009. A sequel, Halo 4, released on November 6, 2012, was developed by 343 Industries and grossed $220 million on its launch day.

Halo 3 was released as part of Halo: The Master Chief Collection for the Xbox One on November 11, 2014.

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Judo

Judo  is a modern martial artcombat and Olympic sport created in Japan in 1882 by Jigoro Kano. Its most prominent feature is its competitive element, where the objective is to either throw or take down an opponent to the ground, immobilize or otherwise subdue an opponent with a pin, or force an opponent to submit with a joint lock or a chokeStrikes and thrusts by hands and feet as well as weapons defenses are a part of judo, but only in pre-arranged forms (kata, ) and are not allowed in judo competition or free practice (randori,). A judo practitioner is called a judoka.

The philosophy and subsequent pedagogy developed for judo became the model for other modern Japanese martial arts that developed from kory? (, traditional schools). The worldwide spread of judo has led to the development of a number of offshoots such as Sambo and Brazilian jiu-jitsu

There are three basic categories of waza (techniques) in judo: nage-waza (throwing techniques), katame-waza (grappling techniques) andatemi-waza (striking techniques).Judo is most known for nage-waza and katame-waza.

Judo practitioners typically devote a portion of each practice session to ukemi (break-falls), in order that nage-waza can be practiced without significant risk of injury. Several distinct types of ukemi exist, including ushiro ukemi (rear breakfalls); yoko ukemi (side breakfalls); mae ukemi ,(front breakfalls); and zenpo kaiten ukemi ,( rolling breakfalls)

The person who performs a Waza is known as tori (, literally "taker") and the person to whom it is performed is known as uke,( literally "receiver").

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INDUS VALLEY CIVILIZATION

The Indus Valley Civilization (IVC) was a Bronze Age civilization (3300–1300 BC; mature period 2600–1900 BC) extending from what today is northeast Afghanistan to Pakistan and northwest India. Along with Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia it was one of three early civilizations of the Old World, and of the three the most widespread, covering an area of 1.25 million km2. It flourished in the basins of the Indus River, one of the major rivers of Asia, and the Ghaggar-Hakra River, which once coursed through northwest India and eastern Pakistan.

At its peak, the Indus Civilization may have had a population of over five million. Inhabitants of the ancient Indus river valley developed new techniques in handicraft (carnelian products, seal carving) and metallurgy (copper, bronze, lead, and tin). The Indus cities are noted for their urban planning, baked brick houses, elaborate drainage systems, water supply systems, and clusters of large non-residential buildings.

The Indus Valley Civilization is also known as the Harappan Civilization, after Harappa, the first of its sites to be excavated in the 1920s, in what was then the Punjab province of British India, and is now in Pakistan. The discovery of Harappa, and soon afterwards, Mohenjo-Daro, was the culmination of work beginning in 1861 with the founding of the Archaeological Survey of India in the British Raj. Excavation of Harappan sites has been ongoing since 1920, with important breakthroughs occurring as recently as 1999. There were earlier and later cultures, often called Early Harappan and Late Harappan, in the same area of the Harappan Civilization. The Harappan civilization is sometimes called the Mature Harappan culture to distinguish it from these cultures. By 1999, over 1,056 cities and settlements had been found, of which 96 have been excavated, mainly in the general region of the Indus and Ghaggar-Hakra Rivers and their tributaries. Among the settlements were the major urban centres ofHarappaMohenjo-daro (UNESCO World Heritage Site), DholaviraGaneriwala in Cholistan andRakhigarhi.

The Harappan language is not directly attested and its affiliation is uncertain since the Indus script is still undeciphered. A relationship with the Dravidian or Elamo-Dravidian language family is favored by a section of scholars, while others suggest an Austroasiatic language related to Munda.

Skeletal remains at Harappan sites belonged to proto-Australoid, Mongoloid, Mediterranean and Alpine.

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Machu Pichu

Machu Picchu or Machu Pikchu (Quechua machuold, old person, pikchu peak; mountain or prominence with a broad base which ends in sharp peaks, "old peak", pronunciation [?m?t?u ?pixt?u]) is a 15th-century Inca site located 2,430 metres (7,970 ft) above sea level. It is located in the Cusco Region, Urubamba Province, Machu picchu District in Peru. It is situated on a mountain ridge above the Sacred Valley which is 80 kilometres (50 mi) northwest of Cusco and through which the Urubamba River flows. Most archaeologists believe that Machu Picchu was built as an estate for the Inca emperor Pachacuti(1438–1472). Often mistakenly referred to as the "Lost City of the Incas", it is the most familiar icon of Inca civilization.

The Incas built the estate around 1450, but abandoned it a century later at the time of the Spanish Conquest. Although known locally, it was unknown to the outside world before being brought to international attention in 1911 by the American historian Hiram Bingham. Since then, Machu Picchu has become an important tourist attraction. Most of the outlying buildings have been reconstructed in order to give tourists a better idea of what the structures originally looked like. By 1976, thirty percent of Machu Picchu had been restored. The restoration work continues to this day.

Since the site was not known to the Spanish during the colonial period, it is highly significant as a relatively intact cultural site. Machu Picchu was declared a Peruvian Historical Sanctuary in 1981 and a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983. In 2007, Machu Picchu was voted one of the New Seven Wonders of the World in a worldwide Internet poll.

Machu Picchu was built in the classical Inca style, with polished dry-stone walls. Its three primary structures are the Inti Watana, the Temple of the Sun, and the Room of the Three Windows. These are located in what is known by archaeologists as the Sacred District of Machu Picchu.

Machu Picchu is vulnerable to threats. While natural phenomena like earthquakes and weather systems can play havoc with access, the site also suffers from the pressures of too many tourists. In addition, preservation of the area's cultural and archaeological heritage is an ongoing concern.

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MANCHESTER............

Manchester  is a city in the metropolitan county of Greater Manchester with a population of 514,417 in 2013; it lies within the United Kingdom's second most populous urban area which has a population of 2.55 million. Manchester is in the south-central part of North West England, fringed by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east and an arc of towns with which it forms a continuous conurbation. Thelocal authority is Manchester City Council and the city's inhabitants are referred to as Mancunians.

The recorded history of Manchester began with the civilian settlement associated with the Roman fort of Mamucium, which was established around 79 AD on a sandstone bluff near the confluence of the rivers Medlockand IrwellHistorically part of Lancashire, although areas of Cheshire, south of the River Mersey were incorporated into the city during the 20th century.Throughout the Middle Ages Manchester remained a manorial township but began to expand "at an astonishing rate" around the turn of the 19th century. Manchester's unplanned urbanisation was brought on by a boom in textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution, and resulted in it becoming the world's first industrialised city. The building of the Bridgewater Canal in 1761 built to transport coal triggered an early 19th century factory building boom which transformed Manchester from a township into a major mill town andborough that culminated in city status in 1853 - thus becoming the first new British city in over 300 years. In 1877,Manchester Town Hall was built and in 1894 the Manchester Ship Canal, at the time the longest river navigation canal in the world, opened, creating the Port of Manchester and linking the city to sea. Manchester's fortunes decreased after the Second World War due to deindustrialisation. However, investment spurred by the 1996 Manchester bombing led to extensive regeneration, particularly in the city centre.

The city is notable for its architectureculturemusic scenemedia linksscientific and engineering outputsocial impactsports clubs and transport connections. Known through time as a hotbed for radical ideas, Manchester was the site of the world's first railway station and is where scientists first split the atom, and developed the first stored-program computer. Manchester is also regarded as the birthplace of women's suffrage in the United Kingdom, and both capitalism and communism. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels began to write the Communist Manifesto atChetham Library, the oldest public library in the English-speaking world.

Today Manchester is ranked as a beta world city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network. Its metropolitan economy is the third largest in the United Kingdom with a GDP of $88.3bn (2012 est., PPP).Manchester is the third-most visited city in the UK by foreign visitors, after London and Edinburgh.

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Andriod

Android is a mobile operating system (OS) based on the Linux kernel and currently developed by Google. With a user interface based on direct manipulation, Android is designed primarily for touchscreen mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet computers, with specialized user interfaces for televisions (Android TV), cars (Android Auto), and wrist watches (Android Wear). The OS uses touch inputs that loosely correspond to real-world actions, like swiping, tapping, pinching, and reverse pinching to manipulate on-screen objects, and a virtual keyboard. Despite being primarily designed for touchscreen input, it also has been used in game consolesdigital cameras, regular PCs (e.g. the HP Slate 21) and other electronics.

Android is the most widely used mobile OS and, as of 2013, the highest selling OS overall. Android devices sell more than WindowsiOS, and Mac OS X devices combined,with sales in 2012, 2013 and 2014 close to the installed base of all PCs. As of July 2013 the Google Play store has had over 1 million Android apps published, and over 50 billion apps downloaded. A developer survey conducted in April–May 2013 found that 71% of mobile developers develop for Android. At Google I/O 2014, the company revealed that there were over 1 billion active monthly Android users, up from 538 million in June 2013.

Android's source code is released by Google under open source licenses, although most Android devices ultimately ship with a combination of open source and proprietary software. Initially developed by Android, Inc., which Google backed financially and later bought in 2005, Android was unveiled in 2007 along with the founding of the Open Handset Alliance—?a consortium of hardware, software, and telecommunication companies devoted to advancing open standards for mobile devices.

Android is popular with technology companies which require a ready-made, low-cost and customizable operating system for high-tech devices. Android's open nature has encouraged a large community of developers and enthusiasts to use the open-source code as a foundation for community-driven projects, which add new features for advanced users or bring Android to devices which were officially released running other operating systems. The operating system's success has made it a target for patent litigation as part of the so-called "smartphone wars" between technology companies

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Swami Vivekananda

Swami Vivekananda (Bengali: [?ami bibekan?n?o] ( listen), Sh?mi Bibek?nando; 12 January 1863 – 4 July 1902), born Narendra Nath Datta[3] (Bengali: [n?rend?ro nat?? d??t?t?o]), was an Indian Hindu monk and chief disciple of the 19th-century saint Ramakrishna. He was a key figure in the introduction of the Indian philosophies of Vedanta and Yoga to the western world[4] and was credited with raising interfaith awareness, bringing Hinduism to the status of a major world religion in the late 19th century.[5] He was a major force in the revival of Hinduism in India and contributed to the notion of nationalism in colonial India.[6] Vivekananda founded the Ramakrishna Math and the Ramakrishna Mission.[4] He is perhaps best known for his inspiring speech beginning with "Sisters and Brothers of America,"[7] through which he introduced Hinduism at the Parliament of the World's Religions in Chicago in 1893.

Born into an aristocratic Bengali family of Calcutta,[8] Vivekananda showed an inclination towards spirituality. He was influenced by his guru Ramakrishna from whom he learnt that all living beings were an embodiment of the divine self and, hence, service to God could be rendered by service to mankind.[9] After the death of his guru, Vivekananda toured the Indian subcontinent extensively and acquired a first-hand knowledge of the conditions that prevailed in British India.[10] He later travelled to the United States to represent India as a delegate in the 1893 Parliament of World Religions. He conducted hundreds of public and private lectures and classes, disseminating tenets of Hindu philosophy in the United States, England and Europe. In India, Vivekananda is regarded as a patriotic saint and his birthday is celebrated as the National Youth Day.[11]

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Ocimum tenuiflorum

Ocimum tenuiflorum, also known as Holy Basil, tulsi, or tulas?, is an aromatic plant in the family Lamiaceae which is native throughout the Eastern World tropics and widespread as a cultivated plant.[1] It is an erect, much branched subshrub, 30–60 cm tall with hairy stems and simple, opposite, green leaves that are strongly scented. Leaves have petioles, and are ovate, up to 5 cm long, usually slightly toothed. The flowers are purplish in elongate racemes in close whorls.[2] The two main morphotypes cultivated in India and Nepal are green-leaved (Sri or Lakshmi tulsi) and purple-leaved (Krishna tulsi).[3]

Tulsi is cultivated for religious and medicinal purposes, and for its essential oil. It is widely known across South Asia as a medicinal plant and an herbal tea, commonly used in Ayurveda, and has an important role within the Vaishnavite tradition of Hinduism, in which devotees perform worship involving holy basil plants or leaves.

The variety of Ocimum tenuiflorum used in Thai cuisine is referred to as Thai holy basil (Thai language: ?????? kaphrao);[1] it is not to be confused with Thai basil, which is a variety of Ocimum basilicum.

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Jules verne

Jules Gabriel Verne (French pronunciation: ?[?yl v??n]) (8 February 1828 – 24 March 1905) was a French novelist, poet, and playwright best known for his adventure novels and his profound influence on the literary genre of science fiction.

Born to bourgeois parents in the seaport of Nantes, Verne was trained to follow in his father's footsteps as a lawyer, but quit the profession early in life to write for magazines and the stage. His collaboration with the publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel led to the creation of the Voyages Extraordinaires, a widely popular series of scrupulously researched adventure novels including Journey to the Center of the Earth, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, and Around the World in Eighty Days.

Verne is generally considered a major literary author in France and most of Europe, where he has had a wide influence on the literaryavant-garde and on surrealism. His reputation is markedly different in Anglophone regions, where he has often been labeled a writer ofgenre fiction or children's books, not least because of the highly abridged and altered translations in which his novels are often reprinted.

Verne is the second most translated author in the world (following Agatha Christie),[1] and his works appear in more translations per year than those of any other writer.[2] Verne is one writer sometimes called "The Father of Science Fiction," as are H. G. Wells andHugo Gernsback

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Seven Wonders

New7Wonders of the World (2000-2007) was an initiative started in 2000 as a Millennium project to choose Wonders of the World from a selection of 200 existing monuments.[1] The popularity poll was led by Canadian-Swiss Bernard Weber and organized by the New7Wonders Foundation based in Zurich, Switzerland, with winners announced on July 7, 2007 inLisbon.[2][3]

The New7Wonders Foundation claimed that more than 100 million votes were cast through the Internet or by telephone. The voting via Internet was limited to one vote for seven monuments per person/identity, via telephone multiple voting was possible,[4] so the poll was considered not scientific ("decidedly unscientific").[5] According to John Zogby, founder and current President/CEO of the Utica, New York-based polling organization Zogby International, New7Wonders Foundation drove "the largest poll on record".[3]

The program drew a wide range of official reactions. Some countries touted their finalist and tried to get more votes cast for it, while others downplayed or criticized the contest.[3][5] After supporting the New7Wonders Foundation at the beginning of the campaign, by providing advice on nominee selection, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) by its bylaws having to record all and give equal status to the world heritage sites distanced itself from the undertaking in 2001 and again in 2007.[6][7]

The New7Wonders Foundation, established in 2001, relied on private donations and the sale of broadcast rights and received no public funding or taxpayers' money.[8] After the final announcement, New7Wonders said it didn't earn anything from the exercise and barely recovered its investment.[9]

It was the first in a planned series of lists; in 2007 the foundation launched New7Wonders of Nature, which was the subject of voting until Nov. 11, 2011. New7Wonders Cities is the current project, with voting through July 2014.[10]

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Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler (German: [?ad?lf ?h?tl?] ( listen); 20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of theNazi Party (GermanNationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP); National Socialist German Workers Party). He waschancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945 and dictator of Nazi Germany (as Führer und Reichskanzler) from 1934 to 1945. Hitler was at the centre of Nazi Germany, World War II in Europe, and the Holocaust.

Hitler was a decorated veteran of World War I. He joined the German Workers' Party (precursor of the NSDAP) in 1919, and became leader of the NSDAP in 1921. In 1923, he attempted a coup d'état in Munich, known as the Beer Hall Putsch. The failed coup resulted in Hitler's imprisonment, during which time he wrote his memoir, Mein Kampf (My Struggle). After his release in 1924, Hitler gained popular support by attacking the Treaty of Versailles and promoting Pan-Germanismantisemitism, and anti-communism with charismatic oratory and Nazi propaganda. After his appointment as chancellor in 1933, he transformed the Weimar Republic into theThird Reich, a single-party dictatorship based on the totalitarian and autocratic ideology of Nazism.

Hitler's aim was to establish a New Order of absolute Nazi German hegemony in continental Europe. To this end, his foreign and domestic policies had the aim of seizing Lebensraum ("living space") for the Germanic people. He directed the rearmament of Germany and the invasion of Poland by the Wehrmacht in September 1939, resulting in the outbreak of World War II in Europe. Under Hitler's rule, in 1941 German forces and their European allies occupied most of Europe and North Africa. In 1943, Germany had been forced onto the defensive and suffered a series of escalating defeats. In the final days of the war, during the Battle of Berlin in 1945, Hitler married his long-time partner, Eva Braun. On 30 April 1945, less than two days later, the two committed suicide to avoid capture by theRed Army, and their corpses were burned.

Hitler's aggressive foreign policy is considered the main cause of the outbreak of World War II in Europe. His antisemitic policies andracially motivated ideology resulted in the deaths of at least 5.5 million Jews, and millions of other people deemed racially inferior.

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Battle of waterloo

The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday, 18 June 1815 near Waterloo in present-day Belgium, then part of theUnited Kingdom of the Netherlands. An Imperial French army under the command of Emperor Napoleon was defeated by the armies of the Seventh Coalition, comprising an Anglo-Allied army under the command of the Duke of Wellingtoncombined with a Prussian army under the command of Gebhard von Blücher. It was the culminating battle of the Waterloo Campaign and Napoleon's last. The defeat at Waterloo ended his rule as Emperor of the French, marking the end of hisHundred Days return from exile.

Upon Napoleon's return to power in 1815, many states that had opposed him formed the Seventh Coalition and began to mobilise armies. Two large forces under Wellington and Blücher assembled close to the north-eastern border of France. Napoleon chose to attack in the hope of destroying them before they could join in a coordinated invasion of France with other members of the coalition. The decisive engagement of this three-day Waterloo Campaign (16–19 June 1815) occurred at the Battle of Waterloo. According to Wellington, the battle was "the nearest-run thing you ever saw in your life."[6]

Napoleon delayed giving battle until noon on 18 June to allow the ground to dry. Wellington's army, positioned across the Brussels road on the Mont-Saint-Jean escarpment, withstood repeated attacks by the French, until, in the evening, the Prussians arrived in force and broke through Napoleon's right flank. At that moment, Wellington's Anglo-Allied army counter-attacked and drove the French army in disorder from the field. Pursuing coalition forces entered France and restored King Louis XVIII to the French throne. Napoleon abdicated, surrendered to the British, and was exiled to Saint Helena, where he died in 1821.

The battlefield is in present-day Belgium, about 8 miles (13 km) south by south-east of Brussels, and about 1 mile (1.6 km) from the town of Waterloo. The site of the battlefield is today dominated by a large monument, the Lion's Mound. As this mound was constructed from earth taken from the battlefield itself, the contemporary topography of the part of the battlefield around the mound has not been preserved.

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