TechQuiz

This quiz includes questions on Technology, particularly product and process technologies of great relevance to India, and her stature as a nation with immense talent and potential for the use of technologies for holistic development.  Your responses, very brief and to the point, are eagerly awaited.  We are sure you would be as eager to know the answers to some of the questions posed here.

Quiz - 1     Answers

Quiz - 2     Answers

Quiz - 3     Answers

Quiz - 4     Answers

Quiz - 5     Answers

Quiz - 6     Answers

New Quiz - 7 & 8

Quiz - 8

1. This Professor of IIT Madras is an authority in technology, telecommunications, computer networks and fiber optics.  Over the years, through sheer hard work, dedication, passion and creativity, he has explored the worlds of engineering and technology, and developed advanced wireless communication systems.  He has also incubated several successful start-ups and was awarded the Padma Shri by the Government of India.  Who?

2. Who was the first designer of the BASIC interpreter implemented in India, and also a key member of the team that built India’s first multi-user operating system?

3. He became President of Bell Labs, the world’s largest R&D organization.  He had worked there for nearly three decades.  He is also a known expert in the field of multimedia communications and the one who pioneered digital images and video compression technology.  His work on high-definition television earned him an Emmy.  He holds 60 patents in the area of human interfaces, picture processing and digital television.  Who?

4. He gave India its first supercomputer, the PARAM 8000, in 1991.  He did it in a record time of three years.  It was the most resoundingly proud retort to the USA, which had then refused to let Cray sell its supercomputer to India.  He went on to build the PARAM 10000 in 1998, one of the world’s largest supercomputers, propelling India in to the group of elite five nations that possess this technology.  He is widely regarded to be the father of supercomputing in India.  Who?

5. More than four decades ago, he left India with a BE in Civil Engineering from the Guindy Engineering College, Madras.  Today, he is among the most respected names in the world in the field of robotics and artificial intelligence.  He was the founding director of the Robotics Institute from 1979 to 1991, and became the Dean of the Computer Science Institute in Carnegie Mellon University, USA.  He was also made the co-Chair of the US President’s Information Technology Advisory Committee.  Who?

6. He leads India’s only storage media manufacturing company, which is also currently among the largest optical media companies in the world.  He is a mechanical engineer and started his company in 1983 in collaboration with a Swiss company.  Who?

7. As a teenager, he was fascinated by physics.  Although he planned to pursue an undergraduate degree in that subject at Delhi University, where he was accepted into the Bachelors degree programme, his brother talked him out of the idea.  He as told by his elder brother that he would end up selling bananas if he continued toward his projected goal of getting a Ph.D. in physics.  He is among the most celebrated electronic chip designers of all time.  Who?

8. He went to seek funds for his start-up company, Excelan.  That was when John Bosch of Bay Partners looked at his business plan, and said, “Indians have not been funded up to now;  maybe it’s time to do one.”  Excelan turned out to be the best investment ever made by Bosch.  After that he funded many Indian start-ups and kick-started the great Indian Silicon Valley saga.  He became CEO of Excelan in 1985 and the company went public in 1987.  It then merged with Novell, the networking major in 1989, in a record of sorts.  He became the first Indian tobe on the Board of a billion-dollar multinational infotech company?  Who?

9. He played a key role in putting the Indian IT sector on the world map.  He became the chief of Nasscom and successfully negotiated for several concessions from the Government of India for the IT industry including Income Tax exemption for software exporters, software reproduction legislation, and excise and sales tax exemption from a number of state governments.  A major award in the IT industry has been instituted in his memory.  Who?

10. What is the theme of TechMotivator’s homepage collage?

Quiz - 7

1. What is special about Oracle’s 10g?

2. What do Cheetah, Puma, Jaguar, Panther and Tiger represent in the case of Operating Systems?

3. What is special about the Intel Pentium Processor Extreme Edition 840?

4. Which company uses the slogan, “Beyond the obvious”?

5. What is Carly Fiorina’s claim to fame in the computing industry?

6. How did the company Accenture derive its name?

7. Expand POST, DBR and SGML.

8. Name the seven members who co-founded Infosys.

9. Who is the CEO (now, 2007) of Cognizant Technology Solutions?

10. What are Skype and eBay?

Quiz - 6

1. “Finding a customer’s real problem requires listening and listening requires time and networking.”  Henry Baird, one of the inventors of CUDA, believes its networking and listening which enabled the invention.  What is CUDA?

    It’s a system of scanning documents especially legacy documents and making them readable on small hand held devices.

2. Leeds United players this season are wearing a new shirt, designed by Diadora which includes a logo on the shoulder that changes colour. What is the significance of this product?

   The logo changes colour with the intensity of the player’s effort thus enabling the coach to determine if the player is exhausted or not.

3. Amazon’s search engine A9 has a facility called “Block View”. What is its use?

   It allows users to virtually walk down the blocks in US cities.

4. Aresa Biodetection, a Danish firm has developed a flower that is likely to solve a major problem that this world faces. What is this flower for?

   Mine detection.

5. The vision statement of Service Corporation International says “Celebrating life, dedication and excellence.” What is ironical about this?

   It’s the world’s largest provider of funeral, cremation and cemetery services.

6. To which path-breaking historic event that occurred in 1783 are Piâtre de Rozier and the Marquis d’Arlandes, a science teacher and an infantry officer, associated with?

   They were the volunteers who rose into the skies above Paris in a hot air balloon made by the Montgolfier brothers to become the first men in history to leave the Earth’s surface for any length of time, and survive.

7. Which historic event was due to Charles William Beebe in 1899?

   He became the first person to descend underwater, in a spherical steel vessel called the Bathysphere, to depths that could never be reached by divers, and observe marine species.  In 1934 he reached a depth of nearly one kilometer when the sphere was harnes with a ship through a cable and lowered.  Of course, if the cable broke, there was no way of returning.

8. In October 1943, the Allies committed almost 300 USAF bombers to destroy a factory at Schweinfurt.  Why?

   The factory was manufacturing ball bearings on which the entire industrial world ran.  Without them industry would come to a grinding halt.  The basic design of ball bearings was patented in 1749 by Philip Vaughan and used on carriage wheels.  The design principle used was that a circle provides the least amount of continuous contact with its surroundings.  And, more than two-thirds of the bombers were lost in that sortie because of Germany’s determination to keep the factory churning out that vital product.

9. What was the responsibility of the “Board of Longitude” formed by the “Longitude Act” of England in 1714?

   To encourage the invention of an accurate clock that could find the longitude to half a degree accuracy during long voyages over the sea.  This was among the greatest challenges then, since many men and valuable tons of cargo were lost at sea due the incapability of determining the correct longitude when ships were out of sight of land.  The inventor, John Harrison, did not have any formal education and was the son of a carpenter.

10. Early cartographers had no clue about tackling the problem of projecting the curvature of the Earth onto a flat map.  This resulted in faulty, unreliable maps, even leading to the “accidental” discovery of America (now challenged) by Christopher Columbus.  In 1569, Gerard Mercator, a Flemish cartographer, tackled the problem using a brilliantly simple project method.  What was it?

    He imagined a cylindrical sheet of paper wrapped around and longitudinally tangential to the earth’s surface at the equator.  The earth’s points could then be projected on to a grid on the inside of the cylindrical sheet by projecting imaginary light rays from the core.  The world’s countries could then be drawn most easily.  Mariners could then simply read off from the map the direction they needed to go, and then follow that bearing on their ship, using their magnetic compass.  Despite its ingenuity, Mercator’s map took a century to have a major impact on navigation.

Quiz - 5

1. “When there is a burglar in my house, I don’t want to call the police; I want to e-mail them or IM them. The burglar will hear my voice”. This person has a dual degree in business and MSc Engineering Physics from Uppsala University in Sweden.  He co-founded the popular “Kaaza”; arguably the world’s most downloaded Internet software to date.  Who is he?

   Niklas Zennstrom.

2. A former stuntman, who was also a swimming champion and a serially unsuccessful inventor, was appalled by a BBC documentary about the spread of AIDS through Africa.  This motivated him to develop and patent, with much difficulty, one of the best communication devices meant for the poor living in places without electricity.  Who was the person and what did he invent?

   Trevor Bayliss.  The hand wound, clockwork radio.

3. One of his prominent quotes is “Quality is not only obtainable, but essential.”  He was so obsessed with eliminating waste that he is said to have marked the eggs in his refrigerator with the purchase date so that the oldest would be eaten first.  Who is he?

   Edward Deming.

4. This man is said to be surrounded by a Reality Distortion Field, which enables him to convince everybody in his vicinity that he is right. An Indian software company turned to his company’s product to celebrate a financial landmark. Who are we talking about?

   Steve Jobs.

5. Who started the concept of Credit card and name the company?

   The world changed 55 years ago when Frank McNamara created the first multi-use charge card - the Diners Club Card.  In 1950, a world without cash was inconceivable.  Today, an economic universe without plastic is just as inconceivable.  From New York to Bangkok, for business or leisure, the phrase "charge it" is now a universal occurrence, playing a key role in how consumers pay for goods and services.

6. The French minister for culture and communication Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres wrote this “I do not believe that the only access to our culture is automatic ranking by popularity”.  What was he referring to?

   Google.

7. This company grew ten fold in a matter of ten years to $25 billion and achieved its position of dominance by consistently delivering on what is known as the Moore’s Law. (Gordon Moore, one of the company’s founding members predicted that computers would double in power and halve in price every 18 months).Which is this company?

   Intel.

8. In 1946 twenty people met in a burned-out department store in Tokyo to form a new company – The Tokyo Telecommunication Engineering Corporation.  One of its founders, Masaru Ibuka, wanted to create a product that would be useful to the general public.  What is the company known as today?

   Sony Corporation.

9. During the 1990’s Indian companies went through a mad rush to get ISO certifications. Which was the first retail organization to get an ISO-9002 certification in India?

   Landmark.

10. Founded on 24th September 1946, legend has it that Farrell and a group of foreign correspondents thought of the airline’s unique name in the bar at the Manila hotel. Which is this airline?

    Cathy Pacific.

Quiz - 4

1. In 1847, Ignaz Semmelweis invented what is even today considered the most basic and important of medical inventions. It continues to save the lives of millions throughout the world. What was the invention?

   Antiseptics. He was trying to find out why many young mothers (1 in 5) were dying of puerperal fever in maternity wards. His superiors resented being told that they were the cause of many deaths and soon got rid of him.

2. What popular invention resulted from George deMestral’s walk in a park in Switzerland?

   Velcro. Cocklebur seeds that adhered to his jacket during the walk prompted him to examine them, and he noticed that the seeds were covered with tiny hooks that adhered to the loops in his jacket fabric.

3. UK-92480, a pharmaceutical compound was developed and patented by Andrew Bell, David Brown and Nicholas Terret in England. What is its popular name?

   Viagra. The compound, then known as sildenafil, was originally developed to provide relief to patients suffering from such conditions as angina, but failed to do so. But during trials, the subjects noticed a sexually beneficial effect, and Viagra happened at Pfizer.

4. What was Dr. Samuel White’s brilliant invention that changed the practice of dentistry?

   In 1944, he invented and launched the flexible shaft drill that allowed the rotating bit to be powered from any angle. It gave dentists greater freedom and patients lowered pain. However, the speed of the rotating bit was limited by the ability of the bearings to permit the speeds. Only recently have high speed bearings been manufactured to a sufficiently high tolerance and standard of design to allow high speed drills to operate without excessive failures, at least for about 18 months from first use.

5. Arthur Wynne created one of the world’s most popular daily pastimes in 1913. What was it?

   Crossword puzzles.

6. Queen Elizabeth I, who is known to have taken a bath “whether she needed it or not”, was delighted with her godson, Sir John Harington’s invention. What was it?

   Flushing toilet.

7. The 17th century English scientist, Robert Hooke, of whom Sir Isaac Newton was a towering contemporary, invented a device that enabled tracking and study of the sun through an optical instrument. What was it?

   The universal joint. Hooke’s invention really succeeded only 200 years later with the development of the motor car.

8. In 1679, Denis Papin, a French physicist, who assisted Robert Boyle, used the latter’s scientific discoveries and invented what is today one of the most commonly found kitchen equipment. His invention earned him a membership of the Royal Society of England. What was the invention?

   The pressure cooker. Although he realized the power of steam, his designs for steam-driven machines were impractical, but Newcomen and James Watt later took his ideas and succeeded to develop steam engines, the most enduring symbol of the first Industrial Revolution.

9. “Drill”, “gin” and “combine” are three words that pertain to three technologies that mechanized agricultural practices and have had the highest impact. What did they enable?

   In 1701, Jethro Tull (not the rock music group, obviously), an English farmer, developed a seed “drill”. It enabled the placement of seeds below the soil surface in parallel rows, safely hidden from birds. Also, it enabled the easy hoeing of weeds that grew between the rows. Crop Yield was thus maximized.

   Eli Whitney’s cotton “gin”, patented in 1793, enabled the separation of seed from cotton fibers and thus boosted cotton production in the USA.

   “Combines”, patented in 1836 in the USA, enabled the cutting, harvesting and threshing of cereal crops of about one tonne per hectare. The latest self-propelled combines, that cost a fortune, have satellite navigation systems that record variations in crop yield as soil and other conditions vary across the field. This also enables proper metering of fertilizer application to subsequent crops.

10. Which Indian product is better known as “Toehold” in Europe?

    Kolhapuri Chappal. 

Quiz - 3

1.   What is the process for separation of substances according to their volatility called?

Distillation.

2.   What technology is used to separate heterogenous and liquid mixtures based on the differences in mass of their constituents?

Centrifuge.

3.   Who said, “If there were any control over me and my work every idea would stop.” ?

S. G. Brown, the American-born holder of 235 patents in telegraphy, radio and gyro compass design.

4.   Which was the first commercially important man-made fibre?

Viscose rayon.

5.   Who invented the first cylinder pin-tumbler lock?

Linus Yale Jr.

6.   Which common modern packaging material was invented in 1957 by sheer chance while engineers were trying to perfect plastic wall paper?

The bubble wrap sheets.

7.   Match the following inventors with their original professions.

1 – C;  2 – A;  3 – D;  4 – B.

8.   Who said, “There are no unsuccessful experiments.  If we stop, it is we who are unsuccessful, not the experiments.” ?

Alexander Graham Bell.

9.   How was Madison Square Theater in New York air-conditioned in 1880?

It used 4 tons of ice blocks and blew air over them.

10. What was the ‘Black Maria’?

Thomas Alva Edison’s ‘Black Maria’ was his film research laboratory.  It was built on a revolving base to follow the sun’s path to capture maximum natural light.

Quiz - 2

1.   Who developed BASIC?

John Kemeny and Tom Kurtz in 1964.

2.   What media product did David Paul Gregg invent ?

Optical/Video disk.

3.   Which company uses this slogan:  “What Mankind Can Dream, Technology Can Achieve” ?

Fujitsu.

4.   Expand “Yahoo”.

Yet Another Heirarchical Officious Oracle.

5.   What is the significance of “QWERTYUIOP” ?

The first e-mail message.  Ray Tomlinson was the inventor of Internet based e-mail in the early 1970’s.

6.   What is the significance of the message “Welcome to the Dungeon © 1986 Basit * Amjad (pvt) Ltd.” ?

The Pakistani brothers Basit and Amjad Alvis, created the first ever computer virus called “Brain”. The quoted text was the message that accompanied the virus and flashed across thousands of computers throughout the world.

7.   Which company uses the corporate slogan “The Power To Manage. Anything. Anywhere.” ?

IBM.

8.   Expand the acronym:  CHAT (used commonly over the Internet).

Conversational Hypertext Across Technology.

9.   What is the historic contribution of Linus Torvalds ?

He was the developer of the kernel for “open source” Linux GNU.

10. Identify this Indian in IT:

He is the father of fiber optics, the man that Fortune magazine named as one of the seven ‘Unsung Heroes’ in its ‘Businessmen of the Century’ issue. Born in India, educated in England and working in the US for the past many decades, he invented fiber optics – “the wonder material” – in 1954. That’s the technology that is now used for endoscopy devices to high-capacity telephone lines and has changed the medical, communication and business worlds. Who?

Dr. Narinder Singh Kapany.

Quiz - 1

1.  What is “Flosolver”?

‘Flosolver’ is a parallel processing computer

2.  In which hi-tech area(s) has India effected reverse transfer of technology to Europe and USA?

Catalysts

3.  Which is India’s largest public-private partnership initiative since Independence?

New Millenium Indian Technology Leadership Initiative (NMITLI).

4.  What is known as the “second battle of Haldighat”?

The Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) challenging the grant of a patent in the United States for use of haldi for wound healing.

5.  Which library, the first-ever in the world, is accessible in eight international languages?

Traditional Knowledge Digital Library.

6.  What is the name of the drug developed by CSIR for curing anti-cerebral Malaria?

E-MAL.

7.  What is achieved when “Saheli” is used once a week?

‘Saheli’ is a non-steroidal family planning pill.

8.  What special technology is used for crime detection, paternity disputes and wildlife preservation?

DNA fingerprinting.

9.  What is India’s special status with reference to the United Nations Law of the Sea Treaty?

India is the first Pioneer Investor under the UN Law of Sea Treaty.

10. What is special about a technology called “Swaraj”?

‘Swaraj’ is an indigenously developed tractor.

"Hope you enjoyed TechQuiz, and felt the pride for ‘home-grown’ technology welling up inside you.  Would you like to contribute questions and answers for future runs of TechQuiz?"