Pune , March 15, 2010

Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) announced the release of three new products from their R&D stable on the eve of their 23rd Foundation Day, at a press conference today. The products will be formally released on March 16, 2010 at the hands of Padma Shri Dr Vijay Bhatkar, Founder Director, C-DAC and Chairman, ETH Research Labs as part of the 23rd Foundation Day celebrations. The three products that will be released are GenoPipe (A tool for high thoroughput comparative genomics of prokaryotes), SEISTOM (A seismic traveltime tomography package), and LIPS Live (Language Independent Programme Subtitles Live).

Addressing the media, Shri Rajan T Joseph, Director General, C-DAC said, "As C-DAC celebrates its 23rd Foundation Day, it is indeed an emotional moment to look back at the milestones crossed and take stock of our achievements. It gives me great pleasure to announce that like the previous years, C-DAC has continued its focus on innovative technologies and will release three key products from our R&D pool. These products are a showcase of our expertise in technologies ranging from High Performance Computing to Multilingual Computing. We sincerely believe that we have a duty towards technological empowerment and in this process, we must steady ourselves to cater to the industry as well as the masses. Today, there is an increased impetus on research and development, and C-DAC shall certainly look forward towards playing a catalytic role in this sphere."

Bacterial diseases have always been part and parcel of human civilization. Two of the most well known bacterial diseases are Tuberculosis and Typhoid, which are caused by bacteria called Mycobacteria and Salmonella. To tackle these global challenging problems in healthcare, it becomes essential to utilize state-of-the-art technologies to address problems caused by bacterial diseases.

High throughput genome sequencing and advances in computational biology are such technologies that can enable us to tackle such diseases. Specialized tools are required to analyze the plethora of sequence data generated in a rapid and efficient manner. GenoPipe is an automated pipeline for comparative genomics, a very significant step in the down-stream analyses of genomic data. The tool is capable of handling multiple bacterial genomes and has been tested on Salmonella and Mycobacterium, the causative agents of dreadful diseases viz., Typhoid and Tuberculosis. The data generated using GenoPipe helps to understand two important aspects of the bacterial infection i.e., host-specificity and pathogenicity. GenoPipe has been installed on ‘BIOGENE’ a 1TF machine at C-DAC, Pune and the Institute of Animal Health (IAH), UK where it is being used by the UK scientists to study comparative genomics of bacterial pathogens known to affect humans and animals.

SEISTOM (SEISmic traveltime TOMographic Inversion) package is a tool that uses seismic waves generated by explosions to create computer-generated, two and three-dimensional images of the Earth's interior. By using arrival times of waves recorded by seismic sensors, SEISTOM can define the geology of the Earth’s sub surface. This information can give scientists an estimate of the composition of the earth’s interior and can help in locating hydrocarbon/ mineral sources etc. inside the earth. SEISTOM can also be used to study and predict surface stability that plays an important role in the construction of foundations for dams, bridges, water reservoirs and so on.

Industrial applications for SEISTOM can cover areas like dam construction, bridge constructions, reservoir studies, ground water and mineral/hydrocarbon exploration etc.

LIPS Live or Language Independent Programme Subtitles Live is a multilingual fully automated Subtitling Suite. It goes much beyond conventional subtitling technology and brings the power of multilingual subtitling by facilitating on-the-fly subtitling instead of the cumbersome process of working with video tapes and without any manual intervention. LIPS Live can be easily integrated with the existing playout automation transmission system.

The product and the technology, which are revolutionary, and a first in India have features to provide a peace-of-mind solution to the broadcast media. The product caters to all official Indian languages as well as international languages. Standard subtitle protocols that differ can also be handled with ease. Easy correction in mismatch of sub-titles with any particular scene can be done in a matter of seconds and as a major plus: it enables searching for a scene through the sub-titles.

This technology provides immense benefits to broadcasters: Previously in Post-production, subtitles were fused with video and stored on tapes; but thanks to this technology, the work flow is automated which completely eliminates post-production. Earlier videos with subtitles had to be stored onto the tapes for each channel, but now on the fly subtitle overlaying can be done for any channel.

Speaking on the occasion, Dr Hemant Darbari, Executive Director, C-DAC, Pune commented, "the occasion of Gudi Padwa adds an increased auspiciousness to the celebrations of C-DAC’s 23rd Foundation Day. C-DAC has made innumerable strides on the technology front leading to the successful completion of a number of national initiatives. This year, as we will release three products, we look forward to galvanize our activities for enhanced responsiveness to the new challenges of technology as well as the needs of the market".

C-DAC will be celebrating its 23rd Foundation Day on March 16, 2010 to coincide with the occasion of Gudi Padwa. Padma Shri Dr Vijay Bhatkar will deliver the Annual Foundation Day Lecture and Shri Rakesh Singh, Addl Secretary, Department of Electronics and Information Technology will be Chief Guest at the event. Padma Bhushan Shri F C Kohli, former Dy Chairman, Tata Consultancy Services will be the Guest of Honor and Shri Ravi Pandit, Chairman and Group CEO, KPIT Cummins Infosystems Ltd will deliver the presidential address.