SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE BOARD OF INDIA (SEBI)

1.Introduction
2.Objectives
3.Functions
4.Powers
5.Powers delegated from SCRA
6.Role of SEBI
7.Organization
8.SEBI and Central Government
9.SEBI Guidelines
1.Guidelines for Primary Market
2.Guidelines for Public Issue
3.Guidelines for Secondary Market
4.Guidelines for Foreign Institutional Investors
5.Guidelines on Bonus Issues
6.Guidelines on Right Issue
7.Guidelines on Underwriters

Introduction

The Government has set up the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) by a notification of Ministry of Finance issued on 12 April, 1988. SEBI is the apex body for the development and regulation of the stock market in India. After 4 years a separate legislation namely Securities and Exchange Board of India Act, 1992 has been enacted. Till then it was acted as an advisory body performing the following functions:

*To collect information and advise the government on matters relating to stock and capital market.
*Licensing and regulation of merchant bankers, mutual funds, etc.
*To prepare the legal drafts for regulatory and development role of SEBI.
*To perform any other functions as may be authorized to it by the Central Government.

By abolishing the office of Controller of Capital Issues (CCI) and by transferring some of the powers of Securities Contracts (Regulations) Act 1956 to SEBI, it was given statutory powers by an ordinance on 30th January. 1992. Thus, at present SEBI is armed with statutory power of regulating the primary market and supervising the functioning of stock exchanges in the country.

SEBI’s Act 1992 provides for the establishment of a Board to protect interest of the investors in securities and promote the development of ital market and to regulate the security market and for matters connected with or incidental there to. The SEBI Act contains 7 chapters and 28 sections.


Objectives of SEBI

The primary objective of SEBI is to promote healthy and orderly growth -of the securities market and secure investor protection. The objectives of SEBI are as follows:

1.To protect the interest of investors, so that, there is a steady flow of savings into the capital market.
2.To regulate the securities market and ensure fair practices.
3.To promote efficient services by brokers, merchant bankers, and other intermediaries, so that, they become competitive and professional.

Functions of SEBI (Sec. 11)

The SEBI Act, 1992 has entrusted with two functions, they are

1.Regulatory functions and
2.Developmental functions

Chapter 4 of the Act deals with the Regulatory and Developmental functions of SEBI.

a) Regulatory Functions: These include

1.Regulation of stock exchange and self regulatory organizations.
2.Registration and regulation of stock brokers, sub-brokers, Registrars to all issues, merchant bankers, underwriters, portfolio managers etc.
3.Registration and regulation of the working of collective investment schemes including mutual funds.
4.Prohibition of fraudulent and unfair trade practices relating to securities market.
5.Prohibition of insider trading
6.Regulating substantial acquisition of shares and takeover of companies.


b) Developmental Functions: These include

1.Promoting investor’s education
2.Training of intermediaries
3.Conducting research and publishing information useful to all market participants.
4.Promotion of fair practices
5.Promotion of self regulatory organizations

Powers of SEBI

In order to carry out its objectives, the following are the powers exercised by SEBI.

1.Power to call periodical returns from recognised stock exchanges.
2.Power to compel listing of securities by public companies.
3.Power to levy fees or other charges for carrying out the purposes of regulation.
4.Power to call information or explanation from recognised stock exchanges or their members.
5.Power to grant approval to bye-laws of recognized stock exchanges.
6.Power to control and regulate stock exchanges.
7.Power to direct enquiries to be made in relation to affairs of stock exchanges or their members.
8.Power to make or amend bye-laws of recognized stock exchanges.
9.Power to grant registration to market intermediaries.
10.Power to declare applicability of Section 17 of the Securities Contract (Regulation) Act 1956, in any State or area, to grant licenses to dealers in securities.

Powers delegated to SEBI under SCRA

The following are the powers delegated to SEBI under Securities Contract (Regulations) Act, 1956.

1.Power to call for periodical returns from stock exchange.
2.Grant approval to any recognized stock exchange to make bye-laws for the regulation or control of contracts.
3.Power to make or amend bye-laws of recognized stock exchanges.
4.Power to compel a public company to list its shares in any stock exchange.
5.Licensing of dealers in securities in certain areas.
6.Power to appoint any person to make enquiries into the affairs of stock exchange.
7.Power to suspend business of any recognized stock exchange.
8.Power to prohibit contracts in certain cases.


Role of SEBI

The SEBI shall create a conductive atmosphere for the proper functioning of the capital market. The atmosphere includes the rules and regulations, trade practices, customs and relations among institutions, brokers, investors and companies. It shall have to get the trust of the investors in safeguarding their interest. This can be achieved by meeting the needs of persons connected with the securities market and establishing proper co-ordination among the three main groups - investors, corporate sector and intermediaries. SEBI shall create proper infrastructure, so that, the market automatically facilitate expansion and growth of business to middlemen like brokers, jobbers, merchant banks, mutual funds, commercial banks, etc. SEBI shall also create the framework for more open, orderly and un-prejudicial conduct in relation to takeover and mergers of corporate sector to ensure fair and equal treatment of all security holders. SEBI plays the dual role of regulation and development. The major roles of SEBI are discussed below:

1.It shall device laws with unified set of objectives, single administrative authority and an integral frame work to deal with all the aspects of the security market.
2.It shall also play an active role in interacting with institution of Chartered Accountants ·of India in upgrading and making more effective the accounting and auditing standards.
3.It shall introduce a system of two stage disclosure at the time of initial issue and make compulsory for the company to provide detailed information to all the stock exchange journals.
4.It will examine the feasibility of introducing a dealer’s network, by which securities can be bought or sold over the counter like in retail shop. This will smoothen liquidity and investment opportunities.
5.It shall work as an authoritative institution, to see that the intermediaries are financially sound and equipped with professional and competent manpower.
6.It will ensure that the rules are versatile and not rigid to provide automatic and self regulatory growth.

Organization of SEBI

The SEBI Act provides for the establishment of a Statutory Board consisting of six members. The chairman and two members are to be appointed by the Central Government, one member to be appointed by the Reserve Bank and two members having experience of securities market to be appointed by the Central Government.

SEBI has divided the activities into four operational departments. They are primary market department, issue management and intermediary’s department, secondary market department and institutional department. Each department is headed by an Executive Director.


1.Primary Market Department: It deals with all policy matters and regulatory issues relating to primary market, market intermediaries and redressal of investor grievances.
2.Issue Management and Intermediaries Department: This department is concerned with vetting of offer documents and other things like registration, regulation and monitoring of issue related intermediaries.
3.Secondary Market Department: This department looks after all the policy and regulatory issues for the secondary market, administration of the major stock exchanges and other matters related to it.
4.Institutional Investment Department: This department is concerned with framing policy for foreign institutional investors, mutual funds and other matters like publications, membership in international organization etc.

In addition to the above, there are two other departments - Legal Department and Investigation Department.

SEBI has two advisory committees, one each for primary and secondary markets. The committees are constituted from among the market players, recognised investor associations and eminent persons associated with capital market. These committees are non-statutory committees.

SEBI and Central Government

The Central Government has power to issue directions to SEBI Board, supersede the Board, if necessary and to call for returns and reports as and when necessary. The Central Government has also power to give any guideline or to make regulations and rules for SEBI and its operations.

The activities of SEBI are financed by grants from Central Government, in addition to fees, charges etc. collected by SEBI. The fund called SEBI General Fund is set up, to which, all fees, charges and grants are credited. This fund is used to meet the expenses of the Board and to pay salary of staff and members of the body.


SEBI Guidelines

[Guidelines for Primary Market – Guidelines for Public Issue – Guidelines for Secondary Market - Guidelines for Foreign Institutional Investors - Guidelines on Bonus Issues – Guidelines on Right Issue – Guidelines on Underwriters]

I. Guidelines for Primary Market

New company

A new company is one which has not completed 12 months commercial production and doesn’t have audited results or where the promoters do not have a track record. Such companies will have to issue shares only at par.

A new company set up by existing companies with a five year track record of consistent profitability and a contribution of at least 50 % in the equity share of new company, it can issue its shares at premium i.e., it is free to price its issue.

Private and Closely held companies having a track record of consistent profitability for at least three years shall be permitted to price their issues freely. The issue price shall be fixed only after consulting with the lead managers to the issue.

Existing listed companies will be allowed to raise fresh capital by freely pricing expanded capital, provided the promoter’s contribution is 50% on first Rs.loo crores of issue, 40% on next Rs.2oo crores, 30% on next Rs.3oo crores and 15 % on balance issue amount.

In the case of composite issues (rights cum: public issue) by existing listed companies, differential pricing shall be allowed. However, justification for the price difference should be given in the offer document.

Lock in period is five years for promoter’s contribution from the date of allotment or from the commencement of commercial production whichever is later. At present, the lock in period has been reduced to one year.


II. Guidelines for Public Issue

1.Abridged prospectus has to be attached with every application.
2.A company has to highlight the risk factors in the prospectus.
3.Objective of the issue and cost of project should be mentioned m the prospectus.
4.Company’s management, past history and present business of the firm should be highlighted in the prospectus.
5.Particulars regarding the company and other listed companies under the same management which made any capital issue during last three years are to be stated in the prospectus.
6.Justification for premium, incase premium is to be stated.
7.Subscription list for public issues should be kept open for a minimum of 3 days and a maximum of 40 working days.
8.The collection centers should be at least 30 which include all centers with stock exchanges.
9.Collection agents are not allowed to collect application money in cash.
10.The quantum of issue shall not exceed the amount specified in the prospectus. No retention of over subscription is permitted.
11.Minimum number of shares per application has been fixed at 500 shares of face value of Rs.loo/-
12.The allotments have to be made in multiples of tradable lot of 100 shares of Rs.1O each.
13.Issues by way of bonus, rights etc. to be made in appropriate lots to minimize odd lots.
14.If minimum subscription of 90% has not been received, the entire amount is to be refunded to investors within 120 days.
15.The capital issue should be fully paid up within 120 days.
16.Underwriting has been made mandatory.

III. Guidelines for Secondary Market


Stock Exchanges

1.Board of Directors of stock exchange has to be reconstituted so as to include non members, public representatives and government representatives to the extent of 50% of total number of members.
2.Capital adequacy norms have been laid down for members of various stock exchanges depending upon their turnover of trade and other factors.
3.Working hours for all stock exchanges have been fixed uniformly.
4.All the recognized stock exchange will have to inform about the transaction within 24 hours.
5.Guidelines have been issued for introducing the system of market making in less liquid scrips in a phased manner in all Stock Exchanges.

Brokers

1.Registration of brokers and sub-brokers is made compulsory.
2.In order to ensure professional qualification and financial solvency, capital adequacy norms for registration of brokers have been evolved.
3.Compulsory audit of broker’s book and filing of audit report with SEBI have been made mandatory.
4.For greater transparency and accountability in broker-client relationship, SEBI has made it mandatory for brokers to disclose transaction price and brokerage separately in the contract notes issued to the clients.
5.No broker is allowed to underwrite more than 5% of public issues.

IV. Guidelines for Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs)

1.Foreign Institutional Investors have been allowed to invest in all securities traded in primary and secondary markets.
2.There would be no restriction on the volume of investment for the purpose of entry of Foreign Institutional Investors.
3.The holding of Single Foreign Institutional Investor in a company will not exceed the ceiling of 5 % of the equity capital of the company.
4.Disinvestment will be allowed only through stock exchanges in India.
5.Foreign Institutional Investors have to pay a concessional tax rate of 10% on long term capital gain (to others - 20%) and 30% on short term capital gains. A tax rate of 20% on dividend and interest is prescribed.


V. Guidelines on Bonus Issues

The following are the SEBI guidelines relating to the issue of bonus shares.

1.There should be a provision in the Articles of Association of the company for the issue of bonus shares. If not, the company should pass a resolution for capitalization of reserves and should be recommended by the Board of Directors.
2.The bonus issue is made out of free reserves built out of genuine profits or share premiums collected in cash only.
3.Reserves created by revaluation of fixed assets are not ‘permitted to be capitalized.
4.The declaration of bonus issues in lieu of dividend is not to be made.
5.Bonus issues are not permitted, unless the existing partly paid shares are fully paid.
6.No bonus issues shall be permitted, if the company has defaulted in respect of payment of statutory dues to the employees.
7.No bonus issue can be made within 12 months of any public issue or right issue.
8.No bonus issue will be permitted if the company defaults in payment of principal or interest on fixed deposit or on debentures.
9.When a company announces the issue of bonus shares, it must be implemented within 6 months from the date of such proposal and shall not have the option of changing the decision.
10.The bonus issues after public or right issues shall not dilute the value or rights of the holders of fully or partly convertible debentures.

VI. Guidelines on Right Issues

1.Where composite issues are made by listed companies, they can be issued at different prices.
2.Gaps between the clearance dates of right issues and public issues should not exceed 30 days.
3.If right issues of listed companies exceed Rs.50 lakhs, issue should be managed by an authorized merchant banker.
4.Underwriting of right issues is not mandatory but as per SEBI Rules right issues can be underwritten.
5.No preferential allotment shall be made along with the right issues.
6.If the company doesn’t receive minimum subscription (90% of the issue amount) within 120 days from the date of opening issue, the entire subscription should be refunded within 128 days with interest @ 15 % p.a. for delay. .
7.The proposed right issue should not dilute the value or rights of fully or partly convertible debenture holders.
8.The issue should not exceed the quantum specified in the prospectus i.e., no part of over subscription is retained.
9.Within 45 days of closure of rights issue, a report in the prescribed form along with compliance report duly signed by the statutory auditor should be forwarded to SEBI.
10.All listed companies making rights issue shall issue an advertisement in at least two All India newspapers about the dispatch of letters of offer, opening date, closing date etc.


VII. SEBI Guidelines on Underwriters

1.No person can act as an underwriter, unless he holds certificate of registration granted by SEBI.
2.The certificate of registration is valid for 3 years from the date of issue.
3.The total underwriting obligations shouldn’t exceed 20 times of his net worth.
4.The underwriter should subscribe securities within 30 days of the receipt of the intimation from the company.
5.The underwriter should furnish within six months from the end of the financial year a copy of the Balance Sheet, Profit and Loss Account, the statement of capital adequacy requirement etc. as required by SEBI.
6.The books of accounts should be maintained for a period of 5 years.

Plotters

A plotter is a vector graphics printing device to print graphical plots, that connects to a computer. There are two types of main plotters. Those are pen plotters and electrostatic plotters.

Pen plotters print by moving a pen across the surface of a piece of paper. This means that plotters are restricted to line art, rather than raster graphics as with other printers. Pen plotters can draw complex line art, including text, but do so very slowly because of the mechanical movement of the pens. Pen Plotters are incapable of creating a solid region of color; but can hatch an area by drawing a number of close, regular lines. When computer memory was very expensive, and processor power was very slow, this was often the fastest way to produce color high-resolution vector-based artwork, or very large drawings efficiently.

Traditionally, printers are primarily for printing text. This makes it fairly easy to control, simply sending the text to the printer is usually enough to generate a page of output. This is not the case of the line art on a plotter, where a number of printer control languages were created to send the more detailed commands like "lift pen from paper", "place pen on paper", or "draw a line from here to here". The two common ASCII-based plotter control languages are Hewlett-Packard's HPGL2 or Houston Instruments DMPL with commands such as "PA 3000, 2000; PD".

Programmers in FORTRAN or BASIC generally did not program these directly, but used software packages such as the Calcomp library, or device independent graphics packages such as Hewlett-Packard's AGL libraries or BASIC extensions or high end packages such as DISSPLA. These would establish scaling factors from world coordinates to device coordinates, and translating to the low level device commands. For example to plot X*X in HP 9830 BASIC, the program would be

**************************************

10 SCALE -1,1,1,1
20 FOR X =-1 to 1 STEP 0.1
30 PLOT X, X*X
40 NEXT X
50 PEN
60 END
**************************************

Early plotters (e.g. the Calcomp 565 of 1959) worked by placing the paper over a roller which moved the paper back and forth for X motion, while the pen moved back and forth on a single arm for Y motion. Another approach (e.g. Computervision's Interact I) involved attaching ball-point pens to drafting pantographs and driving the machines with motors controlled by the computer. This had the disadvantage of being somewhat slow to move, as well as requiring floor space equal to the size of the paper, but could double as a digitizer. A later change was the addition of an electrically controlled clamp to hold the pens, which allowed them to be changed and thus create multi-colored output.

Hewlett Packard and Tektronix created desk-sized flatbed plotters in the late 1970s. In the 1980s, the small and lightweight HP 7470 used an innovative "grit wheel" mechanism which moved only the paper. Modern desktop scanners use a somewhat similar arrangement. These smaller "home-use" plotters became popular for desktop business graphics, but their low speed meant they were not useful for general printing purposes, and another conventional printer would be required for those jobs. One category introduced by Hewlett Packard's MultiPlot for the HP 2647 was the "word chart" which used the plotter to draw large letters on a transparency. This was the forerunner of the modern Powerpoint chart. With the widespread availability of high-resolution inkjet and laser printers, inexpensive memory and computers fast enough to rasterize color images, pen plotters have all but disappeared.

Plotters were also used in the Create-A-Card kiosks that were available for a while in the greeting card area of supermarkets that used the HP 7475 6 pen plotter.

Plotters are used primarily in technical drawing and CAD applications, where they have the advantage of working on very large paper sizes while maintaining high resolution. Another use has been found by replacing the pen with a cutter, and in this form plotters can be found in many garment and sign shops.

If a plotter was commanded to use different colors it had to replace the pen and select the wanted color and/or width.

A niche application of plotters is in creating tactile images for visually handicapped people on special thermal cell paper.

Pen plotters have essentially become obsolete, and have been replaced by large-format inkjet printers and LED toner based printers. Such printers are often still known as plotters, even though they are raster devices rather than pen based plotters by the definition of this article. The newer plotters still understand vector languages such as HPGL2. This is because the language is an efficient way to describe how to draw the file using just text commands. A technical drawing in HPGL2 can be quite a bit smaller file than the same drawing in a pure raster form.

A pen plotter's speed is primarily limited by the type of pen used. The typical plotter pen uses a cellulose fiber rod inserted through a circular foam tube saturated with ink, with the end of the rod sharpened into a conical tip. As the pen moves across the paper surface, capillary wicking draws the ink from the foam, down the rod, and onto the paper. As the ink supply in the foam is depleted, the migration of ink to the tip begins to slow down, resulting in faint lines. Slowing the plotting speed will allow the lines drawn by a worn-out pen to remain dark, but the fading will continue until the foam is completely depleted. Also as the fiber tip pen is used, the fiber tip slowly wears away from rubbing against the media, wearing down the thin conical tip into a thicker smudged line.

Ball-point plotter pens with refillable clear plastic ink reservoirs are available. They do not have the fading or wear effects of fiber pens, but are generally more expensive and uncommon.

Optical Mark Recognition

OPTICAL MARK RECOGNITION (OMR)

OMR Form

OMR Reader

'Optical mark recognition' is the process of capturing data by contrasting reflectivity at predetermined positions on a page. By shining a beam of light onto the paper the scanner is able to detect a marked area because it reflects less light than the blank areas of the paper. Some OMR devices use forms which are preprinted onto 'Transoptic' paper and measure the amount of light which passes through the paper, thus a mark on either side of the paper will reduce the amount of light passing through the paper.

It is generally distinguished from optical character recognition by the fact that a recognition engine is not required. That is, the marks are constructed in such a way that there is little chance of not reading the marks correctly. This does require the image to have high contrast and an easily-recognizable or irrelevant shape.

One of the most familiar applications of optical mark recognition is the use of #2 (HB in Europe) pencil bubble optical answer sheets in multiple choice question examinations. Students mark their answers, or other personal information, by darkening circles marked on a pre-printed sheet. Afterwards the sheet is automatically graded by a scanning machine. In most European countries, a horizontal or vertical 'tick' in a rectangular 'lozenge' is the most commonly used type of OMR form, the most familiar application being the UK National lottery form. Lozenge marks are a later technology and have the advantage of being easier to mark and easier to erase. The large 'bubble' marks are legacy technology from the very early OMR machines that were so insensitive a large mark was required for reliability. In most Asian countries, a special marker is used to fill in an optical answer sheet. Students, likewise mark answers or other information via darkening circles marked on a pre-printed sheet. Then the sheet is automatically graded by a scanning machine.

Another example of OMR is the recognition of scannable bar codes.

Recent improvements in OMR have led to various kinds of two dimensional bar codes called matrix codes. For example, United Parcel Service (UPS) now prints a two dimensional bar code on every package. The code is stored in a grid of black-and-white hexagons surrounding a bullseye-shaped finder pattern. These images include error-checking data, allowing for extremely accurate scanning even when the pattern is damaged.

Most of today's OMR applications work from mechanically generated images like bar codes. A smaller but still significant number of applications involve people filling in specialized forms. These forms are optimized for computer scanning, with careful registration in the printing, and careful design so that ambiguity is reduced to the minimum possible. Due to its extremely low error rate, low cost and ease-of-use, OMR is a popular method of tallying votes

Digital Cameras

A digital camera (or digicam for short) is a camera that takes video or still photographs, or both, digitally by recording images via an electronic image sensor. Many compact digital still cameras can record sound and moving video as well as still photograph. In the Western market, digital cameras outsell their 35 mm film counterparts.

Digital cameras can do things film cameras cannot, displaying images on a screen immediately after they are recorded, storing thousands of images on a single small memory device, recording video with sound, and deleting images to free storage space.

Digital cameras are incorporated into many devices ranging from PDAs and mobile phones (called camera phones) to vehicles. The Hubble Space Telescope and other astronomical devices are essentially specialised digital cameras.

Compact digital cameras

Compact cameras are designed to be small and portable; the smallest are described as subcompacts or "ultra-compacts". Compact cameras are usually designed to be easy to use, sacrificing advanced features and picture quality for compactness and simplicity; images can usually only be stored using Lossy compression (JPEG). Most have a built-in flash usually of low power, sufficient for nearby subjects. Live preview is almost always used to frame the photo. They may have limited motion picture capability. Compacts often have macro capability, but if they have zoom capability the range is usually less than for bridge and DSLR cameras. They have a greater depth of field, allowing objects within a large range of distances from the camera to be in sharp focus. They are particularly suitable for casual and "snapshot" use.

Bridge cameras

Bridge or SLR-like cameras are higher-end digital cameras that physically resemble DSLRs and share with them some advanced features, but share with compacts the framing of the photo using live preview and small sensor sizes.

Fujifilm FinePix S9000

Bridge cameras often have superzoom lenses which provide a very wide zoom range, typically between 10:1 and 18:1, which is attained at the cost of some distortions, including barrel and pincushion distortion, to a degree which varies with lens quality. These cameras are sometimes marketed as and confused with digital SLR cameras since the appearance is similar. Bridge cameras lack the mirror and reflex system of DSLRs, have so far been fitted with fixed (non-interchangeable) lenses (although in some cases accessory wide-angle or telephoto converters can be attached to the lens), can usually take movies with sound, and the scene is composed by viewing either the liquid crystal display or the electronic viewfinder (EVF). They are usually slower to operate than a true digital SLR, but they are capable of very good image quality (with sufficient light) while being more compact and lighter than DSLRs. The high-end models of this type have comparable resolutions to low and mid-range DSLRs. Many of these cameras can store images in lossless RAW format as an option to JPEG compression. The majority have a built-in flash, often a unit which flips up over the lens. The guide number tends to be between 11 and 15.

Digital single lens reflex cameras

Digital single-lens reflex cameras (DSLRs) are digital cameras based on film single-lens reflex cameras (SLRs), both types are characterized by the existence of a mirror and reflex system. See the main article on DSLRs for a detailed treatment of this category.

Digital rangefinders

A rangefinder is a user-operated optical mechanism to measure subject distance once widely used on film cameras. Most digital cameras measure subject distance automatically using acoustic or electronic techniques, but it is not customary to say that they have a rangefinder. The term rangefinder alone is sometimes used to mean a rangefinder camera, that is, a film camera equipped with a rangefinder, as distinct from an SLR or a simple camera with no way to measure distance.

Professional modular digital camera systems

This category includes very high end professional equipment that can be assembled from modular components (winders, grips, lenses, etc.) to suit particular purposes. Common brands include Hasselblad and Mamiya. They were developed for medium or large format film sizes, as these captured greater detail and could be enlarged more than 35 mm.

Typically these cameras are used in studios for commercial production; being bulky and awkward to carry they are rarely used in action or nature photography. They can often be converted into either film or digital use by changing out the back part of the unit, hence the use of terms such as a "digital back" or "film back". These cameras are very expensive (up to $40,000) and are typically not used by consumers.

Line-scan camera systems

A line-scan camera is a camera device containing a line-scan image sensor chip, and a focusing mechanism. These cameras are almost solely used in industrial settings to capture an image of a constant stream of moving material. Unlike video cameras, line-scan cameras use a single array of pixel sensors, instead of a matrix of them. Data coming from the line-scan camera has a frequency, where the camera scans a line, waits, and repeats. The data coming from the line-scan camera is commonly processed by a computer, to collect the one-dimensional line data and to create a two-dimensional image. The collected two-dimensional image data is then processed by image-processing methods for industrial purposes.

Line-scan technology is capable of capturing data extremely fast, and at very high image resolutions. Usually under these conditions, resulting collected image data can quickly exceed 100MB in a fraction of a second. Line-scan-camera–based integrated systems, therefore are usually designed to streamline the camera's output in order to meet the system's objective, using computer technology which is also affordable.

Line-scan cameras intended for the parcel handling industry can integrate adaptive focusing mechanisms to scan six sides of any rectangular parcel in focus, regardless of angle, and size. The resulting 2-D captured images could contain, but are not limited to 1D and 2D barcodes, address information, and any pattern that can be processed via image processing methods. Since the images are 2-D, they are also human-readable and can be viewable on a computer screen. Advanced integrated systems include video coding and optical character recognition (OCR).

Digital Camera has got many faces

Lightpen

A light pen is a computer input device in the form of a light-sensitive wand used in conjunction with a the computer's CRT TV set or monitor. It allows the user to point to displayed objects, or draw on the screen, in a similar way to a touch screen but with greater positional accuracy. A light pen can work with any CRT-based display, but not with LCD screens, projectors and other display devices.

A light pen is fairly simple to implement. The light pen works by sensing the sudden small change in brightness of a point on the screen when the electron gun refreshes that spot. By noting exactly where the scanning has reached at that moment, the X,Y position of the pen can be resolved. This is usually achieved by the light pen causing an interrupt, at which point the scan position can be read from a special register, or computed from a counter or timer. The pen position is updated on every refresh of the screen.

The light pen became moderately popular during the early 1980s. It was notable for its use in the Fairlight CMI, and the BBC Micro. Even some consumer products were given light pens, in particular Thomson's TO7 and TO7/70 computers. Due to the fact that the user was required to hold his or her arm in front of the screen for long periods of time, the light pen fell out of use as a general purpose input device.

The first light pen was used around 1957 on the Lincoln TX-0 computer at the MIT Lincoln Laboratory, and is mentioned as the "Lincoln Wand" in the first RFC, RFC 1.

Since the current version of the game show Jeopardy! began in 1984, contestants have used a light pen to write down their wagers and responses for the Final Jeopardy! round.

Since light pens operate by detecting light emitted by the screen phosphors, some nonzero intensity level must be present at the coordinate position to be selected.

Track Ball

A trackball is a pointing device consisting of a ball housed in a socket containing sensors to detect rotation of the ball about two axes—like an upside-down mouse with an exposed protruding ball. The user rolls the ball with the thumb, fingers, or the palm of the hand to move a cursor. Large tracker balls are common on CAD workstations for easy precision. Before the advent of the touchpad, small trackballs were common on portable computers, where there may be no desk space on which to run a mouse. Some small thumbballs clip onto the side of the keyboard and have integral buttons with the same function as mouse buttons. The trackball was invented by Tom Cranston and Fred Longstaff as part of the Royal Canadian Navy's DATAR system in 1952, eleven years before the mouse was invented. This first trackball used a Canadian five-pin bowling ball.

When mice still used a mechanical design (with slotted 'chopper' wheels interrupting a beam of light to measure rotation), trackballs had the advantage of being in contact with the user's hand, which is generally cleaner than the desk or mouse-pad and doesn't drag lint into the chopper wheels. The late 1990s advent of scroll wheels, and the replacement of mouse balls by direct optical tracking, put trackballs at a disadvantage and forced them to retreat into niches where their distinctive merits remained important. Most trackballs now have direct optical tracking which follows dots on the ball. Some mice, in place of a scroll wheel, acquired a small trackball between the buttons, useful in maps and other circumstances calling for scrolling in two dimensions.

Special Applications

Large tracker balls are sometimes seen on computerized special-purpose workstations, such as the radar consoles in an air-traffic control room or sonar equipment on a ship or submarine. Modern installations of such equipment may use mice instead, since most people now already know how to use one. However, military mobile anti-aircraft radars and submarine sonars tend to continue using trackballs, since they can be made more durable and more fit for fast emergency use. Large and well made ones allow easier high precision work, for which reason they are still used in these applications (where they are often called "tracker balls") and in computer-aided design.

Trackballs have appeared in computer and video games, particularly early arcade games (see a List of trackball arcade games) notably Atari's Centipede and Missile Command. "Football", by Atari, was the first arcade game to use a trackball, released in 1978 - though Atari spells it "trak-ball". Console trackballs, once common in the early 1980s, are now fairly uncommon: the Atari 2600 and 5200 consoles had one as an optional peripheral, with a joystick as standard. The Bandai Atmark, a Japanese console introduced in 1995 had a trackball as standard for its game-pad. Trackballs are also preferred by many so-called professional gamers, who value their consistency highly. A trackball requires no mouse-pad and enables the player to aim swiftly (in first person shooters). Trackballs remain in use in pub golf machines (such as Golden Tee) to simulate swinging the club.

Computer gamers have been able to successfully use trackballs in most modern computer games, including FPS, RPG, and RTS genres, with any slight loss of speed compensated for with an increase in precision. Many trackball gamers are competent at "throwing" their cursor rapidly across the screen, by spinning the trackball, enabling (with practice) much faster motion than can be achieved with a mouse and arm motion. However, many gamers are deterred by the time it takes to 'get used to' the different style of hand control that a trackball requires. Trackballs have also been regarded as excellent complements to analog joysticks, as pioneered by the Assassin 3D 1996 trackball with joystick pass-through capability. This combination provides for two-hand aiming and a high accuracy and consistency replacement for the traditional mouse and keyboard combo generally used on first-person shooter games. Many such games natively support joysticks and analog player movement, like Valve's Half-Life and id Software's Quake series.

Trackballs are provided as the pointing device in some public internet access terminals. Unlike a mouse, a trackball can easily be built into a console, and cannot be ripped away or easily vandalised. Two examples are the Internet browsing consoles provided in some UK McDonalds outlets, and the BT Broadband Internet public phone boxes.

Because trackballs for personal computers are stationary, they may require less space for operation than a mouse, and may simplify use in confined or cluttered areas such as a small desk.

The world's first trackball working on the invented by Tom Cranston, Fred Longstaff and Kenyon Taylor Royal Canadian Navy's DATAR project in 1952. It used a standard Canadian five-pin bowling ball.

Joystick

Joystick elements: 1. Stick 2. Base 3. trigger 4. Extra buttons 5. Autofire switch 6. Throttle 7. Hat Switch (POV Hat) 8. Suction Cup

A joystick is an input device consisting of a stick that pivots on a base and reports its angle or direction to the device it is controlling. Joysticks are often used to control video games, and usually have one or more push-buttons whose state can also be read by the computer. A popular variation of the joystick used on modern video game consoles is the analog stick.

The joystick has been the principal flight control in the cockpit of many aircraft, particularly military fast jets, where centre stick or side-stick location may be employed (see also Centre stick vs side-stick).

Joysticks are also used for controlling machines such as cranes, trucks, underwater unmanned vehicles and zero turning radius lawn mowers. Miniature finger-operated joysticks have been adopted as input devices for smaller electronic equipment such as mobile phones.

History

Joysticks were originally controls for an aircraft's ailerons and elevators.

The name "joystick" is thought to originate with early 20th century French pilot Robert Esnault-Pelterie.^[1] There are also competing claims on behalf of fellow pilots Robert Loraine, James Henry Joyce and Mr A.E. George. The latter was a pioneer aviator who with his colleague Mr. Jobling built and flew a biplane at Newcastle, England in 1910. He is alleged to have invented the "George Stick" which became more popularly known as the joystick. The George and Jobling aircraft control column is in the collection of the Discovery Museum in Newcastle Upon Tyne, England. The joystick itself was present in early planes, though the mechanical origins themselves are uncertain.^[2]

The first electrical 2-axis joystick was probably invented around 1944 in Germany. The device was developed for targeting the glide bomb Henschel Hs 293 against ship targets. Here, the joystick was used by an operator to steer the missile towards its target. This joystick had on-off switches rather than analogue sensors, i.e. a digital joystick. The signal was transmitted from the joystick to the missile by a thin wire.

This invention was picked up by someone in the team of scientists assembled at the Heeresversuchsanstalt in Peenemünde. Here a part of the team on the German rocket program was developing the Wasserfall missile, a variant of the V-2 rocket, the first ground-to-air missile. The Wasserfall steering equipment converted the electrical signal to radio signals and transmitted these to the missile.

Ralph H. Baer, inventor of television video games and the Magnavox Odyssey console, created the first video game joysticks in 1967. They were analog, using two potentiometers to measure position.^[3]

The Atari standard joystick, developed for the Atari 2600 was a digital joystick, with a single 'fire' button, and connected via a DE-9 connector, the electrical specifications for which was for many years the 'standard' digital joystick specification. Joysticks were commonly used as controllers in first and second generation game consoles, but then gave way to the familiar Game pad with the Nintendo Entertainment System and Sega Master System in 1985 and 86, though joysticks - especially arcade-style ones - were and are popular after-market add-ons for any console.

More recently, analog sticks (or thumbsticks, due to their being controlled by one's thumbs) have become standard on video game consoles and have the ability to indicate the stick's displacement from its neutral position. This means that the software does not have to keep track of the position or estimate the speed at which the controls are moved. These devices are usually using a magnetic flux detector to determine the position of the stick.

The joystick has found a new lease of life for flight control in the form of a 'sidestick' - a controller similar to a games joystick but which is used to control the electronics of the latest aircraft. Almost the entire family of Airbus aircraft (with the exception of the A300 and A310) up to the A380, the largest commercial aircraft in aviation, use the 'sidestick' which saves weight, improves movement and visibility in the cockpit and is said to be safer in the event of an accident than the traditional 'control yoke'.

A gaming joystick- with a computer