Rainbow-talk

Work from home is the new mantra for employees of IBM, HP, Cisco, MS

2011-06-23T17:44:00.000+05:30

Work from home is the new mantra for employees of IBM, HP, Cisco, MSRising realty costs, travel time, apart from other complexities of maintaining office space is making a business case for MNC tech firms.

The last time Kumar, a sales executive working with IBM India, visited his company's registered office in Bangalore was some six months ago to get his broken attendance card replaced. Kumar, 35, is among nearly 50,000 IBM India employees who are working from anywhere, but the office.

"I do not have to show my face to my boss anymore, well at least for a few weeks or months at a stretch," says Kumar, who requested that his first name not be revealed. "I used to miss catching up with other colleagues at office, but now there are hundreds of us on the road for the company," he adds.

For nearly 50,000 employees at IBM India and some 15,000 tech workers at HP's India operations, work-fromhome is no more an HR incentive meant for women going for early maternity leave, or a privilege for few - it's now an integral part of their work life.

While over 40% of IBM staff does not have any space in office, a quarter of HP India employees across the functions of sales, marketing and customer support do not have to mark their attendance or swipe employment cards.

Rising real estate costs and travel time, apart from other complexities of maintaining office space for a growing base of staff, are making a real business case for multinational tech firms like IBM, HP, Cisco and Microsoft.

What was once an option taken by those with personal problems or medical predicaments has now become a norm in some companies with the option of working from home finding more takers than ever before. Employees at IBM even receive Rs 15,000 more a month for this. This is because they save the company walloping infrastructure costs, one of the perils of rapid expansion.

This way the company can also drive home the point that it truly promotes work-life balance. The company says it also increases the productivity of employees. "We know that if we can successfully address the challenges of work-life balance, IBM will certainly gain a competitive edge in the war for talent," a company spokesperson said.

The company, however, denied paying these employees extra. At HP, the number is anywhere between 10,000 and 15,000, and the company, which did not confirm the figure as it does not share its India headcount, says it leads to better employee engagement.

Source: Tech News - Work from home is the new mantra for employees of IBM, HP, Cisco, MS

Techgig

India ranked 4th as world's most dangerous countries for women

2011-06-18T13:30:00.000+05:30

Increasing human trafficking and continuous presence of female foeticide, infanticide has placed India as the world's fourth most dangerous place for women, as per a survey conducted by Thomson Reuters' Trustlaw Women, a hub of legal information and legal support for women's rights . Trust Law contacted 213 gender experts from five continents to rank countries by analyzing six risks. The risks were health threats, sexual violence, non-sexual violence, cultural or religious factors, lack of access to resources and trafficking.

In India, a whole gamut of human trafficking is run whereby women and girls are trafficked within and into India since they are most vulnerable into the sex trade. The enormous bulk of trafficked women and girls are poor, some belong to landless families, and most come from dalit, adivasi or other low caste communities.

In 2009, India's then-Home Secretary Madhukar Gupta estimated that 100 million people, mostly women and girls, were involved in trafficking in India that year.

In 2009 it was estimated by India's Central Bureau of Investigation that about 90 percent of trafficking took place within the country and that there were some 3 million prostitutes, of which about 40 percent were children.

The purposes for human trafficking in India are numerous such as forced prostitution, marriage, domestic labour, bonded labour, agricultural labour, industrial labour, entertainment, begging, adoption, drug smuggling and peddling and organ transplants.

The 2007 U.S. Trafficking in Persons report identified that the lack of co-ordinated national action undermines attempts to combat human trafficking. It recommends the urgent necessity to establish an effective national-level body to enforce the law strictly as these problems are made worse by the reported complicity of law enforcement officials in trafficking and related criminal activity.

As far as female infanticide and foeticide in India is concerned up to 50 million girls are thought to be "missing" over the past century due to female infanticide and foeticide according to the U.N. Population Fund. According to the report this problem is creating gender imbalances and other serious problems that experts say will have far reaching consequences for years to come.

Experts in India who have analyzed the National Family Health Survey 2 (NFHS2) estimate that about 300,000 girls go "missing" in India each year. Other studies have put the number between 150,000 and 500,000.

In India, where the child sex ratio is calculated as the number of girls per 1,000 boys in the 0-6 years age group, the problem is severe. The 2001 Census shows there are only 927 girls per 1,000 boys, representing a sharp decline from 1961 when that number was 976. In certain parts of the country there are now fewer than 800 girls for every 1,000 boys.

Apart from India, Afghanistan has been placed as the world's most dangerous country for women and Congo has been placed second due to the horrific levels of rape dominant there. Pakistan grabbed the third place for its increasing domestic abuse and economic discrimination and Somalia ranked fifth respectively due to its genital mutilation and acid attacks.

But if India wants to make its country worth living for women it will need to cover lot of aspects as far as security is concern. According to police records, over 400 rape cases have been reported in the capital in the year 2010 alone. According to the data, 18,359 rape cases were registered in India in the first three quarters of this 2010; hence, we need to provide an environment of safety and security to our women with strict implementation of the female centric laws that's in theory in our books.
Source: SiliconIndia, Wednesday, 15 June 2011, 12:31 IST

Engineering students develop 110 km/liter diesel bike

2011-06-07T20:05:00.001+05:30

Have you ever imaged of a two-wheeler that runs on a diesel engine?

Four engineering students from Bangalore have developed a diesel bike that gives a mileage of 110km/liter - a challenging task accomplished by the innovative brains.

A magnificent idea that can be of a great help to the common man who struggles with the never-ending fuel price hikes, the young brains from the at the M S Ramaiah Institute of Technology took the challenge of developing a two wheeler diesel engine with automatic gear and automatic clutch and have successfully carried out the project.

Guided by their project guide Dr. S V Prakash, four mechanical engineering students namely Naveen V V, Tony Paul, Nadeem Anwar and Sanjay Bhushan decided develop a diesel-run two-wheeler as our final year project. Fitting a Bullet engine to Kinetic Blaze, they had to do a lot of alterations. While spending four months on the project with various workshops in Bangalore and Coimbatore, they reduced 325cc engine to 200cc, flywheel weight reduced to 7kg and power reduced to 3.5 hp from 6.5 hp apart from many other alteration works.

"We have spent almost 72 thousand on the production of this prototype and with mass production, the cost would be around 55 to 60 thousand," said Nadeem Anwar, a member of the team.

The highlight of the innovative work is that it gives a mileage of 110km/liter and it reduces travel expense to a great degree as diesel engine runs at 40 paise per km and petrol engine runs at 1.70 per km. The vehicle offers a smooth ride with automatic gear and clutches and is less polluting compared with other diesel-engine vehicles. In addition, the life of a diesel engine is generally about twice as long as that of a petrol engine.

Dr. S V Prakash, the project guide who has been a great help to the young students to materialize their dream project, said India's largest engineering and construction conglomerate 'Kirloskar Group' has shown interest in the technology and has offered to further assistance to the project.

Source of News: SiliconIndia, Monday, 06 June 2011
Authour: Binu Paul

Google reveals Gmail hacking, likely from China

2011-06-02T14:36:00.000+05:30

(Reuters) - Hackers likely based in China tried to break into hundreds of Google mail accounts, including those of senior U.S. government officials, Chinese activists and journalists, the Internet company said on Wednesday.

The unknown perpetrators, who appeared to originate from Jinan in Shandong province, recently tried to crack and monitor email accounts by stealing passwords, but Google detected and "disrupted" their campaign, the world's largest Web search company said on its official blog.

The revelation comes more than a year after Google disclosed a cyberattack on its systems that it said it traced to China, and could further strain an already tense relationship between the Web giant and Beijing.

That incident also triggered a highly charged debate over the country's censorship and rigid control of the Internet. Google eventually all but pulled out of the world's largest Internet market by users.

"Investors would like to see Google figure out a way to operate in China, and capitalize on the growth of the country," said Cowen and Co analyst Jim Friedland.

"It's been a tough relationship. And this highlights that it continues to be a tough relationship," he said.
A U.S. government spokesman said it was looking into the incident but declined further comment.

"We recently uncovered a campaign to collect user passwords, likely through phishing," Google said in a post on its corporate blog on Thursday. "The goal of this effort seems to have been to monitor the contents of these users' emails."

It "affected what seem to be the personal Gmail accounts of hundreds of users, including among others, senior U.S. government officials, Chinese political activists, officials in several Asian countries (predominantly South Korea), military personnel and journalists."

NO OFFICIALS TARGETED?

The events leading to Goggle's withdrawal from China exacerbated an often difficult relationship between Washington and Beijing, with disputes ranging from human rights to trade.
The attacks revealed Wednesday were also the latest computer-based invasions directed at western companies. The United States has warned that a cyberattack -- presumably if it is devastating enough -- could result in real-world military retaliation, although analysts say it could be difficult to detect its origin with full accuracy.

Lockheed Martin Corp, the U.S. government's top information technology provider, said last week it had thwarted "a significant and tenacious attack" on its information systems network, though no signs pointed to a Chinese origin.

The White House said it was investigating the claims, but referred Reuters to law enforcement.
"We're looking into these reports and are seeking to gather the facts," said White House spokesman

Tommy Vietor. "We have no reason to believe that any official U.S. Government email accounts were accessed. I'd refer you to FBI for additional details."

FBI spokeswoman Jenny Shearer said: "We are aware of Google's announcement regarding attempts to obtain passwords and gain access to these accounts. We are working with Google to review this matter."

Cyberattacks originating in China have become very common in recent years, said Bruce Schneier, chief security technology officer at telecommunications company BT.

"It's not just the Chinese government. It's independent actors within China who are working with the tacit approval of the government," he said.

While Google said last year's attack was aimed at its "corporate infrastructure," the latest incident appears to have relied on tricking email users into revealing passwords, based on Google's description in its blog post.

It said the perpetrators changed the victims' email forwarding settings, presumably secretly sending the victims' personal emails to other recipients.

Schneier said the details that Google has released about the email hijacking do not appear that unusual.

"For the past five years we've known that the Chinese conduct a lot of espionage over the Internet," he said.

The bigger question, he said, was why Google was choosing to publicize this attack now.

The company said it notified the victims and relevant governments.

"It's important to stress that our internal systems have not been affected -- these account hijackings were not the result of a security problem with Gmail itself," Google said.

The company's shares finished 0.7 percent lower at $525.60.

(Reporting by Alexei Oreskovic and Edwin Chan; additional reporting by Alister Bull in Washington D.C; Editing by Andre Grenon, Phil Berlowitz)

-Alexei Oreskovic and Edwin Chan
SAN FRANCISCO/LOS ANGELES | Thu Jun 2, 2011 5:17am IST

ALTERNATIVE RAW MATERIALS FOR PAPER INDUSTRY

2011-04-20T15:23:00.000+05:30

There are two main fibrous raw materials used in papermaking, woodchips (43%) and recovered paper (42%), the rest being other pulp (1%) and non-fibrous materials (14%). In addition, a quantity of additives (mainly natural mineral fillers) and dyestuffs are used together with traces of auxiliary chemicals.

So basically the forest provide directly and indirectly all the primary raw material required to make paper. In prehistoric times, forests covered over 80% of Europe. But an ever increasing demand for land for food production, and the rapid changes during the industrialisation period, led to extensive exploitation and the area of forest was reduced to less than one quarter by the end of the 19th century. However, once man began to realise the value of wood as a resource, this decline was reversed through the large-scale reforestation of the past 150 years. In 2002 the recorded area of Europe's forests was 329 million hectares, and today is about 30% of the land area.

Wood is the primary raw material for the pulp and paper industry because it is the main source of cellulose fibre. Non-wood materials, for example cotton and cereal crops such as straw, can be used for papermaking but the advantage of a year-round wood supply, combined with the product diversity made possible by mixing wood fibres, has made it the most practical and economic option. However, nowadays the paper demand is increasing and in order to be sustainable, papermaking has to manage the forest resources, with the risk of a shortage of suitable raw materials.

Other alternative materials, rich in cellulose, were tested in the last decade, for example wheat straw, surplus of which is available in many EU member states, or beet pulp residual from the sugar production process; however, quality issues have generally prevented their use.

Apparently, for this issue, biotechnology's potential isn't fully exploited. In fact novel pulping process could be developed, aimed to overcome the above mentioned quality problems (that are mainly due to too short cellulose fibres); for instance, several microfungi are able to produce cellulose-like biopolymers, growing directly on vegetable biomasses or even on paper industry effluents.

Another option could be starch, that has been used extensively in paper industry, for different uses, mainly in its native form. The development of new efficient starch derivatives with a high degree of hydroxyl groups, obtained by chemical and biological modifications, allow the bonding promotion between short fibres, creating new, longer ones, thus allowing the production of stronger paper of better quality.

Most probably, it will be impossible replace the woodpulp for papermaking, but a modern approach to the preliminary stages of the process could allow a reduction of virgin fibres needed for good quality paper.

Triple suns over China

2011-01-13T12:40:00.000+05:30

The sun is shadowed by two smaller twins due to an astronomical phenomenon called phantom sun.

Highest paid IT jobs in demand for 2011

2010-12-18T15:24:00.003+05:30

As the information technology boom gets stronger and expands its operations to new untapped markets, the enterprise IT becomes the most sought after job for the new-age techies, with 15 to 20 percent salary hike during 2010. Siliconindia surveyed human resource managers and hiring managers. More than 50 percent of recruiters expect to see more hiring in the first half of the year in the areas below, which are well in demand for the year to come.

A data architect understands the behavior of systems in a multitude environment and how they chart out strategies on how a number of systems can interact with each other to obtain a desired result. A data architect needs to be able to have an end-to-end vision, and to see how a logical design will translate into one or more physical databases, and how the data will flow through the successive Stages involved. The salary of a data architect with an experience of 3 to 10 years ranges somewhere between 8,80,000 to 17,30,000 per annum.

Data Modeler
A data modeler designs methods for handling, processing and evaluating material. He or she needs to formalize and document of existing processes and events that occur during application software design and development. The salary of a data modeler with an experience of 3 to 6 years ranges somewhere between  3,50,000 to  8,50,000 per annum.

Data Warehouse Analyst
Jobs managing the ever-increasing storage demand with the rise of video, enhanced Web graphics and larger archiving demands. A data warehouse maintains its functions in three layers: staging, integration, and access. 'Staging' is used to store raw data for use by developers. The 'integration' layer is used to integrate data and to have a level of abstraction from users. The 'access' layer is for getting data out for users. The salary of a data warehouse analyst with an experience of 3 to 7 years ranges somewhere between 3,45,000 to  8,00,000 per annum.

Operation Mangers
The dealings of an operation manager range from strategic to tactical and operational levels. An operation manager needs to have a combination of team management, vendor management and technology know-how. Tactical issues include plant layout and structure, project management methods, and equipment selection and replacement. Operational issues include production scheduling and control, inventory management, quality control and inspection, traffic and materials handling, and equipment maintenance policies. The salary of an operation manger with an experience of 3 to 6 years ranges somewhere between  3,75,000 to  7,70,000 per annum.

Business Intelligence Analyst
Companies need analysts who can guide decision-making processes in a constantly changing business environment, and help reduce costs and better evaluate internal and external clients. A Business Intelligence Analyst plays a key role in better business decision-making. The salary of a business intelligence analyst with an experience of 3 to 6 years ranges somewhere between  3,25,000 to  7,40,000 per annum.

Lead Application Developer
A lead application developer needs to have higher-level application design skills that focus on clean, easy and useful experiences. He or she needs to Identify, define, and model the application requirements. The lead application developer has to define data structures and distribution to satisfy the application solution. The salary of a lead application developer with an experience of 3 to 6 years ranges somewhere between  3,30,000 to  7,20,000 per annum.

ERP Technical Developer
ERP is a great help for organizations of all sizes to improve efficiency and cut coasts. Developers need to customize software according to specific organizational needs. The salary of an ERP technical developer with an experience of 3 to 5 years ranges somewhere between  2,90,000 to  6,40,000 per annum.

ERP Business Analyst
There has been so much investment in ERP in the enterprise, but every company environment needs a business analyst to define the business processes, and configure and deploy them, as well as set up the reporting structures. The salary of an ERP business analyst with an experience of 3 to 4 years ranges somewhere between  1,22,000 to  5,12,000 per annum.

Web Developer
From social media to mobile applications for smartphones such as the iPhone, the Droid and HTC devices, Web development continues to be in high demand, especially in customer-centric front and back-end frameworks and systems. A web developer is responsible for programming the functionality of a web site. A web developer figures out how it is going to do it and then writes the necessary programming code. The salary of a web developer with an experience of 3 to 10 years ranges somewhere between 3,15,000 to 13,75,000 per annum.

Networking Engineer
A networking engineer is a high-level LAN/WAN technician who plans, implements and supports network solutions between multiple platforms. A network engineer installs and maintains local area network hardware and software, and troubleshoots network usage and computer peripherals. The salary of a networking engineer with an experience of 3 to 10 years ranges somewhere between  4,27,000 to  13,50,000 per annum.

You are not as adult as you think!

2010-12-18T15:19:00.000+05:30

You may still have something of a teenager in you even in your adulthood as the human brain keeps developing till we are in our 40s, says a new research. The findings from the University College London could perhaps help explain why seemingly respectable adults sometimes just can't resist throwing a tantrum or sulking until they get their own way.

The discovery that the part of the brain key to getting on with others takes decades to fully form could perhaps also explain why some people are socially awkward well past their teenage years, reports the Daily Mail. Neuroscientist Sarah-Jayne Blakemore of University College, said: "Until about 10 years ago, it was pretty much assumed that the human brain stops developing in early childhood. "But we now know that is far from the truth. In fact, most regions of the human brain continue to develop for many decades," Blakemore said.

"The region that goes through the most protracted development is the pre-frontal cortex at the front of the brain. "It is involved in decision-making, planning and inhibiting inappropriate social behaviour and also things like social awareness and understanding other people and empathy," said Blakemore.

No. 31 for Dravid: There’s nothing to prove

2010-11-27T00:16:00.000+05:30

Rahul Dravid is a man of different character. A man with a mission, but nothing more to prove. A cricketer with a willow, but when it strikes the leather, it transforms to a magical reality.

The Kiwis witnessed the magic of this man for the second time in the series. An innings full of character and timely - when India needed the most. His innings took India to a position from where they can have a real go to clinch the Test match and the series. When it matters, Dravid showed again, he is the man for India. Scoring at a percentage of nearly 50, Dravid mixed stability with aggression in his innings. The 193-run partnership with skipper MS Doni (98) was a story of absolute domination and strategy. Both complimented each other not only with stroke-making but also patience and intent to be calm when the other showed aggression.

That's the hallmark of a great batsmen and a greater team mate. Do we say more of The Wall? Dhoni missed the three-figure mark by a whisker. His innings also came at a time when doubts were beginning to rise about his own performance in the team. But after today, things will be calmer now, for sure.

Riding on Dravid's brilliance, India declared on 566/9, a huge lead of 375 and with two full days remaining, the lead gives a great impetus to win this Test. Harbhajan Singh quickly got into the act reducing New Zealand to 24/1 at the end of day 3. Tough call to save this Test match for New Zealand. Can Ross Taylor do something here?

Private Clouds: hot favorites for enterprises

2010-10-06T11:36:00.000+05:30

With enterprise IT organizations trying to leverage maximum efficiency with cost savings, adoption of cloud computing - both private and public turns out to be the latest fad in its deployment of resources. Private clouds are adopted at widespread and accelerating rates than it was suggested by the previous researches, says a survey by Novell.

Companies are particular about simplifying management across their integrated physical, virtual and cloud environments but with cloud computing in focus, whether they can attain it with minimal risk is a point to ponder. 77 percent of the large enterprises organizations use some form of cloud computing today, much higher than previously suggested. 89 percent of respondents in these organizations believe private clouds are the next step to the already implementing virtualization while 43 percent are planning to use a combined approach of private and public cloud computing. 31 percent find that a key benefit to private cloud computing is the ability to manage a heterogeneous infrastructure. 87 percent believe that public cloud computing will naturally take its course over company owned data centers and 92 percent think of it as an alternative to the current IT platforms.

Private cloud computing earns the advantage over public cloud computing when it comes to the matter of security concern. 91 percent are concerned about security issues in the public cloud, with 50 percent indicating security as the primary barrier to implementation whereas 86 percent believe data is more secure in a private cloud. Private cloud computing provides freedom from maintaining hardware, lower cost upkeep, resource scalability, lower initial costs. 76 percent showed more confidence in internal IT departments for providing data security than outside vendors.

"The survey results are telling," said Jim Ebzery, senior vice president and general manager of Security, Management and Operating Platforms at Novell. "The path to public cloud computing needs to begin with the private cloud, learning to leverage the public cloud within the safety of the enterprise network. Despite these concerns, enterprises are moving forward with cloud computing -- whether in a private cloud, public cloud or in a hybrid cloud environment".

Top 10 excuses why techies don't give projects on time

2010-10-06T11:35:00.000+05:30

When engineering projects are not delivered on time, whom do we blame for that? Clients are known to be the most stubborn people on earth to get their job done. All they understand is that they pay for the service and find no reason for not being demanding. Some engineers do face genuine issues but some try to take advantage of the genuine situations and it would be hard to believe that such a situation might not have been faced by the engineers.

No matter, whatever changes are incorporated in the IT sector to make it more lean and adaptive, the delivery of projects would be delayed at some point of time and the techies know how to get away with it. With India being one of the fastest growing markets in IT and ITeS space, SiliconIndia conducted a small survey to see what are the excuses which techies in India normally bet upon. And here are the top 10 reasons that make them hunt for more time to get their projects done.

1) Requirement Slippage: "What can I do, if the client does not stick to his requirements?" Any techie you come across must have either made this excuse or must have come across it. Many times, when the team members in a particular project are about to complete the project keeping the client requirements in mind, they are insisted to either make certain changes in the project or bring in some addition to it. Requirement slippage is a genuine problem faced by team members in a project but many times it becomes the easiest excuse for any techie if the project is delayed. This excuse is often validated by the organization and the team members can easily prove themselves impeccable.

2) Wrong Project estimation: Project estimation is usually given by a module leader who is not deeply associated with the project. He or she is the one who builds relationship between the client and the project team and integrates the module's findings into the broader project work. Usually when the project demands some more time to be delivered, the team members crib about the project not being estimated in an appropriate manner. At times, the requirement is underestimated, the time frame is not fixed in sync with the project and the entire project is not compatible with the engineers working on the project. This excuse has a broader dimension as any one part of the project estimation could become a reason for extending the time for project delivery.

3) Work Overload: Attrition is no big news in the IT industry. The software professionals deal with immense pressure in coding their programmes correctly. In such a case, when one team member resigns, the existing team members are overloaded with the pending work of the ex-employee. And in such a case, the priorities of the project team members change and this becomes another excuse for team members.

4) Infrastructural issues: Well if nothing works out, then this is the excuse which everyone resorts to. Blame it on the company's infrastructure. Indian IT infrastructure usually lacks with effective resources like availability of power and high bandwidth. So probably one could understand the frustration caused due to a technical snag. Each time there is an infrastructural slowdown, the efficiency of employees comes down.

5) Information does not get passed on, lack of understanding of processes:Communication of the project details seems to be another area for making an excuse. If the project is not delivered on time, the problem could be directed to the organizational processes. The discrepancy in understanding of a project requirement is one point which the techies pick on to make an excuse.

6) Health issues: This is the most common excuse which prevails in every sector. This is one area, where the employees can't be questioned further. It has been widely seen that many IT professionals take sick leaves on Mondays because they are reluctant to work on Mondays after a relaxed weekend.

Accenture to invest $100 Million to make 2.5 lakh job ready

2010-09-28T11:52:00.002+05:30

Beginning a new initiative called 'Skills to Succeed', Accenture will make 250,000 unskilled and semi-skilled people around the world job- or business-ready by 2015. Accenture and Accenture Foundation will invest over $100 million into this initiative, reports Mini Joseph Tejaswi from The Economic Times.

This program will seek to educate people, and build skills that enable them to participate in and contribute to areas like IT, BPO, hospitality and retail. India, with over 450 million unskilled and semi-skilled workforce under 35, is likely to be a significant beneficiary of this campaign.

Accenture has roped in Dr. Reddy's Foundation and Nasscom Foundation to provide BPO skills training to underprivileged youth from rural India. It has entered into a partnership with IGNOU to offer a diploma course on BPO services. "With Nasscom Foundation, we will train adolescent girls and young women from economically backward areas in animation skills," said Rekha Menon, Executive Director in Accenture India.

Endhiran beyond all limits

2010-09-16T12:42:00.005+05:30

This one can break all records. While one agrees that the forthcoming film Endhiran from Shankar's stable starring Rajnikanth and Aishwarya Rai could be one of the biggest blockbusters ever, a certain multiplex in Chennai called City Limits has already set the tone for what can happen. The particular multiplex has 30 cinemas and if it works out well there will be 450 screenings daily of the Rajnikanth starrer in that cinema hall alone. No film ever has had this kind of a planning or response from the theatre owners till date.

When Karan Johar had pumped in his film Kaal into the Fame Adlabs multiplex years ago doing 13 shows daily, one felt that it was a record. And that was also being done becuse Karan knew that the film wasn't looking too good enough to be a winner. But what this Rajnikanth film can do is beyond all limits...

Source: Sanskrti Media and Entertainment

Enthiran Tailor:

Pakistan scandal throws focus on India

2010-08-31T19:58:00.001+05:30

Young Indian cricketers were on Tuesday warned of the perils of corruption following the illicit gambling allegations levelled against the Pakistani team in England.

Former India captain Anil Kumble, asked if he feared players from his own country could in future be hauled up, said: "Of course I am worried. "These days youngsters who have not even played for India have agents," Kumble, one of the game's elder statesmen in India, said.

A British tabloid claimed over the weekend that a middleman gave undercover reporters exact details of no-balls to be bowled by Pakistani seamers Mohammad Aamer and Mohammad Asif during the Lord's Test against England.

The News of the World said it had paid the middleman, Mazhar Majeed, 150,000 pounds (230,000 dollars) for information on the practice of spot-fixing, which is widespread in illegal South Asian betting circles.

Majeed, who claimed to be an agent for several Pakistani cricketers, told the newspaper he worked for an "Indian party". "They pay me for information," Majeed was recorded as saying.

The identity of the "Indian party" is being probed by Scotland Yard investigators. Many observers point to India's huge influence over the International Cricket Council (ICC), which has been attacked by critics for failing to clean up the game.

India, cricket's financial powerhouse, accounts for nearly 70 percent of the game's global revenues and is regarded as the hotbed for betting syndicates and match-fixers.

Matthew Engel, a former Wisden editor, on Tuesday described the ICC as "a notoriously dysfunctional organisation, controlled by Indian interests and obsessed with political and financial manoeuvring".

The shady world of Indian bookmakers came to light in a match-fixing scandal in 2000 that led to life bans for Test captains Hansie Cronje (South Africa), Mohammad Azharuddin (India) and Salim Malik (Pakistan).

The scandal broke when New Delhi police, working on an unrelated extortion case, tapped a conversation between Cronje and an alleged bookie. India's federal Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which probed the 2000 scandal, alluded to the underworld's links with cricket in its report.

"During the inquiry," the CBI report said, "it was learnt that the lure of easy money has gradually attracted the underworld into this racket". Cronje, who accepted having links with bookmakers but denied he was involved in match-fixing, was killed in a mysterious plane crash near Cape Town in 2002.

Betting on sports is illegal in India except at horse races, but major betting syndicates have been in operation for many years taking advantage of the country's lax gambling laws.

The Hindustan Times on Tuesday quoted police as saying that bookies, when caught, get away with a paltry fine of 200 rupees (less than five dollars).

"First it is a bailable offence, second, electronic evidence is not admissible in court," the newspaper quoted a police officer involved in anti-gambling investigations as saying.

"We have to keep a check on the activities of these bookies but they take advantage of the law. Since international markets are also involved, we cannot do much."

The lucrative Indian Premier League, where players from around the world earn millions of dollars in the game's crowd-friendly Twenty20 format, was a key target for the sport's anti-corruption watchdog.

But the ICC's Anti-Corruption and Security Unit gave a clean slate to the event's third edition this year after being kept away by organisers for the first two years.

Sehwag Did Get His Century!

2010-08-17T18:32:00.000+05:30

So it is now open season on Suraj Randiv, who bowled the no-ball that ‘denied’ Virender Sehwag a century he truly deserved (In contrast to those knocks where he blazes away from ball one, on this particular occasion Sehwag absorbed the loss of his colleagues at the other end, battled with the demons of the pitch and atmosphere, revealed an unsuspected ability to do the grind, and fulfilled the fantasies of millions of Indian fans who, ever since the swashbuckler made his debut, have lusted after the possibility that one day, he will bat through an innings). It is also open season on Kumar Sangakkara, the Sri Lankan captain, who if the transcription of words picked up from the stump mike is to believed, reminded Randiv, just as he prepared to bowl the decisive ball, that “If he hits it, he gets the run”.

Digression: Consider Randiv’s brains, or lack thereof. If Kumar was in fact instructing his bowler, was that instruction to bowl a no-ball? Ridiculous – a batsman can and, in this instance did, hit a no-ball. A more canny bowler would have bowled a wide – because it is the wide that, by definition, you cannot hit.

But back to cases: So everyone, from the Sri Lankan cricket board to sundry Indian stars of yesteryear, have been banging on about the Lankans’ lack of sportsmanship (If there is any irony in Mohammad Azharuddin, who was banned from international cricket for match-fixing and related activities, talking of the spirit of the sportsman, ignore it, please – it is also the silly season).

What strikes us is how the public discourse, and wall to wall ‘exclusive’ coverage on television channels, misses the point: Sehwag was denied his century not by the Kumar-Suraj combine, but by scorers and umpires who were clearly asleep and/or ignorant of rules that, incidentally, have been framed so ambiguously as to convert a fairly simple proposition into a complicated situation.

Here is what happened, pure and simple: Randiv bowled. The umpire called ‘no-ball’. There is a reason the umpire calls it as soon as a bowler bowls one – it is to let the batsman know that there are no real penalties attached to having a go. A batsman, on hearing that call, knows he can have a swing without running the risk of being bowled, caught, declared LBW.

So Randiv bowled. The umpire called. Sehwag had a swing, and despatched the ball over the ropes.

That logically is seven runs added to the total – one to the team total as an extra, the other six to Sehwag, the batsman who was quick to seize on the opportunity. Simple.

This is where the idiocy of umpires and the ambiguity of the rule book come in: How could the game be over as soon as Randiv over-stepped? A ball, to be deemed bowled, has to be delivered; the batsman has to play/miss it; in the case of the former the ball has to be retrieved while the batsman runs, or not…there is no provision in cricket for declaring a result, and ending a match, at some intermediate stage of this process.

Thus, for umpires to declare that the game was over as soon as Randiv overstepped is plain folly. To understand this, consider a hypothetical situation: Randiv bowls. It is a no-ball. Sehwag decides the game is over, lets the ball go and walks off. Sangakkara collects and whips off the bails.

Is the batsman out? Of course he is. The extra run cannot be counted until the ball in question is officially dead; in our example Sehwag left his crease while the ball was in play, therefore he is out.

So, if his dismissal off a no ball counts, why were the runs he scored off that no ball not counted to his name?

The question, simplified: How could the umpires, or the scorers, or both, consider the match over before the ball had completed its necessary course?

Read Law 24 (No ball)

Runs resulting from a No ball

The one run penalty for a No ball shall be scored as a No ball extra. If other penalty runs have been awarded to either side, these shall be scored as in Law 42.17 (Penalty runs). Any runs completed by the batsmen or a boundary allowance shall be credited to the striker if the ball has been struck by the bat; otherwise they also shall be scored as No ball extras.

Where is the ambiguity? The law clearly says that any runs completed by the batsman, or a boundary allowance, off a no ball shall be credited to the striker.

Sehwag ‘completed’ a sixer. His score – unless the scorer is a congenital idiot – should have been 105. End of story.

The key is to understand that a game is not declared over midway through a cricketing action – which is the space between a ball being ‘live’ and being ‘dead’. Consider this example: India needs one run to win. Sehwag whacks the ball high in the air. While the ball is in the air, the batsman cross over and complete a run. The ball comes down, and is caught.

Is the game over, simply because the batsmen had crossed while the ball was in the air, and had not yet been caught? No, the verdict in this case would be, the batsman is out, the run doesn’t count. So clearly, runs and results are not declared at some arbitrary point while the ball is live – such a determination happens only after the ball is ‘dead’.

The fallacy appears to be in the thinking that any runs accruing to the batsman and/or side after a result is achieved do not count. That is equally a fallacy. Here is an illustrative example:

India needs to get one run to win. Sehwag drives, and the batsman race across for a single. The ball then goes on to cross the boundary. Do you award Sehwag one run, or four? Clearly, the answer is ‘four’ – despite the fact that the first of those runs won the game.

It is not the intention of this post to ‘excuse’ what Randiv did, or what Sangakkara asked him to do. That action was clearly unsporting, childish, petty. Here was one of the great batsman of the modern era, in challenging conditions, digging deep within himself to play a match-winning innings that was contrary to type. A gracious opposition would have admired, applauded; instead, the Lankans appear to have conspired to score a childish ‘victory’.

Fair enough. What beats us, though, is this: Why is there, amidst all this noise, no attempt to question the outcome declared by the scorers? Why is there no debate on the central question? Where were the umpires, the match referee? And where, incidentally, was the Indian team management that it did not think to question the scorers’ declared result?

For the Love of Dravid

2010-08-06T17:47:00.001+05:30

There are a few men we hate to see fall - one such man is Rahul Sharad Dravid, ‘The Wall’ of Indian cricket for decades. Many dream to do what Dravid has done with the willow – with which he fought many a battle to bring glory to Indian cricket.

Dravid with his warrior spirit oozed confidence from the very beginning of his career and made an entire generation fall for his sturdy and no-nonsense approach to the game. Dravid may not be a Tendulkar or a Ganguly or may not be as swashbuckling as Sehwag, but he is and will go down as one of the batting greats to have ever graced the game of cricket.

Somewhere in all these years of grind, Dravid never got his due as a player but none can question his loyalty to the team, nor can one ever say that he flinched while facing hostile bowling that has been dished out to him all over the world.

Such is the prize on his wicket that legendary spinner Shane Warne wrote in his memoir:

“The fortress could also describe Rahul. Because once, Dravid was set, you needed the bowling equivalent of a dozen cannon firing all at once to blast him down.”

Statistics say that Dravid after Allan Border faced the maximum numbers of deliveries in Test cricket – this tells us how much Indian cricket is dependent on him.

Year after year, Dravid has been consistently scoring runs and winning matches for India at home and abroad. No other Indian batsman has saved or won more Test matches than Dravid, but he has never received the accolades that he so rightfully deserved. Lack of laurels has never been a deterrent to his motivation; such is his love for cricket that Dravid like a humble servant of the game continues to labour every single day to bring honour to Indian cricket.

After Sachin Tendulkar, he is the only Indian batsman to score more than 10,000 runs in both forms of the game. But Dravid has always been the man behind the curtains and our board too hasn’t been kind to him. From being forced to keep wickets when India missed an all-rounder to being given the captaincy when it had no takers, Dravid has done all that he could do for the country.

It’s bewildering that there was no media hype and fanfare when Dravid went past 11,000 Test runs to become the fourth highest run-getter in Test cricket. Maybe we have failed to see the perfectionist in Dravid or maybe we just have a penchant for imperfection.

Is Dravid destined to play the quintessential role of the supporting hero eternally? He does not seem to have a problem with donning this role as long as the team wins. But I do have a problem with this as a true player like Dravid deserves to be up there with the greats of the game.

Hopefully his lack of runs in the Sri Lankan series doesn’t force the selectors to overlook him for the Australia and New Zealand series.

It’s a pity that from now on we will get to see less and less of a legend called Rahul Dravid.

Keep yourself busy to stay happy

2010-07-31T19:41:00.000+05:30

People who have something to do, even if pointless, are happier than those who sit idle, say researchers.

The study was conducted by Christopher K. Hsee and Adelle X. Yang of the University of Chicago and Liangyan Wang of the Shanghai Jiaotong University.

"The general phenomenon I'm interested in is why people are so busy doing what they are doing in modern society," says Hsee.

Sure, there are reasons, like making a living, earning money, accruing fame, helping others, and so on, reported the Psychological Science journal.

But, Hsee says, "I think there's something deeper: We have excessive energy and we want to avoid idleness."

For the study, volunteers completed a survey, then had to wait 15 minutes before the next survey would be ready.

They could drop off the completed survey at a nearby location and wait out the remaining time or drop it off at a location, where walking back and forth would keep them busy for the 15 minutes.

Either way, they would receive a candy when they handed in their survey. Volunteers who chose to stay busy by going to the faraway locations were found to be happier than those who chose to be idle.

Sitting too long 'ups death risk'

2010-07-24T10:09:00.000+05:30

A new study has found that the more time people spent sitting down, the greater their risk of death.

American Cancer Society researcher Alpa Patel says that irrespective of the physical activity you get, the amount of time spent sitting can up death risk.

The study found that more leisure time spent sitting was associated with higher risk of mortality, particularly in women.

Women who reported more than six hours per day of sitting were 37 percent more likely to die during the time period studied than those who sat fewer than 3 hours a day.

Men who sat more than 6 hours a day were 18 percent more likely to die than those who sat fewer than 3 hours per day.

Associations were stronger for cardiovascular disease mortality than for cancer mortality.

"Prolonged time spent sitting, independent of physical activity, has been shown to have important metabolic consequences, and may influence things like triglycerides, high density lipoprotein, cholesterol, fasting plasma glucose, resting blood pressure, and leptin, which are biomarkers of obesity and cardiovascular and other chronic diseases," said Patel.

The authors conclude that "public health messages and guidelines should be refined to include reducing time spent sitting in addition to promoting physical activity.

The study appears early online in the American Journal of Epidemiology. (ANI)

India Inc on hiring spree in July-Sept

2010-07-24T10:07:00.000+05:30

Post-slump, hiring plans of corporate India is at its best for the current July-September quarter, driven by infrastructure, manufacturing and telecom sectors, said the latest employment outlook report by recruitment firm TeamLease.

According to the study, hiring sentiment is at an 18- month high for the July-September quarter. The net employment outlook index saw a six per cent jump to 64 index points for the reviewed three- month period compared to the previous quarter.

According to the report, barring healthcare and pharma sectors, all other segments are upbeat about their hiring plans.

Hiring sentiment is highest in the infrastructure sector with a 21 per cent increase, followed by manufacturing and engineering & telecom sectors with 13 per cent and 11 per cent increases, respectively.

Among cities, Delhi has the highest hiring sentiment with a 19 per cent increase in the index, followed by Mumbai and Ahmedabad with 14 per cent increases each. However, hiring sentiments is seen in the negative zone in Chennai and Kolkata.

Interestingly, Tier-II cities have experienced a significant increase (three per cent) in hiring intent to 19 per cent, indicative of the talent supply potential of these geographies.

After being the most neglected zones by potential employers, the junior and entry-level zones are now finding favouring with employers.

Hiring at the junior and entrylevels of organisational hierarchy are set to make a strong comeback with 17 per cent and 11 per cent increases in hiring intent (respectively), which was worst hit and remained stagnant for the past 24 years, the report said.

This, however, has cut significantly into mid-and senior-level hiring and demand in this segment is seen to be decreasing.

According to the report the number of companies in the 'Not Hiring' category has dipped to a 12- month low of 12 per cent.

This is a drop of eight per cent. Sales, marketing and customer care have registered the highest increase of eight per cent among functional areas.

"We are seeing positive hiring intentions over the past few months, and are expecting this to continue. There is also a gradual increase in the intent to hire from Tier-II cities, which shows that companies are looking well beyond urban markets for tapping talent," Sangeeta Lala, vice president, TeamLease Services, said.

"This is also an indicator of consistent and steady growth across business size, sectors and geographies. The opportunities in Tier-II cities are encouraging and might be an answer to the geographic mismatch present in the country," she added.

TeamLease's Business Outlook Index also rose by five per cent to 61 index points. However, it has doubled itself over the course of four quarters.

The study, which covered 568 companies, focused on employment growth potential, business outlook and hiring forecasts in relation to location and company profile.

Mahatma Gandhi's long-forgotten diary recovered

2010-07-23T11:31:00.003+05:30

Image via Wikipedia

Mahatma Gandhi's diary written during the year of Indian Independence and held till recently under private possession will soon be open for public viewing at the National Archives here.

The small diary handwritten by the Bapu in Gujarati is among a collection of other letters and documents handed over to the Archives by Varsha Das, former director of the Gandhi National Museum.

"We received Gandhi's diary 10 days back along with a collection of other documents from Varsha Das, the former director of the Gandhi National Museum," Rajesh Verma, Assistant Director, National Archives of India told PTI.

Meena Jain, a childhood friend of Das had handed over to her, Gandhi's diary and other documents containing letters and several diaries written by Manu Behn, the niece of Mahatma Gandhi.

"I handed over the collection to the Archives in the first week of July as we do not display the original diary and documents at the Museum. Also, the Archives has the facility of temperature control that is suitable for the preservation of the diary whose pages are in a fragile condition," Das told PTI.

The worn and yellow pages of the diary dated between April 13 to December 29, 1947 has detailed jottings by the late leader mostly in blue ink with also several entries in pencil all in Gujarati.

"The diary is a national as well as a world's treasure. By keeping it in the Archives one will get to know a little more about Mahatma Gandhi's life and work than what we know at present," says Das.

Apart from Gandhi's diary the collection received by the National Archives contains 19 diaries written by Gandhi's niece Manu Behn along with several assorted pages with bangla alphabets, pencil notes written in Hindi, Urdu and Gujarati as well as some illegible writings, a source at the National Archives said.

"The 19 diaries by Gandhi's niece contain her writings as well as several letters as old as 1944 that are addressed to her by Zakir Hussain, Indira Gandhi and other leaders and freedom fighters," adds the source.

The entire collection would be kept in ten folders in a chronological order at the Archives.

Varsha Das, who was also formerly Director, The National Book Trust says, "A lot will be revealed through these diaries." The Archives would laminate and produce a digitised version of the Gandhi's diary which is expected to benefit researchers and scholars, she adds.

Rajesh Verma says,"A specific division would be assigned to preserve these documents." The Mahatma's diary would be kept separately from those of Manu Behn, he adds.

The diary is yet to be translated from Gujarati to various languages for the benefits of researchers and scholars who are interested in reading about Gandhi.

"We are looking for a person who can translate these Gujarati documents. We will get it done as soon as possible before it is open for public use," says Verma.

"People who know Gujarati can access the diary even now. In order to facilitate greater dissemination we plan to translate it into Hindi and English too," says the Assistant director.

Besides, the personal diary, an album of Mahatma Gandhi capturing his 1925 Madras tour, highlights of his visits, addresses, arrivals, speeches and public functions along with other items including undated press clippings, a 1942 calender, telegrams and a photocopy of a few Gujarati couplets would also be showcased at the National Archives.

Zero To 1050 mph In 42 Seconds!

2010-07-23T11:24:00.002+05:30

Believe it or not, a jet-propelled vehicle is almost set to break the land speed record, that too at an incredible 1,050 mph. A life-size replica of the Bloodhound supersonic car (Bloodhound SSC) was on display at the Farnborough International Airshow, Hampshire on Monday, July 19.

The car will be powered by both a Eurofighter Typhoon jet engine and a rocket engine, generating a combined thrust of 47,500 lb. (or 212 kN of force), the equivalent of 180 Formula One racing cars.

The Bloodhound is about 42 feet long, nine feet high and two feet wide, with a wheelbase of about 29 feet and a mass of more than 14,100 pounds.

The current land speed record is held by ThrustSSC, a twin turbofan-powered car which broke the sound barrier, reaching 763 mph at Black Rock Desert, Nevada on October 15, 1997.

Murali gets 800 - Murali delivers on a big occasion, again

2010-07-22T16:07:00.001+05:30

A man who averages 24.48 in 34 ODI tournament finals, conceding runs at 4.1 an over, cannot be accused of not having a sense of occasion. And his farewell Test has been some occasion. You can't escape the farewell Test. The road from the team hotel to the ground, some 40km along the coast, is full of Murali posters. The Galle International Stadium is full of Murali: banners, cut-outs, messages, an electronic countdown to 800 wickets, the works. The Galle Fort overlooking the stadium has two giant Murali cut-outs. Every cricketer who has spoken in public has been asked to pay tribute to Murali. There have been guards of honour, 21-gun salutes, his family has been on the TV camera most of the time.

It is only natural to feel some nerves going into your final Test, ending 18 years of as many ups as downs. But Murali remained unfazed and did what he does best

It is only natural to feel some nerves going into your final Test, ending 18 years of as many ups as downs. Memories must have flown, he must have thought of his future. In between, there was a Test match to be won. There were fears if the farewell would distract the team. Would he himself be able to concentrate and bring his best for one last time, especially given his recent lean form? This man, however, has left worse distractions, worse pressures, behind when walking on to the field to represent Sri Lanka. "Boss, when I go out, I don't think about these things," he says. "My job is to get batsmen out, I think about that only."

And get batsman out he did on his penultimate day of Test cricket. Also on display was the big offbreak that seems to have gradually become smaller ever since he began bowling the doosra. The way he got MS Dhoni's wicket is any offspinner's dream. Dhoni had not just come in - he had his eye in, having scored 33. The ball drifted away from him, dipped too, Dhoni's feet played the original line, the bat went chasing the ball, and then it spun, spun big, through the gate, kissing the inside edge, not enough to alter its track, and found the stumps.

Inexplicably Murali had been kept away from action for 17 overs in the morning. Even after Virender Sehwag and VVS Laxman were had, Kumar Sangakkara let Yuvraj Singh and Dhoni settle. Even Tillakaratne Dilshan was used before Murali. It was as if he was being set a challenge - do it from here, with India just 105 short of saving the follow-on. He didn't start off too well, bowling two long hops in his first over, which were duly dispatched by Dhoni.

Soon, though, came that magic ball. With the sight of tail in, Murali squeezed into the door left ajar. We were right up Murali's alley, with runs on board, no hope of a win for the opposition, the batsmen uncertain. Of all the times in the world, you don't want to face Murali at such a time. Yuvraj, who had played well for his 52, was drawn out, he wasn't sure which way the ball would turn, had to play at it, and Mahela Jayawardene hardly ever drops those edges off Murali.

The tail was easy for Murali. Pragyan Ojha wasn't the first batsman poking at one outside off, fearing the doosra, edging it away. For Abhimanyu Mithun he produced the sharp offbreak again, finishing his 67th five-for. "You have to ask him if felt any nerves," Trevor Bayliss, Sri Lanka's coach, said. "But this is the first time I've seen Murali showing a bit of emotion after taking those five wickets. Throwing his arms in the air... I'm sure he's happy with the way he's gone so far in the match."

In the second innings, perhaps the age showed. The trajectory got flatter, more doosras were bowled than the big offbreaks. Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid, although for not enough time from India's point of view, batted expertly, denying Murali for long. The ball, though, doesn't know how old you are. Murali stayed at the batsmen for 18 long overs. Whatever might have happened earlier in the day, there was no way that in dying light, anybody else was going to bowl the last over of the day.

In the 13th over of that spell, Murali got Yuvraj in similar fashion as in the morning. This one was pitched middle and off, he had to play at it, it spun away sharply, Jayawardene was there again, with his fingers under the dying ball. Murali is having some drink for the road.

Source: Cricinfo.com

Airtel to bring iPhone 4 in India

2010-07-20T19:39:00.002+05:30

The much hyped iPhone 4 would soon hit the Indian mobile market if all goes well between the country's largest telecom operator, Bharti Airtel, and the handset maker, Apple.

"We are working with Apple. Hopefully in the September-October time frame we would launch the phone," Sanjay Kapoor, Chief Executive of Bharti Airtel (India and South Asia), told reporters on the sidelines of a CII conference.

Earlier in June, Vodafone Essar had spoken of its plans to launch the iPhone 4 in India, without specifying a timeframe for the same.

On the rollout of Broadband Wireless Access services in four circles - Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kolkata and Punjab - which it bagged for Rs.3,314.36 crore, Kapoor said they were still to decide on the technology that will be used.

Airtel, which won 13 circles in the auction of airwaves for third generation (3G) telephony spectrum, shelling out Rs.12,295.46 crore ($2.73 billion), has also started gearing up its network to enable a quicker rollout of such services.

Bharti Airtel already sells iPhone 3GS in India priced at Rs 35,500 for the 16 GB model and Rs. 41,500 for the 32GB model.

Apple had last month announced the launch of the iPhone 4 with a sharper screen and video-chat features in an attempt to ward-off competition from devices running Google's Android software.

"As far as 3G is concerned, a very large amount of the network is 3G ready. We are working towards an aggressive timeline,"

Henry retires from international soccer

2010-07-16T19:51:00.000+05:30

France's all-time leading goalscorer Thierry Henry has announced his retirement from international soccer.Henry confirmed his decision on the day he was presented as a New York Red Bulls player having signed a multi-year contract with MLS side after leaving Spanish champions Barcelona.

The 32-year-old scored 51 goals for his country but only made two substitute appearances as France were knocked in the group stages at the World Cup.

The squad returned in disgrace after refusing to train two days before a vital game but Henry says France's dismal showing had nothing to do with his decision.

"South Africa didn't play any part in it. My decision was taken right before the World Cup," he told reporters in New York.

"I could have announced my decision before the World Cup but I didn't want to put that kind of cloud on the team. I think it was time for me to stop after the World Cup.''

Asked what went wrong at the World Cup Henry replied: "I actually would like to know myself. I don't know what it was.

"From a personal point of view, I am always going to respect the decision of the coach. It was [Raymond Domenech's] decision not to play me and I respect that.

"Lots of stuff was invented unfortunately. I just like to stick to the pitch, and the problem was we didn't play very well. That's the only thing we should be talking about right now. We didn't perform. It's as simple as that.

"We had a good atmosphere, but when you don't perform well it is difficult. For me, you can also have a lot of stuff happening when you win. We just didn't play well. I will stick to this.

"I think the team should move on now with Laurent Blanc in position as the coach, and hopefully they can qualify for the European Championships and do well in that competition.''

As for his move to New York, Henry said a switch to the United States was something he had been thinking about for "four or five months."

"I can assure you I have come here to try to win, that is the most important thing,'' Henry said. "I am a competitive person and I'm sure the boss can put a team out there to do it.

"I've met some people who came to MLS before and played for this club. I played with a guy you know well, Youri Djorkaeff, and know Claudio Reyna too.

"For me there was not any other option than New York Red Bulls. I wanted to represent New York. I love this city. It was a no brainer for me.''

IIT post-graduate gives Rupee its symbol

2010-07-16T18:23:00.000+05:30

The jury has given its verdict: the rupee will retain its Indian character with an international flavour. The five-member panel has chosen IIT post-graduate D Udaya Kumar's design from among five shortlisted symbols and recommended it for Cabinet approval.

Kumar's symbol is an amalgam of the Devanagari 'Ra' and the Roman capital 'R' without the stem, very much in line with what Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee had envisioned. "We intend to formalise a symbol for the Indian rupee which reflects and captures Indian ethos and culture," Mukherjee said in his Budget speech this year.

The chosen symbol has the Finance Minister's approval, said a Ministry official.

The Ministry had organised a symbol design competition with a prize money of Rs 2.5 lakh with the condition that it should be applicable to the standard keyboard, be in the national language script or a visual representation and should represent the historical and cultural ethos of the country.

While the basic aim of the new symbol is to provide the Indian rupee international recognition as the country's economy exerts more influence in the global space, the unique sign will also help isolate the currency from the current abbreviation 'Rs' which is used by neighbouring Pakistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka.

Kumar's concept, an official said, is based on the Tricolour and "arithmetic equivalence". While the white space between the two horizontal lines gives the impression of the national flag with the Ashok Chakra, the two bold parallel lines stand for 'equals to', representing balance in the economy, both within and with other economies of the world.

When contacted, Kumar said he was unaware of his design having been ranked first by the jury. "I hope your news is real," he told The Indian Express from IIT Bombay. He joins IIT Guwahati as a faculty member in the Department of Design tomorrow.

Bharti loses top tech honcho to RCom

2010-07-16T18:17:00.002+05:30

In a major executive movement, Bharti Airtel lost its CTO Jagbir Singh who moved in as the president of Technology and Networks at Reliance Communications (RCom). This is a crucial change in the run-up to the start of 3G networks in India.

Singh held his post at Bharti since November 2001. He led the complete mobility network team, 3G strategy and planning team and Wimax deployment team at Bharti and was responsible for strategic planning of mobile network, providing strategic direction, deciding the network architecture and network vision.

He was also responsible for Bharti's international ventures of 2G and 3G networks in Sri Lanka, Seychelles and Channel Islands in the UK.

With over 20 years in the Telecom field, Singh has had working experiences with Nortel (in Asia-Pacific role), Lucent Technologies and Defense Research & Development Organisation (DRDO), Government of India.

Bangalore-based firm launches first Indian web browser 'Epic'

2010-07-16T18:10:00.000+05:30

Indians have a new cause to celebrate with the launch of the first Indian made web browser aptly called 'Epic'. Released by a Bangalore-based software firm, Hidden Reflex, Epic is based on the Mozilla platform.

The unique feature that sets Epic apart from other browsers is that it has a built-in antivirus protection. The integrated antivirus and antispyware has been powered by ESET.

The web browser can be customized as per the user's desire. You can change the background and themes according to your preference. And there are over 1,500 free themes to choose from. The browser's has a number of apps in its sidebar like Twitter, Facebook, Orkut etc. You can directly launch them from the sidebar.

The Epic is highly Indian in its look and feel. The 'Indic' app in the browser lets you type in 12 Indian languages.

The browser makers claim maximum privacy by giving features such as one-click private data deletion, flash cookie deletion built-in and no storage of browsing history. Faster downloads and browsing are some of the other claims made by the Epic developers. So what are you waiting for? Go check and experience it for yourself. After all such innovations reinforce our feelings of being a proud Indian.

The number of i-banks increases in India

2010-07-16T18:09:00.002+05:30

The number of investment banks (i-bank) in India is increasing day by day. According to industry estimates, at least 300 i-banks have been set up in India over the past 18 months, compared to only 50-60 new i-banks in 2006-07, when fund-raising was at its peak, reports Deeepti Chaudhary of Mint.

Experts said that number Indian firms are raising funds for acquisitions now, though i-banks have been around for long. And i-banks are looking to have a share of benefit.

According to Deepak Srinath, director of Viedea Capital Advisors, a Bangalore-based boutique i-bank, if it's a good deal a number of i-bankers are available. "It's like real estate brokering now", said Srinath.

Boutique i-banks typically handle sub-$25 million (Rs115 crore) deals, that helps in areas like fund-raising, debt, and private equity (PE) and venture capital investments.

There are about 15 multinational investment bankers in India now. On the other hand, the nuber of homegrown i-banks lies in between 15 to 20. There are nearly 1,000 small i-banks in India with one or two partners. Most of the i-banks that have come up since early 2009 are in this last category.

In April 2009, Renuka Ramnath, then Managing Director and Chief Executive at ICICI Venture Funds Management, quit to float PE Multiples Alternate Asset Management, Ajay Relan quit as Managing Director and India Head of Citi Venture Capital International in 2008 to launch CX Partners, writes Chaudhary.

About 37 percent elderly use social networking sites

2010-06-10T18:03:00.000+05:30

Among those who go online, around 37 percent of adults aged above 50 say they use social networking sites like Facebook, according to a survey by AARP, a U.S.-based non-governmental organization and interest group for retired people.

"It connects you with your past. I'm on Facebook and I've met people that were stationed with me in the Air Force. Now we're having a reunion. There are 150 of us. It started with Facebook," said Jim Spencer, who teaches an internet class at the Northampton Senior Center. According to the survey, 63 percent of seniors who have joined Facebook did so because their son or daughter encouraged them to.

The AARP survey also revealed that around 40 percent of adults aged 50 and above say they are very comfortable using the internet. But most aren't using laptops, 57 percent of seniors surveyed say they use desktops to surf the web.

Reverse brain-drain - West no more a greener pasture?

2010-06-10T18:01:00.000+05:30

For the past few years, Indians returning back has been constantly on rise. Around 60,000 professionals settled in U.S. have returned to India in last year alone. This is almost equal to the number of Indians going to U.S. every year. Constant feeling of getting back to the roots and the decreasing gap in salaries in India and U.S. are some of the major reasons attributed to this trend of reverse brain drain. Statistics report that India is facing nearly 30 percent shortage of IT professionals, providing a lot of opportunities for the Indians to head back.

"Take the IITians for example. If you see 10 years back, 90 percent of the IIT grads left India to grab opportunities in West, but now, almost 85 percent of the IIT passouts prefer to stay back in India," says Jayaram Valliyur, who has returned from U.S. and is currently, working for Amazon India. He says, "It was my entrepreneurial spirit that brought me back to India. The kind of work we do is similar in both the places, opportunities, money, technology are here in India too. In fact, the growth is much faster. You get opportunities to work with different talent and a chance to interchange with people who are going back and forth."

The extensive experience, technological solutions, quality assurance and commitment to the work have made Indian professionals to create a brand name for themselves. With organizations from west look at India for talent and MNCs trying to open shop here, opportunities are galore for Indian professionals to grow.

Vidya Shastri, Software Development Manager at Amazon, says, "There are two reasons for coming back to India. One is the professional growth and opportunity in an expanding Amazon India and the other is personal reason to be closer to our parents and extended families, and to have my daughter be exposed to these relationships. Professional growth has been steady in India. Personally, it's been a great success moving back to India."

Most of the Indians returning are couples in the age group of 27 to 35 having kids. The major factor cited by most was to protect their kids from the Western culture. Education was also another reason for Indians to move back. There is a common believe that Indian education system is quite good.

"The ultimate reason for my shift was to stay close to my parents, so my decision was purely personal. As regards to the work culture, one cannot find a major difference in the work culture between here and the West. Our workforce is as competitive and talented, though if averaged out, may be a little less on the experience curve, but I see that India is making rapid strides in growing leaders at all levels and there is global appreciation for the Talent powerhouse that India is. I worked for 9 years in U.S. and after coming back to India I can see a lot of changes in the workforce, especially around the desire to make a significant impact on a global scale and that is happening all around us in India ," says Madan, Director - HR, Amazon.

"The U.S. work culture is more 'individualistic', whereas the Indian work culture is 'team oriented'. There is more maturity and experience in the U.S, but more enthusiasm and energy in India. I like the Indian work culture better overall," concludes Vidya.

With the economy bouncing back and growing at a faster pace, rupee becoming stronger, times have changed in India. Today, it is a place conducive to Startups and Entrepreneurship and Indian professionals around the world are waiting for an opportunity to make the most of it.

Witnessing the growing impact of this reverse brain drain that helps them to etch a better footprint globally, Amazon is hiring in U.S. This will open up opportunities for many Indians to relocate to their homeland. To know more click the link below.

Unidentified Object That Buzzed Earth is Space Junk, Not Asteroid, NASA Says

2010-05-29T15:08:00.000+05:30

A small object that zipped by Earth this month is most likely just a wayward piece of space junk left over from an interplanetary mission that launched in times past, NASA officials said Thursday.

The unidentified object, known only as 2010 KQ, flew past Earth on May 21 at a distance just beyond the orbit of the moon, which is about 238,900 miles (384,402 km) from our planet. It is now slowly moving away from Earth.

After a careful analysis of its trajectory through space, NASA scientists concluded that 2010 KQ is space junk from an upper-stage rocket that launched a spacecraft to another destination in our solar system. It is likely just a few meters in size, they found.
Like Earth, the object orbits the sun, scientists were able to calculate.
"The orbit of this object is very similar to that of the Earth, and one would not expect an object to remain in this type of orbit for very long," said Paul Chodas, a scientist at NASA's Near-Earth Object Program Office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., in a statement.
Chodas did not speculate on exactly what mission the rocket remnant may be left over from.
Mystery object 2010 KQ
2010 KQ was discovered on May 16 by astronomer Richard Kowalski from an observatory in the mountains north of Tucson, Ariz., as he participated in the Catalina Sky Survey, a NASA-sponsored effort to monitor the cosmos. NASA tracked the object for five days until it made its closest approach.
Follow up observations by astronomer S. J. Bus at the Infrared Telescope Facility atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii took a look at the object's spectral characteristics, which did not match any known asteroid categories – hinting that it is of human manufacture.
The small size estimate for 2010 KQ is based on its relative dimness in observations. The object has an absolute magnitude (a measure of brightness) of 28.9. For comparison, a magnitude 1 object shines about 100 brighter than a magnitude 5 one.
And this is not the last Earth has seen of 2010 KQ. The rocket remnant will return in 2036, but poses little risk of hitting the Earth and no chance of surviving the fiery inferno of atmospheric entry, Chodas said.
"At present, there is a 6 percent probability that 2010 KQ will enter our atmosphere over a 30-year period starting in 2036," Chodas said. "More than likely, additional observations of the object will refine its orbit and impact possibilities. Even in the unlikely event that this object is headed for impact with Earth, whether it is an asteroid or rocket body, it is so small that it would disintegrate in the atmosphere and not cause harm on the ground."
2036: Year of space junk and asteroids

The year 2036 has special resonance among space rock watchers. That's the year that another object, the huge asteroid Apophis, is also expected to fly relatively close by Earth.
Apophis gained fame as a potentially dangerous asteroid because of early predictions that gave it a slight chance of hitting Earth. In reality, it will miss the Earth on April 13, 2036 by about 18,300 miles (29,450 km).

There is only a 1-in-250,000 chance of Apophis striking the Earth, odds that NASA considers to be low.

Like 2010 KQ, Apophis will also be back. It will make a second pass by Earth in 2068, with the risk of an Earth-endangering impact also set at a low 1-in-333,000 chance.
Chodas and other scientists with NASA's Near-Earth Object Program regularly keep vigilant watch on asteroids and space debris to determine the risk to our planet, as well as among the satellites and spacecraft in orbit today. They use a network of telescopes on the ground and in space to perform the survey.

NASA also works with the U.S. military's Space Surveillance Network to track potentially dangerous space debris flying in low-Earth orbit. So far, there are more than 19,000 pieces of space junk in Earth orbit today, a count which may not include interplanetary bits of junk like 2010 KQ that zip by every now and then.

Most Memorable Space Debris Moments
Gallery - Asteroids in Space
How Much Junk is in Space?

Original Story: Unidentified Object That Buzzed Earth is Space Junk, Not Asteroid, NASA Says
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USAF vehicle breaks record for hypersonic flight

2010-05-29T15:03:00.000+05:30

An experimental aircraft has set a record for hypersonic flight, flying more than 3 minutes at Mach 6 — six times the speed of sound.

The X-51A Waverider was released from a B-52 Stratofortress off the southern California coast Wednesday morning, the Air Force reported on its website. Its scramjet engine accelerated the vehicle to Mach 6, and it flew autonomously for 200 seconds before losing acceleration. At that point the test was terminated.
The Air Force said the previous record for a hypersonic scramjet burn was 12 seconds.
"We are ecstatic to have accomplished many of the X-51A test points during its first hypersonic mission," said Charlie Brink, an X-51A program manager with the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio.

"We equate this leap in engine technology as equivalent to the post-World War II jump from propeller-driven aircraft to jet engines," Brink said.

The Waverider was built for the Air Force by Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne and Boeing Co.
Joe Vogel, Boeing's director of hypersonics, said, "This is a new world record and sets the foundation for several hypersonic applications, including access to space, reconnaissance, strike, global reach and commercial transportation."
Four X-51A cruisers have been built for the Air Force, and the remaining three will be tested this fall.

"No test is perfect," Brink said, "and I'm sure we will find anomalies that we will need to address before the next flight."

Basic Yoga Postures and their Variations

2010-05-05T11:44:00.000+05:30

Basic Yoga Postures and their Variations

1. THE COBRA Do this in easy stages. Lie down, face prone, legs tightly together and stretched back, forehead on the floor. Put your hands, palm down, just under your shoulders. Inhale and raise your head, pressing your neck back, now use your hands to push your trunk up until you are bending in a beautiful arc from your lower spine to the back of your neck. You need go no further than this. However, if you are supple enough, you can now straighten your arms completely, bend the legs at the knees and drop your head back to touch your feet. Even if your head goes nowhere near your feet, drop it back as far as possible and hold the posture with deep breathing. Come out of the posture very slowly, returning to the face prone posture. Relax with your head to one side. Repeat.

2. THE BOW This is also an extreme version of the simple bow. It is surprising how many children can do it immediately. Take it, once again, in easy stages. Lie face prone on your mat. If you are very slim have a nice thick, padded mat for this one. Inhale and bend your knees up. Stretch back with your arms and catch hold of your ankles, keeping fingers and thumbs all together on the outside. Inhale and at the same time raise your head and chest, pulling at your ankles and lifting knees and thighs off the floor. Breathe normally, trying to kick up your legs higher and lifting your head up. You are now bent like a bow, balancing the weight of your body on your abdomen. You can stop right here but if you can still stretch further, then slide your hands down your legs, lift them higher, keep the knees together and pull back as much as you can. Hold for a few normal deep breaths, then relax back to the face-prone position, head to one side.

3. THE SHOOTING BOW In Sanskrit this is known as Akarna Dhanurasana and one leg is drawn up like a shooting bow. Sit with both legs stretched out in front and back straight. Reach forward with both hands and clasp your feet, catching the right foot with the left hand and the left foot with the right hand. Inhale, bend the left knee and pull the foot across the body, close to your chest, pointing the elbow up and twisting the body slightly to the right. The left hand stays firm and tight, holding the right foot. Hold posture with normal breathing, release slowly, and relax. Repeat on other side. In the beginning it is enough to hold the bent left leg with the right hand. When this is easy, stretch down and hold the left foot with the right hand. Continue to pull on the left foot, lifting it higher on each exhalation.

Fake antivirus is 15 percent of all malware: Google

2010-04-28T17:53:00.005+05:30

Fake antivirus--false pop-up warnings designed to scare money out of computer users--represents 15 percent of all malware that Google detects on websites, according to 13-month analysis the company conducted between January 2009 and February 2010. A rise in fake antivirus offerings on Web sites around the globe shows that scammers are increasingly turning to social engineering to get malware on computers rather than exploiting holes in software, Google's study suggests, according to CNET.

Google says fake antivirus scams represent half of all malware delivered via advertisements, which is becoming a problem for high-profile sites that rely on their advertisers and ad networks to distribute clean ads. Google analyzed 240 million Web pages and uncovered more than 11,000 domains involved in fake antivirus distribution for the study, which Google is set to unveil at the Usenix Workshop on Large-Scale Exploits and Emergent Threats.

"As early as 2003, malware authors prompted users to download fake AV software by sending messages via a vulnerability in the Microsoft Messenger service. We observed the first form of fake AV attack involving Web sites, e.g. Malwarealarm.com, in our systems on March 3, 2007," the report says. "At that time, fake AV attacks employed simple JavaScript to display an alert that asked users to download a fake AV executable."

"More recent fake AV sites have evolved to use complex JavaScript to mimic the look and feel of the Windows user interface," the report continues. "In some cases, the fake AV detects even the operating system version running on the target machine and adjusts its interface to match."

Fake antivirus is easy money for scammers, Niels Provos, a principal software engineer at Google said. "Once it is installed on the user system, it's difficult to uninstall, you can't run Windows updates anymore or install other antivirus products, and you must install the [operating] system," rending it unusable until it is cleaned up, he said.

Hackers turn employers! Will pay you to spread more spam

2010-04-28T17:53:00.002+05:30

After facing stricter rules in the U.S, Spammers over there have started outsourcing the work to in India, Bangladesh, China and other developing countries to tackle the simple tests known as captchas, which ask web users to type in a string of semiobscured characters to prove they are humans and not a spam-generating robot.

According to online exchanges like Freelancer.com, where dozens of such projects are bid on every week, these spammers are paying 80 cents (Rs.35.43) to $1.20 (Rs 53.14) per 1,000 deciphered boxes.

Luis von Ahn, a Carn egie Mellon computer science professor who was a pioneer in developing captchas, estimates that thousands of people in developing countries, primarily in Asia, are solving these puzzles for pay. But internet firms like Google say that they do not worry a lot about people being paid to decode captchas because they are one of several tools that websites use to secure themselves. Some sites, for instance, might also send confirmation codes as text messages to cellphones, which then have to be entered into a separate verification page before new email accounts are activated.

An All-Around Yoga Exercise: 12-Step Salute to the Sun

2010-04-27T10:53:00.002+05:30

An All-Around Yoga Exercise: 12-Step Salute to the Sun

One of the all-around yoga exercises is the 12-step salute to the sun. Do it once or twice when you get up in the morning to help relieve stiffness and invigorate the body. Multiple repetitions at night will help you to relax; insomniacs often find that six to 12 rounds help them fall asleep.

1. Stand with your feet slightly apart, palms together, thumbs against your chest.

2. Inhale deeply while slowly raising your hands over your head, and bend back as far as possible, while tightening your buttocks. Hold for three seconds.

3. Slowly exhale and bend forward, keeping your knees straight, until your fingers touch the floor outside your feet. (If you can’t touch the floor, go as close as you can.) Bring your head in toward your knees.

4. Slowly inhale, bend your knees, and if your fingertips aren’t outside your feet on the floor, place them there. Slide your right foot back as far as you can go, with the right knee an inch or so off the floor, (a lunge position). Now look up as high as possible, arching your back.

5. Before exhaling again, slide your left foot back until it is beside the right one, and with your weight supported on your palms and toes, straighten both legs so that your body forms a flat plane. Make sure your stomach is pulled in.

6. Slowly exhale, bend both knees to the floor, bend with your hips in the air, lower your chest and forehead to the floor.

7. Now inhale slowly and look up, bending your head back, then raising it, followed by your upper chest, then lower chest. Your lower body – from the navel down – should be on the floor, and your elbows should be slightly bent. Hold for three to five seconds.

8. Exhale slowly and raise your hips until your feet and palms are flat on the floor and your arms and legs are straight in an inverted V position.

9. Inhale slowly and bring your right foot forward as in position 4. The foot should be flat on the floor between your fingertips. The left leg should be almost straight behind you, with its knee slightly off the floor. Raise your head, look up, and arch your back.

10. Slowly exhale and bring your left foot forward next to your right one. Straighten your legs and stand, trying to keep your fingertips on the floor, and try to touch your head to your knees as in position 3.

11. Slowly inhale, raise your arms up and stretch back as in position 2. Don’t forget to tighten your buttocks. Hold for three seconds.

12. Slowly exhale, lowering your arms to your sides. Relax. Repeat the series.

Sachin Tendulkar was born to play cricket: Dhoni

2010-04-24T10:18:00.000+05:30

Paying tributes to Sachin Tendulkar who turns 37 on Saturday, Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni said besides his batting exploits the veteran cricketer was a good fielder who is fitter than his age.

"He was born to play cricket. I won`t speak about his batting because everyone knows about it but he is a very good fielder and his fitness is such that you won`t feel he is 37," Dhoni said on the sidelines of a Master Blaster Sachin Tendulkar turns 37 promotional event here today.

"Even in the dressing room he ensures that the newcomers feel comfortable around him," he added.

On Virender Sehwag, who has been ruled out of Twenty20 World Cup due to a shoulder injury, Dhoni said, "I don`t know anything about the injury. It happened during the IPL but I don`t know when and how the injury happened. He is a class player. But I have always said that injuries are part and parcel of sports."

"He and Gambhir have been doing a great job at the top of the innings. We just hope that Murali Vijay ensures that we won`t miss Sehwag much," he added.

On whether IPL nights were too much off a stress, Dhoni said, "All players are smart. You need to rest your body, especially an Indian cricketer needs to be very careful with the recovery in such a packed schedule. If you don`t take care, it will show immediately or a month later."

"I think all players know their body well. I don`t want to speak for other players but I am sure they make sure they are at their best," he added.

Commenting on his IPL side Chennai Super Kings reaching the semifinals for the third time, Dhoni said, "Any captain will like to get to semifinals early. But then we have managed that in all three editions and I am happy about that."

Dhoni said the most difficult aspect of being a captain was to maintain calm in pressure situations.

"If I stay cool and calm it helps the bowler. He looks up to me when things are not going right and if he finds me cool and calm then he gets more confidence. It doesn`t help if I go and yell at the players. In international cricket, body language is very important and I try and keep my emotions under check," he said.

The Indian skipper said that he is planning to establish a sports academy in Ranchi which was currently at a conceptual stage.

"I want to start a sports academy in Ranchi. It`s just in the planning stage. The land is still to be acquired. But sponsors are already coming forward," he said.

IPL - Tendulkar most googled Player, Deccan Chargers most googled Team

2010-04-23T12:59:00.000+05:30

Google India announced its second IPL Zeitgeist for 2010 - an insight into the most searched teams and players during the third season of the Indian Premier League. Sachin Tendulkar emerged as the most searched Indian cricketer, followed by Sourav Ganguly. Shane Warne continued to be the most searched international player at the IPL, for the second year running.

Conspicuous by their absence were popular names such as M.S. Dhoni, Virender Sehwag and 'the Fake IPL Player', who moved off the top 10 this year. Adam Gilchrist, Ryan Harris and Praveen Kumar made their debut on the list at number 7, 8 and 9 respectively. Among the teams, Deccan Chargers ousted the Mumbai Indians from the top slot, who emerged as a close second. Chennai Super Kings rounded up the top 3 teams, as Kolkata Knight Riders dropped to number four this year.

'Super Over' emerged as the most searched IPL related query on YouTube followed by Chennai Super Kings. Yusuf Pathan, who did not make it to the IPL Zeitgeist on Google Search, emerged as the most searched player on YouTube.

To compile the 2010 IPL Zeitgeist, Google studied the aggregation of queries pertaining to IPL that people typed into Google search during the IPL season 3. It used data from multiple sources, including Insights for Search, Google Trends and internal data tools. It also filtered out spam and repeat queries to arrive to a list which captured the essence of the series. Google said that the entire search queries studied was anonymous - no personal information was used.

Videocon to invest Rs.14,000 Crore in mobile services

2010-04-19T14:41:00.000+05:30

The Videocon group envisages investment of Rs.14,000 crore in its mobile services over the next three years and plans an investment of around Rs.1,000 crore for its 2.75G EDGE GSM venture in Gujarat.

This was announced by group chairman Venugopal Dhoot at the launch of Videocon's GSM mobile services in Ahmedabad Sunday.

"We target to cover 100 percent of the urban population in the state and 50 percent of the rural population in subsequent months with a retail presence in 20,000 outlets in the state at launch and plans to cover 45,000 outlets over the next two months," he said.

Two tariff plans were unveiled at the launch. Under the Rs.399 monthly recharge plans subscribers can make unlimited free local calls both on their own service and to other service providers networks while under the Rs.149 monthly recharge plan, subscribers can make one hour of local calls free every day.

"All the pricing plans are powered by a one paisa per call tariff on STD calls to any network across India," he added.

Dhoot said that the company, which had set itself a target of a 100 million users over the next three years, had partnered with global telecom and IT industry majors like Nokia, Siemens, Cisco, IBM, Gemalto, Amdocs, Comverse, Comviva, Avaya, Wipro, Oracle, Unisys and Huawei.

Indian Embassy's website hacked by Chinese hackers

2010-04-19T14:40:00.000+05:30

The website of the Indian Embassy has been attacked twice by Chinese hackers. According to Reliable sources in the Indian Embassy said at least two cyber attacks were traced to Chinese servers, but denied leakage of any confidential information, which is processed by "standalone" computers.

The embassy's Local Area Network (LAN) also has no direct internet access and the firewall has been fortified, they said, adding the only hacking victim was the official website, maintained by the information wing. The website allows for online filling of visa and passport applications.

"The indianembassy.ru website in the public domain was affected to some extent that e-mail IDs of the senior officials were cloned in the .com or gmail domains to spread the malware," the sources said.

"For example for the legitimate 'infowing@ indianembassy.ru', IDs like 'infowing@indianembassy. com' and 'infowing@gmail.com' were used to spread spam with malware," the sources said.

In a recent incident, the 'Daily Media Digest' issued by the Information Wing in the evening was received by its recipients, including Moscow-based Indian journalists, early morning and instead of word document, it had RAR archive arrangement.

The prompt warning circulated by the embassy not to open the attachment saved many computers from the fresh lot of malware.

The incident assumes significance in the wake of a report about alleged Chinese cyber espionage which has infected scores of Indian government and defence related sites.

U.S. and Canada based Information Warfare Monitor and Shadowservers Foundation in their report 'Shadows in the Cloud' had traced China's Chengdu based servers of ex-filtering sensitive information from the Indian computers, including Indian diplomatic missions in Moscow, London and Washington.

Commenting on the report, Russian media had raised concerns about sensitive and secret information about Moscow and New Delhi's defence cooperation falling into the Chinese hands.

Now see 3-D movies without glasses

2010-04-19T14:38:00.001+05:30

The huge success of 3-D movies like "Avatar", "Clash of the Titans" and "Alice in Wonderland" has led scientists to explore possibilities of developing 3-D technology that does not require glasses.

Japanese companies supplying 3-D technology and services to Hollywood production houses have said they hope to see their goods having an impact on people's day-to-day lives within the next few years, and that further development in the technology will lower prices and makes the experience affordable for commoners, Xinhua reported Saturday.

However, before that happens, there are still a few problems that need to be solved. A 'glasses-free' 3-D technology produced by a Japanese company has induced headaches, even if they were impressive.

The latest technology sends different signals to each eye, creating the illusion of 3-D images, and a company representative has argued that future developments will lead to sharper images and less eye fatigue. "In may be five years, when the technology has further advanced and the price of the hardware has become more affordable, I think you will see 3-D sets in households," Kazuo Kaneyama was quoted as saying.

At present, the technology boasts of a 65-inch set at around 3 million yen ($32,000) - about three times more than the price of a 2-D television of the same size.

There are also problems for people with visual impairment. If one eye is stronger than the other, then the 3-D image will suffer.

"People with visual impairment will not be able to enjoy 3-D using this technology," Kaneyama said. Over the next few years, television sets are likely to be installed at exhibitions, department stores and on streets that grab our attention like never before, with the images seeming to jump out of the screens and at passers-by.

"I believe 3-D is just around the corner," said Kiyoto Kanda, representative of another company. "Photo frames that use the technology are already available at an affordable price, and other equipment is going to get cheaper in the near future."With Hollywood already beginning to invest in fully developing 3-D entertainment, opportunities to test out the new way of watching movies, sport and other programmes are likely to increase.

In Britain, a recent football game between Manchester United and Chelsea was made available in 3-D. Though these experiments have used the glasses technology, people have not looked favourably at the idea of wearing uncomfortable glasses for two or more hours at a time, opening up huge potential for companies offering glasses-free technology.

Flying Man

2010-04-17T15:56:00.003+05:30

Amazing Technology

2010-04-17T15:54:00.001+05:30

Why can't India have its own 'patriotic hackers'?

2010-04-12T14:40:00.000+05:30

Revelations by Canadian investigators that a cyber spy ring based in China specifically targeted India's defence establishment are expected to set off a major cyber security overhaul by New Delhi.

Privileged information suggests the Indian government could seriously consider creating the position of a cyber security czar whose mandate would be to fundamentally overhaul cyber security and bring the currently fragmented networks under a clearly defined structure.

The overhaul will demand a whole new approach outside the bureaucratic confines considering that it necessarily requires tapping the cyber security community constituted by young professionals in their 20s and 30s. Since this community is used to working in a highly non-hierarchical environment with a great deal of personal freedom the government will have to use the office of the cyber security czar as its interface with the young professionals.

Although cyber security had already been coming under government focus for some time now, a 10-month-long investigation by the University of Toronto's Munk Centre for International Studies, Canadian security firm SecDev Group and US-based cyber sleuthing organisation Shadowserver Foundation has added extra urgency to the task. The investigators have issued a report titled "Shadows in the Cloud: An investigation into cyber espionage 2.0" which highlights how India's defence establishment was seriously penetrated by cyber attackers based in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province in southwest China.

The report exposes widespread penetration of computer systems at the National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS), which is part of the Prime Minister's Office, Indian diplomatic missions in Kabul, Moscow, Dubai and Abuja, Military Engineer Services, Military Educational Institutions, the Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses, the National Maritime Foundation and some corporations. It is hard to quantify the damage the information obtained by the hackers can cause, but it could be potentially significant.

The report has served to highlight serious flaws and vulnerabilities in India's official information networks. Those who know how the systems work point to a "lack of discipline" in even seemingly trivial details such as senior government officials in sensitive positions still using email addresses on Yahoo, Hotmail and Gmail. They say inasmuch as no email system can be made foolproof, these free accounts are even less so. Even the use of social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter are known to be prone to systematic attacks.

Apart from the inherent interest in India's defence and other establishments because of its rise as a major power, there is also another reason why the country has emerged as an important target. Its position as home to large IT companies which are in turn repositories of vast global information also makes India particularly attractive to hackers. In a sense hacking India could lead to a great deal of diverse economic, financial, health and other forms of valuable intelligence.

One of the primary mandates of any future cyber security czar would be to create a multi-layered security system around its national assets in a manner that no single successful penetration would yield a treasure trove of information in one place. The cyber security czar could also be mandated to lay down standards and code of conduct for those in the government handling data of certain sensitive nature. Informed sources say the czar would report to the National Security Advisor and would often end up operating outside the traditional command and control structure of the Indian bureaucracy because of the kind of monitoring the office would be expected to do.

One specific approach that the Indian government might have to consider adopting relates to what in industry parlance are known as defensive and offensive hackers. While the former's job would be to ensure strong defences against all attacks, that of the latter would be to actively be part of hackers worldwide who perform the role of flooding malware or malicious software codes used to infiltrate large systems. Such participation is crucial to pre-empting attacks. It is in this context that the Canadian investigation makes an interesting point.
Bangalore: Revelations by Canadian investigators that a cyber spy ring based in China specifically targeted India's defence establishment are expected to set off a major cyber security overhaul by New Delhi.

Privileged information suggests the Indian government could seriously consider creating the position of a cyber security czar whose mandate would be to fundamentally overhaul cyber security and bring the currently fragmented networks under a clearly defined structure.

Nokia Siemens start manufacture of 3G products in India

2010-04-12T10:36:00.002+05:30

Chennai: Nokia Siemens Networks has commenced manufacture of 3G products locally at its Chennai facility and announced investments of Rs. 105 crore over the next two years. With this move, Nokia Siemens Networks has become the first Telecommunication infrastructure vendor to manufacture 3G products locally, company officials said.

The first batch of 3G enabled 'base stations' from the facility were rolled out from the facility recently the firm's Operations-Head Herbert Merz said at the inauguration of 3G equipment manufacturing at their Oragadam facility, near Chennai, reports PTI. The company in June 2008 entered into a MoU with Tamil Nadu government for setting up a facility at Oragadam at an investment of Rs. 300 crore to manufacture 2G communication infrastructure for local and global customers.

The firm would initially manufacture radio frequency modules and system modules, and also ramping up production for both these products in the later half of this year, he said. With the proposed additional investments, the company would ramp up its existing facility. "The products manufactured at the facility are mostly targeted for the domestic market but we also plan to focus on exports from here", he said.

Dravid is India’s greatest

2010-04-05T11:16:00.000+05:30

Sachin Tendulkar fans won’t like this. Even as the dust settles around the ICC ratings that did not rate Tendulkar too highly, an in-depth study into the Top 20 Indian Test cricketers of all time puts him at No. 4.

Rahul Dravid, 36, is No. 1 and when you look at the rationale you will struggle to disagree. When you take into account his contribution in Test matches won, especially overseas, there’s a lot going for him.

The exercise, dubbed the Holding Willey Report, resulted in more than 30,000 pages of data being generated.

Hindustan Times has access to this study and the results are bound to spark off a debate.What makes this exercise different are the parameters the players were judged on.

The second aspect that differentiates the study from others is that the logic is completely transparent. Whether you agree with the findings or not, you'll know how they were arrived at.

Jaideep Varma, one of the architects of the study, said the findings were a bit unexpected even for them: “This combination of parameters determines a player’s value in a collective context, which is bizarrely missing in evaluations about cricketers, especially in India where individual records and milestones get more attention than they sometimes

SOLAR SAILS TAKE SHAPE

2010-03-22T18:39:00.000+05:30

An artist's rendering shows Japan's Ikaros solar sail in flight

As Japan gears up to send the first working solar sail into deep space in a couple of months, the Planetary Society is moving ahead with its own solar-sail project. You can put your name on both sails … if you act now.

Sunday is the deadline for adding your name to the list for Japan's Ikaros spacecraft, due to piggyback on the May 18 launch of the Venus-bound Akatsukiorbiter aboard a Japanese H-2A rocket. More than 25,000 people have signed up already using the Planetary Society's "Sail Away" Web page - and when those are added to the Japanese list, the tally goes up to 60,000 names.

All those names will be digitally encoded on the same kind of silica glass mini-DVD that was sent to the Red Planet on the Phoenix Mars Lander as well as on each of NASA's Mars rovers, said Bruce Betts, director of projects for the Planetary Society. The California-based society is a space advocacy group co-founded by the late astronomer Carl Sagan.

If you sign up now, you can get a two-fer: The list of names will also be encoded on a mini-DVD accompanying the Planetary Society's LightSail-1. And even if you miss out this weekend, you can still make it onto that later flight.

How much later? When the $1 million-plus LightSail mission wasannounced last November, its backers hoped to get it off the ground sometime this year. But the Planetary Society's executive director, Louis Friedman, told me today that schedule would have to be stretched.

"We can still be ready by the end of 2010, but the launch vehicle will probably not be available until the first part of 2011," he said.

In fact, LightSail-1's launch vehicle has not yet been selected. The Planetary Society is planning to piggyback on someone else's liftoff - perhaps on a defense-related flight, or a commercial launch, or a mission launched from outside the United States.

"The good news is, we have many options. The bad news is, we have many options," Friedman joked.

One option that's not on the table is Russia's sub-launched Volna rocket. In 2005, a Volna launched the Planetary Society's previous solar-sail prototype, Cosmos 1, but a premature shutdown of the rocket's first stage led to mission failure.

LightSail-1 and Ikaros are both aimed at showing that solar sails can actually propel a spacecraft through the cosmos - something that's never been done before, even though people have tried for more than a decade. Russian solar sail missions failed in 1999 and 2001. The Japanese successfully tested the deployment of a solar sail in 2004, but that suborbital experiment did not address the propulsion question. A NASA experiment known as NanoSail-D went awry in 2008 when its SpaceX Falcon 1 launch vehicle failed to reach orbit.

The idea behind solar sailing is that photons of light bounce off the sail's surface, exerting enough pressure over a wide surface to give a push to the spacecraft. That push is gentle, but over time, the steady acceleration from sunlight could eventually send the sail on an interstellar cruise.

All about IkarosThe 700-pound (315-kilogram) Ikaros spacecraft's name refers to the classic Greek myth of Icarus, the youth who made wings from feathers and wax but flew too close to the sun. It's also an acronym, standing for "Interplanetary Kite-craft Accelerated by Radiation Of the Sun."

Its objective is not to fly to the sun or to the stars, but merely to show that a sailcraft can be propelled and steered through deep space. Ikaros is launched with its sail rolled up in a flat cylinder. After separation from the launch vehicle, the probe would spin itself at a rate of up to 20 revolutions per minute to unfurl the squarish sail.

When fully deployed, the thin-film sail would stretch 66 feet (20 meters) along its diagonal. Tiny solar cells, dust counters and reflective steering devices are mounted as panels on the sail.

Betts said Ikaros' flight plan is "ideal for solar sailing," because the sail would be unfurled beyond Earth orbit. "It's like sailing in the open ocean as opposed to sailing in the harbor," he explained. "You don't have to keep tacking or changing the orientation of your sail."

Japanese researchers see Ikaros' flight as the first in a series of solar-powered space odysseys, leading up to a mission heading for Jupiter and its retinue of Trojan asteroids sometime in the 2020s. That ambitious journey calls for the use of a solar sail as well as a solar-electric ion engine.

All about LightSail-1
The Planetary Society also sees its LightSail mission as the first of a set. Achart for the mission program suggests that mission planners are working toward a flight in 2015 that would boost LightSail-3 beyond Earth orbit to the L1 gravitational balance point between Earth and the sun. That's about 1 million miles (1.5 million kilometers) away.

Rick Sternbach / Planetary Society

The LightSail-1 craft consists of three CubeSats at the center of four lightweight triangular sails.

LightSail-1 consists of three linked-together microsatellites, or CubeSats, each 4 inches (10 centimeters) on a side. One CubeSat contains the electronics and control module, while the other two contain the folded-up plastic panels for the solar sail. Total weight is projected to be less than 11 pounds (5 kilograms).

When fully unfurled, the sail would have an area of 344 square feet (32 square meters). That works out to about 18.5 feet (5.7 meters) on a side. The craft would look like a giant, silvery kite in orbit.

Although the spacecraft has about as much volume as an express-mail package, Friedman said there's more than enough space for what the Planetary Society wants to do.

"It's so much more interesting than I first realized, even when we started down the path of building these CubeSats," he said. "These 4-inch spacecraft are the wave of the future. ... You can do so much on these spacecraft."

A mini-camera would be built into the package to send back imagery of the sail deployment after its launch on the yet-to-be-named rocket, Friedman said. "We'll be involving people from the public for optical and maybe even ham-radio tracking," he said. The key question would be whether the pressure of sunlight is enough to boost the sail to a higher orbit.

It all sounds pretty cool ... as long as someone comes up with the right rocket. That's more complicated than you might think, because engineers have calculated that LightSail-1 has to be deployed in an orbit at least 500 miles high (800 kilometers). Otherwise, any propulsive effect from sunlight would be canceled out by atmospheric drag.

"Above 850 kilometers, you're clearly getting the dominant effect of the solar pressure," Betts explained. To achieve that altitude, LightSail-1 would have to piggyback on a launch going beyond low Earth orbit. There aren't that many rockets going that far out with payload capacity to spare, but the folks at the Planetary Society are confident they'll strike a deal with someone in the months ahead.

Friedman said Ikaros' planners were lucky to have a Venus mission they could latch onto. "I'm envious that they can get this ride out to interplanetary space," he said.

Report: Google to leave China on April 10

2010-03-19T14:36:00.000+05:30

Google is expected to announce on Monday that it will withdraw from China on April 10, according to a report in a Beijing-based newspaper that cited an unidentified sales associate who works with the company.

"I have received information saying that Google will leave China on April 10, but this information has not at present been confirmed by Google," the China Business News quoted the agent as saying. The report also said Google would reveal its plans for its China-based staff that day.

Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Google, which has a significant share of the search market in China, announced in January that it no longer intended to censor search results in that country and would consider leaving entirely. Google has identified China as the source of attacks on prominent U.S. Web properties and e-mail accounts belonging to human rights activists, though it has not revealed the specific people behind them. For its part, the Chinese government hasdenied any involvement.

After months of negotiations over whether it can run Google.cn with or without restrictions, it seemed that Google was getting ready to make a decision in the near-term future. However, according to a Financial Times report last week, Google is now "99.9 percent" certain that it will shut down Google.cn.

The Chinese government has reportedly warned Google business partners to prepare for the day when they can't use Google services such as a search bar on their Web sites. Earlier this week, Google confirmed that it had received a letter purportedly signed by 27 advertising partners in China that complained of a lack of communication on the part of Google and demanded to know how they would be compensated if the company withdrew from China.

Google's fast pipe to Asia almost ready

2010-03-19T14:29:00.000+05:30

Google and a group of telecommunications companies are about ready to turn on a fast Internet cable running under the Pacific Ocean from the U.S. to Japan, increasing bandwidth by about 20 percent and giving Google its own connection to Asia.

The Unity Consortium, which consists of Google, Bharti Airtel, Global Transit, KDDI, Pacnet, and SingTel, has nearly completed the testing of the $300 million project. Internet users in Asia will start seeing faster Internet speeds over the next several months from the new cable, which has the potential to create a 7.68Tbps (terabits per second) connection under the Pacific.

In return for its investment--the amount of which was not disclosed--Google is entitled to 20 percent of the overall capacity for its needs, according to partners involved with the project. Google is one of the largest users of bandwidth on the planet, if not the largest, and invested in the project in 2008 to help satisfy those needs on one of the critical routes for Internet traffic.

"The need for information is a global requirement. As the economies of Asian countries continue to grow, data traffic and the use of the Internet expands. Google is a global company and is committed to providing the best quality of user experience regardless of geography," the company said in a statement Thursday.

Google is expected to formally announce the completion of the project next week.

Internet companies need bandwidth to provide their services, and usually have to rent that from the companies that build and maintain the cables and network connections. That's expensive, which is why Google and several telecommunications companies asked Pacnet to help build the cable, said Bill Barney, Pacnet's CEO. Pacnet, a telecom provider in Asia, invested $100 million in the project, with the remaining partners spreading the $200 million investment among themselves.

"Every business on the Internet today has a challenge," Barney said. "They're trying to build for the long term, and nobody knows how the Internet is going to morph."

Several years ago the U.S-Atlantic Internet routes were extremely important but Asia is poised to explode as a source of Internet traffic, and the cable systems connecting the U.S. and that continent were outdated prior to this project, Barney said. And if Internet-delivered voice and video services increase, bandwidth requirements will soar.

Google obviously wants to serve those users, its pending decision in China notwithstanding. The new cable will allow Google to make a long-term investment in providing services to Asia. "Once you buy fiber, you own it for the rest of your life. It's like launching a satellite," Barney said.

That doesn't mean Google is going to use that capacity to become an Internet service provider to Asia, a prospect it's exploring in the U.S. with its recently announced fiber-to-the-home project. But the Pacific undertaking will allow the company to link its data centers in the U.S. and Japan with one of the fastest pipes on the planet, ensuring that Google services will be delivered quickly and cheaply to Asia.

Source: CNET

3G will be a reality by September, finally

2010-03-09T16:33:00.002+05:30

Mobile phone users will finally be able to access advanced data transfer and high-speed internet on their handsets through 3G technology and broadband wireless access (BWA), post-September 2010. The department of telecom (DoT) has set September as the timeline when successful bidders will be allowed to use the allotted airwaves for commercial operation.

The government on Thursday issued the notice inviting bids from private telecom players to participate in the auction of 3G airwaves, allowing three private players each in 17 circles, including Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and four in the remaining five circles including Punjab, West Bengal and Bihar. The number of slots up for auction excludes those already allotted to the state-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL) and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam (MTNL). It has also invited bids for BWA auction, which is scheduled to happen two days after the 3G auction closes.

Experience speed of up to 24 mbps on BSNL Broadband @ Rs 9,999 a month

2010-02-25T17:30:00.000+05:30

Re-define your internet experience with BSNL Broadband services. BSNL has announced India’s most preferred high-speed Internet service at a speed of unmatched 24mbps . BSNL is persistently evolving to meet their consumers need and that’s why promises a step ahead from the rest.

SNLs broadband is available via Digital Subscriber Loop (VDSL) Technology. BSNL will provide 16Mbps speed to subscribers at Rs. 4,999 per month and 24 Mbps speed at Rs 9,999 a month .

But there is still a gap as all the people can’t enjoy such a high speed because 24 Mbps broadband will be available only to customers located at a distance of up to 500 metres from the BSNL exchange, 16 Mbps broadband is available to only those residing up to about 1 km away.

Sachin Tendulkar Scored Record 200* in ODI against SA

2010-02-25T17:24:00.034+05:30

Sachin Tendulkar, the Little master, created history when he made the highest one day international score, in the process also making a double century.

While most teams struggle to make 200 odd runs in 50 overs, Sachin Tendulkar showed that he could do it alone, and indeed in a dramatic fashion posted a personal score of 200* not out, helping India to go past the 400 run mark, and consequently win the second ODI against South Africa.

In spite of being in the team for almost 20 years, with this innings Sachin has showed that the desire to be the best and play for the country has not diminished one bit. Read more on Sachin Tendulkar, the Master Blaster.

The first double century in ODIs comes after almost 40 years of ODIs being played, including the 60 overs a side matches that were played in the earlier days. These 60 over matches were naturally a batsman's delight as it provided more opportunities to score runs. In spite of that, no one, not one batsman could reach the elusive and highly coveted double century.

The closest to come to the 200 run mark was Charles Coventry, from Zimbabwe, who scored 194 not out, eclipsing the record of Saeed Anwar, who had also scored 194, but 'Was Out'. Saeed Anwar's record of 194 stood for 12 long years, and while many great batsman came close to breaking it, no one ever managed it.

In fact, the Little Master himself came close once, but ended up being 186 not out. It took a Zimbabwean to break the highest ODI score record, and that came in a match against minnows Bangladesh. Sachin, on the other hand, took the best bowling attack in the world apart, and scored at a phenomenal strike rate of well over hundred. His double ton came in only 147 balls, ensuring that his strike rate was also the 'Best of the Three'.

Sachin Tendulkar. A salute to the best batsman in the game.

Low power cellular stations to connect villages

2010-02-14T23:13:00.000+05:30

Cellular base stations that consume less power may be the perfect solution for cellular networks to reach every corner of the country. Telecom firm VNL has developed cellular stations that use only about 50 to 120 watts of power, which is low enough to be powered using solar cells and battery.

Apart from having low power consumptions, the cellular stations can also be made self contained wireless units, which need not be connected to a grid that will be very useful in remote places, reports Thinkdigit. A single such station would be capable of handling hundreds of users, and needs just two people to set it up. The station can be assembled and mounted on a roof top in the short span of six hours.

The traditional systems not only need a lot of power to operate with the help of a power grid, but also more investment is required. Using these systems, customers have to spend as much as Rs. 250 to Rs. 300 per month on average to gain revenue, which is tough in rural areas, hence they are reluctant to give coverage in these regions.

VNL says that its system requires only Rs. 90 to Rs. 100 per month per person on average from their customers to make a profit. Currently nearly 50 such stations have been deployed in villages in Rajasthan and there are plans to introduce the technology in Africa also.

Mobile data traffic 2.4 times faster than fixed broadband

2010-02-14T23:11:00.000+05:30

Router and switches manufacturing company Cisco has indicated that mobile data traffic throughout the world will reach 3.6 exabytes per month or an annual run rate of 40 exabytes by 2014. It means that the amount of data traffic traversing the mobile network by 2014 will be equal to about one billion DVDs.

Aaccording to Cisco's Global Mobile Data Forecast for 2009-2014, the rate at which mobile data traffic is growing today is about 2.4 times faster than fixed broadband data traffic around the world. One of the many driving forces behind this growth in mobile data traffic is increase in number of technologically advanced mobile devices such as the Apple iPhone. It is being expected that in the next few years there could be dozens of such gadgets powered by Google's Android operating system. Cisco's researchers estimate there will be more than five billion personal devices connecting to mobile networks by 2014.

Doug Webster, Senior Director, Cisco said, "The rapid consumer adoption of smart phones, netbooks, e-readers and web-ready video cameras as well as machine-to-machine applications like eHealth monitoring and asset tracking systems, are continuing to place unprecedented demands on mobile networks."

One more reason seems to be the mobile video. Researchers expect that by 2014, that mobile video traffic will represent 66 percent of all mobile data traffic, increasing 66-fold from 2009 to 2014.

1969 Apollo 11 moon landing site given heritage status

2010-02-13T23:46:00.000+05:30

Reports indicate that a California preservation panel has taken the unusual step of naming the 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing site as a state historical resource.

According to a report in the Express, the vote by the California State Historical Resources Commission is part of an effort by several states to have Tranquillity Base become a national historic landmark and then a world heritage site.

The designation applies to everything left on the moon by astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, not the lunar surface.

State Historic Preservation Officer Milford Wayne Donaldson said that similar moves will be made in Texas, New Mexico, Georgia and Florida - the other states highly involved in the Apollo programme.

The Apollo 11 lunar module Eagle set down on the moon's Sea of Tranquillity on July 20 1969, with Armstrong calling to mission control: "Houston, Tranquillity Base here. The Eagle has landed."

"In all, there are more than 100 items that the astronauts had to leave behind," Donaldson said.

They include science instruments, tools, rubbish and the spider-legged descent stage of the lunar landing craft.

The astronauts used the upper half of the craft to return to the command module orbiting the moon, which took them home.

NASA to unlock sun's secrets

2010-02-13T23:44:00.000+05:30

US space agency NASA is set to embark on an ambitious mission which will try to discover the causes of extreme solar activity, such as sun spots and solar winds and flares.

Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) will be launched in nine days' time, reports The Times. With the project's help, scientists will be able to understand solar phenomena - such as disturbances on the sun - and hope to be able to produce reliable forecasts of "space weather" and provide advance warnings of any threat.

The observatory will orbit the Earth at a distance of 22,300 miles, and will measure fluctuations in the sun's ultraviolet output, map magnetic fields and photograph its surface and atmosphere.

Barbara Thompson, project scientist, said: "It is Nasa's first weather mission and it aims to characterise everything on the sun that can impact on the Earth and near Earth.

"We know things happen on the sun which affect spacecraft, communications and radio signals. If we can understand the underlying causes of what is happening then we can turn this information into forecasts.

"The key thing about the mission is that it is not just pure science for its own sake. There is likely to be a direct and immediate benefit for people."

Solar magnetic storms and space weather disturbances have had a number of dramatic consequences over the years.

New discovery may help end sleeping sickness

2010-02-13T23:43:00.000+05:30

Scientists from Vanderbilt University have found a novel way to end sleeping sickness by making parasite that causes it to self-destruct.

They have identified an enzyme that protects the protozoa that cause sleeping sickness, Chagas disease and leishmaniasis, and a compound that appears to obstruct those efforts.

"With human migrations, HIV co-infections and the broadening of the host reservoirs due to climate changes, sleeping sickness and other diseases caused by these protozoan pathogens are now spreading around the world, including within the United States and Europe," said Vanderbilt University scientist Galina Lepesheva.

"It is our hope that the results of our work might be helpful for the development of an effective treatment for such protozoan infections, some of which still remain incurable," Lepesheva added.

Lepesheva and her team have focussed their research on trypanosomatidae family of parasites.

"It has been known for some time that T. brucei, the parasite that causes sleeping sickness, consumes cholesterol in its human host's blood to shore up the cellular membrane, and researchers presumed there was no getting around that," said Lepesheva.

"But we suspected the parasite, like plants and animals, still might need to make its own sterols for growth and development-functional sterols - that could be targeted and inhibited," Lepesheva added.

The team chose to attack the parasite's enzyme known as 14DM, "We tested hundreds of compounds as potential 14DM inhibitors. One of them, VNI, was one of the best in terms of killing the parasites that cause sleeping sickness, Chagas and Leishmaniasis," she said.

The team named the inhibitor VNI, short for Vienna Novartis Inhibitor, because it originally was synthesized at the Novartis Research Institute in Vienna.

It binds with the worker enzyme and blocks the enzyme's ability of causing sleeping sickness.

The study appears in Journal of Biological Chemistry.

Wi-Fi rides to wireless networks' rescue

2010-02-12T20:46:00.000+05:30

Good old Wi-Fi could be the fix to an impending explosion of data on wireless networks.

Nearly three years after Apple introduced the game-changing iPhone, wireless operators around the globe are feeling the effects of the wireless data tsunami that is well under way. Even networks that don't support the iPhone are feeling the pinch as a generation of new wireless devices offering bandwidth-hungry Web applications are hitting networks.

The result, as many iPhone users in New York City and San Francisco will tell you, is a network that drops calls and offers wireless Net surfing at the speed of a turtle.

Savvy smartphone subscribers with Wi-Fi-enabled devices have already been seeking out Wi-Fi hotspots for their Internet surfing, music-streaming, and video watching. But as more devices, such as the Apple iPad come online and the forecast for wireless data shoots through the roof, wireless operators are looking at Wi-Fi as a way to offload some data traffic from their overburdened 3G networks. And as wireless data is expected to continue to grow rapidly over the next several years, they're looking at Wi-Fi as a part of their long term wireless strategies as well, even as they build out 4G wireless networks.

"The thirst for bandwidth that new devices and applications on the network create far exceeds what 3G or 4G technology can offer," said Jeff Thompson, CEO of TowerStream, a company that provides fixed wireless access using WiMax. "And you can't put the genie back in the bottle."

Data tsunami
Mobile data traffic is growing unabated, largely due to an onslaught of new devices that provide access to a bevy of Web-based applications. Internet infrastructure equipment maker Cisco Systems predicts that by 2014 there will be more than 5 billion personal devices connecting to mobile networks, as well as billions of machine-to-machine devices also connecting to networks.

Wireless data traffic throughout the world has increased by 160 percent over the past year to 90 petabytes per month, or the equivalent of 23 million DVDs, Cisco said in a recent report. And by 2014, that figure is expected to increase 39-fold to about 3.6 exabytes per month (or 3.6 billion gigabytes).

Already some networks are crumbling under the stress. AT&T, the exclusive carrier in the U.S. for the iPhone,reported recently it has seen wireless packet data on its network increase more than 18 times in the last two and a half years. The extra traffic, particularly in densely populated regions, has caused problems for consumers in the way of dropped calls and slow Net access.

AT&T's chief executive of operations, John Stankey, said during the company's fourth-quarter earnings call that during certain periods in some sections of Manhattan nearly 70 percent of the phones active on AT&T's network are data-intensive devices.

AT&T's problems are a harbinger of what's to come for other operators that are just now getting data-intensive smartphones. AT&T has already said it will boost capital spending on its network in 2010 by $2 billion, bringing the total to between $18 billion to $19 billion. The company didn't break out how it would spend the money, but it mentioned plans to add cell sites, increase backhaul capacity, and upgrade its network to the next generation of HSPA. It will eventually upgrade to 4G wireless using LTE technology.

Wi-Fi as the solution
Even with new 4G networks coming online and more backhaul capacity in the network to help open up the lanes of traffic, there will be so much demand that wireless operators are going to need to use every solution they can to address the problem. And this is why AT&T plans to continue investing in its Wi-Fi hotspot network. Today, the company has 20,000 hotspots around the U.S. in retail locations like Starbucks coffee shops, hotels, and airports.

"Wi-Fi is a very important technology for us," said Mark Siegel, a spokesman for AT&T. "And it will be considered as a factor in our network plans in the future."

AT&T subscribers are already using Wi-Fi to offload some 3G traffic. A recent AT&T survey indicates that in the past month 43 percent of smartphone users said they had connected to an AT&T hotspot at least once, Siegel said. In 2009, AT&T consumers connected to an AT&T Wi-Fi hotspot four times more often than they did in 2008.

Momentum is growing. In the first quarter of 2010, there have already been more than 35 million connections to the Net via an AT&T Wi-Fi hotspot. This is up by 10 million over the fourth quarter of 2008, Siegel said. He also pointed out that the majority of these Wi-Fi connections are being made by smartphones, such as the iPhone, rather than laptops. In fact, 73 percent of Wi-Fi connections in AT&T hotspots came from "integrated devices" in the fourth quarter compared with 61 percent for all of 2009.

One of the biggest benefits of Wi-Fi is the fact that it's already in most devices. Laptops come with Wi-Fi pre-installed, and now most new smartphones also come with Wi-Fi built in.

Advances in Wi-Fi technology over the past couple of years have also made it more useful for mobile operators. The latest version of the technology--802.11n--can transmit over longer distances at faster speeds. Multiple radio technology also helps Wi-Fi signals move around corners and better penetrate walls for more coverage.

For example, at a distance of about 500 meters, 802.11n Wi-Fi device can transmit signals at 15.5 Mbps. This is compared with about 5.2 Mbps using the older 802.11g Wi-Fi standard. Compare this with average speeds of 3G wireless, which is about 400 Kbps to 700 Kbps and it's easy to see why consumers would choose to use Wi-Fi when given the opportunity. Wi-Fi is also faster than WiMax, a 4G wireless technology that offers average downloads around 1 to 2 Mbps.

"The newer 802.11n technology changed the game for Wi-Fi," said Selino Lo, CEO of a Wi-Fi networking company called Ruckus Wireless. "It offers better range and coverage. And it offers the ability to service more simultaneous customers, which allows wireless carriers to use it to build much more scalable networks."

Towerstream, a company that specializes in providing wireless backhaul solutions to wireless carriers and large companies, is exploring using its rooftop rights in densely urban areas to create Wi-Fi hotzones. Since the technology today creates larger Wi-Fi hotspots, Thompson thinks operators could extend their Wi-Fi hotspots beyond a single cafe, covering entire downtown areas.

"You can build an 802.11n hotspot that isn't much smaller than some of these cell sites in densely populated urban areas," Thompson said. "It's still a little early for us, but we're talking to carriers to see if there is an opportunity for us to leverage our rooftop rights to help them build out these networks. It's a lot cheaper and easier to install than setting up a new cell tower and it offers a lot more capacity."

AT&T has been the most vocal U.S. carrier to talk about its use of Wi-Fi to help alleviate capacity issues. In fact, during the company's earnings call, when asked how AT&T expected to handle additional traffic from Apple's iPad, an executive said he expected many consumers to use Wi-Fi.

T-Mobile has also been a big proponent of Wi-Fi. In 2006, the company began offering a service for $10 extra a month that allowed people to make unlimited phone calls using Wi-Fi. The company has since discontinued the service when it introduced an unlimited calling plan for all its cell phones, but it still allows subscribers to seamlessly switch to Wi-Fi for voice and data calls on certain phones.

All of its Wi-Fi-enabled handsets are able to switch to Wi-Fi for data. But company executives say T-Mobile doesn't view Wi-Fi as a technology for offloading data traffic, so much as it sees it as a way to extend the T-Mobile network.

Sprint Nextel is also using Wi-Fi to offload some data traffic and to extend the reach of its network. At CES in January, the company announced the Overdrive, a 3G/4G wireless router that creates a mini-hotspot for up to five Wi-Fi devices.

Verizon Wireless seems to be the least enthusiastic U.S. operator over Wi-Fi. For the past few years, Verizon has downplayed the importance of Wi-Fi. And up until recently, it routinely disabled Wi-Fi on many handsests. The company experimented with deploying its own Wi-Fi hot spots several years ago in New York City, turning old phone booths into wireless hot spots. The service never took off, and Verizon dismantled the hotspots. The company was also a vocal critic of many municipal Wi-Fi projects, including the one in Philadelphia.

But in 2009, the company had a change of heart toward Wi-Fi. It announced that some of its Verizon Fios subscribers would get free access to its own Verizon Wi-Fi hot spots as well as to hotspots offered by Boingo as part of their broadband service.

While Verizon sees the value in extending Wi-Fi to broadband customers, the company still doesn't appear to be embracing it for offloading data traffic. A spokesman for the company was not available to talk about the company's Wi-Fi strategy.

That said, Verizon has been very public about its aggressive plans for deploying its 4G network using LTE. The company will be launching some markets in 2010 with more to follow in 2011.

Even though operators may not be talking publicly about their plans for Wi-Fi, Steven Glapa, director of business development at Ruckus, said they are talking to him about deploying solutions.

"Operators are definitely interested in Wi-Fi for offloading data traffi," he said. "The normal process for a tier 1 carrier may take 12 to 24 months to evaluate, test, and deploy new radio technology, but many of the people I am talking to are telling me they need to make decisions much sooner than that."

He said carriers around the world who have had the iPhone the longest are the most eager to expand their Wi-Fi networks for offloading traffic. Glapa said consumers may start seeing more hotspots and hotzones for offloading data traffic as soon as this year. But he expects many carriers to get these Wi-Fi offload networks up and running in 2011 and 2012.

"When you start seeing CEOs talking about capacity issues, that's when you can expect to see some changes pretty quickly," he said. "So I am sure wireless subscribers will start seeing something by the end of the year."

Source: CNET News (Artist: Marguerite Reardon)

Google plans superfast internet

2010-02-11T17:22:00.002+05:30

Google plans to build a fibre optic broadband network that will connect customers to the internet at speeds 100 times faster than most existing broadband connections in the US, the company announced on its corporate blog.

"Our goal is to experiment with new ways to help make internet access better and faster for everyone," two Google product managers, Minnie Ingersoll and James Kelly, wrote in the blog post Wednesday.

They said that Google plans to build and test the network in trial communities around the country starting later this year and that the tests could encompass as many as 500,000 people. They cited 3-dimensional medical imaging and quick, high-definition film downloads among the applications of such high-speed internet access.

"We'll deliver internet speeds more than 100 times faster than what most Americans have access to today with 1 gigabit per second, fibre-to-the-home connections," the post said. "We plan to offer service at a competitive price to at least 50,000 and potentially up to 500,000 people."

"We're doing this because we want to make the web better and faster to everyone," said Kelly, who also promised that the network would operate on open access network, in which users could choose various internet providers and which would not give preference to any one kind of content. Kelly appealed to local officials who were interested in having their community participate in the trial to contact the internet giant.

The announcement continued Google's recent initiative to expand into market sectors beyond its core web search speciality. In the last year it has made a splash in the mobile phone market with its Android operating system and Nexus One handset, and Tuesday announced a social networking feature aimed at taking on Facebook and Twitter.

While broadband industry incumbents may fear the entry by Google, Federal Communications Commission chairman Julius Genachowski welcomed the move, the Washington Post reported.

"Big broadband creates big opportunities," he said in a statement. "This significant trial will provide an American testbed for the next generation of innovative, high-speed internet apps, devices and services."

Excessive Internet Use Is Linked to Depression

2010-02-11T10:36:00.001+05:30

People who spend a lot of time browsing the Internet are more likely to show depressive symptoms, according to the first large-scale study of its kind in the West by University of Leeds psychologists.

Researchers found striking evidence that some users have developed a compulsive internet habit, whereby they replace real-life social interaction with online chat rooms and social networking sites. The results suggest that this type of addictive surfing can have a serious impact on mental health.

Lead author Dr Catriona Morrison, from the University of Leeds, said: "The internet now plays a huge part in modern life, but its benefits are accompanied by a darker side.

"While many of us use the internet to pay bills, shop and send emails, there is a small subset of the population who find it hard to control how much time they spend online, to the point where it interferes with their daily activities."

These 'internet addicts' spent proportionately more time browsing sexually gratifying websites, online gaming sites and online communities. They also had a higher incidence of moderate to severe depression than non-addicted users.

"Our research indicates that excessive internet use is associated with depression, but what we don't know is which comes first -- are depressed people drawn to the internet or does the internet cause depression?

"What is clear, is that for a small subset of people, excessive use of the internet could be a warning signal for depressive tendencies."

Incidents such as the spate of suicides among teenagers in the Welsh town of Bridgend in 2008 led many to question the extent to which social networking sites can contribute to depressive thoughts in vulnerable teenagers. In the Leeds study, young people were more likely to be internet addicted than middle-aged users, with the average age of the addicted group standing at 21 years.

"This study reinforces the public speculation that over-engaging in websites that serve to replace normal social function might be linked to psychological disorders like depression and addiction," added Dr Morrison. "We now need to consider the wider societal implications of this relationship and establish clearly the effects of excessive internet use on mental health."

This was the first large-scale study of Western young people to consider the relationship between internet addiction and depression. The internet use and depression levels of 1,319 people aged 16-51 were evaluated for the study, and of these, 1.2% were classed as being internet addicted. While small, this is larger than the incidence of gambling in the UK, which stands at 0.6%. The research will be published in the journal Psychopathology on 10th February.

'Ingredients for Life' Present on Saturn's Moon Enceladus, Say Scientists

2010-02-11T10:34:00.000+05:30

ScienceDaily (Feb. 9, 2010) — Some of 'the major ingredients for life' are present on one of Saturn's moons, according to University College London scientists.

Cassini captured this stunning mosaic of Enceladus as the spacecraft sped away from the geologically active moon of Saturn. (Credit: NASA)

A team from the Mullard Space Science Laboratory working on the Cassini-Huygens mission have found negatively charged water ions in the ice plume of Enceladus.
Their analysis of data gathered during the spacecraft's plume fly-throughs in 2008 provide evidence for the presence of liquid water.
The spacecraft's plasma spectrometer, used to gather this data, also found other species of negatively charged ions including hydrocarbons.
MSSL's Professor Andrew Coates, lead author of a paper on the latest discovery, said: "While it's no surprise that there is water there, these short-lived ions are extra evidence for sub-surface water and where there's water, carbon and energy, some of the major ingredients for life are present.
The surprise for us was to look at the mass of these ions. There were several peaks in the spectrum, and when we analysed them we saw the effect of water molecules clustering together one after the other."
Enceladus thus joins Earth, Titan and comets where negatively charged ions are known to exist in the solar system. Negative oxygen ions were discovered in Earth's ionosphere at the dawn of the space age. At Earth's surface, negative water ions are present where liquid water is in motion, such as waterfalls or crashing ocean waves.
The plasma spectrometer measures the density, flow velocity and temperature of ions and electrons that enter the instrument. But since the discovery of Enceladus' water ice plume, the instrument has also successfully captured and analysed samples of material in the jets.
Early in its mission, Cassini-Huygens discovered the plume that fountains water vapour and ice particles above Enceladus. Since then, scientists have found that these water products dominate Saturn's magnetic environment and create Saturn's huge E-ring.
At Titan, the same instrument detected extremely large negative hydrocarbon ions with masses up to 13,800 times that of hydrogen. Dr Coates and his colleagues believe large ions are the source of the smog-like haze that blocks most of Titan's surface from view.
The new findings add to astronomers' growing knowledge of the detailed chemistry of Enceladus' plume and Titan's atmosphere, giving new understanding of environments beyond Earth where prebiotic or life-sustaining environments might exist.
Professor Keith Mason, Chief Executive of the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), which funds the UK involvement in Cassini-Huygens, said: "This measurement of water ions in the ice plume of Enceladus is incredibly exciting and provides us with further hope of finding water and maybe even life on this distant icy moon."
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a co-operative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency.

Recharging your cell phone, nature's way

2010-02-10T20:07:00.000+05:30

A new solar cell that imitates nature's way of converting sunlight to energy is making its debut in a variety of consumer products. The technology uses a photosensitive dye to start its energy production, much the way leaves use chlorophyll to begin photosynthesis.

The dye-sensitised cells will be used to provide power for devices ranging from e-book readers to cell phones and will take some interesting forms. For e-book readers, for example, the cells may be found in thin, flexible panels stitched into the reader's cover. But such panels will also be housed in new lines of backpacks and sports bags, where they can recharge devices like cell phones and music players.

The technology, long in development, will work best in full, direct sunshine, said Dr Michael Graetzel, a chemist and professor at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Switzerland. But the cells will also make good use of dappled and ambient light, including the indoor light of fluorescent bulbs, he said.

Most photovoltaic cells are based on silicon or related inorganic materials, not dyes. Graetzel and an American colleague, Brian O'Regan, first reported on the new type of cell in the journal Nature in 1991, and Graetzel said he and other colleagues had been working since then to refine the technology. Now G24 Innovations, a company in Campbell, California, that has licensed the technology, is using it to make solar panels at its plant in Cardiff, Wales, said John Hartnett, G24's chief executive.

Some of the panels will be placed on covers designed as an accessory for Sony e-book readers, said Tobi Doeringer, the director of global sales at Mascotte Industrial Associates, a Hong Kong company that makes bags to carry cameras, phones, sports equipment, electronic games and other products. Doeringer said the covers, costing about $99, would be available by March. The cover supplies the power via a plug in a cradle along its spine.

The panels will also be installed on tennis bags, backpacks and messenger bags that have battery chargers within, as well as on bicycle, golf, shopping and beach bags. Prices of the bags will typically range from $149 to $249, he said, depending on the materials and size of the bag. Owners can plug their phones and music players into the bag for recharging, using a USB cord. The solar panels have 11 cells each, said Kevin Tabor, director of science and research at G24. Wiring goes from the panel to a battery pack in the bag, he said. It takes about six to eight sunny hours outside for the panel to fuel the recharger, he said, but longer indoors.

The performance of the dye-sensitised cells has improved steadily in the laboratory, Graetzel said. "Our dyes and electrolytes have changed," he said, and the cells have become more efficient at converting sunlight to electricity. Within the solar cell, the dye is painted in a thin layer on a porous titanium dioxide scaffold to collect light and, in a series of steps, create power. The cells draw on many surprising sources of light. "We've even had a case where we generated voltage from moonlight," he said.

India says ready to test new nuclear missile within year

2010-02-10T20:05:00.002+05:30

India aims to test a new nuclear-capable missile with a range of more than 5000-km (3,100- miles), a top military scientist said on Wednesday, a move that could complicate security in a volatile region.

"Agni-V is out of the drawing board. We are aiming for a flight trial within a year," V.K. Saraswat, India's chief military scientist told reporters.

India successfully tested the Agni-III missile, which has a 3000-km range, at the weekend and is ready to bring it into the military.

BSNL to launch Wimax in rural India by year end

2010-02-09T09:10:00.000+05:30

Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL) has announced its plan to roll out Wimax services (wireless broadband) in rural India by year-end despite the Rs 1,000-crore project hitting initial roadblocks. "We expect to roll out Wimax services in the rural areas by the end of this year. We have already given advance purchase order to three companies (for required equipment)," a BSNL official told PTI.

Four bidders were shortlisted for this project but it hit a road block when BSNL's internal vigilance officer put a stay on passing off the project to any one of the bidders. Chennai-based Gemini Communications, Chinese equipment maker ZTE and the U.S.-based Harris Stratex are the three companies which now need to get a security clearance from the the Department of Telecom. The fourth company, Hyderabad-based Vippalamritha Magnetic Components (VMC), has been put under scanner for alleged evasion of duties by its parent company.

The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence has also issued a show-cause notice to Prithvi Information Solution, the parent company of VMC, for the alleged non-payment of duties. "However, since the investigation in this case is going on, no order has been placed at this juncture with VMC,"

Cisco to launch 120Gbps router?

2010-02-09T09:08:00.000+05:30

Cisco may come up with a new carrier core router to outpace Juniper's T1600. But it is rumoured that issues with the supporting application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) design may delay the Cisco's telco router rollout by up to a year, reports The Register.

The new MSC120 Cisco router will become heir to Carrier Router System (CRS-1) introduced in 2004, according to a bulletin issued from Oppenheimer analyst Ittai Kidron. It will sport speeds of 120Gb/s per slot, and it's intended to one-up Juniper's 100Gb/s router interface card for the T1600 Core Router.

He reckons that the MSC120 will support 12 to 24 slots with a total throughput exceeding 2Tb/s. Juniper claims the T1600, in conjunction with its JCS1200 control system, provides transport scale up to 25 Tb/s.

The analyst claims that Cisco's plans are to announce the MSC120 over the next month, but he says the company recently uncovered design faults with its three-chipset ASIC switching fabric architecture that threaten to delay those plans. "We believe Cisco has recently discovered issues with the supporting ASIC design, which could require a material redesign of the platform," Kidron said. "This could delay product availability until mid-2011."

Soon, Gmail to allow status updates like Twitter

2010-02-09T09:07:00.002+05:30

The rising popularity of status updates on Twitter and Facebook seems to have inspired Google. Google will soon allow users to share their status with other connections, just like on all popular Social Networking sites. Even though the news is not official, but the add-on is expected to be added as soon as this week, according to electronista.

The service will be similar to what Yahoo has done with its Yahoo Mail service in 2009, which, for example, alerted users when their friends have uploaded photos to Flickr.

An unnamed informant says the new Google revisions will also allow users to share their YouTube and Picasa content.

Gmail already lets contacts chat in the browser, set away messages and write short messages as their status.

Indian startup to help copy your brain on computers

2010-02-02T01:29:00.000+05:30

Now, Swiss scientists and PIT Solution, a little-heard of IT startup in Technopark in Kerala will be working on the Blue Brain Project, the world's first comprehensive attempt to reverse-engineer the mammalian brain, reports Financial Express.

The $3 billion project is expected to be completed by 2018, said Brain Mind Institute of Swiss Federal Institute Director Henry Markram to Financial Express. The project is billed as an attempt to build a computerized copy of a brain - starting with a rat's brain, and then progressing to a human brain-inside one of the world's most powerful computers. It is an international project, propelled by Swiss Federal Institute, and involves several countries
and ethics monitoring by UN bodies. India is yet to be part of the project.

The immediate purpose is to understand brain function and dysfunction through detailed simulations. "The study of rhodent brain has given us a template to build on. This would help in unraveling human brain," says Markram. "The whole idea is that mental illness, memory and perception triggered by neurons and electric signals could be soon treated with a supercomputer that models all the 1,000,000 million synapses of brain."

The key finding is that irrespective of gender and race, human brains are basically identical. "We will be able to map the differentiations by nuancing the patterns later. The exciting part is not how different we are but how similar we all are," says Markram.

Indian founded SMS GupShup raises $12 Million

2010-01-31T00:29:00.000+05:30

SMS GupShup, a social SMS service that allows users communicate and connect with family, friends and fans using mobile handsets, has raised $12 million in Series D venture financing round. This latest funding round is led by by Globespan Capital Partners with existing investors Charles River Ventures and Helion Venture Partners participating in the round.

With this new financing round, the total funding of SMS GupShup comes to $37 million. According to the company, the new funding will be used to expand into other markets such as the Philippines and Indonesia, for product development and to hire new staff in engineering, advertising and marketing. Webaroo Technology is the parent company of SMS GupShup, and is founded by Rakesh Mathur and Beerud Sheth.

Launched in April 2007, Mumbai-based SMS GupShup (spawned from Webaroo), now serves 26 million users in over two million SMS communities - double the number of communities supported just six months ago. These communities range from religious groups to sports teams to fan clubs of celebrities. Whether it's daily news, traffic reports or business alerts, GupShup has emerged as a centerpiece of connectivity in India. The company offers reply-all group messaging service in partnership with mobile carriers. Over 100 advertisers currently run on the network including local insurance provider ICICI Lombard and international brands like Puma, Microsoft and Cadbury. Also, as claimed by the company, a few thousand SMEs and several corporations are deploying GupShup's mobile messaging solutions for their business needs.

Sheth, the Co-founder and CEO of Webaroo Technology said, "Our user base and revenues have grown substantially over the last year and are seeing strong interest from carriers worldwide. Our products are useful to each of the four billion mobile subscribers worldwide." In only the past two months, the service has increased its team head count from 100 to 130 and looks to fill another 20 positions in marketing, engineering and advertising sales.

Also, according to the company, as part of this funding round, Venky Ganesan, Managing Director of Globespan Capital Partners will join the SMS GupShup Board of Directors.

Dravid operated for injured jaw, advised rest

2010-01-31T00:27:00.000+05:30

Star batsman Rahul Dravid Friday had minor corrective surgery on his left cheek bone, injured during the second cricket test against Bangladesh in Mirpur.

"It was a minor surgery to fix the left cheek bone where he had suffered a fracture. The surgery took between 45 minutes to an hour," S. Ballal, medical director of Manipal
Hospital here where the surgery was conducted, told IANS.

"Dravid is doing fine after the surgery and hopefully will be discharged late Friday," he added.

Dravid can resume normal activities in two days but has been advised to stay away from cricket or any contact sports for three weeks, he said.

Chandrayaan's team deprived of Padma Shri

2010-01-31T00:24:00.002+05:30

Despite Chandrayaan-1 being the first lunar mission of India, the scientists and engineers engaged in the mission remained unrecognised with no mention in the list of Padma Shri awardees, reports Srinivas Laxman of Times Of India.

The reason for their work being overlooked is a rule framed by the government a few years ago stipulating that those attached to government organisations like ISRO and Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) will not be entitled to any "government-backed"
awards, like the prestigious Padma awards.

However, the efforts are on to change this discriminatory rule. The Government now wants to revise this decision keeping in view the fact that it will be counter productive in terms of morale of those who labour in official agencies at salaries that are much less than in the private sector and where national pride is a big motivator.

The controversial decision comes at a time when government wants to stem brain drain of scientists and engineers to foreign organisations like NASA and woo them back to India with better terms than before and by rewarding good performance. Yet, if official recognition is itself banned while Padma awards are awarded to achievers of Indian origin in foreign countries, Indian establishments are bound to feel rather left out.

On Monday evening, when the names of Padma award winners were announced, ISRO officials started to look if anyone from the Chandrayaan team had been honoured as an exception as was done with Nair last year. They were shocked to find that none had figured in the list.

A space agency official on condition of anonymity said, "This was really disappointing. After the honour the moon mission brought to India, we thought that at least Chandrayaan project director, Mylswamy Annadurai, would have been honoured. But even he has been ignored. The Chandrayaan mission has been considered a brand ambassador of India." Annadurai could not be contacted for a response.

Secretary of the India chapter of Moon Society, Pradeep Mohandas said, "It is quite disappointing to know that no Padma honour was accorded to the Chandrayaan-1 team which has got kudos from several national and international fora for being an engineering and management success. It was also a project that showcased India's scientific and technological prowess to the world."

This year, there was also controversy as many popular celebrities were awarded the Padma Shri, while many other deserving candidates were left out. One of them is Beijing Olympics bronze medal winning wrestler Sushil Kumar, his coach and former grappler Satpal recently said, "Kumar was the one who got medal in wrestling after 50-60 years. He is an idol for young wrestlers. He should have got the Padma award." The trend shows that the Padma awards are only given to people who are popular among the masses. "I feel undeserving on being awarded Padma Shri," said Bollywood actor Saif Ali Khan, who was awarded the Padma Shri this time.

India pays homage to Mahatma Gandhi on Martyrs' Day

2010-01-30T23:21:00.001+05:30

Floral tributes, a multi-faith prayer meet, devotional songs by schoolchildren and classical musical renderings were held as the nation remembered Mahatma Gandhi, the apostle of peace and non-violence, in myriad ways on his 62nd death anniversary Saturday.

President Pratibha Patil, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Congress president Sonia Gandhi and other top leaders Saturday morning visited Rajghat to pay homage on Martyrs' Day to the man who led the country to its independence with his unique non-violent form of protests.

At his beautifully landscaped Rajghat memorial, floral offerings were made and a multi-faith prayer was organised.

Prayers were offered by religious leaders of Buddhist, Bahai, Christian, Hindu, Muslim, Jain, Jewish, Parsi and Sikh faiths at the Rajghat.

Gandhi, who is revered world over as an apostle of peace, was a great believer in inter-faith harmony and fought all his life for it.

Rajneesh Kumar, a member of the Rajghat Samadhi Committee, said: 'Every year we have an all-religion prayer to pay tribute to 'bapu' (as Gandhi was affectionately known) on the Martyrs' Day, and this year was no exception.'

A musical tribute, complete with bhajans or devotional songs that Gandhi loved, especially 'Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram', was organised at the Gandhi Samriti and Darshan Samiti, the place where he was shot dead by Nathuram Godse on this day in 1948 in the presence of hundreds of people waiting for him to start the evening prayers.

Children and youth, who had come from all over the country, sang all-religion prayers to an audience comprising Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Vice President Hamid Ansari, Defence Minister A.K. Antony and a host of other leaders.

Manmohan Singh's wife Gursharan Kaur was also present at the memorial, which was decorated with flowers and its walls covered with white sheets.

Well-known Indian classical vocalist Vasundhara Komkali and her daughter Kalaapini sang melodious bhajans that had the audience totally mesmerised. One-minute's silence was also observed in Gandhi's memory.

20 yr old Indian unveils portable Operating System

2010-01-23T15:28:00.002+05:30

Bangalore: The 20-year old engineering student Niket Chandrashekar from New Horizon College in Bangalore, has developed a portable Operating System (OS) that can be stored and operated on any device. This has been developed almost entirely with open source tools and with Wine, which allows any Windows-based applications to run on other
operating systems, reports Deccan Herald.

LinuXP, developed on the Linux kernel and tuned up to support Windows XP, Vista and 7, is shown to be useful in performing certain tasks such as recovering lost files, locating and installing drivers for printers and other connected devices. It also lets users carry their work on pen drives/cell phones to be ported and extracted through a laptop and work.

"I was thinking of creating a smaller programme that can work like an OS while studying certain innate limitations of the existing operating systems," said Chandrashekar. Also, the software developed by Chandrashekar, has a folder locking feature which not only protects the folder but also hides it from view. The student, who released similar software that works with XP some months ago, has plans to put the software online to let everyone use it.

"Since the whole of this software - with whatever work one has done on it - can be saved in portable storage devices without changes to the format or design, you can retrieve them on any laptop or desktop without having to worry about things like formatting," Chandrashekar said and added, "Also, even while used on someone's device, you can make sure the data it carries is safe."

Yoga Health Benefits of Our Time

2010-01-22T01:30:00.002+05:30

The God of Cricket - Sachin Tendulkar

2010-01-22T01:24:00.000+05:30

PTII will take the blame if Veer fails: Salman Khan

2010-01-20T22:05:00.002+05:30

It is a film that has been in the making for more than two decades and cost a whopping Rs 40 crores, but actor Salman Khan is unfazed while announcing that he is ready to take the blame if ''Veer'' fails. The period drama is the brainchild of the Bollywood heartthrob, who also turned scriptwriter for his dream project.
"I have been told plenty of times that period dramas are not a safe genre and there are many flops to prove the point. I have left it for the audiences to decide if ''Veer'' works or not.
If it does, the credit will be everybody''s and if it doesn''t, then I will take the blame," said Khan during a press conference in the city to promote the film which releases on January 22. The 44-year-old actor plays a Pindari soldier leading a revolt against the British in the film set in 1857 and the project in the actor''s own words has been a "long and hard journey.
" "The idea has stayed with me for the past two decades and back then there was no scope for an ambitious project like ''Veer'', not the budget, neither the audience. But that has changed now and after a long time, the film finally materialised," said Khan.

The actor went the whole hog for his pet project. He spent months learning horse riding and also started blogging to promote the film.

IPL 3 auction: Focus on value for money

2010-01-19T22:34:00.000+05:30

Value for money is likely to be the theme at the player’s auction for the third edition of the Indian Premier League to be held here on Tuesday with teams already indicating that they would be more interested in players who will be available for the entire duration of the tournament.

And Kolkata Knight Riders, who bought Bangladesh allrounder Mashrafe Mortaza for $600,000 (Rs 2.7 crore) and played him in only one match, have set the tone by buying out the contract of Australia skipper Ricky Ponting who was unlikely to be available for a major part of the tournament that begins on March 12.

IPL commissioner Lalit Modi confirmed on his twitter account that KKR has bought out Ponting's contract while Royal Challengers Bangalore have also made room for buying another player by ending their relationship with Australian speedster Nathan Bracken.

Though officials of both teams were unwilling to comment on what prompted them to buy out the contracts of the players, sources said their unavailability for a major period of the competition could have been the clinching factor.

Australia host New Zealand for a full series in February-March which is followed by their flagship domestic championship — Sheffield Shield — and some state teams are unwilling to release their players for IPL.

“It makes sense to buy out a player's contract who is not available and bid for someone who will play throughout the tournament,” said a senior official of one of the franchises.

The IPL has also left the door open for other teams to follow suit by extending the deadline to buy out player’s contracts till 11.59 am on Tuesday with the auction process starting at noon.

There are 67 players on the auction list, including Mohammad Kaif who was released by Rajasthan Royals, with 12 slots to be filled among the eight franchisees at the time of going to press.

All the teams would have a prize purse of $750,000 (Rs 3.4 crore) and in the case of two teams bidding for the same player despite reaching the highest prize cap, the tie-breaker option would be introduced in which the teams can bid above the amount but the money would go to IPL rather than the player.

Now, cellphones that run on soft drinks

2010-01-16T23:39:00.000+05:30

Now thanks to a Chinese designer Daizhi Zheng, we may soon be able to use mobile phones that use soft drinks like Coca Cola instead of lithium batteries, reports Indiainfo.com.

Zheng who has been working on this revolutionary device for Finnish cellphone maker Nokia, claims that he has come up with a way of using sugar-based drinks to power mobiles. Any sweet drink, even sugar-sweetened water would be enough to keep the phone running much longer than lithium batteries.

The bio-battery generates electricity from carbohydrates, using special enzymes as catalysts. In the process, the device generates oxygen and water. According to Zheng, his sugar-based bio-battery lasts up to four times longer than a fully charged lithium battery and is much easier to recharge: just pour some more sweet fuel.

Since lithium batteries are very expensive and harmful for the environment, if Zheng's Coke-powered cellphone turns out to be real, it would be a significant breakthrough

Need to deal with office politics? Here are a few tips

2010-01-16T23:27:00.000+05:30

Devilish bosses, backbiting colleagues and annoying subordinates will always be omnipresent in everybody's professional life. This bring along the age old problem of dealing with office politics.

While some of us say that we don't want to get 'caught up' in politics at work, most HR experts argue that playing the game is crucial to your career success, because by not getting involved, you may find your talents ignored and your success limited, and you may
feel left out of the loop.

Here are a few tips by Economic Times that will help you win at office politics and still gain your colleagues' respect.

Observe how things get done

Don't be afraid to ask some key questions to your bosses: What are your core values and how are they enacted? Are short or long-term results most valued? How are decisions made? How much risk is tolerated? The answers to these questions should give you a good sense of the culture of your organization.

Profile powerful individuals

If you can't wait to be where your bosses are, pay attention to their communication style, network of relationships and what types of proposals they say 'yes' to most often. Emulate those traits by drawing on the strengths you have.

Develop a positive track record

Planning is very crucial. If you have a rough idea on how long you want to do the job, work on developing your image as someone who gets results. This gives you an edge in all political corners.

Blow your horn occasionally

Let others know what you've accomplished whenever you get the opportunity. But it is necessary that you know the fine art of diplomatic bragging. Do not be outright show-off.

Respect counts, especially downwards

It is no new rule to treat your superiors with adequate salaams, but few executives make the folly of behaving with their co-workers and subordinates in a manner a king rules over his jagir. Don't show preferential treatment to co-workers you think won't be of use to you. You never know to whom someone might be connected.

Annular Solar Eclipse 2010

2010-01-15T21:55:00.003+05:30

Simulation showing the annular solar eclipse to take place 15 January 2010
as viewable from Male', Maldives.

The Annular Solar Eclipse of January 15, 2010 - the 23rd out of possible 70 eclipses in the Saros Cycle 141 - was visible across most parts of Africa, Eastern Europe, West Asia, Central Asia, South Asia, China and South East Asia.

The maximum duration of annularity was 11 min 08 s on the Indian Ocean - made it the longest Annular Eclipse of the 3rd Millennium ! This would only be surpassed in the year 3043 !!

The Annular phase of the Eclipse (when the Moon would be seen to be totally inside the Sun's disk, giving the appearance of a Ring of Fire) probably had seen by over 100 million people in a track roughly of 300 km width extending across Central Africa, South India, Maldives, Sri Lanka, Burma and parts of east China !

Generally, upto 5 Solar Eclipses (Total, Annular and Partial) can be seen in some part of the world every year. In a particular location, partial eclipses can be seen within a gap of a few years; in some cases - even within a gap of only a few months. However - Total and Annular eclipses will take much longer time to return to the same place.

The last Total Solar Eclipse seen in Tamil Nadu was on December 12, 1871. The last to be seen in Sri Lanka was on June 20, 1955.

The next Total Solar Eclipse that could be seen in Tamil Nadu would be on July 5, 2168 !

The last Annular Eclipse seen in Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka was on November 11, 1901 (also belonging to the Saros Cycle 141) - over 100 years ago !

The next Annular Eclipse that could be seen in Tamil Nadu would be on December 26, 2019 !

Infosys sacks techies for 'unethical behaviour'

2010-01-13T11:44:00.000+05:30

Infosys Technologies has sacked a software engineer, Abhishek Gupta, for making a hoax call to budget carrier GoAir at Delhi airport October 25 to avoid missing his Bangalore-bound flight, a company official said here Tuesday.

"Yes, we have sacked Gupta for indulging in unethical behaviour. We have a very strict code of conduct. We take strict action against those who do not adhere to it," Infosys
board member and Head of HRD and education and research T.V. Mohandas Pai told IANS.

The 25-year-old Gupta caused a bomb scare by telling GoAir staff that there was some suspicious object on the plane after he failed to convince them earlier to delay the flight.

"He thought the hoax call will delay the flight and he could reach the airport in the meantime to catch the flight," a Delhi police official said after Gupta was taken into custody and jailed.

The IT bellwether has also suspended another software engineer, Pallav Chakraborty, after he was arrested with his wife Sinchita by the Bangalore police Dec 29 for allegedly torturing their 15-year-old domestic maid.

"Though Chakraborty joined the company 15 days before his arrest, we suspended him after an inquiry into the child abuse, which is a very sad thing to have happened," Pai said.

As the police were investigating the case and the accused was in the judicial custody, Pai said the company would take strict action against him after the law had taken its course.

"We do not condone such acts. We are saddened by such an inhuman act. We have 109,882 employees on rolls. I think as we grow bigger, we are not the sample but part of the universe," Pai said on the margins of a media briefing on the company's financial performance for the third quarter.

Pallav and Sinchita, who hail from Kolkata, brought the girl from West Bengal for household chores.

A social organisation rescued the girl after raiding the house following a tip that a young domestic maid was in a bad state with injuries on her back and cut marks on her lips.

The police did not name the victim to protect her privacy and not to hamper investigation.

The company was also forced to suspend another engineer, Krishnamurthy, working at its Mysore development centre, after the police arrested him Dec 3 on the charge of molesting a French woman.

"Krishnamurthy remains suspended as police inquiry is still on. We will not spare anyone if (his or her) behaviour is not in line with our code of conduct," Pai said.

The three incidents occurred at a time when the company was recovering from the impact of a year-long global tech meltdown.

Indian Prof. to make robots for homes a reality by 2030

2010-01-12T16:04:00.000+05:30

Robots have been gaining importance in the fields like engineering and education and Robotic Engineer Prof. Prahlad Vadakeppat feels that by 2030, robots will also find a place at homes. Even he and his students are working on some of these kinds of robots. Vadakeppat said to Gulf Times that a host of robots would soon be available to assist
doctors, at home and to care for the elderly.

According to Vadakeppat, many more interactive robots were being planned and they would become reality within the next five to 10 years and he and his students are building a number of robots. "Interactive robotic systems would be able to communicate and assist in homes and those with less mobility like the elderly would have robots on an assisted technical platform, which will be used to get them water, their medications and newspapers," he explained. He said that the human-like robots would be mass produced and would soon be available in China, India and Singapore. The prices of the robots vary depending on their specifications.

Recently, the Robotic Engineer showcased some of his robots at a technical seminar in Qatar on 'Advances in Robotics.' Two-foot humanoid robots that are fitted with camera and sensors, which can play football and also dance, were featured during the event. Another robot that has a re-configurable modular robotic system, which will make it possible to link two small robots to perform a function, was also featured during the seminar. "We are designing these robots for difficult tasks such as working inside a pipe by using the robot outside to manipulate the activities of the one inside," he said.

Vadakeppat mentioned that a new aspect of robotics called edutainment was also in the pipeline to attract more young people to robotic education. "To further draw young people to robotic engineering, we will be organizing a robotic world cup in Bangalore later this year and in Dubai in 2011," he said. The event will be organized by the Federation of International Robot- Soccer Association founded by Vadakeppat.

SBI to install talking ATMs for visually challenged

2010-01-12T00:10:00.003+05:30

The State Bank of India (SBI) plans to introduce 7,000 voice-enabled automated teller machines (ATMs) across the country for visually challenged customers beginning in the month of February. These voice-enabled ATMs, customised with headphones and braille key pads, will offer services like fund transfer and downloading of account statements, reports PTI.

"Out of our 18,500 ATMs, 7,000 will be made voice enabled for visually challenged people. We expect to launch these talking ATMs starting next month," SBI's General Manager (Alternate Channels) Amitabh Kumar told PTI. At present, SBI is testing these voice-enabled ATMs with its partners NCR and Diebold and expects to make these operational in a month's time, he said. SBI plans to install these ATMs in metro, urban and semi urban towns across the country.

"The country has 10.6 million visually challenged people and it is the duty of the banks to help these people meet their banking needs," ICICI Bank's CEO and Managing Director Chanda Kochhar said. ICICI Bank had installed its first talking ATM in 2003.

Over the years, the bank has also ensured that the basic banking facilities can be used by physically handicapped people, Kochhar said.