TomTom enters Indian navigation market with Via series products

Netherlands-based automobile navigation system maker TomTom has announced its entry into the Indian market with a range of devices for car owners in the country. The company has unveiled three navigation devices, namely Via 100, Via 120 and Via 125, which are scheduled to hit shelves next month.

TomTom has spent the last several years preparing maps of Indian streets. It has further set up its headquarters in Pune and aims to increase its manpower later this year. TomTom's Via series products come with its new Voice Control Functionality and Landmark Navigation facility. The Landmark Navigation feature enables drivers to search for the nearest landmark, and plan the journey accordingly. While all three models feature turn-by-turn voice navigation, the Via 120 and Via 125 devicess also feature Voice Control functionality.

TomTom will provide its Indian users a new feature called “Help Me”. This is an emergency menu through which users can keep local emergency service numbers at their fingertips.

The prices for the TomTom devices start from Rs. 15,000.

"There is no doubt that the navigation market in India is growing briskly and looking for high quality, easy to use navigation solutions. With the extensive experience that TomTom is bringing to the region coupled with its global quality standards and processes we can change the current regional landscape," says Jocelyn Vigreux, Managing Director, TomTom India.

TomTom will be facing a competition from navigation service providers such as MapMyIndia and Garmin. MapMyIndia recently launched seven-inch Android-based navigation and infotainment tablet called CarPad. The device runs on Android Froyo and is priced at Rs. 22,990.

By Anonymous with No comments

Google is a teenager now, parties at home

Google turned 13 today, marking the search engine giant's entry into the teens, and has made its home page a birthday celebration scene. Google's home page shows its 5-letter logo wearing hats and placed behind a birthday cake, with colourful balloons and wrapped gifts around it. Google

founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, built their first search engine in 1996. Although, the company had filed for incorporation on September 4, 1998, and Google.com domain was registered on September 15, it officially celebrates its birthday on September 27.
The birthday comes amid teen pangs as Google faces scrutiny from the US authorities for possible misuse of its dominant position in the Internet space.

Besides, the company faces intense competition from the social networking site Facebook.

By monty with No comments

Intel focuses on many-core computing: not just for ninjas

At his keynote at the Intel Developer Forum (IDF) this morning, Intel CTO Justin Rattner discussed the move to many-core computing. The shift is important not only for high-performance computing (HPC), but also for many standard tasks as well. The long-awaited Knights Corner chip will launch with more than 50 cores on 22nm, he said. Highlights of the keynote featured new parallel extensions for JavaScript and demonstrations of both many-core applications and future designs that use much less power for both processing and memory.
Five years ago, Rattner introduced the Core architecture and the company’s first multi-core processors. But now, we are “just beginning the age of many-core processors,” Rattner said, which often includes heterogeneous cores.

We can expect to soon see general purpose many-core products, as Intel pushes its Many Integrated Core (MIC) architecture, starting with Knights Corner. (A development version known as Knights Ferry is already available.) The MIC architecture shares the memory model and instruction set with existing Xeon processors, along with enhanced floating point. Intel’s Tera-Scale Computing Research Program is currently testing a 48-core single-chip cloud computer (SCC).

Many-core will not just be for HPC applications, Rattner assured, showing a very large range of applications with 30 or more times performance improvements as the number of cores increases to 64.
Andrzej Nowak of CERN Open Lab talked about using it at the Large Hadron Collider, which created 15-25 petabytes of data per year. Physics analysis at CERN uses distributed computing with about 250,000 Intel cores.

CERN has worked with Northeastern University to parallelize its software. The lab has seen a fortyfold performance improvement on a 40-core Xeon implementation. The company uses the compatible MIC architecture. Nowak ran an application on both a single core and on a 32-core MIC, noting that on its heavily vectorized applications, they were getting nearly perfect scaling.

Programming for many-cores is no longer difficult. “You don’t need to be a ninja programmer to do it,” Rattner said.
He demoed multi- and many-core computing, for “mega data centers,” web apps, wireless communications, and PC security.
The first demonstration dealt with content in the cloud. A 48-core rack ran an in-memory database (using MemCache) showing a 48-core rack capable of handling 800,000 queries per second.

Rattner displayed an LTE Base station implemented on multi-core Intel hardware. Done so in conjunction with China Mobile as part of the Cloud Radio Access Network (CRAN), only the actual radio is at the physical base station location; all the base station problems are actually computed on a “base station in the cloud.”

Following that, a PC security demo illustrated how so much confidential information can now be distributed online on the cloud. All the photos on a Web site were encrypted individually and then, when you appeared before a web camera, they could be decrypted differently for each user. (Some people could see all of the photos; some could see photos just of themselves; and some could see none at all.) Each picture is encrypted separated, which uses multiple parts of the CPU, including processor graphics, AES encryption and others.
Looking ahead, Rattner talked about “extreme scale computing.” Intel’s ten year goal was a 300-fold improvement in energy efficiency, decreasing power to 20 picojoules per floating point operation (FLOP) at the system level.

Intel’s Shekhar Borkar, who works on the DARPA Ubiquitous High Performance Computing project, said today’s 100 gigaFLOPs computer uses 200 watts. By 2019, it should use about 2 watts, due to reductions in power required not only by the cores, but by the whole system, including memory and storage. He specified running processors at near the threshold voltage operation.

Next, a concept chip, called Claremont, which can run at near threshold voltage and can ramp from full performance to low power, ran on less than ten milliwatts of power. The chip also ran on a small solar-powered chip. Earlier in the week, Intel CEO Paul Otellini ran Windows; today’s demo ran both Windows and Linux. The chip can scale to over ten times the frequency when running at nominal voltage, so it could be both very fast and very low power. When it runs at full power, Rattner said, it uses less power than a current Atom chip on standby.

In conjunction with Micron, a “hybrid memory cube” showing both the lowest energy ever required for DRAM at 8 picojoules per bit and the fastest throughput at about 128GB/sec.
“Technology is no longer the limiting factor,” Rattner concluded. “If you can imagine it, we can create it.”

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Nikon announces its first mirrorless cameras, in the new Nikon 1 series

Nikon has launched its first mirrorless cameras, the Nikon 1 series, which will go on sale in Japan from October 20. The Nikon 1 series will supposedly be priced between $500 and $1000, with the Japanese optics giant believing that its first mirrorless models would have the best success in that position, as compact interchangeable lens cameras (ILCs).

These are the first two models to be launched: Nikon 1 J1 and Nikon 1 V1

The first models to be launched will be the Nikon 1 J1 (at around ¥70,000) and the Nikon 1 V1 (at around ¥105,000). A choice of four ultraportable Nikkor lenses will come with them, based on a new mount for the series. The Nikon 1 series will be aimed at prosumers, those who feel a regular compact digital camera is “not quite good enough,” and are unwilling to invest in a dSLR, with its hefty price tag and bulky form factor.

According to Yasuki Okamoto, head of the Nikon’s imaging division, the new Nikon 1 series with their mirrorless design, large sensors, and interchangeable lenses, will deliver benefits of dSLR cameras in smaller bodies. The mirrorless design, already enabling slimmer form factors, will also not require optical viewfinders, further slimming down the end-product.

The Nikon 1 V1 with its accessories

Other manufacturers, such as Sony, have had their mirrorless, interchangeable lens cameras in the market since 2010. Interestingly, according to IDC, sales of such devices have been extremely good in Japan, accounting for 31% of interchangeable lens camera sales, as opposed to a lukewarm response in the West, accounting for only 10% of ILC sales in the U.S.

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Micromax A85 Dual-core Superfone due this Diwali

Micromax is due to release an Android 2.3 Gingerbread super-phone this Diwali, if a report by The Mobile Indian, is to be believed. Called the Micromax A85 Superfone, it has apparently been in development for quite a while, and will be launched at Rs. 19,000.

Scheduled to arrive at the top of the Micromax pecking order in Diwali, the Micromax A85 will supersede the Andro A60 and A70, featuring 4-inch (480x800) capacitive touchscreen, and a 5MP autofocus camera with presumably 720p HD video recording.

Micromax launches Bling 2, the Android Froyo fashion phone for Rs. 8,999
As for processing power, the ‘Superfone’ will not be a slouch, reportedly bearing an overclocked dual-core Tegra 2, with 512MB of RAM. 8GB of storage should be built in, expandable up to 32GB via microSD. It should also come with a 1,650 mAh battery onboard.

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Buy a new laptop now and pay later, with Misco

The future’s bright -with a new laptop
You might be a business owner needing to run the latest software; a student getting ready for university – or simply a dedicated gamer determined to get the best out of Gears of War 3. The chances are though, that you’ve fired up your laptop, waited for what seems like an eternity, and then thought, “I need a new one.”

Business software – as anyone involved in processing lots of data or doing any design work will testify – is becoming increasingly complex. So is academic work: the days of simply copying up your lecture notes are long gone. And as games become ever more sophisticated, more and more people are finding that they need a powerful, effective and versatile laptop.

The trouble is, you can’t open a newspaper without seeing tales of economic doom and gloom, and there may not be room in your cash flow for a new laptop – however much you or your business needs one.
Fortunately, retailers are doing their best to help, with many now offering customers the chance to buy a new laptop now and pay later. Misco have been particularly active with this type of offer, and I’ve just taken advantage of it to buy one of their top sellers – a Toshiba Satellite Pro C660.

Sadly, I’m now too old for games, so I’m not worried about Gears of War – but work dictates that I’m constantly on the internet, nearly always with several sites open at once – and I download a lot of information. Plus Word, Excel and PowerPoint are permanently on the go. The new Toshiba has been brilliant and I’ve noticed that processing and downloads are far quicker than my old laptop. Then there’s the fact that I’ve fallen in love with the crystal clear display…

Technology isn’t going to stand still – whether it’s in business applications, education and learning or gaming. A few years ago, virtually none of us had heard of social media: now the same is true of augmented reality. But it’s going to have a profound effect on your business, your education and the games you play – which means your laptop will need to cope with still more information and processing. With the opportunity from companies like Misco to buy a new laptop and pay later, there’s no longer any need to put up with slow downloads, clunky processing and a display that’s less than perfect. Take the chance to upgrade your laptop now, and it might even pay for itself!

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A Concise Guide to Android Rooting

While putting together a list of the best Android apps, I asked dozens of Android devotees what were their favorites, and a few fired back a short list of apps "for root users.

Rooting an Android phone is kind of like jailbreaking an iPhone. In laymen's terms, it means you're cracking open the hood to access parts of the operating system that were intentionally locked to prevent you from messing them up, or doing anything to your phone that the manufacturer or carrier doesn't want you to do. A slightly more technical explanation is to say that rooting means giving yourself "root access," or greater privileges, or administrator control, to the lowest level of Android's Linux subsystem.
Warning:If you didn't pick up on the clues above, rooting isn't for everyone and can have serious repercussions. While it's perfect legal, it can void your phone's warranty (more on that below). And if you don't know what you're doing or aren't careful, you could potentially destroy your phone. Rooting also opens up more security risks because you can download apps that have access to files that would normally be hidden from them.
So, if you're perfectly happy with your Android phone as is, there is no reason to root it. If you're a tinkerer and understand the possible ramifications, then there are several reasons you might want to root.
Why Root Android?
The purpose of rooting is to make the most of the device that you own by getting around the limitations that the manufacturer or carrier has put in place—and again, many of those barriers were put in place to prevent you from accidentally destroying your own device.
Here are some examples of what a root user can do:
access the flash memory chip, which you need to do if you want to modify the Android OS or replace it with a customized version
make the apps on your phone run faster
remove pre-installed apps to free up space
turn the phone into a 3G/4G WiFi hotspot without paying an extra fee.
There are many other reasons to root, too, but the ones listed here are certainly among the most popular.
Tips for Rooting
Before you dive headlong into rooting, here are a few tips:
1. Be phone-specific. This tip comes first for a reason. It's crucial that you look up information for your phone, and not just for Android across the board. Look for tutorials that are specific to the make and model of your phone, as well as any common problems. The rooting process varies by phone, and following the wrong procedures could cause irreparable damage. Just as important, not every rooted phone will be able to do want you might have been hoping it would. For example, not every rooted device has an unlocked bootloader (necessary to flash ROMs), so make sure you understand what you are getting into and exactly what you want the outcome to be if you root your phone.
2. Read or watch the how-to beforehand. Make sure to read or watch the entire tutorial before you begin, because there are often steps that are crucial that may appear out of order. For example, sometimes you need to disable antivirus software on your computer at a certain step for the rooting process to go smoothly.
3. Learn how to un-root. Rooting is reversible on most phones—again, check whether yours is before you even begin. So before you root, make sure you know how to undo it. Just as it's important to read the complete instructions before you start rooting, it's a good idea to figure out how to reverse it before doing anything, as well. Because rooting may void your phone's warranty, you'll have to revoke the root access anytime you need to take your phone in for service.
4. Power up. Never tinker with anything less than a full battery. One of the most devastating things that can go wrong while in root mode is running out of battery midway through installing a custom OS or ROM (read-only memory, or the phone's internal memory where your apps are stored). If your Android dies before the new system is installed fully, it's extremely difficult to repair and restore the phone.
5. Stay away from extremes. Root users will be enticed to push their phones past its previous limits for maximum performance—a phone that works faster. But remember, the phone makers put limits on your phone for a reason, in this case, to prevent the phone's processor from overheating and burning out. Root users who know what they're doing bypass these limits, but should set new limits or other failsafe measures to keep the phone from overheating. If you don't know how to manage these settings, don't tempt fate by trying to turn your phone into a lightning-fast machine. It's pretty fast already.
6. When in doubt, ask for help. If at any point in rooting or unrooting you get stuck, search for help because you're likely to find it. Android root users have been known to hang around a few helpful hacker forums, such as xda-developers.com and rootzwiki.com, where you can find answers to your questions and solutions to your problems. While these online resources will be invaluable, do bear in mind the other tips outlined in this article. Remember that even the most helpful guy on a forum isn't necessarily a technical writer, and his tutorial may be out of order or not specify which specific phone model he has in hand, or take for granted some other assumption. Comb through the advice you find meticulously before you decide to take it.
With those tips in mind, if you're looking for tutorials to walk you through rooting, try Lifehacker's guide to rooting Android devices.
7 Apps for Root Users
Deciding to root your phone shouldn't be a split-second decision. But ultimately, it's your phone, you own it, and you can do what you want. So if you do root your Android, here are seven starter apps you'll want to download. You'll need the first and second apps immediately in order to actually do anything with your root access, but the other apps are all optional and can be downloaded in any order.
Superuser: lets you manage superuser (root user) permissions; this is the first app a newly rooted phone needs installed on it.
Root Explorer (File Manager) ($3.80): shows you the files you can now access as a root user; this is the second app a newly rooted phone needs on it.
Titanium Backup root: backs up all your apps, removes bloatware, and otherwise helps you manage apps.
ROM Manager: lets you manage and install ROMs from your SD card, and organize and perform backups and restores.
AdFree Android: removes most ads from your browser and apps.
Wireless Tether for Root Users: turns your phone into a mobile hotspot.
SetCPU for Root Users: changes the CPU settings for overclocking (going faster than the limit) and lets you set thresholds (like a temperature) to tell it when to stop; works only on select phones.

By monty with No comments

American Multinational Conglomerate 3M, Launched New R&D Facility

American multinational conglomerate 3 M on 23 September 2011 announced the launch of its second research and development facility in Bangalore, India. 3 M established R&D centre with an investment of 100 crore rupees. Although the company had a bigger presence in China, revenues in China were growing faster.

The company plans to increase its sales in India from 1175 crore to 5000 crore rupees within the next five years. American multinational conglomerate 3M, was earlier known as the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company.

By monty with No comments

Internet gives a huge thumbs down to Facebook redesign

Do we like the new Facebook redesign? The Internet's answer is a resounding "No!"

Well, at least that's the response from over 1,000 people surveyed by Sodahead, whose results show that an overwhelming 86 percent of users said that Facebook should lose the changes and revert to the old format. The Internet also responded via tweet.

Mark Zuckerberg launched the new Timeline format (which will replace the old Profile and Wall) at the f8 developer conference on Thursday. That will go hand in hand with a new ticker, which will aggregate "lightweight" posts like the TV shows people watch, including Hulu on Facebook. Users can also listen to Spotify on Facebook, although some have wondered about whether or not the scrolling ticker will contribute to song or social spam.

It's worth noting that the new Timeline feature is only open to developers at this point. The new ticker is live, however, as of this week.

In any case, Internet users gave a big thumbs down to the new redesign in the new Sodahead poll, with 91 percent of teens claiming that Facebook should return to the old redesign. Women, who make up a majority of users on Facebook, also voted Facebook down by an 89 percent clip. Who liked it? IT workers and the wealthier classes.

Somewhat ironically, Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg was asked by reporters to defend the new format, soon after it launched, by a roomful of reporters who had never used it.

"The recent update with the news feed and ticker, we've actually been testing that with people for months… we brought a lot of people into the office, to get their feedback," Zuckerberg said.

Of the 6,000 or more comments attached to the announcement on the Facebook blog, most seemed negative. "Sorry fb, but if you making us add all these (unnecessary) details to our pages - what is the point in talking to someone when you know what they're already doing/have done/and our planning to do?" Georgie Singer wrote. "This is a social network, not a 'This is your life' episode. Leave it alone."

Sherna Alexander Benjamin had an opposing view. "Watched the video with the introduction of Timeline by CEO Mark Zuckerberg where he introduced this new kind of profile view called Timeline that includes past events, older photos & information from other apps.

"I personally find it very exciting as it gives the timeline effect you no longer have to scroll to the bottom of your page and keep selecting more until you may find what you are looking for it gives your profile that organized look and easy to get information as every thing is now a simple click of the button," Benjamin added. "cannot wait for it to role [sic] out. Many persons cannot accept change but as soon as they become comfortable with this new change they will forget that they have complained about this new change, why because they have become comfortable with it."

By monty with No comments

How to check if your photo camera can take infrared photos

Infrared photography has many applications, such as cosmic photos, recovering texts of water damaged documents, quality checks for hidden material flaws, surveillance and public safety, or aesthetic purposes.

You would imagine that you need special equipment to take infrared photos. Well, for the “far” infrared spectrum (thermal light), indeed, you need it. But for the “near” infrared, all you need is a digital camera that doesn’t have a filter that blocks infrared light, and an infrared filter.

How to test your camera for IR capability: check if it can see beams emitted from a common infrared remote control (point it towards your camera and press any button). The beams should appear white in the LCD screen.

If your camera does not have an LCD screen, take a picture of the remote control while pressing one of its buttons. In this photo you should see the beam, as illustrated:

Otherwise, it means that your camera has the IR blocking filter. Probably it can be removed, but I would not suggest you do that, because it may void your warranty, or you may never manage to put the camera together and functioning again.

By monty with No comments

The Future of the Phone

In the next decade, all phones will be smartphones and they won't break your bank.
One hundred years from now, when people recall the $500 plus smartphone in a period of time, they will exclaim, “You paid what? and  Why?”...Within the next decade, possibly even within the next five years, all phones will be smartphones.And they will be cheap—as in $19 or less. Here’s why:

The Software Phone is Here
People have to realize that the smartphone architecture has no moving parts and thus becomes a completely software driven product. The screen should be the most expensive part, and other components, like the cheap radio, processor, support circuitry, memory, and the speaker and mike, should be relatively cheap in quantity. The real value and complexity of a smartphone will be determined by the software. This is one of the realizations that got Microsoft into the phone game.It knows that, at the end of the day, it’s the software that counts and it is a software company.

When you think about it, these smartphones are really software phones. You could reprogram to an extreme, with different keyboards for different languages. The possibilities are limitless. I’m surprised that we have yet to see completely re-engineered smartphones. Why can’t I take an unlocked Nexus S and turn it into something totally different, with a whole new look and feel insofar as the display and workings are concerned? This is a slightly different approach than adding apps,it’s like re-writing the executive of an OS.

The Idea of a “Blank” Phone
Companies know this is possible, along with complete OS upgrades. For the most part, phones get upgraded software. Just imagine an entirely new and alien OS installed on an Android phone the way a PC can switch from Windows to Linux. Perhaps a day will come where you can buy a phone without the OS and install any number of cool choices. Perhaps Microsoft should make Phone 7 available the same way it makes Windows available— as an installable product. We just need an infrastructure to do so.

Now that would be great.
But back to today’s reality. The fact is, it will be cheaper to build a phone around a touch screen with virtual keypads than to make a mechanical device. The touch screen could even be more reliable.

The Fashion Statement
The cheap, so-called “burner,” or disposable phone, will only differ from a higher-end phone because of the software and perhaps more memory and a better processor. That said, you can be sure that the Google Nexus and the iPhone will be the cheap burners of tomorrow. Who knows what a high-end phone will be like? Maybe not much different from today’s, which makes the money-making aspect of the better phones more dubious. Perhaps it will purely become a fashion accessory—a trend Apple seems intent on exploiting.

And, hopefully, as things progress, a “blank” phone, as described above, will become a reality.

By Anonymous with No comments

Nokia Siemens Networks introduces Liquid Net broadband delivery technology

One of the biggest vendors of telecommunication equipment in the world, Nokia Siemens Networks, has launched a “new way to deliver broadband”, called Liquid Net. The new method allows a network operator to setup a self-adapting network that can serve variable capacity and coverage requirements, based on demand.

Some of the aims of the new approach are to shares resources to meet unpredictable broadband demand, and to enhance the quality of broadband services across the globe, by helping network operators to use their existing business assets to their maximum potential.

Liquid Net is based on the Nokia Siemens Networks’ Liquid Radio architecture3. The Liquid Net technology adds Liquid Radio, Liquid Core and Liquid Transport functionality to an operators network, and these can be implemented either separately in multi-vendor environments or in concert across an operator’s entire network.
Liquid Net will allow operators to instantly reallocate unused capacity to any point in the entire network, whenever required. It attempts to channel traffic between operator sites along the path of least resistance, and offer the lowest cost.For more information, log on to Nokia Siemens Networks' site.

Speaking on the launch of the technology, Nokia Siemens Networks’ Marc Rouanne said:

“Capacity in today’s conventional networks is typically frozen in separate places; at individual base station sites, in parts of the core network that manage voice and data services, or in the optical and IP transport networks. Each is a potential bottleneck to someone getting the broadband service they want at a particular moment. Fluctuating, unpredictable demand in one part of the network means huge chunks of capacity can be left idle elsewhere, making poor use of existing investments. For example, as much as 50% of a conventional core network’s capacity can be dormant. Instead, Liquid Net unleashes frozen network capacity into a reservoir of resources that can flow to fulfill unpredictable demand, wherever and whenever people use broadband.”

Speaking about the new technology, Peter Jarich, of Service Provider Infrastructure, said:

“Where Liquid Radio was about supporting capacity growth and flexibility in the Radio Access Network (RAN), Liquid Net smartly carries the theme forward to transport and core networks promising an optimization of not only user traffic but CAPEX investments. Perhaps most importantly, Liquid Net speaks to a need for solutions rather than point products; while components can be deployed as part of a multi-vendor solution, the combination of Liquid Radio, Liquid Core and Liquid Transport into Liquid Net speaks to holistic thinking around operator concerns and demands.”

By Anonymous with No comments

A look at the Windows 8 Developer

As good as Windows 7 is, it mostly just tried to repair some of the damage done by Windows Vista, Windows 8 by comparison is very ambitious. Nearly every corner of the OS has been touched, and it shows from the boot.

Windows 8 is highly inspired by its cousin running on phones, Windows Phone 7, and uses the same UI style called Metro. Metro is a big and central part of Windows 8, it's hard to escape and likely it won't be something you can turn off even in the final release. It's not just about the UI but also the work that has gone into creating a new way for developers to create Windows applications using even web technologies such as
HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript.

We immediately downloaded and tested Windows 8 on a desktop computer so our experience is mostly based on the how it works on a non-touch environment. However some of the major new additions to Windows 8 actually have to do with Tablets. Windows 8 is essentially meant to be an OS that can run on tablets, netbooks and desktops, with Windows Phone catering to smartphones.

Let us first dispense with the rumours that Windows 8 will only have the toned down Metro UI, and the familiar Windows desktop is gone. This is not true, the familiar old Windows 7 UI and desktop is still there (mostly). So the question is not of what is lost by in Windows 8, but whether what is added (Metro) is worthwhile, or just gets in the way, that question however will be for you to answer once you have used it a bit. For that purpose we will divide our attentions between the new Windows Metro UI and the "classic" UI.

Metro:

Metro is a complete departure from the classic Windows UI, and is optimized heavily for touch screens. Touch screens need big targets, and that isn't just true of the OS, but of each application as well. Windows 7 came with support for multitouch screens, but no one made much of it because neither the Windows UI, nor the UI of most Windows apps was very conducive to a good multitouch experience. Windows 8 rectifies this is with a fresh new tile-based Metro UI.

Windows 8 Metro start screen:
When you first boot Windows 8 you are greeted with this UI which shows your installed applications as a collection of tiles. What's great about these tiles is that they are not only a way to launch applications, but also small windows into the application. A tile for your email app could show you your unread email count, your social networking app could show the latest posts, and your image management app could show a slideshow of images etc.

We say "could" because right now apps don't support this functionality - remember this is the preview that is supposed to get developers started developing apps for Windows 8 - but the sample apps included showcase it quite well; the news app shows news from configured feeds, the Twitter apps shows tweets and the stocks app shows stocks. Apps launch in full screen but can be made to share space as well. Applications whether they are Metro apps or traditional apps or web apps can be pinned into the Metro start screen.

In this Metro start screen, if you start typing, you will immediately see a filtered list of installed applications, but you can search in settings and files as well. And here comes the awesome part, you can search from here within applications as well! Applications expose their data to Windows which can then search within that data as well. A hypothetical example would be, if Amazon's Kindle eBook reading app supported this feature you'd be able to search for eBooks directly from Windows.

Searching for applications, results from settings, files and installed applications can also be browsed from here:

Windows 8 comes with a version of Internet Explorer 10 with a Metro interface that doesn't allow plugins such as Flash and Silverlight. This UI is highly optimized for tablet devices, but is functional on desktops / laptops as well.

The Windows 8 lock screen:
A completely new Metro-styled control panel is also available that offers a simpler way to configure most common settings.

The new Metro-styled control panel:
Even the boot process has finally been revamped to use a Metro-style UI. You can select which OS to boot using your mouse / touchscreen. This makes sense for tablets where there would be no keyboard to make an OS selection.

All of this is available in addition to the more traditional Windows UI, which we talk about next. However you needn't use the traditional UI if Metro is all you want. What is great is that these two can coexist and even cooperate by sharing screen space between metro and traditional apps.

Windows 8 "classic" UI :
One of the biggest losses in this whole Metro thing is the Start Menu. RIP (1995 - 2012). The Windows 8 Developer Preview does not feature the traditional start menu; instead it launches the Metro start screen described above. We emphasize "Developer Preview" because this could very well change by the time it releases.

The classic Window UI is still available and fully functional:
There is just so much new here that we feel we have to list it in points:

• Proper multi-monitor support! Each screen can now have its own taskbar that can show all apps, or only the apps running on that screen. In fact Windows even comes with a theme with a dual-screen wallpaper just for multi-monitor users. The Metro UI can only work on one screen at a time, you can switch between screens at any time.

Through the taskbar configuration you can have the taskbar appear on all monitors, and can configure which apps to display on each taskbar:
Explorer has a new ribbon based UI. Love it or hate it, it is there; in our opinion it is quite functional. With the loss of menus in Windows Vista, this UI brings back many useful operations. It can always be collapsed and ignored.

Mounting an ISO is easy in Windows 8:
The copy and move interface is revamped such that:
All file transfer operations will appear in the same window
These operations can be paused.

Standard view of copy progress. One copy operation is paused:
A detailed view will show a graph of changes in speed over time

Expanded view of copy progress :

The UI for resolving conflicts is much improved.

Conflicts while copying are now presented much better:

A fine-grained control over managing conflicts yet easy to exercise:

There is a new "Automatic" option for Aero window colour which automatically selects the colour of the window borders based on the wallpaper colour. If your wallpaper is set to a slideshow, your window Aero colours will change with each change of the wallpaper.
There is a new task manager that in its detailed view is very powerful. You can see not only how much CPU and memory each application is consuming, but also its network utilization.

Setting up a new account based on a Live ID:
Another great example is the new File history feature. Volume shadow copy / system restore from Windows XP was improved in Windows Vista with a "Previous Version" option to get back old version of files. Windows 8 takes it further by building a proper UI around it, allowing you to browse the history of your data folders and restore previous versions of your library folders at any time. All your libraries are automatically backed up. You can now even select where to store these previous versions of files; even network locations can be selected, and you can offer your computer's storage as to others in your HomeGroup.

Windows file history configuration:

Browsing through the history of a folder:
Windows 8 now also offers an option to "Refresh" the Windows install, which will reload all Windows files without touching your personal data. In this case the some setting will be reverted and your applications will need to be reinstalled (not the ones installed from the Windows Store though). Another option is to "Reset" your install, which instead removed all personal data from the computer so you can resell it.

The Windows 8 Developer is not complete; it is not even a beta, but a pre-beta. While all of what we have mentioned here is available in the Developer Preview build - and you can check it for yourself, it's on the DVD - take it all with a grain of salt. The final version of Windows 8 will most likely improve many things and possibly even remove some features.

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Youth rates Internet as important as air, water and food, says Cisco survey

The modern youth believes the Internet is an integral part of their lives and it is as essential as air, water and food for survival, says a survey conducted by networking giant Cisco.The 2011 Cisco Connected World Technology Report includes survey on some 1,441 college students, aged between 18-24 and 1,412 employees, aged between 21-29 in 14 countries, including the US,UK, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, France, China, Russia and India.

In India, nearly 95 percent of the college students and young employees said in the survey they believed Internet is as important in their lives as food, water, air and shelter. The survey says Internet is no longer a “good to have”, and its now a “must have” facility. The change in perception is due to the rising trend of staying connected and sharing, thanks to social media and smart mobile devices.

The Cisco report gives an interesting insight on the phenomenon with a special focus on current and future employees and aims to identify the best ways to address their needs, expectations and issues. Nearly 64% of respondents said that they would prefer Internet over a car, while about 40 percent of respondents globally said that Internet is more important than dating or going out with friends or even listening to music.

The young generation loves social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. The report states nearly 27 percent of respondents said they preferred updating their status messages on Facebook than partying or going out with friends, if they were given a choice between them.

The survey also reveals the growing popularity of mobile devices among youth. The Cisco study says nearly 71 percent of respondents in India acknowledged the importance of mobile devices, which was only second to the UK's 74 percent and ahead of nations like Australia (66 percent), China (62 percent) and the US (62 percent).

The Cisco study also disclosed that smartphones and laptops had replaced TV as the most important device in the lives of youth. The report further indicates that use of paper is declining among the youth as two out of five students have not bought a book from a bookstore in last two years.

On extensive usage of social networking site 'Facebook', Indian respondents topped the survey with some 92 percent students logging on their accounts daily, while one-third of them checked their walls at least five times a day. Moreover, some 85 percent of Indian employees acknowledged adding their office colleagues and managers as friends on Facebook.

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Nokia N8 with Symbian Anna Review

This is the classic case of a device realizing its potential much after we expected it would. The Nokia N8 has been around for aboaut a year now, but the completely undercooked Symbian3 OS had ruined what was a superb phone, at least as far as the hardware is concerned. However, that has changed now, with the Symbian Anna update.

Look & Feel :
The design of the phone has been left unchanged, but a new colour has been added – hot pink. Maybe that’ll help appeal to a wider demographic!

The 3.5-inch touchscreen takes up almost all the space on the front, with just enough left for a hardware key, for the Menu. The SIM card and the microSD slots are on the left side panel, along with the micro USB port. The right side panel has the volume rocker, the display lock slider and camera key. Turn the phone over, and there is no battery cover that can be opened. Nokia went the Apple way and made the battery inaccessible to the user. While that is a good thing since there are less number of moving parts on the phone, but does pose a bit of an inconvenience when the battery needs to be replaced. The 12MP camera does sit in a platform that bulges out. Quite understandably, since the massive camera needs space and the extremely slim form factor definitely didn’t offer enough space. However, since one complete side of this raised platform bears all the weight when the phone is kept on a flat surface, it will get scratched and the colour will wear out quicker.

Features:
The biggest update this phone has received is the Symbian Anna update. And a breath of fresh air is has been. The Symbian^3 that had originally come with the N8 was sluggish, prone to freezes and crashes, and immediately killed any expectations that it was the real iOS and Android beater. With Anna though, the phone does feel lighter, and less stressed. Minor UI improvements include icons with rounded edges and slightly redesigned menus. However, the promised update to allow widgets of multiple sizes has been left out. That’s a huge disappointment since the very limited size means Facebook and Twitter widgets are out of question.
When this phone was launched towards the end of last year, the 12MP camera was the best around. We expected the competition to catch up in the space of a year, but no. This 12MP camera is still pretty much the best we have seen in smartphones.

Performance:
With a 680MHz processor powering the N8, it was never going to be the fastest smartphone around. However, post the Anna update, it does feel a lot faster. The UI is smoother, apps respond quicker, and even flicking though the home screens and apps list is relatively stutter-free. Now relate this to the experience with the original Symbian^3. The phone was extremely sluggish, would refuse to open apps until its mood was made up, there were constant OS freezes and crashes – and the inevitable reboots.

If this is the amount of development that we have seen with Anna, Symbian still has a bright future. Provided Nokia can pair it up with faster processors and generous amounts of RAM.
Thanks to the slicker UI experience, the touch response has also improved. Typing out messages is a delight now. The on-screen keypad has been tweaked slightly, but we still find it more comfortable in the landscape mode.

If you use the phone to click a lot of pics, this camera will surely impress you a lot. The 12MP one is still the best around, even though it has been almost a year. This one does well even in not so good lighting conditions. 720p HD video recording is worth its salt.

We had praised this web browser when we had reviewed the Nokia E6, and it is just so much better to use on a bigger display. Pages render quickly even on a slow EDGE connection, but some pages don’t really snap fit well. However, that is a minor niggle, and we really wont be too bothered about that.
Battery life, however, is what makes our eyes well up with tears of joy. The battery on the review unit that we received lasted us three days from full charge to complete discharge. And this when it under load of quite a few calls, lots of WhatsApp chats, continuous web connectivity (EDGE or Wi-Fi), doses of web browsing and even sessions of Need for Speed. Reminds us of the days of the N95 and the N82, those batteries lasted a week before we plugged in the charger.

The Nokia N8 is a smartphone reborn.
Price: Rs 23867

Specs:
Platform: Symbian Anna; Processor: ARM-11 @ 680MHz, 256MB RAM; Display: 3.5-inch AMOLED (640x360 pixels) capacitive display, Gorilla Glass; Storage: 16GB built-in, microSD slot up to 32GB; Camera: 12MP with 720p HD video; Battery: 1200 mAh; Extra features: USB-on-the-go feature for file transfer from USB devices, HDMI out

Ratings:
Features: 7
Performance: 7.5
Build: 7.5
Value: 7

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Sennheiser India intros three Adidas Originals headphones for the festive season

Sennheiser Electronics India has launched three new headphones for the Indian festive season, two streetwear models for consumers – HD 220 and CX 310 – and one premium model for audio professionals and DJs – HD 25, with rotatable capsules for one-ear listening.
All three headphones have been launched in collaboration with Adidas Originals. According to the press release, the “trefoil brand” has been “linked to the music scene for a long time and is connected uniquely to the beginnings of Hip Hop in the 1980s.” What this means here is that famous trefoil design of the brand, and/or its current three-stripes Originals avatar, will feature prominently onboard, making the headphones even more appealing to sports fans, hip hoppers, and the general youth.

CX-310

HD-25

HD-220

Speaking on the launch of the three headphones, Sennheiser India’s Kapil Gulati said:
“The new range offers a perfect blend of elegant style and superior technology with excellent features for music lovers this festive season. We wanted to offer something special to our consumers this festive season and the new range would be an ideal collection for consumers who consider music in good sound as an integral part of their lifestyle.”
Find the pricing details of the three Sennheiser headphones below, which are available in major electronic retail and large-format stores across the country. For more details about the Sennheiser/Adidas Originals headphones, refer to the Sennheiser India site.
HD 220 Originals – Rs. 3,490
CX 310 Originals – Rs. 3,490
HD 25 Originals – Rs. 16,990

By monty with No comments

Dell intros Latitude XT3 laptop

Dell has expanded its Latitude series of laptops with the Latitude XT3. The Dell Latitude XT3 laptop is said to have the flexibility of a touch-screen tablet and promises a balance between usable workspace and mobility. As such, it falls neatly under the laptop-tablet hybrid category, such as theLenovo U1 Hybrid, and the Samsung Sliding PC 7 series.

By Koushik Vuppala with No comments

Paper-thin, flexible phones are here,are they the future of mobile technology ..?

Ever since their worldwide debut in the 1980′s, Mobile phones have been getting smaller and thinner. It’s a good thing, too, those first phones were quite literally the size of your average house brick. All that has changed and modern smartphones can be as thin as 8.7mm, such as with the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc. As impressive as this sounds, it’s nothing compared to what researchers at Canada’s Queen’s University have come up with.

By Koushik Vuppala with No comments

EA Blockbuster Hits 2011 pre-order bonuses and contests announced

Milestone Interactive today announced the pre-order bonuses and contests for EA's Blockbuster Hits 2011 lineup – namely FIFA 12, Battlefield 3 and Need for Speed: The Run.
Pre-order any of these games, on any Sony format or for the PC, from any of the numerous participating online and physical retailers, and you could be one of three lucky draw winners who stand to win a 32GB Apple iPad 2 WiFi. Runners-up need not despair though, as a total of five Battlefield 3 hard drives, five Battlefield 3 pen drives and a hundred 3D posters are also up for grabs. All this in addition to the monthly draw, that will run from August to November, where 32GB iPod Touches will be won.
Those who pre-order any of these games for the PC will be entered into an additional lucky draw – one with a Sony PlayStation 3 console as the spoils. If you don't fancy your luck too much and want to see something concrete, pre-ordering Battlefield 3 will net you a copy of the Limited Edition of the game, which comes with the Back to Karkand expansion pack.
All you have to do to be eligible for these draws is log on to http://pre-orders.in/eablockbusterhits11 and register your pre-order details.
FIFA 12, Battlefield 3 and Need for Speed: The Run release by September 30, October 28 and November 18 respectively.

By monty with 1 comment

India Signed Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement with Estonia

India signed DTAA (Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement) with Estonia on 19 September 2011 and forged a pact to work with it in the field of information, communications and technology (ICT).  The DTAA and the pact on ICT was signed during the visit of communications and Information Technology Minister Kapil Sibal to Estonia. Kapil signed the DTAA with Estonian Minister of Finance Jurgen Ligi.

India will also set up a Chair on Cyber Security in Tallinn University and a Chair on Indian languages, history and literature in another of Estonia’s universities.

The government of Estonia also announced 20 scholarships for Indian students that enroll with Estonian universities for accredited doctoral programme leading to a PhD degree in information and communication technology, environment technology, biotechnology, material technology power engineering or health.

 Sibal travelled to Helsinki, Finland, to participate in a summit on information and network security for emerging markets following his visit to Estonia. Estonia is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe.

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Goa became the First Indian State to Launch Health Insurance Policy Covering all its People

Goa became the first state in India to launch Swarnajayanti Aarogya Bima Yojana providing health insurance cover for the entire resident population of the State. The State Government on 20 September 2011 signed a Memorandum of Understanding with ICICI Lombard which is the implementing agency for the new health insurance cover. About 3.2 lakh families in the state would be entitled to be in the purview of the scheme.

The novel and unique cash less health insurance scheme provides for meeting expenses of hospitalization for medical and/or surgical procedure including maternity benefit to the enrolled families upto 60000 rupees per family per year subject to limits in any of the government and private hospitals and nursing homes. The benefit to the family will be on floater basis and a sum insured of 60000 rupees can be availed individually or collectively by members of the family per year. Under the scheme, pre existing conditions/diseases are to be covered from day one. The scheme covers family comprising of household head, spouse and upto three dependents resident of Goa for over five years. A beneficiary will have to pay 100 rupees to the insurance company at the time of enrollment.

By monty with No comments

YouTube intros long-form videos and new creator tools, adds 2D to 3D conversion

YouTube has unveiled three new creator tools, including single-click 2D to 3D conversion, which the video sharing network hopes will allow uploaders to become “more imaginative” with their video production. It has also allowed users in good standing to upload long-form videos, allowing for more than the standard 15 minutes of fame.
Apart from 2D to 3D conversion, uploaders also have new editing tools – Vlix and Magisto, available on youtube.com/create. Vlix lets video creators add effects, intro and closing text, etc.,. Magisto on the other hand automatically slices unedited videos into a montage.
As for long-form videos, YouTube’s new resumable uploads feature will help get those big files on the network, removing the need for other upload utilities. Only “verified users in good standing” will be allowed to upload these long-form videos, users with a clean track record and who continue to follow the copyright rules set in YouTube’s Community Guidelines.

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Milky Way's Spiral Arms Caused by its Crashes with Dwarf Galaxy

Scientists stated that the two powerful collisions with a dwarf galaxy in the past two billion years was the cause of the spiral arm structure of the Milky Way. The new findings were published in the journal Nature. In trying to explain the shape of our own galaxy, the Milky Way, with its prominent spiral arms rooted in a central bar, scientists had earlier dismissed the influence of outside forces.

However, in the new study, scientists focused on the nearby Sagittarius dwarf galaxy, much of which had been ripped apart by the gravitational pull of the Milky Way, leaving debris that formed a large but very faint stream of stars around our galaxy.  This dwarf galaxy might have once been 100 times more massive.

 This dwarf galaxy's collision with the Milky Way triggered the formation of our galaxy's spiral arms, caused the flaring seen in the outermost disk and influenced the growth of its central bar.  The impact could have generated ringlike structures wrapping around the Milky Way, similar to ones actually seen in our galaxy, such as the Monoceros ring.

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Australia under the Captaincy of Michael Clarke won Test Series against Sri Lanka

Australia  under the captaincy of skipper Michael Clarke won the Test series against Sri Lanka 1-0 when the sexcond test concluded on 20 September 2011 Tuesday. It was Clarke’s first Test tour as captain. In the first test Australia won 125-run victory in Galle. The second Test in Pallekele ended in a rain-affected draw.

Clarke scored a fluent century and Michael Hussey narrowly missed a third consecutive hundred as Australia piled up 488 in their second innings before they were all out shortly before close with a lead of 331 runs. Clarke hit 112 and Hussey made 93 in a remarkable batting revival after Australia had conceded a first innings lead of 157 runs in good batting conditions.

The victory saw Australia and Sri Lanka exchange positions in the official Test rankings, with Clarke’s men moving to fourth place and Sri Lanka dropping to fifth.

Tim Nielsen stepped down as Australia's coach after helping the side to a series victory in Sri Lanka. Nielsen, who took over from John Buchanan in 2007, made the announcement after Australia managed a draw in the final Test at the SSC in Colombo.

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Finance Ministry relaxed Norms for Foreign Institutional Investments in Infrastructure Space

The finance ministry on 12 September 2011 relaxed the norms for foreign institutional investments (FII) in the infrastructure space by reducing the residual maturity and lock-in periods for investments in listed and unlisted bonds.

As per the new norms, FIIs were allowed to invest up to $5 billion in long-term infrastructure bonds having an initial maturity of five years and a residual maturity of one year compared to five years residual maturity before. FIIs were permitted to invest a maximum of $17 billion in long-term infrastructure bonds of an equivalent initial maturity but with a residual maturity period of three years compared to five years before. While the lock-in period for the $5 billion investment window was cut down from three years to one year, it will remain three years for the $17 billion investment.

The finance ministry had created a USD 3 billion window 9 August  2011 from the overall USD 25 billion limit. Qualified foreign investors (QFIs) were permitted to subscribe to debt schemes pertaining to infrastructure sector. $3 billion will continue to remain open to qualified foreign investors (QFIs) for investing in mutual fund debt schemes that invest in infrastructure sector.

The government had in May 2011 raised the FII investment limit to $25 billion for investments in listed and unlisted bonds from $5 billion before. The maturity period for these investments had been set at a minimum of five years and the lock-in period for three years. The scheme had been conceived to open new channels of funding for the infrastructure sector while deepening the corporate bond market. However the response to the scheme was founf to be tipid. The above changes were therefore introduced after consulting the Reserve Bank of India and the Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI).

The new norms are expected to kick-start FII flows into the long-term corporate bonds and facilitate funding of infrastructure projects. Despite the $25 billion ceiling, only $109 million entered the market through this route as on 31 August 2011.

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India and Turkey Agreed for Future Cooperation in Coal Related Areas

India and Turkey on 12 September 2011 agreed for future cooperation in coal related areas during the meeting between Sriprakash Jaiswal, Minister of Coal, Government of India and Taner Yildiz, Minister for Energy and Natural Resources, government of Turkey. The meeting took place at Istanbul, Turkey on the sidelines of the 22nd World Mining Congress inaugural session.

India and Turkey discussed about the energy situation in the two countries, particularly in the field of coal mining. India offered technical cooperation to develop coal and lignite deposits and coal washing in Turkey. Turkey is planning to set up some 15000 MW coal based power generation plants and requested Indian companies to participate in the tenders.

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Scientists Found 2 New Species of Fish in Arunachal Pradesh

Scientists at the GB Pant Institute of Himalayan Environment and Development discovered two new species of fish in rivers of Arunachal Pradesh. The two new species of catfish are Erethistoides Senkhiensis and Glyptothorax Dikrongensis. The new species of fish were found at Senkhi stream and Dikrong River in Papum Pare district.

The new species which were named after their Arunachalee sources are ample proof of the rich flora and fauna of Arunachal Pradesh. Besides publishing about the discovery of Balitora brucei, Glyptothorax telchitta and Pseudolaguvia shawi, 88 species of freshwater fishes have been assessed and evaluated by the institute for the Red Data Book for International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

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Sri Lankan Golfer Anura Rohana emerged victorious in the Global Green Bangalore Open

Sri Lankan golfer Anura Rohana completed pole to finish victory in the Global Green Bangalore Open on 17 September 2011 thereby ending a decade-long wait for a title on Indian soil.

He wobbled a bit but steadied his nerves in authoritative style. Leading by a comfortable five shots from Mukesh Kumar overnight, Rohana overcame a minor blip to finish with three-under 69 for the round, and a card of 12-under-276 for the competition. Mukesh finished second (282) after shooting two-under 70.

Rohana's only previous triumph as a professional was in the Surya Nepal Masters in 2009. In the Surya Nepal Masters he had won dramatically when he won by two strokes with an eagle on the final hole.

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BSES Rajdhani Power entered into MoU with America’s Lighting Science Group for LED Lighting

BSES Rajdhani Power Limited (BRPL) on 19 September 2011 entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with America’s largest manufacturer of Light Emitting Diodes (LED)’s, Lighting Science Group (LSG). The far reaching MoU, a first of its kind in India will ensure that the two collaborate and explore avenues to demonstrate and promote energy efficiency using the next gen LED lighting. This association is expected to enable BRPL and LSG to explore opportunities to demonstrate the benefits of LED lighting.

The scope of the association is to involve conducting field trials of various LED based lighting options, including street lights at select locations and making LED products available at competitive prices for BRPL customers.

The next generation LED bulbs fit perfectly into existing screw-in light sockets and create clean, bright light level, equivalent to that of a conventional incandescent bulb. When compared to a CFL, LED bulbs use significantly less electricity and contain no mercury.  They also have a significantly longer life span than both CFL’s and Incandescent Bulbs.  The average life span of a LED Bulb is around 50000 hours verses 8000 hours for a CFL and 1000 hours for an incandescent bulb.

LED is an ideal long-term sustainable product, which is perfectly suited for extreme hot and humid climate. commercial and industrial establishments are switching to LED’s owing to its benefits. It is also a recommended lighting product for lighting using solar energy. LED lights are ideal if the per day usage is more than 8 hrs. Use of LED bulbs helps in conserving precious electricity as well as leads to huge savings in a household’s electricity bill.

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Russian Grandmaster Peter Svidler won the Chess World Cup held in Russia

Russian grandmaster Peter Svidler won the Chess World Cup title on 20 September after winning a four-game final against his compatriot Alexander Grischuk. Khanty-Mansiysk (Russia) an industrial town hosted over 120 world's greatest chess players from 40 countries who fought for the title.

Svidler is a six-time Russian champion and one of the highest-ranked players in the world. He defeated strong competitors like American Gata Kamsky and Urkainian Ruslan Ponomariov earlier in the competition. With the victory Svidler won a $96000 prize money and a ticket to the 2012 world championship matches.

Russia holds the No.1 spot on the World Chess Federation's top-10 list, followed by Ukraine.

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HALCON announced Commencement of Air Cargo Services at the Ojhar Airport in Nashik

HALCON along with terminal operator Clarion Solutions on 20 September announced the commencement of air cargo services at the Ojhar airport in Nashik in Maharashtra. HALCON is a joint venture working group between Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL) and Container Corporation of India (Concor).

The airport is owned by HAL, which invested around Rs.70 crore in developing the infrastructure. While the airport, runway and air traffic control (ATC) will be managed by HAL, the cargo complex is to be managed by Clarion Solutions, which is assigned terminal operator, ground handling operator and regulated agent.

The airport is well equipped and capable of handling even the Russian AN-124 aircraft, the heaviest aircraft in the world. The airport comprises a full-fledged air cargo complex, warehousing, integrated packing centre for perishables, cold storage, screening, unitising, ground handling services for airlines, CCTV surveillance, bar-coding, labelling and customs.

It alsohas a modern radar, ATC, met services, airport aides, parking space and most importantly, night landing facility. Nashik being about 200 km from Mumbai, Ojhar airport expects about 20-25 per cent of the 40000 tonne a month cargo handled at the Mumbai airport.

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NASA'S WISE Mission Captured Black Hole's Wildly Flaring Jet

Astronomers using NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) captured rare data of a flaring black hole, revealing new details about these powerful objects and their blazing jets.

Scientists study jets to learn more about the extreme environments around black holes. Much has been learned about the material feeding black holes, called accretion disks, and the jets themselves through studies using X-rays, gamma rays and radio waves. But key measurements of the brightest part of the jets, located at their bases, have been difficult despite decades of work. WISE is offering a new window into this missing link through its infrared observations.

The black hole, called GX 339-4, had been observed previously. It lies more than 20000 light-years away from Earth near the center of our galaxy. It has a mass at least six times greater than the sun. Like other black holes, it is an ultra-dense collection of matter, with gravity that is so great even light cannot escape. In this case, the black hole is orbited by a companion star that feeds it. Most of the material from the companion star is pulled into the black hole, but some of it is blasted away as a jet flowing at nearly the speed of light.

Observing the jet's variability was possible because of images taken of the same patch of sky over time, a feature of NEOWISE, the asteroid-hunting portion of the WISE mission. WISE data enabled the team to zoom in on the very compact region around the base of the jet streaming from the black hole. The size of the region is equivalent to the width of a dime seen at the distance of our sun.

The results surprised the team, showing huge and erratic fluctuations in the jet activity on timescales ranging from 11 seconds to a few hours. The observations are like a dance of infrared colors and show the size of the jet's base varies. Its radius is approximately 15000 miles (24140 kilometers) with dramatic changes by as large as a factor of 10 or more.

The new data also allowed astronomers to make the best measurements yet of the black hole's magnetic field, which is 30000 times more powerful than the one generated by Earth at its surface. Such a strong field is required for accelerating and channeling the flow of matter into a narrow jet. The WISE data are bringing astronomers closer than ever to understanding how this exotic phenomenon works.

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A New Frog Species Discovered in Arunachal Pradesh

A survey conducted as part of Eagle Nest Biodiversity Project with support of the state forest department discovered a new frog species in Eagle Nest Wildlife sanctuary at Sessa in West Kameng district of Arunachal Pradesh.  The frog was named Bompu after the locality in the sanctuary where it was found. The frog is native to the forest streams at an altitude of 2000 metres and lives under leaf litter and rotting logs.

The frog belongs to the family Megophrydae and the genus Leptobrachium. Only 28 members of this genus are known worldwide and most of them are found in Indonesia, Myanmar, Philippines, China and Vietnam. This discovery is important because only two other members of the genus are known from India.

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Rajasthan Cabinet Approved the Rajasthan Public Service Guarantee Act, 2011

The Rajasthan Cabinet cleared the Rajasthan Public Service Guarantee Act, 2011 on 24 August 2011 with the objective of providing services to the common man in a specified time frame. The bill aims at making public administration and governance more effective and accountable.

 The bill states that if an official fails to provide service to the people in a time bound manner, he is bound to face disciplinary action as well a fine up to 5000 rupees. In order to avail this service, a person is required to submit an application form.

The draft bill includes major services such as documents verification for passport, disability certificate, birth and death certificate(local civic body), driving license(transport department), water connection( Public Health Department).

The bill also includes other services like transfer of names in the Urban Development and Estate Department, receiving documents and map, BPL and the APL ration card (Food Department), pension of officials and employees (Finance Department) old age, widow and disability pension (Social Justice and Empowerment Department), grievance redressal, reimbursement of security money (Public Construction Department).

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What is web Crawler..?

A Web crawler is a computer program that browses the World Wide Web in a methodical, automated manner or in an orderly fashion. Other terms for Web crawlers are ants, automatic indexers, bots, Web spiders, Web robots, or—especially in the FOAF community—Web scutters.

This process is called Web crawling or spidering. Many sites, in particular search engines, use spidering as a means of providing up-to-date data. Web crawlers are mainly used to create a copy of all the visited pages for later processing by a search engine that will index the downloaded pages to provide fast searches. Crawlers can also be used for automating maintenance tasks on a Web site, such as checking links or validating HTML code. Also, crawlers can be used to gather specific types of information from Web pages, such as harvesting e-mail addresses (usually for sending spam).
A Web crawler is one type of bot, or software agent. In general, it starts with a list of URLs to visit, called the seeds. As the crawler visits these URLs, it identifies all the hyperlinks in the page and adds them to the list of URLs to visit, called the crawl frontier. URLs from the frontier are recursively visited according to a set of policies.
The large volume implies that the crawler can only download a fraction of the Web pages within a given time, so it needs to prioritize its downloads. The high rate of change implies that the pages might have already been updated or even deleted.
The number of possible crawlable URLs being generated by server-side software has also made it difficult for web crawlers to avoid retrieving duplicate content. Endless combinations of HTTP GET (URL-based) parameters exist, of which only a small selection will actually return unique content. For example, a simple online photo gallery may offer three options to users, as specified through HTTP GET parameters in the URL. If there exist four ways to sort images, three choices of thumbnail size, two file formats, and an option to disable user-provided content, then the same set of content can be accessed with 48 different URLs, all of which may be linked on the site. This mathematical combination creates a problem for crawlers, as they must sort through endless combinations of relatively minor scripted changes in order to retrieve unique content.

The behavior of a Web crawler is the outcome of a combination of policies:

• a selection policy that states which pages to download,
• a re-visit policy that states when to check for changes to the pages,
• a politeness policy that states how to avoid overloading Web sites, and
• a parallelization policy that states how to coordinate distributed Web crawlers.

By monty with 1 comment

Samsung to make Bada an open-source platform in 2012

Samsung has announced that it plans to open its proprietary mobile operating system "Bada" to third party developers and device manufacturers in 2012, or in other words, make it an open-source platform, like Google’s Android operating system.
The move is considered by many to be a direct reaction to Google’s acquisition of Motorola in August – an attempt to strengthen and grow its own operating system whilst reducing its reliance on Google’s Android OS. Samsung is obviously also looking further afield than its own stables, with its 11.6-inch tablet acting as the Windows 8 reference hardware.
A report by the Wall Street Journal indicated Samsung might be considering using its Bada operating system as the platform for its internet-connected televisions. Samsung launched Bada back in late 2009, and since then, has made numerous efforts to popularize the platform amongst developers, in the midst of decent sales of its Bada-based Wave smartphones.

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Beetel launches low-cost GD 470 dual-SIM touchscreen phone, for Rs. 3,300

After its Magiq low-cost Android tablet, Beetel has launched its first low-cost touchscreen mobile, the GD 470. Priced at Rs. 3,300, the GD 470 comes with a 2.8-inch touchscreen and is also a dual-SIM device.
Speaking on the launch of the Beetel GD 470, Mr. Vinod Sawhny – Executive Director & CEO, Beetel Teletech Limited, said:
“The Beetel GD 470 is our first touch screen mobile phone and we have put tremendous efforts to provide all the necessary features at an extremely competitive price-point. As per our commitment to introduce advanced mobility devices which offer great value-proposition for the Indian customers, we will keep introducing technology products which will create milestones in the Indian market.”
The Beetel GD 470 come with “Beetel World”, a software suite with social networking and infotainment apps, like Facebook, Snaptu, Mig 33, Yahoo, ibibo, Vuclip, Reuters, Hungama and Penguin. Features include Bluetooth, video and audio players, a 1.3 MP camera, FM radio, expandable storage up to 8GB via microSD, and a large battery life, with its 1000mAh battery rated to deliver 3-4 hours of talktime and 200 hours of standby time. The GD 470 also has an Indian calendar onboard.

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Extreme Racing 2

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Report: Microsoft eyeing deal for Yahoo (again)

Is "MicroHoo" actually going to happen at last? Rumor has it that Microsoft is back in the hunt to acquire Yahoo, according to a report published by Business Insider on Friday.

The site quotes an unnamed source affiliated with Microsoft's MSN portal as saying "definitely, people are talking about" a deal for struggling Yahoo, which dumped Carol Bartz as chief executive earlier this month and held off a takeover bid by the software giant in 2008.

Yahoo is "more attractive to Microsoft than AOL," according to Business Insider's source, an opinion apparently helped along by the insight of former AOL executive Ted Cahall, who joined Microsoft as a corporate vice president in charge of MSN in August 2010.

AOL's recent travails have included a fractious battle over the role of Michael Arrington at TechCrunch, the profitable tech news site he founded and which was acquired by AOL in 2010 for $25 million. Arrington's founding of a venture capital fund raised conflict-of-interest questions and brought him into conflict with Arianna Huffington, president and editor in chief of AOL's Huffington Post Media Group.

Arrington has left the employ of AOL, leaving TechCrunch without its strongest voice and core personality, according to some critics of AOL's handling of the situation.

"People generally expect AOL to come apart one way or another," Business Insider quoted the source as saying. "I don't think that's an interesting asset. It's just been so beaten down.

"Yahoo is a lot more interesting. If it comes into play, then at least their U.S. media business is a pretty interesting asset. It's complicated because of those Asian assets."
Though Microsoft has focused on developing its Bing property in the years since it was rebuffed in the Yahoo acquisition bid, the company has recently come to believe that "MSN is a critical component of helping Bing win," according to the source.

But it wasn't entirely clear how exactly Microsoft supposedly believed Yahoo could help MSN and Bing, even if it was "a pretty interesting asset." The Business Insider source seemed as eager to tear Yahoo down as build it up.

"It's not every day that you watch both of your competitors blow themselves up," the source said, referring to Yahoo and AOL. "It's like watching a train wreck.

"The portal space is challenged. Facebook is just absorbing more and more minutes-usage. That's having an effect on portals. The time shifting toward mobile is another factor weighing on portals. The problems AOL and Yahoo have are exacerbated by management."

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