Aaj ki taaja khabar !

Best way to combat piracy !

2007-12-10T02:01:00.001-05:00

Make the pirat-able material available online for free!

This is a great news for South Park Fans, that MTv has taken this stance for the solving piracy with their South Park Studios . Very soon you will be able to download (I would have preferred streaming though, is it going to be there too?) each and every episode of South Park.

Lets hope that others follow the suite, and in this new era of 'open-ness' everything becomes available for free.

In Hindi there is a proverb - 'Na rahega baans na bajegi bansuri". Which is kind of means if the raw material itself disappears, then you will never think of using the final product...

--
Ashish Poddar
I love the permanancy in change !

Google Fixes IE Bug

2005-12-06T20:08:00.000-05:00

"aussie_a writes 'Without accepting blame Google has quickly patched the vulnerability, without requiring users to download a patch. Previously covered by Slashdot, the flaw allowed people to access files and passwords on a computer via any website when viewed with IE while running Google Desktop.' From the article: ''Google was able to address the problem quickly because it didn't require changing any code at the user's desktop,' MacDonald said. 'Google applied more stringent security controls on its main site, which shut down the exploit.' The incident does raise important questions about Google as a desktop software vendor and its plans for rolling out future security fixes, said MacDonald. '"

Technology Enabled Leather Jacket

2005-12-06T20:06:00.000-05:00

"Definitely a cool idea for those who love taking their gadgets with them. This leather jacket is from the Technology Enabled Clothing line of Scottevest - and it has 41 pockets, many of them hidden, along with a tunnel architecture to keep headphone wires inside the lining of the jacket!"

now with this technology equipped jacket, u just have to search for how many things you can stuff in it !

Google's Ten Golden Rules

2005-12-06T20:01:00.000-05:00

selvan writes 'Newsweek is running an article entitled Google's Ten Golden Rules. The article, by Eric Schmidt and Hal Varian, going into the philosophy behind the company.' From the article: 'Don't be evil. Much has been written about Google's slogan, but we really try to live by it, particularly in the ranks of management. As in every organization, people are passionate about their views. But nobody throws chairs at Google, unlike management practices used at some other well-known technology companies. We foster to create an atmosphere of tolerance and respect, not a company full of yes men.'

More Online Bookmarkers

2005-12-06T19:44:00.000-05:00

On some page, you wanna look later! Add it to del.icio.us, but then everyone knows what u were looking at ! Its pretty much public.

but now we have a private online bookmarker - LookLater !

yet another service oriented site in the ever-increasing ocean of service oriented sites !

Google pays Firefox Users

2005-11-05T20:16:00.000-05:00

Mozilla Firefox is a web browser with pop-up blocking, tabbed browsing, and privacy and security features. We've integrated the Google Toolbar into the Firefox download to offer you even more features: Google search, SpellCheck, and Autofill.

For more information on Firefox, visit http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox.
For a list of Google Toolbar features, visit http://toolbar.google.com.

AdSense publishers can generate earnings by referring users to Firefox - just follow these instructions, being sure to select Firefox as the product.

Techworld.com - Microsoft to threaten VMware?

2005-10-24T00:14:00.000-04:00

Meanwhile, Microsoft lurks in the wings and is VMware's greatest threat. The current version of Microsoft Virtual Server, based on the technology Microsoft acquired when it bought Connectix in 2003, will run only on Windows and, although it'll run pretty much any x86-based system as a guest OS, Microsoft will only offer support for its own products. Microsoft has promised though that its Virtual PC that will support OSes other than Windows, and we can expect that version by the end of 2005.

In the longer term, Virtual Server is likely to disappear as the server version of Microsoft's upcoming OS Vista will include hypervisor capabilities, replacing the OS itself. 'In the future, we're going to build the hypervisor and the virtualization stack into Windows,' confirmed Microsoft's server product manager Bob Muglia.

Infosys chief resigns as BIAL chairman : HindustanTimes.com

2005-10-23T15:02:00.000-04:00

The on-going cold war between the IT industry and former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda on Thursday claimed its first casualty when Infosys Chairman and Chief Mentor NR Narayana Murthy resigned as Chairman of the Bangalore International Airport Ltd (BIAL).

Deeply hurt by Gowda's accusation that he had contributed nothing to the airport project, India's most celebrated technocrat wrote to Karnataka Chief Minister N Dharam Singh informing him of his decision to relinquish the post that he held for the last five years.

'I wish he (Gowda) had asked me personally before going to the press, or talked to you or ascertained it from members of the (BIAL) board.' I am disappointed that a former prime minister did not accord me this basic courtesy,' Murthy said in his letter to Singh.

FBI puts stop to spam king - 10/16/05

2005-10-23T13:46:00.000-04:00

'We're out of business at this point in time,' Ralsky said last week. 'They didn't shut us down. They took all our equipment, which had the effect of shutting us down.'

The raid is the latest episode in a cat-and-mouse game between anti-spammers and Ralsky, 60, a gregarious, heavy-smoking ex-convict considered Public Enemy No. 1 in some pockets of the Internet.

In 2002, Ralsky agreed to an undisclosed cash settlement to end a landmark lawsuit from Verizon Internet Services, which alleged he twice paralyzed its network in 2000 with his pitches for diet pills, vacations and such. The deal forbade Ralsky's companies from sending spam on its networks.

Wetware: Using AJAX to track user behavior

2005-10-23T12:30:00.000-04:00

Wetware: Using AJAX to track user behavior: "Here's a thought. With the rise of AJAX applications this is bound to happen, and may very well have been implemented somewhere, even though a quick search didn't reveal a lot. So here goes:

By adding a few clever Javascript events to a web page, it is possible to track user behavior on web pages far more than with the typical methods.

Similar methods have for a long time been used on some sites (including my own Spurl.net) to track clicks on links. A very simple script could also log how far down a page a user scrolls, over which elements he hovers the mouse and even infer how long he spends looking at different parts of the page and probably several other things usability experts and web publishers would kill (or at least seriously injure) to learn.

Even though it's nowhere near as precise as the famous eyetracking heatmaps (here's the one for Google's result pages), it provides a cheap method for web publishers to help better position ads and user interface elements, experiment with different layouts, etc.

Does anybody know of implementations like this? Does it raise some new privacy concerns?"

Yahoo in talks for AOL stake: source | Reuters.com

2005-10-14T17:09:00.000-04:00

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Yahoo Inc. has held early stage discussions to buy a stake in Time Warner Inc.'s America Online Internet unit, a source briefed on the matter said on Friday .

The source characterized the discussions as 'informational' and said it was far from the level of depth AOL has reached with Microsoft Corp. or with Google Inc..

Google and Comcast Corp. are also mulling a joint investment in AOL.

A Yahoo spokeswoman declined to comment on 'speculation or rumor.' Time Warner declined comment.

Reports of the discussions with Yahoo have appeared in various media reports since the New York Post first reported Microsoft's interest in AOL in September.

The Internet media network joins a crowded field of suitors, which now view AOL as the prize that could catapult the winner into the leading market position on the Internet.

US and France press Iran over nuclear program - Reuters.com

2005-10-14T17:07:00.000-04:00

PARIS (Reuters) - The United States and France increased pressure on Iran on Friday to return to negotiations over its suspected nuclear arms programs and made new threats to refer Tehran to the U.N. Security Council.

'We hope the Iranians will return to the table ... but one thing that is very clear is the Security Council is an option,' U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told a news conference after talks in Paris with French leaders.

New Scientist Archive - News - Ancient noodle rewrites history

2005-10-14T17:03:00.000-04:00

WHO invented the noodle is a hotly contested topic - with the Chinese, Italians and Arabs all staking a claim.

But the discovery of a pot of thin yellow noodles preserved for 4000 years in Yellow river silt may have tipped the bowl in China's favour. It suggests that people were eating noodles at least 1000 years earlier than previously thought, and many centuries before such dishes were documented in Europe.

'These are undoubtedly the oldest noodles ever found,' says Houyuan Lu at China's Institute of Geology and Geophysics in Beijing. His team found the noodles buried 3 metres deep in flood-plain sediment at Lajia in north-eastern China after lifting out an upturned bowl. The 'spaghetti-like' noodles, up to 50 centimetres long, sat atop a mound of silt which had sealed them in the bowl following a major earthquake and flood.

Microsoft convicted of software piracy - vnunet.com

2005-10-06T03:50:00.000-04:00

Microsoft was found guilty of software piracy last year by a French court, according to facts unearthed today by the geek community.

But the Redmond giant's conviction and three million franc (£285,000) fine somehow managed to escape the headlines. In fact, until today the only place the story has appeared is in French newspaper Le Monde Informatique.

And the only person who noticed the irony of the world's most aggressive anti-piracy firm being fined for piracy was Peruvian congressman Edgar David Villanueva Nunez.

Nunez inadvertently became a hero of the open source movement last month when he penned a letter to Juan Alberto Gonzalez, general manager of Microsoft Peru, arguing that the free software model does not break any intellectual property laws.

Google Gets Own Birthday Wrong, and then tries to Cover Up Its Mistake!

2005-10-03T11:08:00.000-04:00

Google's official birthday is September 7, 1998,' reads Google's cache, and, as of Sept. 25th, read Google's page too. Today, when they goofed and said their birthday was the 27th, not the 7th, they took out the date from their page. BUT GOOGLE CACHE TELLS ALL.

Google: Help Center:

"When is Google's official birthday?

Google's official birthday is September 7, 1998. If Google were a person, it would have started elementary school late last summer (around August 19), and today it would have just finished the first grade. In other words, we're just getting started. To discover more about Google's history, please visit http://www.google.com/intl/en/corporate/history.html. To learn about our mission, please see http://www.google.com/intl/en/corporate/index.html"

Google: Help Center:

"When is Google's birthday?

Google opened its doors in September 1998. The exact date when we celebrate our birthday has moved around over the years, depending on when people feel like having cake. For more on Google's history:
http://www.google.com/corporate/history.html"

London Free Press - Business - Google, Microsoft square off

2005-10-03T10:00:00.000-04:00

Employers can contractually protect their business from unfair competition, employees can seek judicial intervention where clauses are too broad or restrictive, and the public will continue to have a market unrestricted by onerous clauses in employment contracts.

The court ruled in an interim proceeding that Lee can begin recruiting staff for Google's development centre in China.

The decision restricts him, however, to recruitment and government liaison activities. He cannot participate in research or work on Google's speech or search technologies. He is barred from recruiting Microsoft employees or using confidential information from Microsoft in his work at Google.

The trial will begin in a few months.

Counties Switch to Biodiesel School Buses | Associated Press

2005-10-02T05:29:00.000-04:00

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) -- Sherry Dean has a secret she's been keeping from her drivers since March - their Upshur County school buses are running on an alternative fuel made of vegetable oil and diesel.

'I wanted to run it without my drivers or mechanics knowing,' she said. 'That way I can have a true feeling for how it's doing.'

So far, the results have been 'great.'

Experts: Future of Big Hurricanes Looms | Associated Press

2005-10-02T05:28:00.000-04:00

Natural disaster in the United States has morphed to a dangerous new level. Some experts say the nation can expect to be pummeled by more of these mega-catastrophes over the next 20 or 30 years in a nasty conspiracy of unfavorable weather patterns, changing demographics and political denial.

A month after Katrina and one week after Rita, it's not clear how the United States will play the new hand that nature has apparently dealt.

'Are we prepared to lose a major city every year?' asks Carnegie Mellon University risk strategist Baruch Fischhoff. 'It's cowardice not to ask the question, and cowardice on the public's part not to get engaged in the answer.'

Scientists Discover 10th Planet's Moon | Associated Press

2005-10-02T05:27:00.000-04:00

While observing the new, so-called planet from Hawaii last month, a team of astronomers led by Michael Brown of the California Institute of Technology spotted a faint object trailing next to it. Because it was moving, astronomers ruled it was a moon and not a background star, which is stationary.

The moon discovery is important because it can help scientists determine the new planet's mass. In July, Brown announced the discovery of an icy, rocky object larger than Pluto in the Kuiper Belt, a disc of icy bodies beyond Neptune. Brown labeled the object a planet and nicknamed it Xena after the lead character in the former TV series 'Xena: Warrior Princess.' The moon was nicknamed Gabrielle, after Xena's faithful traveling sidekick.

Slaying May Hurt U.S. Image in Afghanistan: AP News

2005-10-02T05:26:00.000-04:00

Underscoring the danger, militants firing rocket-propelled grenades killed a U.S. soldier and wounded another during combat operations Friday near the southern city of Kandahar, the military said. The death brought to 198 the number of U.S. service members killed in or around Afghanistan since the ouster of the unpopular Taliban regime in late 2001.

Relatives of the slain interpreter, 37-year old Noor Ahmad, threatened to set themselves on fire unless his American supervisor is tried for his death, which occurred at a compound of U.S. Protection and Investigations in western Farah province. U.S. Embassy spokesman Lou Fintor told The Associated Press that it was 'our understanding that this American citizen is no longer in Afghanistan.'

In a flash, hard-drive memory fading | Reuters.com

2005-10-02T03:29:00.000-04:00

SAN FRANCISCO (Billboard) - When Apple Computer CEO Steve Jobs introduced the iPod Nano on September 7, he predicted it would be the best-selling iPod model ever.

That is a strong statement, considering the Nano is only Apple's second device to incorporate flash memory instead of a hard drive. It is an even stronger endorsement of flash-based technology from a company that until this year declined to use it in a single product.

Google Bidding to Provide Free Wireless Internet Access to All of San Francisco - KXL.com

2005-10-02T01:28:00.000-04:00

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Google Inc. wants to connect all of San Francisco to the Internet with a free wireless service, creating a springboard for the online search engine leader to leap into the telecommunications industry.

The Mountain View, Calif.-based company filed an application late Friday to provide wireless, or 'WiFi,' service that would enable anyone in San Francisco to connect to the Internet.

Google submitted its 100-page bid in response to a request from Mayor Gavin Newsom, who is looking for a company to finance a free wireless network to lower the financial barriers to Internet access in his city.

Technology News Article | Reuters.com

2005-10-02T01:27:00.000-04:00

Technology News Article | Reuters.com: "'We will launch more value products at affordable prices in India soon to reduce software piracy levels,' Bradford Smith told reporters late on Friday in the southern city of Hyderabad, where Microsoft has a software development facility.

The low-cost Windows starter version for India will be available in Hindi and English at 1,000 rupees, which would also help reduce entry-level personal computer prices to 10,000 rupees, he said."

Celebs Gather in Miss. for Katrina Concert > Associated Press Headlines

2005-10-02T01:23:00.000-04:00

OXFORD, Miss. (AP) -- Actor Morgan Freeman opened a star-studded benefit concert for hurricane victims Saturday, telling a national television audience that the state he calls home 'will rise again' from the ruins of the storm's destruction.

Freeman, who lives in Tallahatchie County in northern Mississippi, described families living in tents on sites where their homes used to stand before Hurricane Katrina. But he assured viewers that the people would bounce back.

BBC NEWS | UK | London blasts cause chaos on Tube

2005-10-02T01:05:00.000-04:00

The minor explosions - two weeks after blasts killed 56 - involved detonators only, a BBC reporter said. There was one injury.

Police sources say the blasts may have been near simultaneous and that they are being linked with the 7 July bombs.

They say a number of fugitives are being sought. Two people have been arrested in Whitehall.

NASA Takes Giant Step Toward Finding Earth-Like Planets

2005-10-02T01:00:00.000-04:00

By combining light from the telescopes, the Keck Interferometer has a resolving power equivalent to a football-field sized telescope. The “technological touchdown” of blocking starlight was achieved by adding an instrument called a “nuller.”

This setup may eventually help scientists select targets for NASA’s envisioned Terrestrial Planet Finder missions. The success of those potential future missions, one observing in visible light and one in infrared, depends on being able to find Earth-like planets in the dust rings around stars.

U.S. millionaire prepares for blastoff - The Daytona Beach News-Journal

2005-10-01T00:58:00.000-04:00

BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan (AP) -- U.S millionaire scientist Gregory Olsen, the world's third space tourist, bid farewell to his family Friday during final preparations for his flight to the international space station with a Russian-American crew.

The 60-year-old founder of an infrared-camera maker based in Princeton, N.J., reportedly paid $20 million for a seat on the Expedition 12 flight.

Australia gives back to China 10,000 illegally imported fossils, including dinosaur eggs - Charleston.net

2005-10-01T00:56:00.000-04:00

The minister formally handed the fossils over to Chinese Ambassador Fu Ying at a ceremony held at the Chinese consulate in the Western Australia state capital, Perth.

'In 230 million years, a short detour to Australia and back is a mere blip in history,' Campbell told the gathering. 'All in all, it is a massive collection. It is one of the biggest fossil hauls in world history, and certainly the biggest in Chinese and Australian history.'

Campbell said he hoped Australia's cooperation with China would signal 'yet another strengthening of the relationship' between the two countries.

EU Insists That Governments and Private Sector Share Responsibility of Overseeing Internet - KXL.com

2005-10-01T00:41:00.000-04:00

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) -- The European Union insisted Friday that governments and the private sector must share the responsibility of overseeing the Internet, setting the stage for a showdown with the United States on the future of Internet governance.

A senior U.S. official reiterated Thursday that the country wants to remain the Internet's ultimate authority, rejecting calls in a United Nations meeting in Geneva for a U.N. body to take over.

EU spokesman Martin Selmayr said a new cooperation model was important 'because the Internet is a global resource.'

'The EU ... is very firm on this position,' he added.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill on Friday making Internet "phishing" identity theft scams punishable by law. - Reuters

2005-09-30T23:12:00.000-04:00

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill on Friday making Internet "phishing" identity theft scams punishable by law.

The bill, advanced by state Sen. Kevin Murray, is the first of its kind in the United States and makes "phishing" -- getting people to divulge personal information via e-mail by representing oneself as a business without the approval or authority of the business -- a civil violation.

Victims may seek to recover actual damages or $500,000 for each violation, depending upon which is greater.

Phishing often involves the use of names of legitimate banks, retailers and financial institutions to convince recipients of bogus e-mail offers to respond.

Texas Judge Orders Teen Barred From Sex - Associated Press

2005-09-30T01:54:00.000-04:00

SHERMAN, Texas (AP) -- A state district judge has ordered a 17-year-old drug offender barred from sex as a condition of her probation. Judge Lauri Blake made the ruling that bars the girl from having sex as long as she is living with her parents and attending school.

It is one of several unorthodox rulings Blake has imposed since she was elected 10 months ago in the 336th District Court covering Fannin and Grayson counties.

She has also prohibited tattoos, body piercings, earrings and clothing 'associated with the drug culture' for those on probation.

Blake also enforces rules on the lawyers in her courtroom including a ban on sleeveless shirts and cleavage.

New Car Aimed at Drivers With Parking Woes - The Beaumont Enterprise

2005-09-30T01:52:00.000-04:00

TOKYO (AP) -- For drivers who find backing out of tight parking spots a hassle, Nissan has an answer: An egg-shaped car whose body pivots 360 degrees so that its rear end becomes the front.

The Pivo, shown Friday at a Tokyo Nissan showroom, is still an experimental model and probably won't go on sale publicly for several years. It is a three-seater electric car that looks like a big egg on wheels. Its body revolves in a complete circle while its wheels stay put.

Amtrak Train Derails in Eastern Missouri - AP Headlines

2005-09-30T01:50:00.000-04:00

BLACKWELL, Mo. (AP) -- An Amtrak train carrying 103 people derailed in eastern Missouri after apparently striking boulders on the tracks from a rockslide, officials said Thursday. About 20 people sustained minor injuries.

The Texas Eagle, which runs between Chicago and San Antonio, derailed around 11:30 p.m. Wednesday while carrying 90 passengers and 13 crew members. One passenger and one crew member remained hospitalized Thursday, said Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari.

Indian Center Handles Hurricane Rita Calls - The Beaumont Enterprise

2005-09-30T01:49:00.000-04:00

The call center, run by Effective Teleservices of Lufkin, Texas, set up a temporary hot line for victims of the hurricane, and Patel and her colleagues took calls from frantic, scared people affected by the storm half a world away.

The employees at the call center in Gandhinagar, the capital of Gujarat state, provided Texas residents with information about relief operations and where to get food, gasoline and shelter, said center director Jim Iyoob, a former Texan.

At one point, he said the center was handling about 20-25 calls an hour.

Yahoo accused of Stealing Trade Secrets - Times-News

2005-09-30T00:25:00.000-04:00

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- A Silicon Valley technology company is suing Yahoo Inc. for allegedly stealing trade secrets by hiring away 13 key engineers who had nearly completed its interactive speech technology project.

Nuance Communications Inc. said it would ask a Santa Clara County judge Friday to block Yahoo from allowing the engineers to work on the technology it intended to market to Yahoo and other Internet companies.

The California case concerns voice recognition technology that Nuance says was at least 75 percent complete before its vice president of research and development, Larry Heck, took a job at Santa Clara-based Yahoo. About a dozen Nuance engineers on the project followed him to Yahoo this month, leading Nuance to conclude that Yahoo is attempting to swipe its technology.

New Scientist Breaking News - Space tourist will experiment on himself

2005-09-29T23:56:00.000-04:00

But the trained materials scientist will not simply be snapping pictures and floating in microgravity during his week-long station visit, for which he paid an estimated $20 million. He has also agreed to conduct experiments on himself.

'I do not consider myself a space tourist,' says Olsen, who made his fortune making sensors and photonics equipment. 'Learning how to live and work in space and my upcoming mission are truly a dream come true for me. But I am first and foremost a scientist, and I am going to carry out real science aboard the ISS.'

In an arrangement with the European Space Agency, he will carry out three experiments to study how the human body behaves in space. He will investigate space sickness, lower back pain and collect data on microorganisms inside the ISS.

Is it "The dat after Tomorrow" in reality?

2005-09-29T23:55:00.000-04:00

Sea ice in the Arctic reached a record low this summer, accelerating a melting trend evident for a quarter-century, US government scientists have reported.

The extent of Arctic sea ice typically reaches a minimum in September each year. And between 16 and 21 September this year, there were just 5.3 million square kilometres, 20% less than the average since 1978.

The figure is probably the lowest for at least a century, says Julienne Stroeve of the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) of the University of Colorado at Boulder, which collated satellite data supplied by NASA since 1978.

The data reveal that the rate of disappearance of ice has now risen to an average of 8% per decade. The figures reinforce previous forecasts that the Arctic is likely to be free of ice during most summers by about 2080.

So this is where Dinosaurs came from?

2005-09-29T23:53:00.000-04:00

A sharp increase in the Earth’s atmospheric oxygen levels about 50 million years ago was responsible for the rise of the large mammals, a new study claims.

“We argue that the rise in oxygen content allowed mammals to become very, very large – mammals like 12-foot-tall sloths and huge sabre-toothed cats,” says Paul Falkowski at Rutgers University in New Jersey, US, who led the study. Higher oxygen levels means animals can grow larger and still maintain the supply of oxygen to their muscles.

Official Google Blog: This is "beach-front"?

2005-09-29T23:50:00.000-04:00

Have you ever wondered if that 'beach-front' condo really is beach-front? Recently I planned a trip to Hawaii and saw one particularly breathless condo listing that described the property as being just 400 'steps' from the beach. Now having seen the location, I think the owner was obviously very tall...

Using the measure feature in Google Earth, you can take a little bit of the guesswork out of finding the perfect accommodations. Just follow these three simple steps !

Dell to stop free home delivery of computers - Reuters.com

2005-09-29T23:49:00.000-04:00

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Dell Inc. (DELL.O: Quote, Profile, Research) will stop its practice of sending low-end computers to customers homes without charge in order to cut costs, the company said on Thursday.

Starting on October 10, Dell's free shipping offer on basic models will apply only to people willing to pick up their computers at the post office, said Jennifer Davis, spokeswoman for Dell's U.S. consumer business. Customers will have to pay extra for home delivery.

Puerto Rico Town May Build UFO Site - AP

2005-09-29T00:38:00.000-04:00

LAJAS, Puerto Rico (AP) -- People in this sleepy hamlet are so sure they have been receiving other-worldly visitors, they want to build a UFO landing strip to welcome them.

A bright green sign along a lonely country road in southwestern Puerto Rico proudly displays a silhouette of a flying saucer and two words: 'Extraterrestrial Route.'

Google may build campus on NASA property - A Gannett Suburban webpaper

2005-09-29T00:33:00.000-04:00

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (AP) -- Google Inc. said Wednesday that it has signed an agreement to develop up to 1 million square feet on a NASA research center in the heart of Silicon Valley.

The development is part of a partnership between Google and the NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View. The company and government agency will work together to develop data management and computing tools, as well as promote entrepreneurial initiatives in outer space.

Google's announcement didn't provide details about what it might build at NASA Ames, but the company has made it clear that it needs more office space to accommodate its rapidly growing work force.

Google ends boycott of News.com - A Gannett Suburban webpaper

2005-09-29T00:30:00.000-04:00

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Google Inc.'s boycott of News.com appears to have ended quietly, less than three months after company executives told the technology news site that they would stop speaking with its reporters for a year.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt granted an interview this week to News.com's Elinor Mills, the reporter whose article in July about privacy issues raised by Google's search engine apparently offended the company.

For her July story, Mills went looking for details on Schmidt to illustrate the kind of information available through Google. She noted in the piece that his net worth was $1.5 billion, that he donated $25,000 to the Democratic National Committee and that he had attended the Burning Man counterculture festival.

Design of $100 laptop for kids unveiled - A Gannett Suburban webpaper

2005-09-29T00:24:00.000-04:00

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) -- The $100 laptop computers that Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers want to get into the hands of the world's children would be durable, flexible and self-reliant.

The machines' AC adapter would double as a carrying strap, and a hand crank would power them when there's no electricity. They'd be foldable into more positions than traditional notebook PCs, and carried like slim lunchboxes.

For outdoor reading, their display would be able to shift from full color to glare-resistant black and white.

Museum Dropped From WTC Site For Now - Times Record News

2005-09-29T00:22:00.000-04:00

The decision followed months of acrimony, with some Sept. 11 families and politicians saying the freedom center would overshadow and take space from the separate memorial devoted to the 2,749 World Trade Center dead and would dishonor them by fostering debate about the attacks and other world events.

Iron Age Woman's Skeleton Found in Denmark - www.dailyrecord.com

2005-09-28T23:42:00.000-04:00

The woman, who was between 20 and 40 when she died, probably lived around the year A.D. 400, said Tom Giersing of the Kroppedal Museum in Taastrup.

'What we find interesting is her bones are well-preserved and she had jewelry - glass pearls and a metal chain - which could indicate that she was wealthy,' said Giersing, who headed the excavation.

Denmark's best known Iron Age findings are the well-preserved bog bodies of the so-called Tollund man and Grauballe man, named after the two villages where they found. The Iron Age in Denmark lasted from about 500 B.C. to 750 A.D.

When is a planet not a planet? - New Scientist

2005-09-28T23:26:00.000-04:00

One of the two proposals to be submitted on Friday is based simply on an object's size - a definition that Stern favours. That would increase the number of planets in the solar system, with Pluto being just one of several known Kuiper Belt objects of about the same size that would qualify as a planet.

But some of the team say choosing a size cutoff for the definition is arbitrary. "There is no scientific value in maintaining that there are nine planets, including Pluto as one out of many similar small bodies," says group member Brian Marsden, head of the IAU's Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US.

The second proposal would decrease the number of planets in the solar system by demoting Pluto. This definition says a planet is the dominant body in its immediate neighbourhood - a title based on its size relative to its neighbours and the dynamics of its orbit. Objects in the asteroid belt beyond Mars, for example, would not be planets because there are so many of them in the same region, while Pluto would not count because it crosses the orbit of its more massive neighbour Neptune.

But a third proposal has been discussed that does away entirely with the term "planet" - an option Williams calls a "fudge factor". It uses qualifying adjectives to define subclasses of planets based on characteristics like location, composition or culture. In this scheme, Earth might be a "terrestrial planet" and Pluto a "historic planet".

Rita is one of most powerful hurricanes for decades - News Scientist

2005-09-28T23:23:00.000-04:00

Hurricane Rita became the third most intense hurricane ever recorded in the North Atlantic on Wednesday night.

Hurricane intensity is measured by the drop in pressure in the eye of the storm. A US air force reconnaissance plane measured a pressure of 898 millibars. Lower pressures have been recorded in only two other storms: 888 millibars in Hurricane Gilbert in 1988 and 892 millibars in the "Labor Day" hurricane that hit Key West in 1935. Average pressure at sea level is 1013.25 millibars.

Rita has also strengthened to a “potentially catastrophic Category 5”, said the US National Hurricane Center (NHC) in Miami, Florida, on Thursday.

Witchcraft training gets tax break - Reuters

2005-09-28T22:45:00.000-04:00

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Dutch tax authorities have allowed a woman to deduct the 2,210 euros it cost her to take a one-year course in witchcraft, an inland revenue official said Wednesday.

The 39-year actress and artist learned how to use crystal balls and prepare herbs, and also spells and other witchcraft skills at the course held in the country's northwest.

"The woman used the training in order to start ... giving workshops, so she used it to extend her professional knowledge," the tax official told Reuters.

Margarita Roland, who gave the course and whose Web site (http://www.heksehoeve.nl/) shows her with a broomstick and pointed hat, said she teaches apprentices all they need to know to become a witch, using magic as a force for good.

"A witch is a wise woman or man who knows about the magic of life in general and the magic of the earth in particular," said Roland, known as the "witch of Appelscha" after her home town.

Erotic chat grounds for divorce? - Reuters

2005-09-28T22:43:00.000-04:00

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Erotic talk with a virtual partner in chatrooms on the Internet are enough grounds for a spouse to file for divorce, a legal magazine said Wednesday, citing a recent ruling in Belgium.

Belgian legal publication De Juristenkrant said the Brussels Appeals Court ruled that although transcripts of the erotic chatroom conversation do not prove adultery, they do constitute proof of "grossly insulting behavior" which is sufficient grounds to file for divorce.

Scientific support for 'intelligent design' disputed

2005-09-28T01:40:00.000-04:00

Advocates of intelligent design argue that living things are too complex to be explained by natural forces alone. Therefore, they say, only a higher power - God or an unnamed "designer" - could create life and empower it to evolve into the myriad species of organisms on Earth today.

The vast majority of working scientists contend that biological evolution is an established fact supported by overwhelming evidence. They say that evolution's mechanism is well explained by the process of random mutation and natural selection that Charles Darwin described 147 years ago.

The design movement asserts that Darwinism is unable to explain not only the origin of life, but also gaps in the fossil record, the vast variety of modern body shapes, the complexity of a cell or the genetic information contained in DNA.

Mainstream scientists contend that there's no positive scientific evidence for intelligent design. They say the case for a supernatural designer is purely negative - an unjustified leap into theology to explain holes and uncertainties in evolutionary theory.

"The only evidence that intelligent design is able to muster is the observation that science has not yet explained everything, and therefore design must be kept around as a default explanation for what is left," said Kenneth Miller, a biologist at Brown University in Providence, R.I.

"There is exactly zero evidence for intelligent design," agreed Douglas Futuyma, a biologist at the State University of New York in Stony Brook. "Design advocates argue by claiming flaws or gaps in evolutionary knowledge or theory, not by any positive evidence whatever for their theory."

"We are challenging the philosophy of scientific materialism, not science itself," says a policy statement from the Discovery Institute in Seattle, the headquarters of the design movement.

Following are three of the reasons some scientists offer for intelligent design:

COMPLEXITY

A basic text of the intelligent design movement is "Darwin's Black Box," published in 1996 by Michael Behe, a biochemist at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa. Behe argues that living cells are far too complex to be explained by Darwinian evolution.

He calls this the problem of "irreducible complexity" and says it led him to conclude that cells must have been designed by an intelligent agent. He leaves it to his readers to decide whether the designer is God.

THE REBUTTAL

"The notion of irreducible complexity is nonsense," Miller, the Brown University biologist, responded in his 1999 book, "Finding Darwin's God."

"The mechanism of evolution is real, is observable and is more than adequate to the task," Miller said. "Evolution tinkers, improvises and cobbles together new organs out of old parts."

THE CAMBRIAN EXPLOSION

A key argument from the intelligent design camp is that Darwinian evolution can't explain the so-called Cambrian Explosion, an astounding blossoming of animal life around 530 million years ago.

The event is sometimes known as "Evolution's Big Bang," when major new groups of animals - including shellfish, insects and creatures with spinal cords, the ancestors of fish, reptiles and mammals - spread rapidly over the Earth.

THE REBUTTAL

Mainstream biologists, however, insist that Darwinian evolution can explain the rise of new phyla and species. They say the Cambrian explosion wasn't as abrupt or as inexplicable as the design movement contends.

New evidence shows that relatively complex animals existed as many as 125 million years before the Cambrian period. Fossil embryos 40 million to 55 million years before the Cambrian have recently been discovered in southern China.

THE ORIGIN OF LIFE

Scientists associated with the design movement claim support for their theory from the fact that mainstream Darwinists cannot tell how life began. There are many hypotheses, but no consensus, on how lifeless molecules became living cells.

THE REBUTTAL

In response, Robert Hazen, a geologist at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, said, "We don't have all the answers right now, but there is no evidence that the origin of life is other than a natural process."

In his new book, "Genesis: The Scientific Quest for Life's Origin," Hazen recounted a host of experiments that attempt to show how chemical evolution might have produced a primitive "proto-cell" from complex organic molecules that were readily available on the early Earth. After that beginning, he said, the cells could have gradually evolved into the enormous range of organisms inhabiting the planet.

Science & Technology at Scientific American.com: Young Universe Home to 'Big Baby' Galaxy, Astronomers Report

2005-09-28T01:17:00.000-04:00

Astronomers have found a surprisingly heavy early galaxy, according to a new report. Data from two NASA telescopes have revealed the presence of a galaxy that had eight times the mass of our own Milky Way when it was less than a billion years old. "This galaxy appears to have 'bulked up' amazingly quickly, within the first few hundred million years after the big bang," remarks team member Bahram Mobasher of the Space Telescope Science Institute and the European Space Agency.

Astronomers used the Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes to take an inventory of very distant galaxies. Within the region of sky known as the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, which contains nearly 10,000 galaxies, one known as HUDF-JD2 stood out. The light coming from it originated when the universe was about 800 million years old and indicates that the stars within it are heftier than expected. "This would be quite a big galaxy, even today," says Mark Dickinson of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory. "At a time when the universe was only 800 million years old, it's positively gigantic." The researchers describe the find in papers slated for publication in the November and December issues of the Astrophysical Journal.

» Microsoft and the HD DVD format wars | John Carroll | ZDNet.com

2005-09-28T01:16:00.000-04:00

Intel and Microsoft have officially come out of the "agnostic" camp and backed HD-DVD, one of two formats vying to become the standard for next-generation DVDs. The need for a new standard is apparent. People are buying High-Definition television sets, and as should be immediately obvious to anyone who has seen the same video displayed side by side in standard-definition and high-definition format, high-definition looks MUCH better. In fact, it's on par with the clarity of traditional film, and seems likely to become the format that unifies the world of TVs with the world of cinema-grade video.

This is the battle between Betamax and VHS, but with better looking artillary. Betamax was technically better than VHS. The same can be said of Blu-Ray. Both formats read their data using a 405nm wavelength blue-violet laser. Blu-Ray, however, stores approximately 25GB of data on a single-layer disk, while HD-DVD stores 15GB (note: someone recently pointed out that Blu-Ray dual-layer discs don't currently exist, while HD-DVD dual-layer discs do, which makes HD-DVD, at 30GB on a dual-layer disc, the current size leader).

Google to Remove Boast About Index Size

2005-09-27T23:50:00.000-04:00

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Google Inc. will stop boasting on its home page about the number of Web pages it has stored in its index, even as the online search engine leader continues a crusade to prove it scans substantially more material than its rivals.

The Mountain View, Calif.-based company planned to remove the index size late Monday. It will mark the first time in more than five years that Google hasn't listed the size of its search index on its sparse home page.

When Google started the practice in mid-2000, the index spanned 1 billion pages; as of Monday afternoon, Google's home page said the search index contained 8.17 billion pages.

'Caveman' conditions in Texas Follow Rita

2005-09-27T23:31:00.000-04:00

"Hurricane Rita victims are 'living like cavemen,' emergency official says four days after storm"

PORT ARTHUR, Texas (AP) -- Nearly four days after Hurricane Rita hit, many of the storm's sweltering victims along the Texas Gulf Coast were still waiting for electricity, gasoline, water and other relief Tuesday, prompting one top emergency official to complain that people are "living like cavemen."

In the hard-hit refinery towns of Port Arthur and Beaumont, crews struggled to cross debris-clogged streets to deliver generators and water to people stranded by Rita. They predicted it could be a month before power is restored, and said water and sewer systems could not function until more generators arrived.

U.S. forces leaving base in Uzbekistan

2005-09-27T23:24:00.000-04:00

TASHKENT, Uzbekistan (AP) -- A senior State Department official said Tuesday the president of Uzbekistan made it clear that American forces must leave their air base in the Central Asian country, and the U.S. intends to do so "without further discussion."

The demand came as relations soured following U.S. criticism of Uzbekistan's crackdown on anti-government protesters in May in the eastern city of Andijan.

Israel widens offensive on Gaza, WBank militants

2005-09-27T23:22:00.000-04:00

GAZA (Reuters) - Israel widened an offensive against Palestinian militants on Wednesday, launching several predawn air raids that knocked out electricity in Gaza City and sweeping into two West Bank cities, witnesses said.

The escalating violence has battered hopes that Israel's troop pullout from Gaza two weeks ago, billed as "disengagement" from conflict, would boost chances for peace.

Bush views hurricane damage on 7th trip to region

2005-09-27T22:25:00.000-04:00

LAKE CHARLES, Louisiana (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush flew over hurricane-damaged homes and oil installations on Tuesday on his seventh trip to survey recovery efforts as he asked Americans to reduce energy consumption.

"This area is hurting," Bush said. "I saw firsthand how it's hurting."

After directing White House staff to curb nonessential travel, Bush was briefed by local officials about the damage from Hurricanes Rita and Katrina, first in Texas and then in Louisiana, where he took an aerial tour that included flying over an offshore oil rig.

Tupac Screenplay Being Produced As a Film - Yahoo! News

2005-09-27T22:23:00.000-04:00

LOS ANGELES - A screenplay written by slain rapper Tupac Shakur is being produced as a feature film.
ADVERTISEMENT

"Live 2 Tell," a script Shakur wrote in 1995 about an inner-city black youth who becomes a drug kingpin and later goes straight, was acquired by Insomnia Media Group, which plans to begin production next March, company Chairman Bret Saxon and Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bowler said Tuesday.

Scientists Photograph Giant Squid in Wild - Yahoo! News

2005-09-27T22:22:00.000-04:00

TOKYO - A pair of Japanese scientists have photographed for the first time in the wild a live giant squid, one of the most mysterious creatures of the deep-sea.

The Japanese scientists led by Tsunemi Kubodera, from the National Science Museum in Tokyo, tracked the 25-foot long Architeuthis as it attacked prey nearly 3,000 feet deep off the coast of Japan's Bonin islands.

"We believe this is the first time a grown giant squid has been captured on camera in its natural habitat," said Kyoichi Mori, a marine researcher who co-authored a piece on the finding in the Royal Society Journal, a leading British biological publication.

Microsoft is here to guard your data!

2005-09-27T22:20:00.000-04:00

Data Protection Manager does incremental backups and can take snapshots of data from Windows servers up to eight times a day.

Microsoft Tuesday shipped its near-continual data backup title, Data Protection Manager (DPM), a year after it began testing the disk-to-disk backup application in beta.

Microsoft's first entry into disk-based backup, DPM relies on Windows Active Directory to sniff out available servers, and ties with Microsoft Operations Manager's console so administrators can monitor DPM servers.

The Sexiest Case!

2005-09-27T22:19:00.000-04:00

ABC News: Supreme Court Takes Up Anna Nicole Case:

WASHINGTON Sep 27, 2005 — The Supreme Court shed its staid image Tuesday, giving stripper-turned Playboy model Anna Nicole Smith a new chance at a piece of the fortune of her 90-year-old late husband.

The court said it would hear arguments early next year as part of Smith's effort to collect as much as $474 million from the estate of J. Howard Marshall II. The oil tycoon married her in 1994 when he was 89 and she was 26.

The case promises to be the sexiest of the nine-month term which begins next week.

What is actual Google's Birthday ?

2005-09-27T22:13:00.000-04:00

Official Google Blog: We wanted something special for our birthday…:

Google opened its doors in September 1998, and we’ve been pursuing one mission ever since: to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. For our seventh birthday, we are giving you a newly expanded web search index that is 1,000 times the size of our original index.

Google (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia):
Convinced that the pages with the most links to them from other highly relevant Web pages must be the most relevant pages associated with the search, the Frieds tested their thesis as part of their studies, and laid the foundation for their search engine. The domain 'www.google.com' was registered on September 15, 1997. They formally incorporated their company, Google, Inc., on September 7, 1998 at a friend's office in Scarsdale,N.Y. In February 1999, the company moved into offices at 165 University Avenue in Palo Alto, home to a number of other noted Silicon Valley technology startups.

Is Screen Glitch the IPod Nano's Fatal Flaw?

2005-09-27T22:00:00.000-04:00

Is Screen Glitch the IPod Nano's Fatal Flaw?:

Your iPod is not iMmortal. Someday, it will wind up a bruised, battered piece of electronic junk that collects dust in a closet until it finally gets tossed, hopefully in some environmentally sound manner.

But nobody wants to see his or her iPod Nano die young -- or hear about somebody else suffering that fate. For the past week or so, users of Apple's music players have been buzzing about a homemade site, formerly titled "iPod Nano = Flawed Product" ( http://www.flawedmusicplayer.com/ ), set up by Detroit-based financial consultant Matthew Peterson. He accused Apple of shipping a product that's doomed to meet an early grave.

People's Daily Online -- NASA telescopes spot "big baby" galaxy in newborn universe

2005-09-27T21:55:00.000-04:00

NASA telescopes spot "big baby" galaxy in newborn universe

Astronomers said on Tuesday they have found an unusually massive and mature galaxy in the young universe using NASA's Spitzer and Hubble telescopes.

This galaxy, HUDF-JD2, was pinpointed among approximately 10,000 others in a small patch of sky called the Hubble Ultra Deep Field. It is believed to be as far away as the most distant known galaxies.

The galaxy represents an era when the universe was only 800 million years old, about 5 percent of the universe's age of about 14 billion years, the astronomers said.

People's Daily Online -- NASA telescopes spot "big baby" galaxy in newborn universe:

Astronomers said on Tuesday they have found an unusually massive and mature galaxy in the young universe using NASA's Spitzer and Hubble telescopes.

This galaxy, HUDF-JD2, was pinpointed among approximately 10,000 others in a small patch of sky called the Hubble Ultra Deep Field. It is believed to be as far away as the most distant known galaxies.

The galaxy represents an era when the universe was only 800 million years old, about 5 percent of the universe's age of about 14 billion years, the astronomers said."

» How GTalk plays into Google's identity strategy | Between the Lines | ZDNet.com

2005-08-28T12:49:00.000-04:00

» How GTalk plays into Google's identity strategy | Between the Lines | ZDNet.com: "Its nice to think of Google as a bunch of smart people just having a good time and seeing what fun toys they can build, but that misses the fact that they're also a multi-billion dollar company that has to fulfill a lot of investor expectation or die. Doing so requires a strategy and Google's strategy is based on becoming the Internet OS and integrating commodity components (i.e. Linux, OS X, and Windows). Google can't build an integration point without an identity strategy and their identity strategy has to include synchronous messaging and presence–things they get in spades and on the cheap from a IM system built on XMPP. This is a smart move on Google's part."

2005-08-05T16:41:00.000-04:00

Apple's Tiger vs. Windows Vista: Who Comes Out Ahead?: "File Management and Searching

Many of Vista's file management features will be familiar to Tiger users, but Vista goes further in file management techniques.

eWEEK.com Special Report: Windows Vista: Microsoft's Longhorn Client

Vista folder windows have a search-as-you-type search field, a feature that Mac OS X has had since Jaguar in 2002, but which became dramatically faster in Tiger with the Spotlight search engine.

Spotlight also added the searching of the contents of various types of files and e-mail messages, as well as searching on metadata.

Vista's search engine can do all of this as well, and lets you add metadata in Windows Explorer.

You can add metadata in Tiger, using the Spotlight field in the Get Info window, but Vista offers multiple fields for keywords, rating, project and others.

Vista also borrows Tiger's Smart folders, calling them Virtual Folders. This feature automatically creates shortcut files based on criteria set by the user and places them in a folder. (Tiger's Smart Folder does this with aliases.)

Vista adds the idea of stacks, where files that use a certain keyword are listed. When you add a file to the stack, the keyword is automatically added to the stack.

Vista will also have file management features that neither Tiger nor Windows XP has. A new backup system will record incremental changes to a file and copy them to a protected area.

One of the useful features that Mac OS X has always had is that PDF is built into its core.

PDF is used for displaying and printing files, and Mac OS X has the ability to turn any document created by any application into a PDF file.

With Windows Vista, Microsoft will attempt to do the same, but not with PDF.

Vista will use a new universal format called Metro, based on XML, for viewing and printing files. The aim is consistency of documents on screen and in print.

This is something that Mac OS has always been su"

2005-08-04T15:29:00.000-04:00

Justia Legal SEO Blog :: Internet Explorer 7 beta is coming... this Summer :: Law Firm Web Site Design, Search Engine Optimization & Legal Marketing Blog: "PressPass: What’s next for Internet Explorer?

Mike Nash - Microsoft Corporate VPMike Nash: We’re very excited to announce at the RSA Conference today that this summer we’ll release a beta of Internet Explorer 7.0 for Windows XP with Service Pack 2, which will have even more enhancements to security and privacy protections. These enhancements align very closely with the three core tenets of Microsoft’s security approach that I mentioned earlier. Internet Explorer 7.0 will be the most secure browser we’ve ever released, building on and surpassing the success of the SP2-enhanced Internet Explorer 6.0. We don’t plan to ship it until it meets our quality bar, which we’ve set pretty high."

BetaNews | Hotmail to Get Storage Bump

2005-07-27T23:12:00.000-04:00

BetaNews | Hotmail to Get Storage Bump: "Hotmail to Get Storage Bump
By Ed Oswald, BetaNews
July 27, 2005, 1:48 AM

BetaNews has learned that Microsoft is expected to begin its rollout of the next version of Hotmail, possibly as early as Wednesday. Code-named 'Kahuna,' this Hotmail update will sport a new interface, automatic inbox refreshing and a preview pane enabling users to read and respond to e-mail without ever leaving their inbox.

The announcement could come in tandem with unveiling of the beta releases of Internet Explorer 7 and Windows Vista, both of which are expected to be released sometime Wednesday."

PC Pro: News: Hotmail to get upgrade today?

2005-07-27T23:11:00.000-04:00

PC Pro: News: Hotmail to get upgrade today?: "Hotmail to get upgrade today? 11:16AM
Hotmail, the world's largest free email service, is about to get a major overhaul according to the developer website Beta News.

The site reports that an announcement of a Hotmail facelift may come as early as today. Among the improvements will be an increase in the amount of storage space offered free to users - up to 2GB - which would put it in line with Google's Gmail and Yahoo! Mail.

More controversially, Microsoft, the owner of Hotmail is pushing its Sender ID anti-spam and anti-phishing technology through the service.

The company has already announced that it will be adding Sender ID through a 'safety bar'. While some companies like AOL have endorsed the technology, many others have felt that, once again, Microsoft is using its size in the market place to enforce its own technical solution on others."

Macsimum News | Apple & Macintosh Related News Reviews & Opinions

2005-07-27T17:35:00.000-04:00

Macsimum News | Apple & Macintosh Related News Reviews & Opinions: "Microsoft wipes Apple off the map
1:42am, Jul 27 - By Dennis Sellers

There’s a tongue-in-cheek Associated Press story that Microsoft has wiped Apple off the map. Literally.

“Internet sleuths discovered that anyone using Microsoft’s new ‘Virtual Earth’ Web site for a bird’s-eye view of Apple’s corporate headquarters saw only a grainy overhead photograph of what appears to be a single, nondescript warehouse and a deserted parking lot – not Apple’s sprawling campus, with 11 modern buildings surrounding a plush courtyard,” the article says. “Microsoft blames an outdated photograph. But Apple’s headquarters in Silicon Valley shows up more appropriately for anyone viewing the same location using Google’s mapping Web site, which also combines many of the same government-funded satellite and aerial overhead photographs.”"

Google adds RSS feeds to homepage - vnunet.com

2005-07-27T17:06:00.000-04:00

Google adds RSS feeds to homepage - vnunet.com: "Google adds RSS feeds to homepage

Google has updated its Fusion project to allow users to add any RSS feeds and bookmarks to the front page of the search engine.

The new feature, which is still in beta, already provides the option to add information including news headlines, movie listings and the contents of the user's Gmail email box, but did not support the addition of generally available RSS feeds."

New article on the software impact of concurrency (ACM Queue)

2005-07-26T03:57:00.000-04:00

New article on the software impact of concurrency (ACM Queue): "Software and the Concurrency Revolution

The concurrency revolution is primarily a software revolution. Soon all new machines will be multicore, and the difficult problem is programming these machines in a way in which mainstream applications benefit from the continued exponential growth in CPU performance.

I plan to put the full text of this article on my website about a month after the magazine goes out. (I usually put up everything I write, but I've been distracted lately and I'm a little behind in putting stuff on the site.)"

Microsoft PreRelease Software Code Named “Avalon” & “Indigo” Beta1 RC - addict3d.org

2005-07-24T13:16:00.000-04:00

Microsoft PreRelease Software Code Named “Avalon” & “Indigo” Beta1 RC - addict3d.org: "Indigo and Avalon are the codenames for two strategic developer technologies that Microsoft plans to ship in 2006 as part of the Windows 'Longhorn' operating system. In addition, Microsoft is making these technologies available on Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. The Indigo and Avalon Beta1 'RC' enables developers to continue experimenting with early builds of these technologies, get acquainted with the development experience, and provide Microsoft with feedback. More details about these technologies are below.

Indigo is the codename for Microsoft’s unified programming model for building connected systems. It extends the .NET Framework 2.0 with additional APIs for building secure, reliable, transacted Web services that interoperate with non-Microsoft platforms and integrate with existing investments. By combining the functionality of existing Microsoft distributed application technologies (ASMX, .NET Remoting, .NET Enterprise Services, Web Services Enhancements, and System.Messaging), Indigo delivers a single development framework that improves developer productivity and reduces organizations’ time to market.

Avalon is the code name for Microsoft's unified presentation subsystem for Windows. It consists of a display engine and a managed-code framework. Avalon unifies how Windows creates, displays, and manipulates documents, media, and user interface. This enables developers and designers to create visually-stunning, differentiated user experiences that improve customer connection. When delivered, Avalon will become Microsoft's strategic user interface (UI) technology.

This Beta1 "RC" release supports Visual Studio 2005 Beta2 and the .NET Framework 2.0 beta 2. There is also an updated WinFX SDK, including documentation, samples and tools available for this release."

NewsFactor Network - - Microsoft Releases Beta for New Hotmail

2005-07-24T01:52:00.000-04:00

NewsFactor Network - - Microsoft Releases Beta for New Hotmail: "The new Hotmail service offers 2 GB of storage space, a rich text editor and integrates protection against phishing scams. In phishing attacks hackers forge the sender's e-mail address in an effort to steal sensitive information such as login names and passwords for online banks. "

SiliconBeat: Behold, the new Yahoo Mail

2005-07-20T15:43:00.000-04:00

SiliconBeat: Behold, the new Yahoo Mail: "Behold, the new Yahoo Mail

Ever since Yahoo acquired San Francisco e-mail provider Oddpost last summer, we've been anxious to see how it intended to take the Oddpost technology and apply it to Yahoo Mail. The wait is finally over. We got a peek at the new Yahoo Mail today. And the company is announcing tonight the upcoming start of beta-testing for the 'most significant overhaul'' of Yahoo Mail since it first launched in 1997.

Oddpost users will feel right at home with the new Yahoo Mail. It includes much of the Oddpost goodness; in other words, a user interface that feels more like a desktop e-mail client than a Web page (click on the thumbnail to see an older screenshot of Oddpost). Fast-loading in-boxes, drag-and-drop messages, one-click deleting, standard short-cuts such as (Control N for new message)...it's all there, taking advantage of Dynamic HTML technology. They've even kept Subject-O-Matique, the whimsical, automatic subject line generator."

BetaNews | AOL to Introduce 2GB Web Mail with AIM

2005-07-20T15:42:00.000-04:00

BetaNews | AOL to Introduce 2GB Web Mail with AIM: "AOL to Introduce 2GB Web Mail with AIM
By David Worthington, BetaNews
May 11, 2005, 12:26 AM

Thursday, America Online will introduce a beta version of AOL Instant Messenger Mail, a free Web mail service for all AIM users. The service will be integrated into the second beta of a maintenance release of AIM 5.9 that will be the last of its pedigree before AOL migrates to its next generation 'Triton' client software.

Like rival Google's Gmail, AIM Mail provides 2GB of storage space accompanied by new search tools to more easily locate messages.

The AIM Mail service is tightly integrated with AIM and uses Screen Names as the prefix for members' e-mail addresses. Moreover, Screen Names are used as a single sign-on for both services. Users can access AIM Mail by invoking it trough their AIM Buddy List or through the Mail panel located within the AIM Today welcome screen."

BetaNews | Microsoft Testing New Hotmail Interface | Kahuna

2005-07-20T15:39:00.000-04:00

BetaNews | Microsoft Testing New Hotmail Interface: "Microsoft Testing New Hotmail Interface
By David Worthington, BetaNews
July 11, 2005, 12:26 PM

Microsoft's MSN business unit is trying to hook customers onto 'Kahuna.' Kahuna is codename for an upcoming version of Hotmail that will sport a new style of interface, automatic inbox refreshing and a preview pane that will enable Hotmail users to read and respond to e-mail without ever leaving their inbox.

Microsoft has reason to be testing such additions: Many of these features are already out of testing and in production among its competitors.

According to sources familiar with the upgrade, Kahuna is a limited beta that is not heavy on features as of yet. Its interface is known internally as 'Wave 11' and is designed to be lightweight and 'clean' for better performance. Further integration with MSN Spaces and Messenger is said to be forthcoming."

Brainbench: How Certification Tests Improve Your Software Skills.

2005-07-15T13:09:00.000-04:00

Brainbench: How Certification Tests Improve Your Software Skills.: "As the choice of software for knowledge workers increases, computer tests can help you stay ahead. Online education has grown by leaps and bounds over the last few years - and Brainbench certifications will help you improve your software skills and provide you with tangible qualifications.

Brainbench has been a client of mine for a few years now, so I'm pretty familiar with what they offer. A turning point for me was when we started inviting our newsletter subscribers to volunteer to be interviewed. We include an interview in each issue, and what people have to say about their experience with Brainbench is fascinating.

Sure, there are all the IT workers who use the site and tests to brush up their skills in Java programming and a great deal more. But many other people use the tests (there is a choice of over 450 of them) to improve their expertise in simple tasks like typing, and everyday software like MS Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Explorer and Outlook.

Beyond that, there are tests for those other programs that many of us use like Photoshop, Pagemaker, Dreamweaver, FrontPage and more."

USATODAY.com - Signs your PC's under siege, and what you can do

2005-07-15T03:09:00.000-04:00

USATODAY.com - Signs your PC's under siege, and what you can do: "
Posted 11/18/2004 2:34 AM
By Byron Acohido and Jon Swartz, USA TODAY
If your Windows PC is being used as a zombie, you may notice recurring slowdowns of e-mail and Web browsing. Or you may not be able to e-mail or browse at all. If your PC has been infected with a self-replicating network worm, a dormant backdoor Trojan horse or several other types of stealthy programs, you may not notice anything.

• Always use a personal firewall with a PC connected to a cable modem, DSL or wireless Internet service. Free ones are listed at www.free-firewall.org. Tip: Have the personal firewall set to at least the medium level of security.

• Buy anti-virus software, such as Norton AntiVirus, McAfee VirusScan or ZoneLabs Security Suite, and keep the subscription current. Set it to automatically check for updates. Tip: New PCs typically come with a free trial subscription from Norton or McAfee. However, you must subscribe after the trial period expires to continue getting updates.

• Enable Microsoft Windows Auto-Update to automatically download the latest security patches. Tip: Follow instructions to make sure downloaded patches are also automatically installed.

• No software vendor will ever send you patches via e-mail. If you get e-mail pretending to be a patch from Microsoft or any other vendor, delete it. Distrust all attachments. If you have even the slightest doubt, delete it without reading.

• Back up all of your important documents and folders at least once a month, more often if you can stand it. Use complex passwords and periodically change passwords and PINs.

• Beware of spyware. If you can, use the Mozilla Firefox browser. If you must use Internet Explorer (IE), set the security settings to high; this will disable multimedia features of many Web sites, but also will block a main path intruders use to plant Web contagions. Tip: To set IE security to high, navigate to Tools, Internet options, Security settings.

• Install, use and regularly update Lavasoft's Ad-Aware and Spybot Search and Destroy anti-spyware programs. Both are free for the downloading. Tip: Be extremely wary of counterfeit versions of Lavasoft's Ad-Aware, spelled slightly different; those are actually spyware.

• Consider switching to a non-IE browser, such as Mozilla's Firefox.

MSN Hotmail Anti-Junk Campaign

2005-07-11T17:13:00.000-04:00

Today I got this mail from Hotmail staff which really looked promising. But isnt the "Report Spam" facility from all the other mail services and including Hotmail used to serve the same purpose?

or are they different??

I simply wonder !

Ashish.

"Dear MSN Hotmail Member,

We understand that junk mail is a growing problem. We, at MSN Hotmail, are committed to putting a stop to junk mail for you and the rest of our MSN Hotmail users. But, we need your help in categorizing mail that you want versus mail that is junk.

With your permission, we will begin to send you enclosed mails that were addressed to your account. This mail was always addressed to you and you may have already received it. You'll be asked to click on a button to categorize the mail either as mail that you want (including mail that you may have signed up to receive) or as mail that is junk. These mails that we want you to categorize can be easily identified by this special icon ().

It's that simple! And you can quit at any time. So what are you waiting for? Everyone complains about junk mail, here is your chance to do something about it! "

Meditation is not free from side-effects - Dr Divay Mangla

2005-07-06T20:40:00.000-04:00

The Tribune, Chandigarh, India - Health Tribune: "The different positive effects that have been found and confirmed with the practice of mediation are:

* Increased blood flow to the tissue and an enhanced removal of waste products
* Reduced sensitivity to noise.
* Possible benefits to the immune system.
* Ordered brain function
* Improvement in concentration
* Improvement in manual skill
* Reduced anxiety and improved memory recall.
* Stability of the autonomic system.
* Feelings of happiness and joy

These effects can prove helpful in a number of psychological and physical problems. But thinking that meditation can cure everything would be a wrong impression. Now, let us look at the negative effects of meditation (which have been found in different scientific studies) :

* Boredom, impaired reality testing
* Less motivation in life
* Relaxation-induced mild-to severe anxiety
* Paradoxical increases in mental tension
* Confusion and disorientation.
* Feeling of “spaced out”.
* Depression, increased negativity, being more judgmental.
* Feeling addicted to meditation.
* Psychosis-like symptoms,
* Appearance of hidden memories from the past, such as incest, rejection and abandonment.
* Other adverse effects are uncomfortable bodily sensations, feelings of guilt , grandiosity, elation, destructive behaviour and suicidal feelings."

gizmag Article: First 150mph Tango electric performance commuter to be delivered next week

2005-07-01T19:47:00.000-04:00

gizmag Article: First 150mph Tango electric performance commuter to be delivered next week: "First 150mph Tango electric performance commuter to be delivered next week

(link to this article)

May 19, 2005 No folks, this is not an optical illusion or a Photoshop-enhanced image - this is the Tango. The Tango is a carbon fibre, two seater electric commuter vehicle that will reach 60mph in four seconds and 150 mph in a few seconds more – a radical, pollution-free solution to the problem of transport in congested urban environments. The first batch of 100 vehicles goes to market next week when actor George Clooney takes delivery of the first US$85,000 pocket rocket to come off the production line. A deal between UK-based automotive technology specialist Prodrive and US-based Commuter Cars Corporation has seen the Tango vehicle design taken from prototype form to efficient low volume production. Plans call for volume production, at which point the projected price for the car will drop to around US$20,000."

Murphy Laws Origin

2005-07-01T19:42:00.000-04:00

Murphy Laws Site - Origin: "The following article was excerpted from The Desert Wings
March 3, 1978

Murphy's Law ('If anything can go wrong, it will') was born at Edwards Air Force Base in 1949 at North Base.

It was named after Capt. Edward A. Murphy, an engineer working on Air Force Project MX981, (a project) designed to see how much sudden deceleration a person can stand in a crash.

One day, after finding that a transducer was wired wrong, he cursed the technician responsible and said, 'If there is any way to do it wrong, he'll find it.'

The contractor's project manager kept a list of 'laws' and added this one, which he called Murphy's Law."

Google Blog

2005-07-01T04:28:00.000-04:00

Google Blog: "Google Video. Now with ... video!

6/27/2005 11:19:00 AM
Posted by Matthew Vosburgh, Google Video Software Engineer

A couple of months ago we launched a video uploader so you could add your own videos to Google Video. Well, now we're ready to start displaying all that stuff.

I've been amazed by your cool videos. I had never seen a robot dog harassing an iguana before, or a monkey doing karate, and I had no idea you were such good dancers. There's more than home video, too - like this UNICEF story featuring David Beckham.

The clips play right in the page using the brand new Google Video Viewer, which was created by our engineer Aaron Lee using code from the open source Videolan project. It works great in both Firefox and IE, and we've designed it not to fight with any other video plugins you might have. We're releasing the Windows version first, with Mac coming soon.

A feature we're especially pleased with is search within a video, which means you will get a result pointing to the precise spot in the video that matches your query. Try looking for sergey brin and you'll see what I mean. There are even more people getting creative with video here. So have fun watching, or shoot your own videos - and keep sending them in!"

InformationWeek > MSN Search > Orbimage To Provide Microsoft With Satellite Images Of Earth > June 30, 2005

2005-07-01T04:12:00.000-04:00

InformationWeek > MSN Search > Orbimage To Provide Microsoft With Satellite Images Of Earth > June 30, 2005: "Orbimage To Provide Microsoft With Satellite Images Of Earth June 30, 2005
EMAIL THIS ARTICLE
PRINT THIS ARTICLE
DISCUSS THIS ARTICLE WRITE TO AN EDITOR

Microsoft.'s upcoming MSN Virtual Earth service will eventually have access to photos that could show manhole covers in Manhattan.
By Antone Gonsalves
TechWeb News

Orbimage Inc. has agreed to provide satellite pictures of Earth for Microsoft Corp.'s upcoming MSN Virtual Earth service, which would eventually have access to photos that could show manhole covers in Manhattan, an Orbimage spokesman said Thursday.

Virtual Earth, which is scheduled to launch this summer, would compete with Google Inc.'s Google Earth service, launched in beta Tuesday. Both companies plan to integrate satellite images of places in their local-search services.

Orbimage, based in Dulles, Va., currently has two photo-gathering satellites. The images that will be fed to Microsoft are capable of showing aerial views of buildings and streets, but not any ground-level details, Timothy Puckorious, senior vice president of marketing and sales for Orbimage, said."

Transcript of Commencement Speech at Stanford given by Steve Jobs

2005-06-29T20:09:00.000-04:00

Transcript of Commencement Speech at Stanford given by Steve Jobs: "Thank you. I'm honored to be with you today for your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. Truth be told, I never graduated from college and this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation.

Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories. The first story is about connecting the dots.

If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on that calligraphy class and personals computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do.

The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods in my life. During the next five years I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the world's first computer-animated feature film, "Toy Story," and is now the most successful animation studio in the world.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice, heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

The Evolution of a Programmer

2005-06-29T19:55:00.000-04:00

The Evolution of a Programmer

It gets more interesting from....

Master Programmer

[
uuid(2573F8F4-CFEE-101A-9A9F-00AA00342820)
]
library LHello
{
// bring in the master library
importlib('actimp.tlb');
importlib('actexp.tlb');

// bring in my interfaces
#include 'pshlo.idl'

[
uuid(2573F8F5-CFEE-101A-9A9F-00AA00342820)
]
cotype THello
{
interface IHello;
interface IPersistFile;
};
};

[
exe,
uuid(2573F890-CFEE-101A-9A9F-00AA00342820)
]
module CHelloLib
{

// some code related header files
importheader();
importheader();
importheader();
importheader('pshlo.h');
importheader('shlo.hxx');
importheader('mycls.hxx');

// needed typelibs
importlib('actimp.tlb');
importlib('actexp.tlb');
importlib('thlo.tlb');

[
uuid(2573F891-CFEE-101A-9A9F-00AA00342820),
aggregatable
]
coclass CHello
{
cotype THello;
};
};

Can u beat this resume !!

2005-06-29T19:44:00.000-04:00

EDUCATION /Qualification:

Stood first in BA (Hons), Economics, Panjab University, Chandigarh,
1952; Stood first in MA (Economics), Panjab University, Chandigarh,
1954; Wright's Prize for distinguished performance at St John's College,
Cambridge, 1955 and 1957; Wrenbury scholar, University of Cambridge,
1957; DPhil (Oxford), DLitt (Honoris Causa); PhD thesis on India's
export competitiveness

OCCUPATION /Teaching Experience:

Professor (Senior lecturer, Economics, 1957-59;
Reader, Economics, 1959-63;
Professor, Economics, Panjab University, Chandigarh, 1963-65; Professor,
International Trade, Delhi School of Economics,University of Delhi,
1969-71; Honorary professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University,New Delhi,
1976 and Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi,1996 and Civil
Servant

Working Experience/ POSITIONS:

1971-72: Economic advisor, ministry of foreign trade

1972-76: Chief economic advisor, ministry of finance

1976-80: Director, Reserve Bank of India; Director, Industrial
Development Bank of India; Alternate governor for India, Board of
governors, Asian Development Bank; Alternate governor for India, Board
of governors, IBRD

November 1976 - April 1980: Secretary, ministry of finance (Department
of economic affairs); Member, finance, Atomic Energy Commission; Member,
finance, Space Commission

April 1980 - September 15, 1982: Member-secretary, Planning Commission

1980-83: Chairman, India Committee of the Indo-Japan joint study
committee September 16, 1982 - January 14, 1985: Governor, Reserve Bank
of India

1982-85: Alternate Governor for India, Board of governors,
International Monetary Fund

1983-84: Member, economic advisory council to the Prime Minister

1985: President, Indian Economic Association

January 15, 1985 - July 31, 1987: Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission

August 1, 1987 - November 10, 1990: Secretary-general and commissioner,
south commission, Geneva

December 10, 1990 - March 14, 1991: Advisor to the Prime Minister on
economic affairs

March 15, 1991 - June 20, 1991: Chairman, UGC

June 21, 1991 - May 15, 1996: Union finance minister

October 1991: Elected to Rajya Sabha from Assam on Congress ticket

June 1995: Re-elected to Rajya Sabha

1996 onwards: Member, Consultative Committee for the ministry of finance

August 1, 1996 - December 4, 1997: Chairman, Parliamentary standing
committee on commerce

March 21, 1998 onwards: Leader of the Opposition, Rajya Sabha

June 5, 1998 onwards: Member, committee on finance

August 13, 1998 onwards: Member, committee on rules

Aug 1998-2001: Member, committee of privileges 2000 onwards: Member,
executive committee, Indian parliamentary group

June 2001: Re-elected to Rajya Sabha

Aug 2001 onwards: Member, general purposes committee

BOOKS:

India's Export Trends and Prospects for Self-Sustained Growth -Clarendon
Press, Oxford University, 1964; also published a large number of
articles in various economic journals.

OTHER ACCOMPLISHMENTS:

Adam Smith Prize, University of Cambridge, 1956

Padma Vibhushan, 1987

Euro money Award, Finance Minister of the Year, 1993;

Asia money Award, Finance Minister of the Year for Asia, 1993 and 1994

INTERNATIONAL ASSIGNMENTS:

1966: Economic Affairs Officer

1966-69: Chief, financing for trade section, UNCTAD

1972-74: Deputy for India in IMF Committee of Twenty on International
Monetary Reform

1977-79: Indian delegation to Aid-India Consortium Meetings

1980-82: Indo-Soviet joint planning group meeting

1982: Indo-Soviet monitoring group meeting

1993: Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting Cyprus 1993: Human
Rights World Conference, Vienna

RECREATION:

Gymkhana Club, New Delhi; Life Member, India International Centre, New
Delhi

Name: Dr Manmohan Singh

DOB: September 26, 1932

Place of Birth: Gah (West Punjab)

Father: S. Gurmukh Singh

Mother: Mrs Amrit Kaur

Married on: September 14, 1958

Wife: Mrs Gursharan Kaur

Children: Three daughters

Our Prime Minister seems to be the most qualified PM all over the world.

BetaNews | Upgrade Coming to Yahoo Web Mail

2005-06-29T19:01:00.000-04:00

BetaNews | Upgrade Coming to Yahoo Web Mail: "Upgrade Coming to Yahoo Web Mail
By Ed Oswald, BetaNews
June 28, 2005, 11:47 AM

Yahoo said on Monday that a new beta version of its Web e-mail service would be launched in the next two months. The site revision adds technologies that the company gained from its purchase of Outpost, such as drag and drop organization of mail, an instant preview pane, and upgraded search capabilities.

The beta version of the site will only be rolled out to a select group of testers. No target date for widespread release has been set as of yet, according to company officials. Yahoo, which is the top provider of web based e-mail in the United States, counts some 60 million unique users according to research firm comScore."

NASA global-view program sparks 6 million downloads

2005-06-29T18:58:00.000-04:00

NASA global-view program sparks 6 million downloads: "“We’ve built a pipeline into NASA data,” said Hogan, who works at Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif. “You can build learning experiences with this tool.” When starting the program, the user is presented with a view of the Earth, which they can spin to find an area of interest. When the user zooms to a location, the program displays the appropriate NASA satellite-generated Earth imagery, Geological Survey topological maps and other geospatial records, which it fetches from the Web.

The program can also overlay weather and national disaster information. Users select a date and time range, and location of the data, and the program will map the data to specific locations. The development team also is building a scripting program that will let users view sequences of imagery and data associated to these locations, as if they were watching a movie. "

Indian demand boosts job market in the US- The Times of India

2005-06-29T18:53:00.000-04:00

Indian demand boosts job market in the US- The Times of India: "Indian demand boosts job market in the USAdd to Clippings
ANUSRI SAHU

INDIATIMES NEWS NETWORK[ THURSDAY, JUNE 30, 2005 01:37:24 AM ]

All those gora doomsayers can eat crow! Indians are not stealing Western jobs . In fact, because of rising Indian demand for a range of goods, jobs are being created in a number of countries across the globe, the US included. Manufacturing units in foreign countries are buzzing with activity producing aircrafts to computer hardware, all to match the growing demand amongst Indians.

Emerging as one of the biggest spenders in recent times, the Indian aviation sector has placed orders for over 350 aircrafts with a list price of about $26 bn. Currently there are 156 large carriers in service. India's booming aviation sector and the growing number of passengers has led to this huge demand. "

Google Press Center: Press Release

2005-06-29T18:51:00.000-04:00

Google Press Center: Press Release: "Google Launches Free 3D Mapping and Search Product

Google Earth Offers New Local Search Experience

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. - June 28, 2005 - Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) today announced the launch of Google Earth, Google's new satellite imagery-based mapping product that combines 3D buildings and terrain with mapping capability and Google search. Based on Keyhole technology, Google Earth enables users to fly from space to street level views to find geographic information and explore places around the world.

Key features of Google Earth include:

* Free software download available at http://earth.google.com
* 3D buildings in major cities across the United States
* 3D terrain showing mountains, valleys, and canyons around the world
* Integrated Google Local search to find local information such as hotels, restaurants, schools, parks, and transportation
* Fast, dynamic navigation
* Video playback of driving directions
* Tilt, rotate, and activate 3D terrain and buildings for a different perspective on a location
* Easy creation and sharing of annotations among users"

Amazing Murder Mystery !! or was it a suicide?

2005-06-22T18:20:00.000-04:00

At the 1994 annual awards dinner given for Forensic Science, AAFSPresident Dr Don Harper Mills astounded his audience with the legalcomplications of a bizarre death.
Here is the story.
On March 23, 1994 the medical examiner viewed the body of RonaldOpus and concluded that he died from a shotgun wound to the head. MrOpus had jumped from the top of a ten-story building intending tocommit suicide. He left a note to the effect indicating his despondency. As he fell past the ninth floor his life was interrupted by a shotgunblast passing through a window, which killed him instantly.
Neither the shooter nor the deceased was aware that a safety nethad been installed just below the eighth floor level to protect somebuilding workers and that Ronald Opus would not have been able tocomplete his suicide the way he had planned. Ordinarily," Dr Millscontinued, "A person who sets out to commit suicide and ultimatelySucceeds, even though the mechanism might not be what he intended,isstill defined as committing suicide." That Mr Opus was shot on theway to certain death, but probably would not have been successfulbecause of the safety net,caused the medical examiner to feel that hehad a homicide on his hands.
In the room on the ninth floor, where the shotgun blast emanated,was occupied by an elderly man and his wife. They were arguingvigorously and he was threatening her with a shotgun. The man was soupset that when he pulled the trigger he completely missed his wife andthe pellets went through the window striking Mr Opus. When one intendsto kill subject "A" but kills subject "B" in the attempt, one is guiltyof the murder of subject "B." When confronted with the murder charge the old man and his wifewere both adamant and both said that they thought the shotgun wasunloaded.The old man said it was a long-standing habit to threaten hiswife with the unloaded shotgun. He had no intention to murder her.Therefore the killing of Mr Opus appeared to be an accident;that is, ifthe gun had been accidentally loaded. The continuing investigationturned up a witness who saw the old couple's son loading the shotgunabout six weeks prior to the fatal accident.It transpired that the oldlady had cut off her son's financial support and the son, knowing thepropensity of his father to use the shotgun threateningly, loaded thegun with the expectation that his father would shoot his mother.Since the loader of the gun was aware of this, he was guilty of themurder even though he didn't actually pull the trigger. The case nowbecomes one of murder on the part of the son for the death of RonaldOpus.Now comes the exquisite twist. Further investigation revealedthat the son was, in fact, Ronald Opus. He had become increasinglydespondent over the failure of his attempt to engineer his mother'smurder. This led him to jump off the ten story building on March23rd,only to be killed by a shotgun blast passing through the ninthstory window. The son had actually murdered himself, so the medicalexaminer closed the case as a suicide.

Greatest Paradoxes in History !

2005-06-22T18:16:00.000-04:00

Few centuries ago, a Law teacher came across a student who was willing to learn but was unable to pay the fees. The student struck a deal saying, "I will pay your fee the day I win my first case in the court".
Teacher agreed and proceeded with the law course.
When the course was finished and teacher started pestering the student to pay up the fee, the student reminded him of the deal and pushed days.
Fed up with this, the teacher decided to sue the student in the court of law and both of them decided to argue for themselves.
The teacher put forward his argument saying:
"If I win this case,as per the court of law, the student has to pay me as the case is about his non-payment of dues. And if I lose the case, student will still pay me because he would have won his first case. So either way I will have to get the money".
Equally brilliant student argued back saying:
"If I win the case, as per the court of law, I don't have to pay anything to the teacher as the case is about my non-payment of dues. And if I lose the case, I don't have to pay him because I haven't won my first case yet.. So either way, I am not going to pay the teacher anything".
This is one of the greatest paradoxes ever recorded in history

Einstein's Puzzle !!

2005-06-05T03:38:00.000-04:00

There is a row of houses in 5 different colors. In each house lives a person of different nationality. These 5 owners drink a certain drink, keep a certain pet and smoke a certain brand of cigar. No owner has the same pet, smoke the same cigar and drink the same drink
You have to find the answer to the question given below, with the help of the clues.
It is said that Einstein wrote this problem and claimed that 98% of the world could not solve it.
Try and prove him wrong.J
Q) Who owns the fish?
Clues:
The Briton lives in the red house.
The Swede keeps dogs as pets.
The Dane drinks tea.
The green house is the first house to the left of the white house.
The green house owner drinks coffee.
The person who smokes PallMall rears birds.
The owner of the yellow house smokes Dunhill.
The man living in the house right in the center drinks milk.
The Norwegian lives in the first house.
The man who smokes blends lives next to the one who keep cats.
The man who keeps horses lives next to the one who smokes dunhill.
The owner who smokes BlueMaster drinks beer.
The Norwegian lives next to the blue house.
The man who smokes Blends has a neighbour who drinks water.
The German smokes Prince.

There are only 2 possible Answers According to me !!!

Solution 1 (From Left to Right)
German - Green - Coffee - Prince - FISH!!
Swede - White - Beer - BlueMaster - Dog
Briton - Red - Milk - PallMall - Birds
Dane - Blue - Tea - Blends - Horse
Norweigian - Yellow - Water - Dunhill - Cat

Solution 2 (From Left to Right)
Norwegian - Yellow - Water - Dunhill - Cat
Dane - Blue - Tea - Blends - Horse
Briton - Red - Milk - PallMall - Birds
German - Green - Coffee - Prince - FISH!!
Swede - White - Beer - BlueMaster - Dog

About Me

2005-03-30T15:03:00.000-05:00

I was born and brought up in Indore, Madhya Pradesh, India. Along with the school I completed a 1.5 years diploma course from Tata Unisys Limited Education Center (TULEC). Then completed my undergraduate in Electronics and Instrumentation from same city. Joined Syracuse University in Fall 2003.

During my undergraduate was fortunate enough to get some practical exposure in a couple of places.

Prof. Tapan Mukherjee provided me platform at Printronix Engineers Pvt. Ltd. for developing a prototype for Fault Annunciation System which was later marketed.

Sanjay Surana, Managing Director Synergy Computers Limited, gave me opportunity to function as a tester for some of the products launched by his company, where I tested QUEST (Question bank software) and Niveshak (financial accounting package).

Sanjay Surana also gave me an opportunity to develop the design and a prototype for Library Management System, with all the due considerations for user friendliness and efficiency in the design.

Dr. Ken Foster gave me an opportunity with the recommendation of Dr. James Fawcett wherein I worked with the Cell tracking software which was being developed in MFC with the application of EPIX Library. The movement of cells were finally displayed as GIF movie image.

Dr. James Fawcett also provided me with an opportunity as a Teaching Assistant where I relished my interaction with the students which also helped me a lot

Dr. James Fawcett along with Dr. Andrej Krol accepted me for advicing my Master's thesis which I am currently pursuing. My current thesis work is based on Medical Image Registration and processing.

Firefox and Google

2005-03-27T13:17:00.000-05:00

In January it was announced (initially at
http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/ben/archives/007366.html, then picked
up by the media) that Google had hired Ben Goodger, one of the leader
Firefox developers. Prior to that -- including the entire time that he
was working on the Firefox 1.0 release -- Goodger was an employee of
the non-profit Mozilla Foundation
(http://www.mozilla.org/foundation/), which was initially funded by
AOL Time Warner. That also explains why Netscape 7.x is simply Mozilla
Suite 1.x under the hood.

Google's acquisition of Goodger fueled speculation that had been lit
last year by Google's registration of the "gbrowser.com" domain name
shortly after the announcement of gmail
(http://news.com.com/Clues+may+point+to+Google+browser/2100-1032_3-5379625.html?tag=nl)

Companies frequently register every possible domain name, though, in
order to protect their brand and trademark, and companies frequently
hire key open source developers to continue to work on open source
products, especially when the primary impact is on a key competitor
(cf a few years back, Transmeta hiring Linus Torvalds to continue to
work on Linux).

However, this does not mean Firefox was -- or necessarily will be in
the future -- "Google's work." In fact AOL's Netscape division has
contributed far more money and staff to the Mozilla Foundation than
Google has -- it's AOL Time Warner's work, if it could be said to be
any company's.

No Google-branded browser has been announced, nor is there any
evidence better than speculation, guessing, and wishful thinking that
such a product will be announced.

Google's Operating System

2005-03-27T13:02:00.000-05:00

btw if google OS were to come up.. then what wud it be like??

just a random thinking...

an OS should have a file system..... kinda gmailfs(GFS), but that
relies on net connection.. so the GOS will boot with a net connection,
and will rely on GFS for the files

the hard disk requirement with ur PC will just act as a cache and some
very basic files required for the net connection and other stuff...

then OS is supposed to manage the memory, basic user interfaces,basic
device management and all hardware management....

afaik, google has servers and its own OS and things which are
optimized for parallel computations and it uses something like
computing grids (which i am not much aware of) for computations.. now
with the new dual processors, i guess google's existing experience
will be a whole lot more effecient that other new comers...

other than that.. thin clients and fat servers which every1 is talking
about lately can also be exploited by the google's grid computing
technology...

then our hard disks will be our email addresses, and our local hard
disks will be a cache.. and since cache size will be more than the
hard disk... we will see new theories and publications in this
field...

just some loud thinking.....

yahoo.co.in bug

2004-08-29T13:12:00.000-04:00

Hi everybody!

A friend of mine brought to my notice a very weird behavior of his mail account wherein an underscore was inserted before "javascript" word. I tried that in my gmail account as well as in yahoo.com account, and didnt noticed any such thing happening. So i asked him again to confirm if he actually saw any such thing ! and then somebody else confirmed it again.

so i made a new account on yahoo.co.in (thats Yahoo! India Mail account) and mailed myself a mail with subject and contents both as javascript and a few other keywords.

Finally I saw the underscore!!

the underscore was inserted for javascript, vbscript, and jscript... probably this is some result of hacking that was done by the programmers at Yahoo! Inc. If somebody comes across this blog who knows somebody at Yahoo! Inc. kindly fwd this bugs info so it can be rectified!

with regards,
Ashish.