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IndianExpress:  THE Big Brother of software industry Microsoft Corp has finally decided to incorporate Pune on its global map and is expected to set up the first development centre in the city by this year-end. ‘‘Microsoft is expected to invest around Rs 1,000 crore for setting up its development centre by end of 2006,’’ Maharashtra IT secretary Arvind Kumar said.

The $44.28-billion software giant’s decision comes after the State government gave an assurance to it that adequate measures will be taken to safeguard its intellectual properties. ‘‘We have also given them an assurance that the company can bid for any government contracts,’’ Kumar said.

Currently, Microsoft has a development centre in Hyderabad — the biggest one outside its headquarters in Redmond in the US — with over 1,000 employees and it has already stated that it plans to double the headcount in India over a period of three years.

IndianExpress: WHEN a group of citizens met civic officials from the road department on Wednesday armed with a 30-minute film on the state of roads in the city, they brought a handycam along to film the entire meeting.

In a first-of-its-kind endeavour, citizens decided to capture the meeting on film to ensure that civic officials do not wash their hands off what they say later.

The group was seeking explanations from the Pune Municipal Corporation about why the roads were in such a state. Predictably, the civic officials said they were not the only ones to blame. ‘‘Private telephone companies, the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation and other agencies dig roads but fail to resurface them. However, citizens hold the PMC responsible,’’ additional city engineer (projects) Shrinivas Bonala said.

IndianExpress: A RACKET from Delhi is suspected to have duped atleast 60 property owners from five districts of Maharashtra including Pune, Satara, Sangli, Kolhapur and Nashik under the garb of hiring their properties for raising cellular company towers or advertisement hoardings in the last two months.

The Economic Offences Unit (EOU) of Pune Police Crime Branch, which begun probing the activities of the racket after some victims lodged a First Information Report (FIR), said the racket is suspected to be active in other states too and the total number of victims across the nation may go up to 1,000. The total amount involved could go up to Rs 2.5 crore.

IndianExpress:  THE Agharkar Research Institute (ARI)’s project on a community-based approach towards prevention of anaemia will now serve as a role model for more than 10 states in the country. An ongoing project studying 400 women in three hamlets at Pune-Nagar Road for the last three years showed that timely intervention and community approach had helped reduce the prevalence of anaemia by half.

Dr Leela Raman, former director of National Institute of Nutrition emphasised that the National Anaemia Control programme needed to be re-analysed as there was limited impact despite the increasing iron and folic acid supplements. Faulty distribution of tablets and lack of awareness about the issue was one of the reasons why there is a high prevalence of anaemia.

IndianExpress: ALL the roads above 12 metres width in Pimpri-Chinchwad will be upgraded. The decision was taken at a general body meeting of the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corportion which approved Rs 80 crore for the project.

On a debate on the issue of renovation of Dapodi crematorium, NCP House leader Yogesh Behl put forward the proposal through supplementary issue, demanding Rs 20 crore each for the road works in four zones A, B, C and D. The GB also gave its approval for renovation of the crematorium worth Rs 2.35 crore after listening to the views of the corporators present at the meeting.

TechTree.com: Mistral Software today announced the availability of what it claims is a highly-versatile, Bluetooth-based, Hands-free Car Kit (HFCK), based on the company’s Analog Devices Blackfin Car Telematics Platform.

The HFCK is built on Mistral’s Analog Devices Blackfin processor, which offers twin-benefits of digital signal processing (DSP) and microprocessor functionality. The company says the device is equipped to meet key requirements of wireless telephony and driver safety in today’s automotive environment.

HFCK promises to offer users complete hands-free operation to make or receive calls on GSM mobile phones, either via wired GSM handset, embedded GSM, or Bluetooth interface. The device also offers audio streaming over Bluetooth, to play encoded audio data (MP3, AAC, WMA) coming from sources such as a handheld jukebox.

ITWire.com: Micron Technology and Intel are now sampling what they claim to be the industry’s first NAND flash memory built on 50 nanometre process technology, manufactured through IM Flash Technologies, their joint development and manufacturing venture.
Both companies are sampling 4 gigabit devices now, with plans to mass produce a range of devices from 2007. According to the two companies, the move to 50nm process technology will enable them to meet the growing demand for higher density NAND flash across a range of computing and consumer electronics applications such as digital music players, removable storage and handheld communications devices.

BetaNews.com: A day after word of the product leaked to the press, Apple on Tuesday said it was launching a Bluetooth wireless version of its Mighty Mouse product, the two-button mouse made by the company. The new mouse comes with an upgraded laser tracking device that the company claims is some 20 times more sensitive than regular optical mice.

“We cut the cord on our popular Mighty Mouse to give consumers even more flexibility when using a Mac,” Apple Mac marketing manager David Moody said.

While the device is intended to be a two-button mouse, it can be customized to operate as a one-button mouse based on the user’s preference. Although it appears to operate as Apple’s standard mouse by appearance, clicking on the sides of the mouse will cause it to act like it has two buttons. Additionally, the sides and trackball can also be programmed to act as two more buttons to quick launch applications.

ITWire.com: AMD has gone in hard to defend its marketshare in the wake of some earth shattering dual-core chip releases by Intel due this week. First it cut prices to less than half on some processors. Then it followed up with the US$5.4 billion ATI acquisition. Now it has strapped two dual-core chips together in a high performance system which can be had for less than US$1000.

From all reports, a demonstration of the 4×4 system, featuring two dual-core Athlon 64 FX processors, was impressive on high load tasks such as gaming and multi-tasking, and clearly better than a single processor unit.

The 4×4 sits in two sockets, with each processor separately allocated up to 2M of cache.

TechTree.com: Moser Baer, known as the second largest manufacturer of optical media discs in the world, has begun shipping its Gen-Next 15GB HD DVD-R (recordable) to global OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) customers.

Moser Baer claims that hence, it is now the world’s first company to start volume shipments of HD DVD-R. The HD DVD-R has a capacity of 15 GB, and offers more than three times the data storage capacity of standard DVD media. According to the company, the HD DVD-R offers an ideal solution for reliable business back-up, including medical and government imaging, photography, videography, and high definition video recording