News

IndianExpress: In a bid to discuss and decide the topics to be highlighted at the India Social Forum, part of the World Social Forum, to be held in New Delhi later this year, 50 organisations including trade unions, youth groups and social, non-governmental and grass-root organisations from Maharashtra, Goa and Gujarat will meet in the city on Friday.

The first World Social Forum (WSF), an open space for social organisations to discuss and form action plans to deal with various problems, was held in 2001 in the Brazilian city of Porto Allegre and has been held in Bamako (Mali), Caracas (Venezuela) and Karachi (Pakistan).

‘‘The WSF India will organise the ISF from November 9 to 13 in the Capital. The WSF is an open space for people to discuss various issues and express their opinions,’’ said Amitabh Behar, director, National Centre for Advocacy Studies (NCAS), one of the organisers of the Western Region Consultation.

IndianExpress: In the wake of recent terrorist attacks in Mumbai’s local trains, the city police is gearing up for the ten-day Ganesh Festival beginning August 27.

While several security arrangements have been made, the police will also deploy additional staff to avoid any disruption in the festival. Security has also been beefed up at all vantage and sensitive installations in and around the city and 74 points have been identified under Group A and 102 points have been classified under Group B as points of special focus.

Talking to Pune Newsline, Assistant Commissioner of Police, Special Branch S N Bhoomkar said that the city police had sought additional police and paramilitary forces to tighten security in the city. ‘‘Five companies of the State Reserve Police Force, one company each of the Central Reserve Police Force and Rapid Action Force has been sought,’’ he said.

IndianExpress: The fight against breast cancer just got easier. The Prashanti Cancer Care Mission, for the first time in Western India, introduced a minimal invasive procedure for breast biopsy using a Hand-Held Mammotome on Wednesday. The procedure, which works as an alternative to open surgery for lumps in the breast, will also help to accurately diagnose breast cancer.

Dr C B Koppiker, oncosurgeon and founder member of Prashanti said: ‘‘This will offer women a minimal invasive alternative to an open surgical biopsy without scarring or disfigurement of the breast and will require only a local anesthesia.’’
 
Actor Tanuja, who was present at the inauguration of the procedure also launched a breast care helpline phone number to help patients with their queries and fears.

IndianExpress: The Pune Cantonment Board (PCB) has decided to crackdown on the growing hawker menace in the cantonment area. As a part of its plan, the board will file on-the-spot FIRs against hawkers who threaten board staff and refuse to vacate and will also photograph any manhandling.

The drive is aimed at curbing the beggar menace, illegal stalls, kiosks and handcarts in and around Shivaji Market and MG Road.

PCB President and Pune Sub Area Commander Brig NM Rasquina on Wednesday morning gave orders to the PCB Chief Executive Officer SK Sardana to act against hawkers in the Cantonment area.

IndianExpress: Even though Mayor Rajani Tribhuvan had announced that from this year the Pune Municipal Corporation would not charge the Ganesh mandals for erecting arches and displaying banners, Standing Committee chairman Jayant Bhokare has said that the mandals will have to pay Rs 500 as fees.

Bhokare said that the mandals could pay the standard fees to the civic administration and display as many banners they want. ‘‘We have given discount to the Ganesh mandals to pay Rs 500 as a lumpsum amount and erect as many arches or display as many banners they want,’’ said deputy municipal commissioner (special) Dnyandeo Thube.

TechTree: SanDisk Corporation has unveiled its flash-based MP3 player, “Sansa e280,” featuring an 8GB capacity. The company says this is the world’s largest capacity flash based MP3 player.

An addition to the company’s flagship e200 series, the Sansa e280 supports a microSD expansion slot for expansion of up to 10GB (2,500 songs), along with an optional 2GB microSD card, thus making it, as SanDisk says, the largest capacity flash-based MP3 player on the market.

The 1.7inch x 3.5inch x 0.5inch new MP3 player features a 1.8-inch screen, an open non-proprietary DRM system, photo and video playback, FM radio tuning and recording, built-in microphone, USB 2.0 interface, and up to 20 hours of battery life.

TechTree: ASUSTeK Computer (Asus) has introduced the SLI-ready EN7950GX2/2PHT/1G dual-GPU graphics card, which the company says, is designed keeping in mind high-definition gaming.

The new graphics card supports QUAD SLI video platform, and incorporates HDCP (High Bandwidth Digital Content Protection) technology to deliver unmatched video quality and smooth DVI/HDMI signal transmission. The HDCP specifications are developed mainly to protect digital entertainment content across the DVI/HDMI interface. These specs offer a robust, cost-effective, and transparent method for transmitting and receiving digital entertainment content onto DVI/HDMI-compliant digital displays.

The card leverages two GeForce 7950 GPU on a single graphics card, to provide the kind of horsepower needed to run the latest game titles. Also, it comes with 512bit memory, 1GB DDR3, and resolution up to 2560 x 1600.

TechTree: The SCO Group, a leading provider of UNIX software technology and mobile services, has announced the development of HipCheck, a new mobile service designed to help system administrators (sys admins) remotely control and monitor their UNIX and Windows servers, as also desktop clients.

HipCheck is positioned as a powerful mobile application for customers and solution providers - who have to remotely manage decentralized server systems without any local system administrators. SCO says HipCheck will allow customers save time, reduce costs, and gain greater productivity.

Sources say that HipCheck allows sys admins to set and track specific system parameters and thresholds for various server and desktop functions. HipCheck provides alerts, and allows system administrators to remotely perform tasks through their Windows Mobile smart phones or Windows PCs. Alerts are provided through an SMS message to mobile devices, or through an e-mail to desktop systems.

BetaNews: In an effort to curb the influx of phishing scams that attempt to fool users into logging onto a illegitimate Web site, Yahoo is now enabling its users to customize their sign in box with a personal seal. The idea is that users would spot the graphic and know they are truly on Yahoo and not some malicious site.

A number of banks including Bank of America have taken a similar approach with their authentication methods. Yahoo users can either upload an image or select a line of text that would appear only to them. However, because the feature utilizes cookies, it does not work on public computers and deleting the cookie would reset the login box to normal