News

IndianExpress: MOTORISTS using the Pune-Mumbai stretch of the National Highway number 4 from Dehu Road to Shil Phata will have to pay toll from Tuesday midnight.

The toll is being charged to recover the money spent on the four-laning of this stretch. The Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) had awarded the contract to Ideal Road Builders on a Build-Operate and Transfer basis.
 
The toll rates on the highway are 60 per cent of that charged on the expressway. Toll plazas on the highway that have come up at Somatane Phata, Lonavla, Kusgaon and Shil Phata will collect toll till 2019 and the rates will be revised every three years.

IndianExpress: FOUR days after opposing the Pune Municipal Corporation’s ‘no-hawkers zone’ project for lack of rehabilitation plans, all political parties came together to give their approval to the project at the Standing Committee meeting.

Deputy municipal commissioner (special) Dnyandev Thube said that under the project, starting from Wednesday, the civic administration would start evicting unauthorised hawkers from 9 of the 30 roads in the city. The civic adminsitration has also urged the unuthorised hawkers to not use hand-carts for selling their goods and locate themselves on places which would not obstruct the traffic flow.

IndianExpress: THE Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Transport’s (PCMT) plan to buy 127 new buses has run into a deadlock.

While the PCMT standing committee on Tuesday, sanctioned the Rs 20 crore proposal for buying new buses, Municipal Commissioner Dilip Band said his administration would not be able to implement the plan as there are specific directions from the State Government ‘‘not to implement new projects or create liabilities in view of the PCMT-PMT merge move

IndianExpress: WITH two more suspected cases of chikungunya being detected in Kasarwadi on Tuesday, the number of persons affected with the viral infection in Pimpri-Chinchwad since the last three-four months is showing an upward swing.

So far 13 chikungunya cases have been detected while 25 persons are suffering from dengue. 
 
Though the official figure for chikungunya stands at 13, Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation health department sources said that the figure could be higher as many patients prefer to take treatment in hospitals outside Pimpri-Chinchwad.

News.com: Symantec on Tuesday announced Norton AntiVirus 2007 and Norton Internet Security 2007, updated versions of the company’s widely used security software for consumers.

Slated to be available later this month, both products have been updated to provide better protection and system performance, Symantec said in a statement. Norton AntiVirus 2007 protects against viruses, spyware and related risks. Norton Internet Security 2007 is a suite that includes antivirus and anti-spyware protection and adds a firewall, intrusion prevention, and for the first time includes a phishing shield.

TechTree: Toshiba and Memory-Tech have co-developed a single-sided, three-layered ROM disc supporting high capacity storage and playback of both DVD and HD DVD formats.

The newly-announced disc is the latest addition to the DVD Twin format (supports both DVD and HD DVD) and is fully compatible with both formats. It is a three-layered structure offering support for two HD DVD layers and one DVD layer or two DVD layers and one HD DVD layer.

In the two-layer HD DVD configuration, the new disc has 30GB HD DVD capacity, plus 4.7GB of standard DVD capacity. Configured to maximize standard DVD content, the disc can support 8.5GB on two layers, plus 15GB of HD DVD content on the third layer. However, the DVD content can be played back only on a standard DVD player, while HD DVD players can playback both formats.

TechTree: Adobe Systems has announced Adobe Captivate 2 software, which helps in creating powerful simulations, software demonstrations, and scenario-based training modules without programming knowledge or multimedia skills.

Adobe Captivate 2, which is based on the Adobe Flash platform, automatically generates interactive content in Flash format, without requiring users to learn Flash.

With this software, training professionals, educators, and business users can quickly create content that includes scored interactions, feedback, audio, and video. A new simulation wizard within the software helps users develop soft-skills simulations, add content to placeholder slides, and set up branching with simple point-and-click functionality.

TechTree: Samsung Electronics has reportedly developed a new memory chip, Phase-change Random Access Memory (PRAM) that is expected to replace high density NOR flash within the next decade.

A company statement said that the 512 megabit PRAM is nonvolatile, meaning it will retain data even when an electronic device is turned off and is about 30 times faster than conventional flash memory.

PRAM is reportedly more scalable than any other memory architecture being researched and features the fast processing speed of RAM for its operating functions, combined with nonvolatile features of flash memory for storage.