News

IndianExpress: A Gang of seven to eight men shot dead Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Sandip alias Sandi Mohol in full public view at the busy Paud Phata chowk in broad daylight around noon on Wednesday.

Hundreds of passers-by watched as the killers intercepted Mohol’s black Scorpio barely 200 meters from the Kothrud police station, pumped four bullets into him from point blank range and sped away on their motorcycles

IndianExpress: Enviroment-conscious citizens from the Pune Tree Watch and the Akhil Law College Road Pravasi Sangh have alleged that the Pune Municipal Corporation workers cut down at least 28 sandalwood trees on the Law College hill on Wednesday.

The workers, who were clearing the area for the construction of the Balbharati-Paud Road, had cut some 80 trees before they were stopped by the activists. The hill, which is not under the forest department, is, however, contiguous with the Bhamburda Van Vihar which is under the department.

TechTree: -Link has reportedly announced a new line of “V-CLICK” dual-mode phones that allow users to switch between cellular and Wi-Fi networks with the click of a button.

The new D-Link V-CLICK line of phones will feature tri-band GSM (900/1800/1900 MHz) and 802.11 Wi-Fi (2.4GHz) access. Users will be able to access GSM by simply sliding a cellular service provider’s SIM Smartcard or chip into the device. The SIM Smartcard or chip can also be used to carry phone numbers and address books.

The V-CLICK also features a button that lets users automatically activate the Wi-Fi connection feature to access internet telephony via Opera Mobile, a browser for mobile devices to access Wi-Fi hot spots, Web browsing, and e-mail

TechTree: According to reports, America Online (AOL) has planned to launch a new version of its software that lets users access their e-mail, instant messaging, search, and media on the same screen.

The new software version named “OpenRide” comes on the back of AOL’s announcement earlier this year to offer most of its services for free in an effort to increase online advertising sales.

“OpenRide,” says the company, allows users check e-mail from rivals such as Google and Yahoo!, which is an entirely new approach to courting users.

BBCNews: Search engine Google has launched a portal to connect literacy organisations around the world.
The Literacy Project enables teachers, organisations, and those interested in literacy to use the internet to search for and share literacy information.

The new online service was announced at the Frankfurt Book Fair in Germany.

Users can search for information in digitised books and academic articles, and share information through blogs, videos and groups.

News.com: IBM will spend $100 million over the next five years to make its mainframe line easier to administer and program, the company said Wednesday.

IBM’s decades-old mainframe lineage, called System z and running the z/OS operating system, has grown increasingly distant from mainstream computing with the rise of computers running Unix, Windows and Linux. Big Blue is trying to change that with a modern user interface, visual programming tools and other developments, the company said.