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IndianExpress:  THE competition to capture Hollywood supestars Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie in camera took an ugly turn when their convoy knocked down a student who was riding a motorcycle on the busy Senapati Bapat Road on Wednesday evening. Eyewitnesses said the vehicles were trying to dodge international paparazzi when the incident took place.

They said the convoy of Pitt and Jolie also jumped the signals on Senapati Bapat Road and after knocking down the two-wheeler driver sped away without stopping. Though no one was injured, the motorcycle was damaged.

IndianExpress: WHEN contractors at Senapati Bapat Road began work of laying underground cables, they did not know why the cables would not go any further. Curious, they lifted the manhole cover to see what the problem was and were shocked to discover that the stretch had no pipes. Moreover, the patch meant to be used as a pathway for pipes was plastered, leaving no space for the cables to move further.

The incident has brought to light the negligent and lethargic attitude of the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), which announced with much fanfare that the private companies would lay pipes below the footpaths of the road to prevent frequent road digging. However, the situation at the ground level reveals serious discrepancies. While at few stretches pipes have gone missing, at other places the provision for laying pipes itself has not been made.

IndianExpress:  THE city appears heading for another spell of LPG shortage . With a backlog of over 80,000 domestic gas cylinders as of Wednesday and demand likely to peak just before Diwali, distributors fear the refill backlog may increase if panic booking doesn’t stop and steps are not taken to increase supply.

The problem seems to be more with Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) as the company is facing an acute shortage of bulk gas as the ship carrying its order of 80,000 tonnes of liquefied petroleum gas got stuck in soft mud off Ratnagiri coast.

IndianExpress: AFTER the Pune Municipal Corporation’s ambitious pilot project of Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS) to be implemented on Pune-Solapur Road landed in the narrow stretch problems, it received another blow on Wednesday, when the civic Standing Committee rejected all seven tenders of the proposed work.

Nine members of the standing committee opposed the tenders. The civic administration had mooted tenders of developing terminals, cycle tracks, polymer concrete block and signals at various stretches between Pune-Solapur Road. However, the Bharatiya Janata Party vehemently opposed the tenders when it came for approval. The approximate cost of these tenders is Rs 24 crore.
 

TechTree: Yahoo! has announced the launch of what it calls the world’s largest time capsule in history.

Starting this week, Yahoo! is encouraging people from around the world to contribute personal photos, stories, thoughts, ideas, poems, prayers, home movies, music, and art to this first-ever electronic anthropology project designed to document life in 2006.

The company says that people will be able to view and explore all submissions between October 10, when the time capsule opens, and November 8, when the time capsule closes. In addition to browsing the time capsule content, people can sort and compare the contributions by country, region, race, age, gender, amongst many.

TechTree: Intel Corp has unveiled a new baseband card that helps speed the creation of WiMAX base stations.

The Intel NetStructure WiMAX Baseband Card is the company’s first integrated hardware and software platform for transport, control, and baseband processing in a standards-based Advanced Mezzanine Card (AdvancedMC) form factor.

According to Intel, the new card enables equipment manufacturers to accelerate time to market and reduce development and lifecycle management costs when building WiMAX base stations. It is ideal for wireless broadband solutions for business and residential access.

News.com:  A truce between the Blu-ray and HD DVD worlds is still probably a way off, but NEC has come up with a chip that could help companies bridge the gap.

The chip, essentially a controller, works in both Blu-ray and HD DVD players. One chip that works with both standards could cut the cost of building a player that accomodates Blu-ray and HD DVD discs.

The chip will start shipping in April 2007, NEC said