News

IndianExpress: Next week, when some of the brightest young minds in the world come to Pune for the International Astronomy Olympiad, they will be introduced to the fascinating field of radio astronomy by the man who started it all in India _ Govind Swarup. Over 120 participating students from 18 countries will meet the father of radio astronomy in India when they visit the Khodad-based Giant Meterwave Radio Telescope (GMRT) near Narayangaon for the observation round of the competition on Monday.

Students in the age group of 14-18 years will be using facilities at the world’s largest radio telescope at meter wavelengths for night-time observation in the third and final round of the Olympiad. “As they are bright students, they will have a good understanding of optical telescopes. My job will be to explain a different window of astronomy using radio telescopes,” Swarup said.

IndianExpress: IN an initiative by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), three schools of public health will be set up in the country. Prof N K Ganguly, Director-General of Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) inaugurated the School of Public Health at National AIDS Research Institute (NARI) on Thursday. ICMR Director General Prof N K Ganguly, who was in Pune, said that the establishment of these schools will reduce the shortage of the trained public health manpower in the country.

Ganguly showered praise on NARI and the team of researchers who helped make the ‘impossible’ dream come true. In an emotional speech, the ICMR chief, who is due to retire, told the gathering of scientists it was the ‘best gift’ he had ever received. Setting up of these schools will create competent public health personnel to provide leadership in the management of public health problems and undertake research in related areas.

IndianExpress: WITH the standing committee dilly-dallying in approving the proposal of hiring another hot-mix plant and contractors refusing to bid in over 69 road repair tenders, the civic administration’s problems in meeting the November 30 High Court deadline for filling all potholes in the city seems to be increasing.

However, the civic administration maintains it is confident of meeting the deadline, which is barely 20 days away.

City Engineer Prashant Waghmare said each ward office has been given targets to complete during the day and the night. But doubts are being raised whether the civic officials would be willing to put in extra work at night after the MNS attack on PMC employees during the night shift.

IndianExpress: TALK of Jangli Maharaj Road and one can visualise the park and the many restaurants lined on the road. But as many as 13 restaurants and eateries there have poor hygiene standards, going by the hygiene inspection reports of the PMC.

The reports, from January 1,2006 to October 6, 2006, have shown violation of provisions of the Maharashtra Prevention of Food Adulteration Act, 1962. Three of the 13 eateries _ the canteen at Sancheti Hospital, Dragon Fast Food and Inamdar Non-Veg _ do not even possess the license to start a restaurant.

About hotels like Rutugandh Heritage, Hotel Kamat, Calcatta Boarding House, Hotel Pearl and Restaurant and Madhura Pure Veg, this is what the report has to say: Presence of cobwebs on the ceiling, no lids to prevent settling of dust and insects on the vessel in which the food is stored, dirty flooring in the kitchen where the food is prepared or stored, unclean vessels for preparation of food items and unfiltered water, unhygienic water tanks.

IndianExpress: A three-day-old baby boy was stolen from one of the city hospitals on Thursday afternoon.

According to the police, the baby was stolen from Cot Number 10 in Ward Number 1 of Bharati Hospital, Dhankawdi, at about 2.15 pm.

Rekha Ramesh Londhe (45), the grandmother of the baby, in a complaint lodged with the Dhankawdi police said a 27-year-old woman wearing a grey colour saree with floral prints stole the baby of her daughter Rupali Sunil Bhonsale, a resident of Gokulnagar in Kondhwa.

TechTree: Intex Technologies has launched its UFD 512 Slim, which as the name suggests, is counted one of the world’s thinnest multipurpose 512 MB USB disks.

The tiny disk, which measures 32×24 mm, and which is only about 2.1mm thick, can be easily stored in a user’s wallet.

The UFD 512 Slim is termed as “3C” card due to its use as a traditional USB disk, MMC/SD card, and mobile/PDA card.

With USB 2.0 speed, the disk offers high storage, download, and transfer multimedia solutions for the young and the restless - those who constantly want more out of their gadgets and gizmos, including PCs, mobiles, digicams, DVD players, and so on.

BetaNews: Microsoft on Thursday released a technology preview of an application it previewed in July, which is capable of taking hundreds of photographs and building a three-dimensional model in which users can “fly” through like a virtual world.

The program, called PhotoSynth, was first announced at SIGGRAPH 2006. Microsoft describes it as “a hybrid of a slide show and a gaming experience that lets the viewer zoom in to see greater detail or zoom out for a more expansive view.”

For now, Microsoft is providing the collections of photographs, as a user processing his or her own photos could take hours, or even days. The application also has pretty hefty hardware requirements and will only run on Windows XP SP2 or Windows Vista systems with a capable graphics card.

BetaNews: Yahoo said Thursday that it plans to integrate a Web-based version of its instant messaging program into the next beta of its Yahoo Mail Web application. The new client, which uses AJAX technology, is expected to debut early next year.

Google has already integrated Google Talk into Gmail, however they use separate interfaces. Yahoo’s implementation would combine the two into a single interface, executives say. The move is aimed at improving the user experience.
When responding to e-mail, in addition to allowing users to reply they could opt to instant message the contact instead if he or she is online through Yahoo Messenger. If the IM option is selected, a window for the instant messaging conversation appears within the e-mail client to continue the conversation there.

TechTree: Skype users across the globe can now enjoy even simpler ways to talk with the release of Skype 3.0 beta for Windows.

With a series of enhancements to the look and feel of Skype, the latest version also includes features that enable community-led chat and discussion. According to the company, the new enhancements aim at making Skype even simpler, and providing users with instant access to features.

Talking about the lastest Skype 3.0, Henry Gomez, chief marketing officer & director - world-wide operations, Skype, said, “We are introducing a number of new features with Skype 3.0 beta, including Click-to-Call, which lets users make calls to ordinary phone numbers when they are online. Click-to-call is so easy to use. For example, imagine you re searching online for a good place to eat, and you find a restaurant, and want to make a reservation. All you need to do is click on the number, and you can make a direct call using SkypeOut.”

TechTree: In an initiative to enable the 100,000 or so private Internet cafes in the country compete with organized players, Indiagames has launched its Games on Demand Partnership Program for Cyber Cafes. For this program, the company has tied-up with leading publishers including Microsoft, Codemasters, Playfirst, Atari, and Activision.

Games on Demand aims to address the issues that typically plague gaming in the country such as software piracy and the prevalent high prices of gaming software.

With Games on Demand, users can choose and play from an extensive catalogue of games, sans the need to purchase or install these on local PCs. Currently, over 100 games are on offer for just Rs 225 per month. Otherwise, these games cost anywhere near Rs 100,000 taking into consideration the retail prices for legal software.