News

IndianExpress: The India Meteorological Department (IMD) is going in for a Rs 370-crore upgrade of its weather equipment in 62 airports across the country. IMD, which provides vital weather data essential for all flying operations, will first install an ‘integrated aviation meteorological system’ (IAMS) at the Mumbai airport by June next year before embarking on a five-year plan to upgrade facilities in the other 61 airports.

While the new system will drastically improve IMD’s capability to predict weather conditions and provide accurate real time data, commuters have reason to cheer as it will also help cut down flight delays due to foggy conditions. By providing accurate data of the runway visual range of up to 50 metres, the system will support instrument landing even in low visibility conditions.

The increasing number of flights at Indian airports, as well as a need to comply with international standards seemed to have persuaded IMD to go in for the upgrade. “Met data is a crucial part of aviation. With the increasing number of flights, we have to modernise met facilities that have not been upgraded in the past 25 years,” said deputy director general of Meteorology (Surface Instrumentation) R D Vashistha.

IndianExpress: ELECTORAL rolls of Yashdeep Society in Warje (panel number 110) has blank spaces instead of names of the first 19 voters. Also, the age of all ‘absent’ voters is 5 years. Such and various others complaints were registered with the Pune Municipal Corporation on Tuesday, the last day of filling objections.

In all, the civic body has received 902 complaints.

The final list of voters will be released on January 3. The highest number of complaints were registered from the Bibvewadi ward office (288), followed by Sahakarnagar (134) and Warje-Karvenagar (97). The lowest number of complaints were from Sangamwadi (16).

PMC election officer Dnyandeo Thube said: “The assistant returning officers will verify the complaints regarding the change in wards and the district collector will take a decision on missing names in the voters’ list.’’

IndianExpress: AS double incomes become a requirement than a luxury for most households, keeping the children safe and occupied is often a challenge for parents. And that is where day-care centres step in.

And as nurseries take up a part of the child’s day spent away from home, centres that function as nursery schools as well as day-care centres are increasingly gaining popularity in the city.

Acting as kindergarten schools in the mornings and then providing day-care facilities for children during the later part of the day, these are, a boon for many parents.

Shubhada Katdare, who runs Kids Oorja, a school-cum-day-care centre said: “For working parents, it is a very convenient arrangement. Once the child is dropped at the school in the morning, the parents can be at peace since the child stays at the same place even after school. They do not have to worry about issues like who will drop the child to the day-care centre after school and so on.”

IndianExpress: TENSION gripped the country’s premier Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) campus here after three students were expelled from the institute. While two of them have been conditionally reinstated, the third student is yet to be admitted back.

Following the uproar, a section of students staged a sit-in outside the FTII campus on Tuesday alleging that the FTII director Tripurari Sharan’s decision was “unilateral and authoritarian”.

However, Sharan refuted the charges and told Pune Newsline that it was “merely a disciplinary action”.

It all began when Sharan expelled two students — Donald and Anita — on December 6 citing lack of attendance. But FTII sources claimed both of them had worked on the sets of Angelina Jolie starrer, A Mighty Heart that was shot in Pune for over a month, that had led to low attendance.

“After the expulsion, there was considerable tension on the campus and a section of students even threatened to go on strike. Sharan called a faculty-student meeting on December 12 and gave a stern warning about the consequences,” sources said

TechTree:  Asus has introduced the world’s first wireless music Skype phone; namely, the AiGuru S1, in the Indian market.

The phone is around 117mm long, 46mm wide, and 23mm tall; and weighs in at 100g along with the battery. It offers free international calls with Skype support, Wi-Fi technology, wireless music player functions, remote controller features, amongst others.

Launching the phone, Altaf Ansari, Product Manager of Asus India, said, “The AiGuru S1 Skype phone not only provides mobility to Skype users but also allows them to enjoy music on their PC wirelessly. The AiGuru S1 supports Duo-Audio features which allow playing PC audio and making Skype calls simultaneously.”

Commenting on the phone, Joe Hsieh, Director of Digital Home Business, Asus, said, “The goal of digital home technologies is to share computer resource with other electronic devices around the house, and provide greater convenience. The AiGuru S1 packs several practical features for easy and wireless access of PC functions. One can Skype, listen to music, or even manage a music library with this new product.”

TechTree: For some time now, the rumor mills have run themselves wild over Apple Computer’s prospective launch of an “iPhone”.

However, to everyone’s surprise, yesterday, Linksys unveiled a series of handheld devices designed to make Internet calls. The handhelds will inherit the ‘iPhone’ trademark, which is owned by parent company, Cisco Systems, since 2000.

The Linksys iPhones include: iPhone Cordless Internet Telephony Kit CIT200; iPhone Dual-Mode Internet Telephony Kit CIT300; iPhone Dual-Mode Cordless Phone for Yahoo! Messenger with Voice CIT310; iPhone Dual-Mode Internet Telephony Kit for Skype CIT400; iPhone Wireless-G IP Phone WIP300; iPhone Wireless-G IP Phone with Web Browser WIP330; and iPhone Wireless-G Phone for Skype WIP320.

According to Linksys, these iPhones will enable consumers do more than just dial a phone number and wait for someone to answer at the other end.

The iPhones integrate popular communication clients such as Skype and Yahoo! Messenger with Voice, allowing users to actually see when their near and dear ones are online and ready to receive calls. Besides, callers can toggle between traditional landline services and free VoIP calling options available from Skype or Yahoo! All iPhones support popular Skype calling services, including SkypeOut, SkypeIn, and Skype Voicemail

TechTree:  Soon… Internet users will be able to experience a virtual tour of Mars or the Moon… thanks to the “Space Act Agreement” signed yesterday between Google and the Ames Research Center of USA’s National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

This momentous agreement will enable Google present Web visualizations of NASA’s immense data on the universe. NASA and Google will work closely on a variety of technical issues, making the Space Agency’s Space exploration work more accessible to the general public.

One such project will actually allow viewers view Mars and the Moon in all their splendour - in much the same way Google Earth lets users see the world they live in.

In a joint statement, the two companies said that they eventually aim to offer real-time weather visualization and forecasting, high-resolution 3-D maps of the Moon and Mars, as also real-time tracking of the International Space Station and the Space Shuttle - right from the screens of Internet-enabled computers.

BBCNews: A heatproof battery laptops, which could help solve recent problems with overheating, is to be mass produced by Japanese firm Matsushita.
It follows a series of incidents where batteries overheated or caught fire.

Sony has had to recall millions of laptop batteries in the last year and Matsushita and Sanyo also have had problems with overheating.

Matsushita has added a heat resistant layer to its lithium ion batteries and plans to step up mass production.

The company behind the Panasonic brand plans to produce five million units per month, up from 100,000 a month when the heat resistant batteries began shipping in April.

BBCNews: Detailed 3D images of the Moon and Mars will soon be just a click away for web users, following a deal between search giant Google and US space agency Nasa.
The Space Agreement Act, signed on Monday, will put “the most useful of Nasa’s information on the internet”.

Real-time weather data and the positions of the International Space Station and shuttle could be included.

The deal will also see scientists from both institutions working together to solve complex computational problems.

“This agreement between Nasa and Google will soon allow every American to experience a virtual flight over the surface of the moon or through the canyons of Mars,” said Nasa administrator Michael Griffin.

The deal will make “Nasa’s space exploration work accessible to everyone,” he added.

BBCNews: The government has abandoned plans for a giant new computer system to run the national identity cards scheme.
Instead of a single multi-billion pound system, information will be held on three existing, separate databases.

Home Secretary John Reid said it would save cash, but the Tories said ID cards were still a £20bn “white elephant”.

All non-Europeans already in the UK will also have to register fingerprints or iris scans from 2008 not just new arrivals, Mr Reid announced.

The controversial National Identity Register (NIR), which Mr Reid says will cost £5.4bn over 10 years, was originally proposed as a single “clean” computer system.

It was going to be built from scratch to avoid repeating mistakes and duplications in the government’s computer systems.