News

Indianexpress: Factionalism in Congress reared its head on Wednesday when two groups — supporters of MP Suresh Kalmadi and Cantonment MLA Balasaheb Shivarkar — clashed at Vaiduwadi in Hadapsar area over ticket distribution for the civic elections to be held on February 1. The stone pelting that took place left four policemen and five party workers injured.

The injured have been admitted to Sassoon Hospital and their condition is stated to be stable.

However, Shivarkar dismissed the fight between the two groups as personal enmity. “Both the groups are mine and the clash occurred due to their personal enmity. It has nothing to do with factionalism in the Congress. There is no political motive behind the clash,” he said. Despite repeated attempts, Kalmadi was unavailable for comment.

The police said the fight took place between supporters of Wadar community leader Ananta Alkunde and Vaidu community leader Balram Shinde as the latter did not want Alkunde to get a ticket for the municipal elections. The police said Shinde’s supporters attacked Alkunde’s people with iron rods and sticks when they were going towards Wadarwadi. They also ransacked Alkunde’s office and damaged at least three motorcycles parked in front of his office.

Alkunde’s supporters retaliated by attacking Vaiduwadi residents and pelted stones at a Pune Municipal Transport bus.

Alkunde is a follower of Shivarkar and had joined the Congress three months ago from the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), while Shine is a staunch supporter of Kalmadi.

Assistant commissioner of police Ramesh Bival said there was previous enmity between the two groups. “But the recent clash is politically motivated,” he said.

Indianexpress: It is hard to believe, but a class 12 student from the region claims to have developed the prototype of a single-seater helicopter that will cost just Rs 2 lakh. The helicopter, developed after three years of research by Solapur-based Pranjal Kulkarni (21), will fly for the first time in June this year before a Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) team to evaluate its airworthiness.

Ajinkya, as the aircraft is named, will be the smallest helicopter in the world with a length and rotor span of just 11 feet, if the test flight is successful. Kulkarni, who sought permission from the research and development division of DGCA in October, is planning to approach the National Defence Academy (NDA) for use of its airstrip to carry out the test flight. While details have not been chalked out, the test will entail over 10 minutes of flight to approve the basic design of the aircraft. Kulkarni has already carried out ground tests for the aircraft.

“DGCA officials asked me to fix the date for a preliminary flight and assured they will come to give the necessary clearances,” Kulkarni, who has developed the aircraft using study material, research on the internet and a little guidance from Solapur-based aeromodelling expert Subash Mashal, said. An aeromodelling enthusiast, he has been designing model aircraft for the past 10 years as a hobby and raised money from friends and family to develop the aircraft.

Indianexpress: The Pune division of the Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation (MSRTC) is all set to kick start its Mahabus service to Mumbai on Friday.

MSRTC General Manager (Traffic) S B Bawiskar will inaugurate the service at the Pune Railway Station ST Terminus with a Mahabus on the Pune-Dadar route. Another Mahabus will be dedicated to the Swargate-Borivali route on January 15.

At present, four Mahabuses from the Mumbai depot are plying to Pune, Pune Divisional Controller P P Nimsarkar said. Mahabuses are white Kinglon and Globus AC buses with a capacity of 35 passengers, an air suspension and a video facility, he added.

“We ultimately aim to make available a Mahabus to Mumbai every hour from the Pune Station Terminus,” Nimsarkar said. The fare for the Mahabus, despite additional facilities, will be Rs 200, the same as for the other AC buses. These buses will be available from Parihar chowk (Aundh) and Pimpri-Chinchwad every 30 minutes. Commuters can book the tickets for both the Mahabus and the AC buses at Dadar, Thane, Pune railway station and Swargate bus terminii.

Indianexpress: Three doctors, including the resident medical officer of Sassoon Hospital were roughed up by an angry mob on Tuesday night.

According to the Bundgarden police, Afzal Zarif Ziya and Ishrat Jabbar Shaikh were brought to the hospital on Tuesday night for treatment after a skirmish between them turned violent in Kasewadi area of Bhavani Peth.

Shaikh, who was brought in by his supporters first, was taken to the casualty ward. After being administered first aid, as he was coming out with his supporters, Ziya was on the way to the OPD ward. This is when Ziya was beaten up brutally by Shaikh’s supporters.

As a bruised Ziya lay on the ground, his supporters rushed in and roughed up RMO Dr Vidyasagar Narsingh Rao Chawale, Dr Kankavle and Dr Mishra for failing to intervene and protect Ziya. Groups led by Ziya and Shaikh have clashed against each other earlier too, according to the police.

Investigating officer Assistant Police Inspector A S Hatkar said: “There was a fight between the groups led by Ishrat and Afzal, following which the groups reached Sassoon Hospital for treatment and to get certificates for injuries that the duo sustained.”

BBCNews: Brain scans have given US scientists a clue about how we create a mental image of our own future.
The Washington University team say that specific areas of the brain are active when thinking about upcoming events.

The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences study could help doctors trying to understand damage inflicted by strokes, injuries or diseases.

The findings tally with damage spotted in the brains of patients who have lost the ability to ‘think ahead’.

The brain remains the most poorly understood organ of the body, but the use of MRI scans to examine the way they work has taken off in recent years.

When patients or volunteers are placed in the functional MRI scanner and asked to think or move in a particular way, specific areas of the brain ‘light up’ on the scan image, corresponding with increased electrical activity in those regions.

The technique has developed to the extent that scientists can almost know what patients are thinking about simply by looking at the brain areas they are using.

The latest project looked at one of the qualities thought to be unique to humans - the ability to create a mental picture of events that have not yet happened.

The researchers placed 21 volunteers into the MRI machine, then contrasted the scan results when they were asked to imagine vividly future events and recollect past memories

BBCNews: UK firm Plastic Logic has said it will build the world’s first factory to produce plastic electronic devices.
The Cambridge-based company has secured $100m (£50.6m) venture capital funding for the German plant.

Once built it will manufacture circuits crucial for the development of novel gadgets such as electronic paper.

Unlike silicon, plastic circuits can be made using simple printing techniques and could dramatically reduce the price of consumer electronic goods.

The factory will be built in Dresden, known for its strength in silicon technology.

Plastic spin-out

Plastic Logic is a spin out from Cambridge University and has been developing plastic electronic devices since 2000.

The firm is working on “control circuits” that sit behind screens on electronic displays. In particular, it is working on the electronic circuitry for “electronic paper” displays.

These flexible devices can store the text of thousands of books or newspapers and could one day replace paper.

Industry experts forecast the market for plastic electronics could be worth $30billion by 2015.

BetaNews: Continued tests by BetaNews on the form of the Win32 API message box call discovered two weeks ago, capable of crashing Microsoft Windows Vista as well as earlier versions, indicates that while the executable code remains a problem, its capacity for damage to Windows computers may be limited to merely crashing the system.

Last month, security engineers discovered the latest incarnation of a problem first encountered eight years ago: When an API function dating back to the first version of the Win32 library tells the system to display a dialog box as though it were coming from the OS itself and not the active application, and when the text to be displayed in that message box appears to contain what may be a disused character code sequence, then memory becomes corrupted. At least one, sometimes more, repeated calls can cause Windows to crash.

But if memory is corrupted, can it be exploited, and for how long? BetaNews’ tests on clean, virtual Windows XP and Windows Vista environments indicate the answers are as follows: Probably not, and if that proves wrong, for not long at all.

First, however, it’s important to note that our latest tests could not replicate the same problems we encountered during our first runs: specifically, a corruption of the security event logs. In Vista, this particular set of logs is only accessible to an account with administrator privileges; not even User Access Control can elevate a “Standard” user to “Administrator” level to enable him to see this log. For this task, a user must formally log onto an administrator account. (Even then, curiously enough, the admin user, if policy restricts him, may be forced to “elevate” his own privilege anyway before viewing the security logs, either by clicking on Continue or by signing in at the logon prompt.)

TechTree: Intellicon, a business associate for Metrologic USA in the country, has launched Metrologic’s Bi-Optic Scanner named “Stratos”.

This scanner from Metrologic is the world’s first six-sided 360 degree (5/6 sides) bi-optic in-counter scanner. It has been designed for high-speed check out, maximum uptime, and quick return on investments.

Stratos uses a single process for scanning as well as weighing products. With the superior performance and optional in-built weighing scale, the company believes that it will save customers’ time waiting at cash counters while shopping at supermarkets, food stores, etc. Presently, it is being used by Reliance Retail and Nilgiris (Chennai).

Further, Stratos also features two separate and independent scanning surfaces that would ensure low down times in case of rare failures.

Metrologic believes that Stratos is ideal for the Indian retail environment because of its space saving form and five/six-sided scanning options.

Some of the outstanding features of Stratos include: Multi interface capability, an integrated Electronic Article Surveillance (EAS) antenna, operator training software, and bar code statistics reporting.

Stratos 360 degree bi-optic in-counter scanner is available in 6 options, including scale ready options, for prices ranging from Rs 60,000 to Rs 110,000.

TechTree: Samsung Electronics has reportedly started sampling to its customers - the 16-gigabit (Gb) NAND flash memory chip based on the 50 nanometer (nm) process technology.

Samples of the first 50nm technology-based high density NAND flash memory have a multi-level cell (MLC) design with a 4Kbyte (KB) page size, which would enhance both read and write functions.

The new 4KB page function is an improvement over the conventional 2KB paging system for MLC NAND flash, and doubles read speed, besides increasing write performance by 150 percent.

This would almost double the overall performance of Samsung’s MLC NAND. It would result in faster data transfer speeds while storing or reading large data files, using an external memory card, or a handset with a built-in flash solution such as moviNAND.

According to Samsung, by using this chip, the company will be able to manufacture 32 gigabyte memory cards that are capable of storing 32 hours of DVD video recording, four-megabyte of digital music files, 8,000 songs, or a newspaper’s 200-year-old archive.

Samsung plans to start mass production of its 16Gb NAND flash memory in the first quarter of the year.

The company is expecting the early introduction of 16Gb and higher density NAND flash memories to accelerate the adoption of non-volatile memory applications.

While the first Samsung non-volatile memory chip was unveiled in 2005, the company believes that small-size, large-capacity NAND chips will fast replace hard-disk drives embedded in mobile gizmos ranging from digital cameras to MP3 players, USB flash drives, and mobile phones.
 

TechTree: IOL Broadband (India on Line Broadband) has reportedly tied up with Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) for Internet Protocol television (IPTV) services to BSNL subscribers.

The company has already started trials of the IPTV service on the BSNL broadband network in Bangalore, and its IPTV and video on demand (VoD) services will be formally launched in Bangalore on 14 January, 2007, with other cities following suit later this year.

Apart from this, for the IPTV service, IOL Broadband has also signed a revenue sharing agreement with Anytime, a group of major Hollywood Studios, including Disney, Fox, Warner, and Universal.

According to the company, under the agreement, IOL IPTV subscribers will enjoy viewing Hollywood movies without any commercial breaks, that too months before they are broadcast on satellite TV.

Moreover, IOL Broadband sees itself as a third alternative to CAS and DTH as it’s IPTV service gives viewers total and interactive control over TV and video media, along with full play functions such as pause, rewind, fast forward, and store.

IOL Broadband had earlier signed a similar agreement with MTNL in October 2006. The company claims to be a pioneer in IPTV services, and the first to commercially roll-out IPTV services across the country through tie-ups with public sector telecom majors, MTNL and BSNL.