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indianexpress: From being a battered, fuel guzzling, loss-making body, the Pune Municipal Transport has decided to go for a complete overhaul. From providing employees with identity cards to increasing mileage, the priority is to cut down losses and accidents and make it at least no-profit-no-loss transport body.

Currently, PMT’s daily earning is Rs 49 lakh while the expenditure is Rs 56 lakh, a loss of Rs 7 lakh per day.

With a new general manager C K Anil at its helm, the agenda has been set. If the first step was providing identity cards to employees, next on the agenda is increase the mileage from 3.4 km per litre to 4 km. “This will help save Rs 3 lakh per day,” top officials said.

A meeting of depot managers and mechanical engineers with the general manager will take place soon to review the situation. “Depot managers will be instructed to keep an eye on the punctuality of the buses, while mechanical engineers will be asked to keep a check on fuel consumption,” officials said.

They would also look at installation of switch-enabled battery starters that will enable quick start to the buses thereby reducing fuel consumption when the vehicles are idling.

Besides, they will also consider hiring more buses so that the government: hired bus ratio goes up. “We are trying to increase the ratio to 35 per cent by hiring over 160 buses,” officials said. At present, the ratio stands at 20 per cent or nearly 160 buses in a fleet of 832 buses.

The idea is to increase the daily passenger carrying capacity from 5.6 lakh to 6 lakh, bringing in additional revenue of Rs 3 lakh to PMT. The drivers and conductors have also been directed to take as many commuters as possible. “If the buses are vacant, employees have been instructed to stop and help commuters board the bus,” they said.

Indianexpress: After completing the interviews of aspiring candidates for Pune Municipal Corporation elections scheduled on February 1, the Nationalist Congress Party is now all set to launch its election campaign. Party chief Sharad Pawar will kickstart the campaign by holding an election rally at Sarasbaug on Saturday.

For NCP, which has decided to go to the polls without any pre-poll alliance, this is a crucial stage. Success in the civic polls would not only help the party strengthen itself in the state but will also help guardian minister Ajit Pawar assert himself in State politics. The NCP faces a major challenge from the dominance of sitting MP Suresh Kalmadi and the Bharatiya Janata Party-Shiv Sena alliance. At present, the NCP is in the third position in the Pune Municipal Corporation.

Political observers feel this is why Sharad Pawar will kickstart the campaign which will send out a strong message that he is in full support of his nephew. Earlier, NCP’s city unit chief Jaydeo Gaikwad had announced that Ajit Pawar will begin campaigning.

In order to facilitate the rally, the traffic flow will be diverted near Swargate. The traffic from Jedhe chowk to Jamnalal Bajaj chowk will be closed for traffic, which will be diverted from Volga chowk via Shankarseth Road to Seven Loves Chowk or via Tilak Road to Puram chowk.

Indianexpress:  Looking forward to conducting joint social research projects and exchanging students and academic staff, the New York based New School University (NSU) — it comprises eight colleges — is planning to sign a Memorandum of Understanding with the University of Pune (UoP). While the American varsity is planning to cash in on the scientific potential of UoP, the city stands to gain from NSU’s forte in design skills.

“We are trying to find commonalties between the universities and are discussing possibilities of our students coming here. It is also on the cards to hold joint degrees and exchange students,” said Bob Kerrey, former Governor of Nebraska and President of the NSU, who is in Pune on Vice Chancellor Narendra Jadhav’s invitation.

NSU is planning to seek UoP’s help in restructuring its undergraduate programme and conducting joint research projects. “We are changing the curriculum of our under-graduate courses and a lot of stress will be on acquiring global skills. We also have a graduate course in international affairs and our students would want to come here,” Kerrey said, adding that India was a ‘very very hot’ subject in American academic circles.

He added that the New School, which carries out various studies on urban and rural development, is looking at using scientific skills from UoP.

Design is another field that has been identified for collaboration between the varsities. NSU, which runs numerous courses like web design, product design, robotics, graphic design and animation, is looking at bringing its skills to UoP.

TechTree: Epson has announced the launch of the Epson Stylus CX6900F, its newest AIO (all-in-one) printer with integrated PC-less fax function.

With the printer’s 33.6Kbps color fax modem, Auto-Redial function, and speed dial memory with a capacity of up to 60 numbers, sending and receiving faxes is a breeze. Besides, the CX6900F can function as a stand-alone printer without being tethered to a PC.

The Contrast Levels setting allows users select the precise fax print quality that they need. Unwanted faxes can be held at bay by simply tapping on ‘on’ or ‘off’ on the Auto Answer mode.

The Stylus CX6900F features a one-line LCD screen fitted snugly onto a one-touch control panel for selection and confirmation of tasks. The printer can connect to PictBridge devices, and its card slots accept all the common memory cards.

With scanning resolutions of up to 1200dpi, documents and images can be captured in a crisp quality. A simple copy function lets users choose between black and color-rich copying - with a tap on the one-touch button.

The combination of DURABrite pigment inks and Epson’s proprietary Micro Piezo print head technology produces superior quality black and white and color prints. The DURABrite inks come in INKdividual cartridges, making for a reduction in operational costs.

With print speeds of up to 27 pages per minute for black text and color print-outs, and up to 29 seconds for 4R prints, together with Epson’s Variable Sized Droplet Technology that is capable of a minimum 3 picolitre droplet size, not to mention print resolutions of up to 5760dpi, the Stylus CX6900F is capable of rendering a smooth finish to even the most demanding of color prints.

Techtree: SanDisk has introduced a 32-gigabyte (GB), 1.8-inch solid-state drive (SSD) as a drop-in replacement for the standard mechanical hard disk drive.

The company said that SanDisk SSD, which initially aimed at enterprise users as the first step towards mass consumer adoption, offers field-proven durability to keep mobile PCs working in the toughest of conditions, and improves the overall user experience.

Talking about the product, Eli Harari, Chief Executive Officer of SanDisk, said, “The 32GB SSD that we are announcing today represents the fifth generation of flash-based solid state drives developed by msystems, which we recently acquired. The 32GB SSD has been made commercially viable through SanDisk’s technology leadership coupled with msystems’ tremendous experience and IP, which are captured in the high-performance, low-cost system controllers that distinguish this product.”

“Once we begin shipping the 32GB SSD for notebook PCs, we expect to see its increasing adoption in the coming years, as we continue to reduce the cost of flash memory. When these SSD devices become more affordable, we expect that their superior features over rotating disk drives will create a new consumer category for our retail sales channels worldwide,” Harari said.

Using NAND flash enhanced by SanDisk’s patented TrueFFS flash management technology, SanDisk SSD delivers two million hours mean time between failures (MTBF). Besides, it achieves a sustained read rate of 62 megabytes (MB) per second, and a random read rate of 7,000 inputs/outputs per second (IOPS) for a 512-byte transfer, which is more than 100 times faster than most hard disk drives.

TechTree: Fujifilm has announced three new FinePix digital cameras; including the 8-megapixel FinePix F40fd, the 8-megapixel FinePix A800, and the 6-megapixel FinePix A610.

The FinePix F40fd is a compact, highly portable, and stylish camera that features Fujifilm’s Face Detection Technology, which can detect up to 10 human faces in a scene in as little as 5/100’s of a second, regardless of where the subjects are located within the frame.

The FinePix F40fd allows users to effortlessly capture the moment as their eye sees it, using Fujifilm’s Real Photo technology. The camera can utilize ISO settings of up to 2000, capturing stunning images even in low light while preserving the natural color and clarity of the shot.

The F40fd features Dual Shot Mode, a convenient function that takes two shots in rapid succession, one with flash and one without, letting the user decide on the best picture. With Picture Stabilization mode, blur effect associated with hand shake is reduced. With Intelligent Flash or i-Flash, the camera detects subtle lighting differences within a scene, then varying flash intensity accordingly.

The FinePix A800 and FinePix A610 are the first models in Fujifilm’s A-Series line-up that sport the company’s proprietary Super CCD HR Sensor and Real Photo (RP) Processor, thus making it possible to capture sharp and detailed images with less amount of noise.

Both models feature a dual memory card slot, which accepts not only Fujifilm’s traditional xD-Picture Card but also the popular Secure Digital (SD) card format

TechTree: LG Electronics has announced that it will launch the world’s first dual-format high-definition disc player. The new dual-format player will be capable of playing both Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD content.

According to LG, this technological breakthrough will end the confusion and inconvenience created by rival formats, Blu-ray and HD-DVD, for content producers and consumers alike.

The player will be unveiled along with complete details at the upcoming 2007 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) at Las Vegas, beginning January 8 through January 11. The player is expected to be released first in the US - early this year.

Although there is no pricing available yet for the dual-format player, being a first generation device, it is expected to carry a high price tag.

There is speculation the dual-format player will succeed in ending the long pending format war between Sony-backed Blu-ray Disc and Toshiba-backed HD-DVD.

Last year, a couple of stand-alone Blu-ray and HD-DVD players were launched by companies including Sony, Panasonic, Samsung, and Toshiba. Microsoft even made HD-DVD available as an add-on for its Gen-Next gaming console, Xbox 360. Amidst all this, it remains to be seen how a dual-format player will be received by the industry.

Industry watchers feel the availability of a player compatible with both Gen-Next formats will act as a catalyst for the high-definition movie disc market. They also feel it is likely to lead to a price reduction in both Blu-ray and HD-DVD players.

TechTree: Mumbai-based GHQ Networks has launched GameGuru.in, a dedicated Blogspace for gamers and gaming.

Claimed to be India’s first professional game blog, GameGuru promises to offer gaming enthusiasts the access and the ability to stay updated with daily news, views, analyses, and opinions on the world of gaming.

According to company sources, the gaming scene in India is very nascent, and it revolves only around mobile phones and casual gaming, and up to a point PC games. Today, gaming has extended to console, online, and multiplayer gaming.

Reportedly, the year 2006 witnessed the launch of the much awaited next-gen console and saw many agreements between VCs and gaming start-ups. In addition, the introduction of speedy Broadband Internet connections are playing catalyst to the growth of online multiplayer games in India, by enabling gamers have a lag-free gaming experience.

Raoul Bangera, CEO of Gameguru.in, and the brain behind the blog, said, “After conducting preliminary research, results showed that there was huge potential for growth in the gaming sector, hence it necessitated the establishment of a premium gaming Web site to exploit this gap. There was a need to bring all these factors together, and provide a platform where all gaming needs would be discussed and covered. This is where GameGuru.in steps in. It plans to cover every game genre and every major gaming platform, including PCs, consoles, online and mobile.”

GameGuru.in was set-up because there is now a need to bring gamers and game creators under one proverbial roof, thus gratifying curiosity and promoting the gaming scene in India.

BBCNews: Web users are being urged to upgrade their Adobe reader software as a security flaw is found in older versions of the program.
Millions of people use the reader software to view documents prepared in the popular PDF format.

Security researchers said malicious hackers exploiting the flaw could view victim’s hard drives or use it to make phishing scams look more plausible.

So far there is no evidence that the bug is being exploited in the wild.

The flaw is found in the web browser plug-in of the Adobe Reader software. Ordinarily this allows PDF documents to be viewed in a browser window.

But by exploiting the flaw hi-tech criminals could use links to PDF files stored on any website to attack vulnerable Windows PCs.

Information about the flaw in the Adobe reader software was first revealed at the annual conference of the Chaos Computer Club - a venerable German hacker group.

Since then security researchers have investigated and found that it could also be used to view files on the hard drive of a vulnerable PC.