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financialexpress On July 14, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) asked a leading media organisation which had launched India’s first electronic wallet to “desist” from offering the service. More interestingly, it has found an incredibly smooth way to ban e-wallets until it gets the regulatory and statutory teeth to supervise their activities by laying down clear rules and guidelines, and enforcing Know Your Customer (KYC) requirements.

A month ago, this column had expressed concern about the launch of electronic wallets or e-purses that threatened to operate in a completely unregulated market, with sketchy to non-existent KYC norms. Had the first e-wallet been allowed to take-off without any objection, dozens of similar services would have soon sprung up, creating an exciting new market for Net-based services and spending opportunities.

While the money showed up as an electronic credit in the e-purse, it was actually credited into the current account that the service provider had with a clearing and settlement bank. The transactions would be conducted through Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) systems to ensure immediate fund transfers. E-wallets, stored value payment cards and mobile phone companies offering payment facilities are all part of a burgeoning global market that is bound to become a hit in India.

Potentially, e-wallets offer low-risk e-commerce facilities for the purchase of gifts, flowers, tickets to movies, sports events, concerts and purchase of books and subscriptions on-line. This is the good part. On the flip side, the ability to open accounts and transfer money in an unregulated environment could encourage Net-based gambling and other dubious activities. This becomes doubly dangerous in times of increased security risk and creates worries about terrorist funding. If e-wallet providers are unregulated, dubious operators will easily manage to avoid audit trails and electronic finger-prints.

news.com The update is part of the Redwood City, Calif., company’s quarterly patch cycle. Oracle preannounced its patch release Thursday, when, for the first time, it published an advance notification so customers could plan ahead to apply the fixes.

Oracle’s actual Tuesday “Critical Patch Update” has one fix less than the company originally announced. Instead of the planned 27 fixes for its database products, 26 vulnerabilities are addressed in the company’s flagship software.
 ”An issue was detected with one of the database fixes for a number of database versions,” Eric Maurice, manager for security at Oracle, wrote on a corporate blog. “Per our policy…we removed the fix from the January CPU. We are working to resolve this issue to release the fix on all supported database versions with the next CPU in April.”

In addition to the database fixes, Oracle’s update repairs 12 flaws in Application Server, 7 in E-Business Suite, 6 in Enterprise Manager and 3 in PeopleSoft. Many bugs are serious and could allow a system running the vulnerable Oracle software to be compromised remotely by an anonymous attacker, Oracle said.

xbitlabs The world’s largest producer of hard disk drives (HDDs) – Seagate Technology – has formally announced the world’s first small form-factor hard drives with 15 000rpm speed. The new drive promises performance that is higher than any other hard disk can offer, the company indicated.

“Seagate is committed to delivering solutions that will meet the needs of today’s demanding IT environment, and no product demonstrates this better than the Savvio 15K drive,” said Sherman Black, senior vice president and general manager, Seagate enterprise computer business.

Seagate Savvio 15K HDDs that use 2.5” form-factor will be available in 36GB and 73GB capacities with 16MB buffer and will use Serial Attached SCSI interconnection. Seagate indicated that the new drive has 2.9ms average seek time, 5.8W power consumption and mean time between failure of 1.6 million hours, which means that the new Savvio 15K is promises to offer higher performance amid lower power consumption and higher reliability than 3.5” Cheetah 15K (3.5ms average seek time, 8.4W power consumption, MTBF of 1.4 million hours).

Both Seagate Savvio 15K and Seagate Cheetah 15K use perpendicular magnetic recording technology, however, given that the latter use larger platters, it also offers 146GB capacities.

“The development of the 2.5” enterprise form-factor represented a new way of thinking. Now, with the added number of performance and capacity choices offered, many of the leading enterprise system makers are transitioning from 3.5” to 2.5” form factor enterprise solutions,” Mr. Black added.

Seagate Savvio 15K hard disk drives are shipping now to HP, meanwhile shipments to other customers will begin already this quarter. Pricing of Seagate Savvio 15K 36GB and 73GB is also unknown.

playfuls HP announced today that its research department came up with a breakthrough discovery, which could lead to the creation of field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) up to eight times denser.

The new FPGAs will use less energy for a given computation than those currently being produced.

Moreover, such chips could be built using the same sized transistors as those used in today’s FPGA design. This gives HP’s invention the advantage of making only small modifications to existing fabrication facilities for chip manufacturing.

FPGAs are integrated circuits with programmable logic components and interconnects that can be adapted by end-users for specific applications. They are used in a wide range of industries, including communications, automotive and consumer electronics.

Applications of FPGAs include DSP, software-defined radio, aerospace and defense systems, ASIC prototyping, medical imaging, computer vision, speech recognition, cryptography, bioinformatics, computer hardware emulation and a growing range of other areas. FPGAs originally began as competitors to CPLDs and competed in a similar space, that of glue logic for PCBs. As their size, capabilities, and speed increased, they began to take over larger and larger functions to the state where some are now marketed as full systems on chips (SOC).

FPGAs especially find applications in any area or algorithm that can make use of the massive parallelism offered by their architecture. One such area is code breaking, in particular brute-force attack, of cryptographic algorithms.

The technology calls for a nanoscale crossbar switch structure to be layered on top of conventional CMOS (complementary metal oxide silicon), using an architecture HP Labs researchers have named “field programmable nanowire interconnect (FPNI)” – a variation on the well-established FPGA technology.

business.timesonline.co.uk Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis, the internet billionaires behind Skype have signed up groups including Endemol UK, the Big Brother producer, and Warner Music Group, the US music label, to supply content to their free online television service.
The pair revealed yesterday that the service, expected to launched worldwide by the summer, will be called “Joost”. Developed under the codename “The Venice Project”, its creators say it will combine “broadcast quality, full screen” internet television with features inspired by social networking sites, while safeguarding content companies against piracy.

Joost users will download free software from the company’s website, which will allow content to be streamed to a PC in the form of encrypted packages of data, designed to thwart pirates. Viewers will be able to access content on demand, but will not be able to download or store programmes.

BitTorrent, a rival peer-to-peer company, is also trying to license technology to internet video companies. Cisco, Silicon Valley’s largest company, has estimated that the online video market could be worth $20 billion and that video will become the largest source of traffic on the web.

Mr Friis recently outlined the thinking behind Joost on his blog. He said of conventional TV: “[People] hate the linearness, the lack of choice, the lack of basic things like being able to search.

“And wholly missing is everything that we are now accustomed to from the internet: tagging, recommendations, choice and so on … TV is 507 channels and nothing on and we want to help change that.”

Indian Express The much-awaited official candidates’ lists of the NCP and the Congress has brought joy to many relatives of political heavyweights from both parties. But it has also led to anger among long-time party loyalists, who believed their rightful claim for party ticket was rejected.

In the NCP, party MLA Vilas Lande and MLC Laxman Jagtap walked away with tickets for their kin and close associates. Lande’s wife, Mohini, will contest for the first time from Landewadi while Mahesh Landge, a relative Lande’s will battle it out from Gavahanevasti in Bhosari. Landge in fact is the sitting NCP corporator.

MLC Laxman Jagtap has gone a step further. He has secured tickets for sister-in-law Kalpana Jagtap from Gajanan Maharaj Nagar in Pimple Gurav and younger brother Shankar Jagtap from Sudharshannagar.
While this was the case on one hand, on the other, close relatives are pitted against each other. In Sangvi’s ST Colony ward, NCP’s sitting corporator Prashant Shitole will be up against Rangnath Shitole (Congress) and Shashikant Shitole (BJP). NCP’s sitting corporator Mai Dhore will fight it out against her own relatives Alka Dhore of the Congress and Shiv Sena’s Ujwala Dhore.

In Kasarwadi, Rajendra Shelke of the Congress will be against uncle, Eknath Mote, a former corporator.

Indian Express A new building of the Poona College’s Centre for Advanced Research in Pharmaceutical Sciences will be inaugurated by Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare Dr Anbumani Ramadoss on January 21. The inauguration function will mark the completion of the silver jubilee celebrations of the college.

Speaking at a press conference, Prof Shivajirao Kadam, Vice-Chancellor, Bharati Vidyapeeth said that the inaugural function will be held at the Bharati Vidyapeeth’s educational complex in Erandawane. He added that Dr B Suresh, president of Pharmacy Council of India will be present at the occasion while the function will be presided over by Dr Patangrao Kadam, chancellor of Bharati Vidyapeeth University.
He further added that the college has been identified by AICTE for its Quality Improvement Programme (QIP) of MPharm and PhD.

With around 410 research papers submitted and 26 patents filed, the college is trying to expand its horizons in the field of research. It has also completed research projects of more than Rs 5 crore from the Department of Science and Technology, UGC, AICTE, Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and pharmaceutical industries.

Indian Express Monday’s incidents wherein supporters of aspiring candidates attacked the office of Bharatiya Janata Party near Tambdi Jogeshwari and Baramati hostel where Nationalist Congress Party leader Ajit Pawar was finalising the party’s nomination lists have shocked the rank and file of both parties. The attacks, triggered by the rejection of nominations to aspiring candidates, showed the erosion of the rapport between the party leadership and grassroot workers, seasoned politicians said.

“ It is not that headstrong candidates are contesting elections for the first time. Such candidates always aspire to contest the elections. However, it is the way in which the leaders handle the situation which makes a difference,” said a senior BJP leader. An NCP leader felt it was the fallout of giving false promises to workers.
Moreover, a BJP leader added, party officials should be cautious about their actions and words. “Till the list of nominations is released, the aspirants are tense. They seek psychological support from the leaders and tend to give significance to acts like a simple pat or encouraging words,” he said.

Many felt holding back the list hardly served any purpose in preventing rebellion or anti-party activities. “The list has to be released a few hours before the deadline to file nominations. If an aspirant makes up his mind to rebel, such tactics will not stop him. Aspirants are likely to get more frustrated if they are denied tickets after a prolonged wait,” an NCP leader said.

Indian Express For the first time in his life, sitting in a videoconference room, Sangli-based farmer Shivaji Patil found himself exchanging notes and taking advice from farmers in Sangli and Nashik and agricultural experts in Pune. From dealing with crop infection to right dosage of pesticides and fertilisers to be administered, for an hour, Patil and 20-odd farmers got tips on farming.

“Since the grape harvest season is about to begin soon, we had a lot of questions on how to go about it. Earlier, we had to wait for six months for experts to visit our villages and address our problems. But with this new satellite-linking facility, we will be able to stay in touch with them every week and get timely guidance for our crop,” says Patil, who owns 50 acres of farmland in Sangli.
As for the farmers, it definitely has helped them improve productivity and efficiency.

“I received technical assistance for my grape production and immediately saw 25-30 per cent difference in efficiency, compared to sugarcane,” adds Patil, who has both grape and sugarcane plantations.

The entire initiative is part of the company’s ‘Bhagidari’ scheme that also provides incentives like free accident insurance and scholarship facilities. Already 200 farmers across the state have become its members and the company plans to extend the model to Bijapur and Hyderabad soon.

Indian Express The unprecedented delay in releasing the official list of candidates for the February 1 civic polls by the ruling Congress was the talk of local political circles on Tuesday. Even 24 hours past the final deadline, the list remained elusive. Adding to the confusion, two nominees each were asked to file their papers in at least six wards - one of the reasons for the list not being made public, said well-placed party sources.

Sulbha Kshirsagar, the official candidate from Phulenagar (Ward No 16) was surprised by party colleague Shahji Thorat who too filed nomination papers from the same ward. “I do not know how and why (the duplication has happened). The city unit chief Abhay Chhajed handed over a letter to the election officer certifying me as the official candidate. Anyway, I filed the ‘B form’ first,” she said.

Congress poll observer Kanhaiyyalal Gidwani said he has submitted his report to MPCC president Prabha Rau regarding the issue of ‘B forms’. “I have asked Rau to announce the names of the official party candidates. The other candidates will need to withdraw even if they have submitted B forms, failing which disciplinary action will be taken,” he said.