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indianexpress:  Ram Narayan Zagade (56), a resident of Yogi Society, Dhankawdi in a complaint lodged with the Wanawdi Police said that some unidentified thieves stole cash of Rs 49,000 from the Haribhau Girme High School in Wanawdi Bazar on Saturday morning. Zagade who is the principal of the school further added in his complaint that the thieves stole the cash which was meant for scholarships and computer fees of the students. According to the police, the thieves broke open the door latch of the office where the money was kept and decamped with the booty

itwire: Five million to come by the end of the year, and 2500 to be sent out by the end of the month, the OLPC ‘XO’ laptop still costs US $50 more to manufacture than the stated US $100 goal, but draws ever nearer to the success of a multi-million global mass rollout.
 
With five million XO’s to be built in July for shipping to eight nations by the end of the year, including Argentina, Brazil, Libya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Thailand and Uruguay, 2500 test laptops will be sent out to participating countries by the end of the month for the second round of actual in-field use with children.

Thailand was reported to have pulled out of the project following the coup, but after OLPC representatives visited Thailand, the new government has decided to re-join the project.

While the laptops cost US $150 to manufacture, US $50 more than the goal of the US $100 laptop, One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) representatives say they’ll keep the specifications of the OLPC laptop stable to drive costs down, rather than add new features, to reach the US $100 goal.

This is expected to be achieved by 2010, when 150 million XO laptops are expected to be shipped across the globe – something that’s been said to be worrying Microsoft a little due to the fact so many laptops out there won’t be running Microsoft Windows, although how seriously Microsoft takes this is unknown – it was reported several months ago that Nicholas Negroponte had invited Microsoft to develop a version of Windows suitable for the device and that Microsoft was looking into it.

itwire: Five THEMIS satellites crucial to understanding solar winds and space storms which can affect spacecraft and astronauts have successfully launched into space from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

NASA has reported that they’ve taken multitasking to new heights and have launched the five THEMIS satellites aboard a single Delta II rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida at 6:01 p.m. EST.

The Delta II rocket raced into space on the flaming power of three rocket stages and nine solid rocket motors, after which the THEMIS satellites soon after dispersed around Earth to monitor auroras like the Northern Lights.

NASA reports that they are “undertaking the mission to investigate what causes auroras in the Earth’s atmosphere to change in appearance and dissipate. Discovering why the light of auroras can fluctuate and fade will provide scientists with important details on how the planet’s protective magnetosphere works and on the sun-Earth connection”.

According to NASA, THEMIS is a mission to investigate what causes auroras in the Earth’s atmosphere to dramatically change from slowly shimmering waves of light to wildly shifting streaks of color. Discovering what causes auroras to change will provide scientists with important details on how the planet’s magnetosphere works and the important Sun-Earth connection.

timsonline: The world’s first robotic twitcher has been deployed to one of America’s most inhospitable swamps to join the search for the holy grail of birdwatching: an iconic woodpecker so rare that it was thought to be extinct for more than half a century.

The ivory-billed woodpecker, sometimes known as the Lord God bird because of its spectacular plumage, had last been spotted in 1944 before a possible sighting of a bird with its markings was reported in the Cache River national wildlife reserve, in Arkansas, in February 2004.

A fleeting image of the bird was then captured on video, and ornithologists recorded its characteristic drumming sounds, prompting Frank Gill, of the Audubon Society, the leading American bird conservation group, to declare its rediscovery to be “kind of like finding Elvis.”

However, the ivory bill’s survival has been disputed by sceptics, who argue that the bird in the video could be another bird, the pileated woodpecker.

The continuing controversy has prompted scientists to turn to new robotic technology in an effort to capture evidence: a high-resolution film of the Lord God bird in full flight.

“The problem with field biology is that it is very inefficient,” said Ken Goldberg, of the University of California, Berkeley, who led the team that designed the robot birdwatcher. “You have to go somewhere remote, sit for long periods in the cold, it is lonely, costly, and it can be downright dangerous. The presence of a researcher can also affect the presence of the species you are trying to help.

“Robots can help by watching right through the mosquito season and the snake season, if they can be made smart enough to make decisions and process data in real time.”

itwire: After demanding the removal of thousands of clips from YouTube, Viacom plans to let people post almost any video from MTV-owned websites on their own blogs and sites.

Viacom already allows visitors to several MTV websites, including Comedy Central, to add video clips to their own sites in a similar fashion to YouTube. The new deal will enable Viacom to recapture viewers who had been going to YouTube to watch Viacom content such as Jon Stewart’s “Daily Show” and MTV’s “Pimp My Ride”.

Viacom, owner of MTV Networks and Paramount movie studio, recently demanded Google-owned YouTube remove more than 100,000 video clips after the two firms failed to reach a distribution deal. Meanwhile YouTube is set to host classic television shows such as “I Spy” and “Gumby” under a deal with Digital Music Group. 

The move by Viacom comes as MTV Networks plans to slash around 250 jobs in the US to cut costs and invest in its “television and digital future,” according to an internal memo.