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indianexpress: A mountaineering duo is suspected to have slipped from a vertical cliff atop the historic Sinhagad fort on Sunday killing while one and seriously injuring the other.

The deceased has been identified as Kedar Arvind Deshpande, 25, of Chinchwad, while the injured, Shankar Yashwant Parab, 24, a resident of Aundh, is admitted to a private hospital in the city after being rescued by the police with help of the locals.

The Haveli police said the mishap occurred on Sunday morning after Deshpande and Parab arrived at Hatkarwadi, a village at the foothills of the fort standing at 800 metres. They parked their motorcycle near the village and began climbing the fort from Tanaji Kada, which is quite a steep climb along the Kalyan Darwaja.

Haveli police sub inspector (PSI) S P Avtade said the exact cause behind the mishap could not be ascertained as yet but the duo, who were experienced mountaineers, may have slipped down the cliff.

Both Deshpande and Parab sustained serious injuries to their heads and limbs before falling unconscious. Parab regained his consciousness and used his mobile phone to call up Deshpande’s brother, who alerted the police.

cnet: At Fujitsu’s North American Technology Forum 2007 in Sunnyvale, Calif., Friday, a developer shows off W-Wallet, a secure payment software that can be loaded onto any Java-based phone with Web access. The application allows users to make secure payments via mobile phones–at point-of-sale locations, person-to-person, or as a method to securely log in to Web sites on public computers. Users need only a phone, a PIN and an access number, which is provided by the payee–a grocery store clerk, eBay seller, etc.

At the two-day forum, Fujitsu showed off technologies intended to increase efficiency for tasks ranging from reading to doing laundry to securing medical records

cnet: Two consortia that aim to facilitate research by linking universities via high-speed networking have announced plans to merge.

Although they had scrapped plans to combine their efforts a year ago, Internet2 and National LamdaRail (NLR) say they have finally come to an agreement and expect to complete their merger by June 29.

“To be sure, (the merger) involves compromises on each side,” the groups said in a joint statement released last week (click here for PDF). “But in the end, we believe that it provides the framework for an organization which will provide a significantly improved environment for stakeholders in Internet2 and NLR.”

NLR is a consortium of universities and technology companies that aims to build a nationwide optical network owned and used by the research community. It has been quietly snapping up thousands of miles of fiber-optic cable in an effort to build up its network. Because the network is owned and operated by researchers, it gives them greater flexibility and allows them to conduct experiments that they ordinarily couldn’t do on a standard communications network.

The Internet2 network, a much faster version of the Internet, was developed by a group of universities and technology companies looking to improve connection speeds. Researchers and professors use the network to enhance long-distance collaboration and learning.

Though created solely for research purposes, Internet2 came under the watchful eye of the Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America after some college students used it to swap music and even download entire movies. Two years ago, the RIAA and the MPAA joined Internet2 as members in an effort to form a collaborative relationship with the consortium.