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indianexpress: FIVE dacoits struck at Vedvihar Society in Kothrud on Sunday night, held flat owner 66-year-old Ceyardass Ramchandra at knife and gunpoint and decamped with jewellery worth Rs 6 lakh and Rs 60,000 in cash. This is the third attack on senior citizens.

The gang attacked Haresh Maru (64), living in a bungalow on Baner-Mhalunge Road on May 24 while a gang struck at Daddy Karset Daddy’s (84) bungalow on Prince of Wales Drive on Saturday.

Ramchandra woke up to a clanging noise on his door around 1.30 am on Monday. When he peeped through his window, he found a person resembling his neighbour V N Kulkarni outside and unlatched the door.

The door was pushed open causing Ramchandra to fall down. “They were five people with their faces covered in black cloth. Their eyes were visible but identification was difficult. One positioned himself near the door, while another clamped his fingers on my throat and led me towards the inside room. This woke my wife and daughter.”

Ceyardass said the dacoits had a knife, a chopper, two iron rods and a gun. “They put the gun to my temple and stuck the knife in my ribs and threatened to kill me if I made a noise. They made me open the cupboard where the valuables were kept and took all of it.”

Before leaving, they threatened to kill him if he made a noise. As soon as they left, the family latched the door.

“The dacoits had cut off the phone lines but my daughter, Aruna, called the neighbours warning them to keep their doors closed even if someone knocked,” said Ramchandra. The neighbours called the building’ security and the Kothrud police station and nearly 25 policemen came over,”he said.

indianexpress: IN the wake of increased freight traffic, the Pune division of Central Railway (CR) will bid adieu to its most primitive track system in the Daund-Baramati section. The One Train Only System — currently connecting Daund and Baramati — will be replaced by the Absolute System to facilitate more freight traffic.

The One Train Only System is considered one of the oldest track systems in Indian railways’ history as it was designed by the British rulers. But it has been in operation between Daund and Baramati for almost a decade. And as the name implies, only one locomotive can work at a time in the single-line section between two stations.

In absence of signals, a copper plate inscribed with ‘One Train Only’ works as an indicator. When a train leaves Daund, the plate is given to the loco-pilot and till he returns, no train is allowed to enter in the section. According to railway officials, the narrow gauge between Daund and Baramati was changed to the One Train Only System in 1990s.

This system currently exists at hill stations like Darjeeling and a few smaller sections across the country like Batala-Qadian and Nawan Shahr-Rahon in Punjab.

It is usually adopted for small-distance-less-traffic sections, a senior railway official said. “However, freight traffic from Baramati has increased to a large extent. In 2005-06, we used to have 1.5 rakes of freight every month, which rose to four in 2006-07,” the official said. “In April and May, we had taken around eight rakes a month.”

indianexpress: The Anti Extortion Cell (AEC) of the city police on Sunday busted a racket in which question papers for the ongoing diploma in mechanical engineering exams conducted by Tilak Maharashtra Vidyapeeth were leaked. Rahul Gopal Vibhute (28), a peon attached to Abhinav College, and administration officer Chetan Khandagle have been arrested .

The team led by police inspector Bhanupratap Barge trapped Vibhute after a tip off that the papers of mechanical engineering and elements of mechanical engineering of the first year diploma course would be sold near Shaniwarwada.

Vibhute was found with a question paper on elements of mechanical engineering. After interrogation, he confessed to have stolen other question papers and told interrogators that he had sold them to four persons for an amount ranging from Rs 3,500 to Rs 4,000, AEC officials said. Barge said Abhinav College was one of the 27 exam centres.

‘’Rahul, helped by Khandagle, stole five papers of first year, four papers of elements of mechanical engineering and two papers of mechanical engineering of the second year,’’he said.

They were stolen from the principal’s cupboard on May 15, photocopied and sold. The examination began on May 27.

University assistant secretary Jagdish Salve has lodged a complaint at Vishrambaug police station. The authorities cancelled Monday’s examination.

indianexpress: Over 300 agitated farmers from Ahire village, located near Khadakvasla, took out a morcha to the district collectorate on Monday, demanding immediate rehabilitation.

The villages were acquired in 1950 for the National Defence Academy. Protesting the failure on the part of the State government to rehabilitate them, the villagers threatened to go on an indefinite hunger strike if their demands were not met with.

The demands include allocation of five guntha land each for the displaced families, financial aid for construction of houses, government jobs for a member of the affected families and immediate handing over of 65 acres of land for rehabilitation.

Villagers from Atkarwadi, Wanjalwadi and Kadve also participated in the morcha.

The demands of the dam-affected villagers included handing over the excess land acquired by the State government for the Varasgaon dam and registering the land in their names.

indianexpress: Several programmes have been organised to celebrate World Environment Day on Tuesday. The Institution of Engineers has organised a function where Dr R D Vaisgistha, deputy director general of meteorology (Surface Instrument) will be chief guest.

The Ecological Society will organise a discussion on ‘Nature Resurrection’ to be attended by Forest Minister Babanrao Pachpute at the society’s office on Senapati Bapat Road. Indian Environmental Association is also organising a Paryavaran Sansad at Akhil Bharatiya Sthanik Swarjya Sanstha’s hall in Kothrud.

To sensitise people on environment issues, MAHARASHTRA Enviro Power Ltd (MEPL) has organised a campaign to encourage tree plantation. They will distribute free tree saplings to villagers of Ranjangaon.

The SMS group — a subsidiary of MEPL — is also setting up a state-of-art plant at Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) Nagpur, and MIDC Ranjangaon for “Common Hazardous Waste Treatment, Storage and Disposal Facility”. This project is promoted by MIDC and is authorised by Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB).

indianexpress: A WORKSHOP for Members of Legislative Council and Legislative Assembly was organised at the Yashwantrao Chavan Academy of Development Administration (YASHADA) recently on the State’s action plan for curbing child labour.

Sashikant Waidande, assistant professor from Child Rights Cell of YASHADA, said the workshop was organised to sensitise people’s representatives. “While preparing the State action plan, the political leaders were identified as one of the players for the plan’s implementation,” Waidande said.
 
Waidande said, during the workshop, political party representatives were given an idea of the State’s action plan. The meeting was attended by labour minister for state Ganesh Naik, BJP MLC Shobhatai Phadnis, advocate Baburao Chapat, MLC Neelam Gorhe, MLA Padmakar Valvi and Ramnath Mote.

Gorhe said they have suggested corrections in the government resolution. “The GR mentions Mumbai for implementation of action plan. We have suggested to include other cities to address the issue in a larger perspective. To tackle the problem, there was a need for a child-labour action plan,” she said.

techtree: Jetway has announced introduction of its ‘M28GT3-SDG’ motherboard, promising a combination of speed, flexibility, and enhanced visual experience.

The company says that its ‘M28GT3-SDG’ motherboard comes with a powerful integrated Nvidia Geforce 7025 GFX Core graphics chipset, and supports Socket AM2 64-bit dual core and AMD Athlon64 X2 processor.

The motherboard also supports HyperTransport technology, which the company claims, can increase overall system performance by removing I/O bottlenecks, increasing system bandwidth, and reducing system latency.

Being embedded with Pro Magic Plus System Recovery software not only provides the motherboard with the ability of restoring data instantly, but also brings data back to the preferred state at any specific time point. The motherboard combines functions like anti-virus, backup, uninstall, and multi-booting amongst others.

In addition, the ‘M28GT3-SDG’ supports 8GB dual channel DDR2 800 SDRAM, 4 Serial ATA2 devices with Raid functions, DVI output, 8 Channel HD Audio, and comes embedded with 10 high speed USB ports.

In a statement, Joseph Hsu, Vice President of Sales, Jetway, said, “With a host of features bundled along with an attractive pricing, this board is surely going to be a feather in the cap for users looking for value for money in a motherboard.”

techtree: A new type of memory format called the ‘miCard’ (Multiple Interface Card) has been approved by the Multimedia Card Association (MMCA) as a global memory standard, say reports.

The ‘miCard’ which has been developed by Taiwan-based Industrial Technology Research Institute, is designed to work in small consumer gadgets such as digital cameras, mobile phones, and any device with a USB plug.

The card has been developed, reportedly, to make transferring data between gadgets and PCs easier. It is USB 2.0 compatible and can transfer data at 480 Mbits per second. Initially, the ‘miCard’ will be able to store 8GB of data, but the maximum capacity is expected to top out around 2,048GB.

The 12mm wide and 1.95mm thick ‘miCard’ is smaller than regular Multi Media Cards (MMC), so it will require an adaptor for MMC-compliant devices. However, the company anticipates that future devices will be able to directly accept the miCard.

Besides, compatibility with both USB and MMC slots eliminates the need for an external card reader.

According to Yves Leonard, Chairman of MMCA, they have developed the ‘miCard’ specification to provide manufacturers a solution that is adaptable and convenient for consumers. Adding USB 2.0 capability to a memory card provides an interface that is compatible with existing products, and widely recognized by general consumers.
 

tmcnet: Toshiba Storage Device Division (SDD) today announced the world’s first slim HD DVD-RW drive for mobile PCs, further extending high-definition recording capabilities to the IT arena. The new drive can read, write and rewrite to HD DVD-RW discs, as well as read and write to HD DVD-R discs and standard DVD and CD discs.

Click to learn the importance of data management in creating availability solutions including clarification of availability terminology.
 
Cost containment for communications vendors and their carrier customers can be achieved on two fronts. Click here to find out what they are and how to streamline the development and maintenance costs associated with building the product.
 
Click here to learn more about DSP modules and how they power multimedia messaging services for mobile networks and how to decrease the development and maintenance costs associated with building the product.
 
Click here to learn more about DSP modules and how they power multimedia messaging services for mobile networks and how to decrease the development and maintenance costs associated with building the product.

Toshiba’s SD-L912A enables mobile PCs to replace larger desktop systems in the home with this additional high-definition functionality. The drive allows backup of large-capacity PC hard disk drives to the reusable format of HD DVD-RW discs and provides capabilities to store data-rich, high-definition digital content. HD DVD-RW functionality also opens the door to a wide range of applications involving storage and rewriting of large volumes of data.

“High-definition broadcasting and increasing consumer interest in high-definition televisions and camcorders are spurring demand for a high-definition experience across the entire PC and consumer electronics ecosystem,” said Scott Maccabe, vice president and general manager of Toshiba Storage Device Division. “HD DVD is the best solution for transitioning to a high-definition world because it is compatible with existing DVD and CD technology. Our new rewritable drive will extend the functionality of HD DVD as a tool for creating and enjoying digital content in the mobile PC environment.”

tgdaily: Perhaps AMD and Intel should not have abandoned the Gigahertz-race and bunsen-burner processors after all: Scientists from the University of Utah today said that they can convert waste heat into sound and electricity.

There soon may be a rather unusual method to cool down your overclocked rig: Physicist Orest Symko and his research team at the University of Utah said they succeeded in building small devices that turn heat into sound and then into electricity. The findings, which are part of a 5-year, $2 million project to develop “tiny thermo-acoustic refridgerators”, will be presented at the annual meeting of the Acoustical Society of America this Friday.

According to Symko, most of the heat-to-electricity acoustic devices are housed in cylinder-shaped “resonators” that fit in the palm of a hand. Each cylinder, or resonator, contains a “stack” of material with a large surface area – such as metal or plastic plates, or fibers made of glass, cotton or steel wool – placed between a cold heat exchanger and a hot heat exchanger.

When heat is injected, the heat builds to a threshold and moving air produces sound. The sound is then converted into electricity by using “piezoelectric” devices that are squeezed in response to pressure, including sound waves, and change that pressure into electrical current. Only about 20% of the sound energy is lost when pressure is converted to electricity, Symko said.
So, how efficient is the conversion of waste heat into electricity overall? Symko said that the efficiency depends on its application and temperature differences – the higher the difference between a source heat and the temperature within the cylinder, the greater the efficiency. He believes the technology can be about 20 – 25% efficient initially, with greater efficiencies to be reached down the road, depending on the application. However, he told TG Daily that the technology could enable solar cells, which are up to 40% efficient in high-end applications and typically reach efficiencies of less than 20% in mass market products, to bump efficiencies to more than 50%.

For microprocessors, the technology could be used as a supporting cooling technology: Ironically, the technology increases its efficiency with greater temperatures – the hotter a processor the more sense the energy conversion technology makes.