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indianexpress: Infosys Technologies has emerged as the biggest software exporter from Pune in 2006-07. The company has recorded exports of Rs 2,519 crore from the city in 2006-07 as compared to Rs 1,419.96 crore in 2005-06. “Infosys is the No 1 company in Pune and has been the largest contributor to the city’s exports year on year for the last four years,” P Venugopal, director, Maharashtra, STPI said. “The top-20 companies account for 60 per cent of the total exports from Pune in 2006-07. Out of the top-20 ranking IT service companies in India, 11 have presence in Pune. The trend has been prevailing for the last three years,” he said. Exports from Pune stood at Rs 15,353 exports in 2006-07 as compared to Rs 9,100 crore in 2005-06 recording a 68 per cent growth as against 48 per cent cent in 2005-06.

Tech Mahindra recorded software exports worth Rs 1,780.72 crore as compared to Rs 832 crore in 2005-06. Wipro was ranked third by the STPI as it recorded exports of Rs 741.16 crore in 2006-07 as compared to Rs 398.76 crore last year. TCS is close with exports worth Rs 641.04 crore recorded in 2006-07 as compared to Rs 375.36 crore in 2005-06.

On Pune’s growth, Venugopal said Pune registered 11 per cent of the units registered across the country. Around 114 units were registered in Pune out of the 1,000 units that were registered annually. “The STPI sunset clause does not seem to have an impact on the units coming into India. The figures speak for themselves,” he said.

The total exports from the state for 2006-07 is Rs 27,525 crore as against Rs 16,957 crore last year.

The growth is 62.32 per cent as against 47 per cent in 2005-06. The 114 units that have registered in Pune have committed an investment of Rs 5,000 crore projecting manpower employment of 37,000 people in Pune and 14,000 in Mumbai.

indianexpress: A City-based institute is part of an undertaking to evaluate HIV drug resistance in 20 centres among HIV patients across Asia. The Institute of Infectious Diseases has tied up with Geneom Bio tech lab to make available the drug resistance test for the first time in Pune. This project is part of the Therapeutic Research Education and AIDS Training (TREAT)-Asia Network, funded by the Dutch government and American Foundation for AIDS Research.

Institute director Dr Sanjay Pujari says that an observational study would be undertaken at the TREAT centres in Asia. In India, centres in Pune and the YRG Care centre at Chennai will participate in the study of 3,000 HIV patients.

Pujari also says while there is reasonable improvement in the access to first line treatment of anti-HIV drugs, other issues are slowly emerging. “We see a lot of drug resistance in patients who have been on anti-HIV treatment,” he says.

This could be because the patient is not adhering to the treatment, besides the fact that the virus multiplies rapidly. Use of Anti-Retroviral Therapy drugs in developed countries has been associated with the development of HIV drug resistance. HIV’s high mutation rate and the lifelong treatment of the disease are known to contribute to some degree of HIV drug resistance among patients, Pujari says.

The resistance testing device available in Mumbai is extremely expensive and ranges from Rs 16,000 onwards, according to Sachin Purohit, managing director of Geneom Bio lab. So to make it commercially viable — at one-third the cost — the two collaborating partners have combined several technologies to analyse a viral genome, predict and identify the particular strain that is resistant to an anti-HIV drug.

indianexpress:  Union Minister of Power Sushilkumar Shinde on Saturday stressed the power of the educated youth and exhorted them to use their knowledge for the development of their respective nations, at the Symbiosis international students’ convocation ceremony.

Calling the gathering a microcosm of the global youth, Shinde went on to touch upon the various facets of India’s growth and co-existence. “India’s commitment to international cooperation, non-violence and peace are founded on the principles of foreign policy,” he said.

Shinde advised students not only to focus on their personal careers, but commit themselves to their country’s growth. Symbiosis Society president Dr SB Mujumdar, gave the welcome address, followed by International Students’ Council president Tanvir Rahim giving the students’ view.

Shinde said the power crunch issue in the State will end in two to three years. The minister also said there were new proposals being worked on and which would completely ease the load shedding-process. He assured that the situation would improve in the next two years as there were “two to three proposals which were being worked out.”

indianexpress: Discussions on topics as varied as censorship and citizen’s journalism, ‘Blogcamp Pune’ — Pune’s first blog unconference held at Symbiosis Centre for Information Technology (SCIT) — was attended by over 120 bloggers — both the recent converts and the veterans — from Pune, Mumbai and Goa.

The one-day unconference being the city’s first blogger-targeted event, there were informal discussions peppered with tech-talk. It also provided a platform for unmasking new-age concepts aimed at the net-savvy generation.
 
Purple Nova’s marketing head Milind Pandit introduced the company’s latest ‘do-it-yourself web-hosting technology’, which will enable the user to host content directly from any internet-connected device through the use of an URL rather than a standard HTTP protocol.

While Sulekha.com’s Sudhir Syal spoke about blog print, the website’s attempt to take blogs into the print medium, Rediff.com launched its ‘blogshowcase’ (platform to showcase their blog) www.blogshowcase.rediff.com.

Besides software pundits, many young bloggers nurturing hopes of venturing into the blogosphere thronged the camp. “Camps like these double up as cesspools of novel concepts and also act as indirect market spaces,” said Mythili Rao, a blog novice.

indianexpress: Scientists at the Agharkar Research Institute (ARI) at Pune will use bacterial clusters to increase the supply of oil from oil wells. A pilot project will be conducted at Oil and Natural Gas Corporation’s (ONGC) site near Ahmedabad in July. ONGC is funding this research project at ARI.

Two ARI scientists, Dr Ranade and Prashant Dhakephalkar, have been working on anaerobic bacteria for the past one year and are now ready to take their project ahead.
 
“A vast amount of viscous and hard oil is present underground. Oil companies cannot pump it up because of the hardness and the depth the wells cannot reach. Companies have tried using water, gas and chemicals, but with little success. The bacterial clusters will produce gas that would make it easier to locate the oil supply and enable wells to pump it up,” Ranade said.

If the project proves to be a success, the current output from wells which that stands at 20 per cent to 30 per cent could go up to 50 per cent, he said.

“Oil companies in the USA and Canada are using bacteria to increase oil supply. However, temperatures in oil wells of US and India are significantly different. Oil wells in US have temperatures of 60 degrees Celsius and while temperatures in Indian wells are above 90 degrees Celsius. We have decided to develop bacteria that suitable for Indian temperatures,” Dhakephalkar said.

indianexpress: The Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited (MSEDCL) will launch an intense campaign against power theft in the city from June 18. The MSEDCL has set up a 50-member squad to detect power thefts. The MSEDCL officials said police protection will be given to the squad.

MSEDCL officials said on Saturday that police cases will be registered against those indulging in power thefts. Ajay Bhushan Pandey, managing director of MSEDCL said in Pune earlier this month, that power losses in the city were to the tune of 30 per cent.
 

indianexpress: The corporate social responsibility arm of Cognizant, the Cognizant Foundation has given Rs 4 crore as financial support to five Maharashtra-based NGOs — Manavya, Saraswati Pratishtan Dadhichina Pranam, Centre for Youth Development and Activities (CYDA), Social Action for Manpower Creation (SAMPARC) and Swatantryaveer Sawarkar Educational Trust.

The cheques were presented on Friday at the International Convention Centre auditorium. N R Krishnan, independent director with Cognizant Foundation said the break-up of financial aid to NGOs was about 49 per cent for education, 42 per cent for health, 9 per cent for rural development and 4 per cent for other sectors. “Our monetary assistance ranges from Rs 2 lakh to Rs 30 lakh,” he said. The Foundation, which helps in the development of various parts of India including Tamil Nadu, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan and northeastern India, was set up two years ago.
 
“We have chosen these NGOs based on their efforts in bringing about development,” said Debashis Chatterjee, vice president and head of Pune operations, Cognizant.

techtree: The world’s first Windows-based online desktop named ‘Nivio’ was launched in the capital today.

Simply put, ‘Nivio’ as a service will allow users global access to a personal virtual desktop from any Internet-connected device.

And, it will offer subscribers an array of services-on-demand that include: renting of software applications, accessing a variety of educational content, and expanding of storage to keep pictures, music, data, and so on.

‘Nivio’ promises a simple, affordable, stress-free experience in a robust, secure computing environment.

Founder and CEO of Nivio, Sachin Duggal, says, he has always believed that the world would change if only computing was made simple.

According to Duggal, he always dreamt of a desktop that was anywhere and yet nowhere; that was stress-free and fault-less, and that - that’s how ‘Nivio’ was born. The original name he had in mind for the service however was ‘myremoteworkstation’.

Duggal says ‘Nivio’ is device technology agnostic, and would be useful to all desktop users in accessing their Windows desktops remotely through Mac, Windows, and even some handheld devices.

As of now, ‘Nivio’ is available as a free, one-month trial. After which, it’s subscription cost will be Rs 399 per month. For students, it will be available for just Rs 199 per month.

Those who wish to register can do so at www.nivio.com through a single-step process.

The base ‘Nivio’ package comes with 5GB of online storage, and a host of free applications and security services that protect the virtual desktop/data from viruses, spam, and malware.

cnet: Eastman Kodak has developed a relatively straightforward change to digital camera image sensors that could help with a major photography bugaboo: poor performance in dim conditions.

The new technology, to be unveiled Thursday and used in products in 2008, increases light sensitivity of existing image sensors by a factor of two to four, said Mike DeLuca, marketing manager for Eastman Kodak’s image sensor solutions group.

Translated into photography terms, that means a camera’s shutter speed could be cut in half or a quarter, helping cut camera shake or motion blur problems. Alternatively, it could let photographers shoot in low light with less image “noise”–the pesky multicolor speckles that degrade photographs.

“That’s the real bane, when you think about it. There’s just not enough light to collect,” said IDC analyst Christopher Chute. Of Kodak’s new method, he said, “It’s pretty revolutionary.”

Light sensitivity has become a serious problem in digital cameras, particularly as higher megapixel counts have increased noise levels in image sensors.

And unlike some efforts to improve digital cameras, the new Kodak technique can be applied to any existing image sensor, leading Kodak to hope it will be able to license the high-sensitivity technology far and wide.

cnet: Researchers for Australian and U.S. defense agencies said Friday they tested an experimental jet engine at speeds of up to 6,835 miles per hour–10 times the speed of sound. The tests were conducted over the Australian outback using an air-breathing supersonic combustion “scramjet” engine, which, because it operates properly only at high speeds and in thin air, must first be propelled into the earth’s upper atmosphere by a rocket. The engine then takes over, pushing the vehicle to hypersonic speeds.