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indianexpress: WHILE the Pune Municipal Corporation has been quick to blame private builders and slum dwellers for encroachments on nallas in the city, it seems to have forgotten its own act which has spelled nightmare for residents in Kothrud. During the recent incessant rain, several societies and slums in Kothrud were water-logged. And the reason: A PMC drinking water pipeline had blocked a nalla in the area.

A 40-inch pipeline from Warje pumping station to the water tank at SNDT College has been laid in such a way that it passes across the nalla from the ground level obstructing nalla path completely near Hotel Sheetal. “The pipeline was laid two years ago, but its effect was experienced during the recent heavy rain in the city,” BJP corporator Murlidhar Mohol said. “The shoddy manner in which the pipeline was laid resulted in water-logging upto four feet in eight housing societies and 20 shops in the area,” he said. The nalla starting from Paud Hill passes via Kothrud baug, Kirloskar company and meets the Mutha river at Mhatre bridge.

Mohol said the PMC should have laid the pipeline at a suitable height which would not have blocked the path of nalla. Karve Road Ward Officer Suresh Jagtap admitted the fault in laying the pipeline and promised to remove the pipeline so as to clear the nalla path.

Assuring all possible measures to avoid repeat of two incidents in which 11 persons were killed due to wall collapse on huts, the PMC has urged plot owners and developers to construct retaining wall on their respective plots near slope hills as designed by PMC structural engineers and also get the construction work inspected from them.

Similarly, the huts or structures alongside the retaining wall should be immediately removed to avoid any tragedy, the PMC said, appealing the citizens to contact on 25501331 or 25501130 if they face problems in removing such structures.

indianexpress: NON-Resident Indian (NRI) youth staying in the US may soon have the opportunity to get in touch with their Indian roots, if all goes well with a proposal by the University of Pune. Vice Chancellor Narendra Jadhav has announced a special scheme — to acquaint NRI Maharashtrian students in the US with their culture and heritage — which is likely to be implemented by January 2008.

Just back from a trip to the US, where he was invited as a speaker at the Brihan Maharashtra Mandal’s North American Convention in Seattle, Jadhav said many NRI parents were worried that their wards were increasingly becoming disconnected with their own culture. “I felt it was very important to have a programme whereby they can revive this connection,” said Jadhav.

The proposed scheme, which will be on the lines of the Term Abroad Programme (TAP) in the US, will focus on top US universities that have a high concentration of Indian origin students. “As per this programme, students will spend one semester in the Pune University as part of their undergraduate degree programme, and will receive credit points for the same,” said Jadhav.

The programme will be 50 per cent academic-oriented and 50 per cent applied, and the applied section will provide an introduction to the Indian culture, along with the history of Maharashtra, its culture and language. “Students could also stay at an Indian home, and work in community projects like the Samartha Bharat Abhiyaan for exposure to Indian life,” Jadhav said.

“While the modalities of the project were currently being worked out, the project was likely to be implemented in January 2008,” said Jadhav, adding, this could later develop into a full-fledged Indian Studies Programme on the lines of the one at the Indiana University, US.

indianexpress: THE University of Pune (UoP) plans to digitally map 480 villages, adopted so far under the flagship programme Samartha Bharat Abhiyaan (SBA), using the Geographical Information System (GIS) with a view to identify the socio-economic needs of each village.

A pet project of vice chancellor Narendra Jadhav, SBA will see each of the University’s affiliated colleges adopt one village each, and work towards its overall socio-economic development based on a 12-point agenda. “The department of geography has volunteered to map all the villages using GIS,” said Jadhav, speaking at a press conference on Friday.

Professor of geoinformatics Vrishali Deosthali, heading the action group for GIS, said the system could provide inputs on several aspects of a village like soil and water management. “We can also get details on individual households like health, marital status, number of children can be,” he said.

Meanwhile, the UoP’s history department will map the local history unique to each village. As part of SBA, a major tree plantation drive will be launched on Saturday at the varsity premises and its sub-centres at Ahmednagar and Nashik. Students, teachers, and local residents in all the 480 villages will plant one sapling each. “While the target is to eventually plant five lakh trees, we will start with a smaller target of two to three lakh on Saturday,” said Jadhav.

The tree plantation drive will be held near the UoP’s main building at 10 am on Saturday. Apart from the nearly two lakh saplings prepared by the colleges, over three lakh saplings were being procured from the State government. Jadhav said the cost for three lakh tree guards will add up to Rs 18 crore. “We have appealed to corporates, NGOs, and even the Indian Training Institute (ITI) to provide the tree guards,” said Jadhav.

indianexpress:  RAM Ratna group has launched the first-of-its kind automated multi-level car parking at Hotel Le Royce on Bund Garden Road.

The parking project at Hotel Le Royce has a “3-stage pit puzzle parking system” where eight cars can be parked in the space of three. A mini rotary system can have 8 to 12 cars as against of two as per customer’s requirement. Tower parking offers ability to park 50 cars in the space where only three cars will be parked in conventional pattern.
 
Speaking to the media, Ram Ratna Infrastructure Pvt Ltd president Shreegopal Kabra said, “The parking system features a fully automatic and simple one-touch button programme. Electronic sensors will ensure operational integrity and avoid mishaps while the system is in operation, assuring the highest level of safety.”

The project was taken up keeping in mind the city being a fast developing one and the upward trend of real estate prices. The group has launched such parking projects in Mumbai, Delhi and Jaipur.

The group is also taking up on BOT basis the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) parking project at Sambhaji Park, which can accommodate around 80 cars. The parking will be handed over to PMC after five years. The firm is trying to target organisations like hotels, multiplexes and malls, which come across parking problems. Presently, the firm is taking up around 14 projects in Pune.

indianexpress: SEEKING to provide its officials with latest variety of cellphones, the Pune municipal administration has proposed to purchase the Black Berry model 6300 mobile handset for its Class I officers.

In a proposal submitted to the standing committee, the civic administration has expressed the need to purchase 50 pieces of Black Berry Model 6300, mobile handsets of Hutchisson Essar Cellular Ltd, costing Rs 23,750 each for Class I Officers. The Class I officers include municipal commissioner, additional municipal commissioner, assistant commissioners, zonal commissioners, city engineer, executive engineers and heads of departments. So far, these officers have been using Nokia handsets worth Rs 8000 each.

To enable the use of internet on the new mobile handsets, the civic administration has asked the standing committee to allot Rs 899 per month for the officials. The maximum bill refund which they could claim was Rs 1000. Now, with the civic administration seeking internet use refund, the bill amount will almost double.

It has also been proposed that PMC make permanent provision in the budget starting this year for the mobile service, including purchase of handsets, repair expenses, mobile and internet charges, provided to different officials.

Civic sources said the PMC would provide mobile service to all its officials up to the rank of junior engineer to ensure speed in work. It may be recalled that the PMC Engineers Association had opposed the move to make their cellphone numbers public “as it would affect family life and smooth discharge of duties.”

techtree: If you thought Trojans strictly feast on data from your PC, think again…

Reportedly, here comes a unique program called “BotVoice.A Trojan” which not only deletes data from your hard drive but also taunts you and pokes fun at you while doing the dirty job.

This Trojan actually talks to the user, telling him/her, “You have been infected I repeat you have been infected and your system files have been deleted. Sorry. Have a nice day and bye bye.”

Imagine an irritating message like this is repeated over and over again even as the Trojan tries to delete the entire content of the PC’s hard disk. This it proceeds to do by deploying a text-reading program that is part of the Windows operating system.

At times, BotVoice.A may not succeed in deleting all of the system files, but — it is still capable of rendering a PC unusable. It modifies the Windows registry such that neither the programs installed nor the task manager can run. Besides, it also blocks the running of files with common extensions like COM, EXE, BAT, HTML, in order to prevent interference.

BotVoice.A does not spread on other PCs on its own — instead it uses P2P networks; physical storage devices such as USB memory sticks, floppy disks, or CD-ROMs; as also downloads performed by other malware or from malicious Web pages.

Since this Trojan is unknown, the infection cannot be prevented by traditional antivirus software that relies primarily on signature files of known malware.

Meanwhile, Panda Software, incidentally the first security company to have spotted this funny Trojan claims that users of Panda software with TruPrevent Technology were not infected by the culprit.

TruPrevent is an advanced technology that incorporates behavior analysis, which can detect malicious code that was previously unknown and not included in even the most updated malware signature files.

msnbc: Soccer fans will need a microscope to keep up with this game: Tiny robots will dribble a “soccer ball” no wider than a human hair on a field that can fit on a grain of rice.

This weekend, as part of the 2007 RoboCup in Atlanta, Georgia, a new fleet of bots will debut in the Nanogram Demonstration competition. The nanoscale soccer games are being organized jointly by RoboCup and the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology. 

Five teams are entered in the nano-competition: two teams from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and one each from the U.S. Naval Academy in Maryland, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and Simon Fraser University in Canada.

The nanoscale robots, shown in this video, will play on a silicon microchip “field” that is laced with electrodes from which the bots can draw power and get electronic instructions. Teams monitor their “players” on a screen hooked up to a microscope.

While the bots measure up to a few hundred micrometers in length, they are considered “nanoscale” because they weigh from a few nanograms to a few hundred nanograms. For comparison, a grain of sand weighs about 300,000 nanograms.

msnbc: It’s become routine for customers to swipe their credit or debit cards at consoles in fast-food joints, gas stations and grocery stores. So why do we still hand over the plastic at sit-down restaurants?

Pay-at-the-table systems are popular in Europe and other parts of the world, but they haven’t yet caught on in the U.S., largely because equipment makers haven’t been able to point to a reason why restaurateurs should invest in the gear.

Manufacturers now see an opportunity. A rise in the number of “skimming” scams in which waiters use hand-held computers to quietly record customers’ credit card information and sell it is creating a sense of urgency. So is an increased push by managers to speed the flow of diners during peak hours.

“Restaurants are the last holdout where you still give up your credit card. That’s why we think this is the next logical step,” said Paul Rasori, VeriFone Inc.’s vice president of marketing.

Verifone’s system, called the VX-670, is about the size of thick remote control and sports a square LCD screen and a numerical keypad. It accepts debit and credit cards and can automatically add the tip.

Once the customer swipes a card, the information is sent wirelessly to a computer in the restaurant. A tiny printer spits out a receipt.

The Blade, a competitor from rival Hypercom Corp., is a sleek, hand-held unit. But it also sports a touch screen that can double as a menu and an optional contactless reader that lets customers wave their cards instead of swiping them.

Both companies are betting restaurants will be more willing to buy the systems — which can cost several hundred dollars — as security threats increase.

msnbc: A new generation of super-thin, power-sipping displays is making its way to the market, stretching battery lives to new limits and perhaps one day posing a challenge to heavier, energy-gobbling LCDs.

New screens that glow on their own are taking on their clunkier liquid crystal display rivals — which require powerful backlighting — by producing sharper video images for smartphones, game consoles and portable media players.

But industry watchers say it will be years before a clear winner — if any — emerges with the clout to outdo LCDs.

Organic light-emitting diode (OLED) and bi-stable technologies are the most likely challengers to LCDs.

An OLED screen uses as much as 40 percent less power than a comparable LCD and could be twice as thin because it does not need backlighting.

These technologies are already being used in some smaller portable devices, such as music players from Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. and Reigncom Ltd. and a thin mobile phone from Kyocera.

And Sony Corp. plans to sell small-sized TVs using the OLED technology later this year.

“In hand-held devices, display consumes power most. It’s all about power and then maybe brightness,” said Lehman Brothers analyst James Kim in South Korea.

Analysts reckon Apple’s iPhone, which launched in the United States on Friday, may end up using more energy-efficient screens, such as OLED, given the short battery life of its pilot models with LCD screens.