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indianexpress: It’s placement time yet again at engineering colleges across the city, and the talent hunt is getting hotter, as companies look out for the best engineering brains. At the Vishwakarma Institute of Technology (VIT), the placement scene is one with a difference. From changing the way an “average” student is viewed, to setting up a virtual battleground for companies on campus, VIT has introduced a slew of innovations to ensure their students have an added edge during placements.

The Department of Self Development (DOSD) at VIT headed by K Sundaram, has started various initiatives during job placements. Prominent among these is the First Day Auction Process (FIDA-PRO), which sees various companies vying with one another to woo the best talent on campus.

“As per the conventional recruitment practices, the companies offering the best packages and recruiting the largest number are given the first choice of students, and students are allowed only one job, that is once they secure a job they cannot try elsewhere,” said Sundaram.

At VIT, the onus during placements is shifted to the companies, wherein a student can apply for up to 12 jobs, and it is up to the companies to devise incentives to draw them in. “Similar practices are already in place at premier institutions like the IITs,” said Sundaram.

In FIDA-PRO, a select number of companies are all given the ‘first-day treatment’, and students can choose to appear for all interviews. This year, ten companies, including Wipro, Infosys, Cognizant, Persistent, KPIT Cummins, Honeywell, Larsen and Toubro, NVIDIA and Forbes Marshall, arrived consecutively on ten days beginning July 1.

indianexpress:  ENGINEERING college students will have to shell out more money this year. The Supreme Court-appointed fee regulatory committee —Shikshan Shulka Samiti (SSS)— has declared the new interim fee structure for the academic year 2007-08, which is 7.5 per cent higher than the fees for the previous academic year 2006-07.

In a notice dated July 12, the SSS declared the interim fee structure for 81 private and unaided engineering colleges in the state, as well as for other courses like architecture, pharmacy, and hotel management. The interim fee will hold good for the coming academic year, till the SSS announces the finalised fee. The interim fee structure was declared only for those colleges for whom the fee structure had been finalised for the academic year 2006-07.
 
Meanwhile, the SSS has directed the colleges and the students to exchange an undertaking that any increase or decrease in the final fee will be paid by either party.

As per the new interim fee structure, the highest fee in the state was the Maharashtra Academy of Engineering at Alandi, Pune with Rs 82,453 for 2007-08 as compared to Rs 76,700 for the previous year.

Last year, students from some engineering colleges in the city had protested over the fee hike in the colleges claiming that the fee hike was not justified. “The fees are determined on the basis of audited statement of actual expenditure incurred by the colleges, which is sent to the SSS by the colleges. This is then verified by expert auditors on the Samiti. So the fees are valid,” said Association of Managements of Private Unaided Engineering Colleges (AMPUEC) president RP Joshi.

indianexpress:  SOME students seeking admission to standard XI in junior colleges on Wednesday were unable to find their names in the first list put up at the colleges as part of the Centralised Admission Procedure (CAP).

The CAP began on June 26, and after around 48,703 forms were received by July 4, the first lists of students and the colleges allotted were declared for all streams on Tuesday.
 
“My daughter’s name could not be found in the list, although she had submitted the form on time and had the necessary merit,” said a parent who then filled up a grievance form.

Deputy director for education GK Mhamane said it could be a printing error, and students can bring their complaints to SP College on Tilak Road. “Students should bring the receipt of having submitted their form, after which they will be allotted a college as per their merit and cut-off at the desired college,” said Mhamane.

indianexpress: A CRUDE bomb was found in the premises of Cognizant Technologies located in Hinjewadi on Wednesday evening. Sniffer dogs along with the Bomb Detection and Disposal Squad (BDDS) of the Pune Police rushed to the spot to defuse the bomb at around 9.15 pm on Wednesday. Sniffer dogs also checked the company.

According to the Hinjewadi police, a one kg parcel was delivered to the company around 4 pm. Alert officials called up the city police. Senior police inspector Dilip Shinde who was the first to reach the spot confirmed that the bomb was live and defused it at around 9.15 pm in an open area.
 
Another bomb, sent as a parcel to the City Post, was defused by the Bomb Detection and Disposal Squad (BDDS) on Friday evening. Investigations by Faraskhana police revealed that the bomb was sent from Anantpur in Andhra Pradesh by a couple angry over family opposition to their marriage. The box had a note attached to it, saying: ‘Handle with care, as it is a bomb.’

Shinde said, “Right now we cannot say whether the same couple has sent the parcel. However the address is marked as Ramnagar Anantpur which is the same address that was attached to parcel bomb sent to city post office.”

indianexpress:  IMAGINE, a food preservative being used as a contraceptive and means to combat HIV. Scientists at the Mumbai-based National Institute of Research in Reproductive Health (NIRRH) have developed a novel broad spectrum microbicide which has the property to prevent HIV infection.

The formulation — a gel named ‘NISCAR’ is found to be an effective anti-HIV agent, besides being an strong anti-STI (sexually transmitted infection) agent and a contraceptive, said NIRRH deputy director Dr K V R Reddy when contacted in Mumbai.

NIRRH scientists have already carried out pre-clinical safety tests on animals and the city-based National AIDS Research Institute (NARI) has confirmed the new formulation’s anti-HIV property, said Dr Smita Kulkarni of NARI.

Microbicides are basically formulations in the form of gels, creams or tablets that can be applied inside the vagina to prevent sexually transmitted diseases. Presently, some 60 compounds are being evaluated across the world for their microbicidal qualities and researchers strongly believe that if successful, microbicides may well empower women against HIV.

indianexpress: WITH the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) undertaking the work of shifting electric poles, power supply in parts of the city would be disrupted for eight hours on Thursday from 9 am to 5 pm.

Electric poles acting as a hindrance on roads that are being widened will be moved as they may cause danger to commuters. Work would be carried out on Baner Road, Nagar Road, Dhankawadi and Padmavati areas.
 
Residents of Baner Road, Sakal Nagar, Armament Colony, Sindh Society and adjoining areas would have to face the power cut.

Similarly, the Dhankawadi and Padmavati feeders would also be switched off for carrying out the work of shifting the poles from Chavan Nagar to Padmavati Water Works.

techtree: Taiwan-based Genius has unveiled it’s newest iPod speaker, the iTempo 800, which promises superior sound and wide frequency thanks to the built-in DRD sound effect technology.

DRD technology, according to Genius, controls the bass equalizer, reproducing superior quality sound without distorting middle tones.

The iTempo 800 integrates custom-designed 70mm drivers, and comes with an embedded iPod dock station plus five different cradles for different types of iPods.

Users wanting to transfer videos/photos from their iPods to TVs/monitors can do so with the included S-Video connector. With the USB cable, they can download music through PCs directly while charging their iPods.

Users can also connect their iTempo 800 with other (audio) devices such as laptops, CD players, and MP3 players with the secondary AUX input jack.

And, the iPod speaker comes with a wireless remote and a universal power adaptor.

Commenting on the product, Sandeep Ramani, country manager of KYE Systems India, said, “The iTempo 800 will provide true digital audio sound. It is the ideal choice to turn an iPod into a mini-stereo system, and is going to take the market by storm, especially the younger crowd.”

techtree: Micronet today announced availability of it’s ADSL2+ Modem router, the SP3364F, targeted at home and SOHO segments.

According to Micronet, the SP3364F supports CPE WAN Management Protocol TR-069 so as to fulfill the need for a well secured remote management from the ISP (Internet service provider) site.

As such, ISPs can quickly launch new services and users would get to experience the value-adds in the shortest possible time, the company says.

The modem router supports advanced network management features for users to organize the network by themselves.

It supports up to 24M for downstream and up to 1M for upstream, as also port forwarding, virtual server, DDNS, VLAN and QoS, and IP routing for sharing of single accounts with multiple workstations.

SP3364F can run on Windows 98SE/me/2000/XP/Vista, and is enabled with PAP/CHAP password protection for robust security.

With dimensions of 166 x 106 x 35 mm, the modem router requires: 12V DC power, temperatures ranging between 0″ C to 50″ C, and humidity between 10 percent and 90 percent non-condensing.

techtree: India will continue to be the fastest growing country in the Asia Pacific region after China in terms of mobile telephony, predicts research firm, Gartner. And the scenario will only get more dynamic with the entry of Vodafone…

Pegging revenues from cellular services at approximately $8.95 billion in 2006, Gartner projects these will multiply at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 18.4 percent to reach nearly $25.617 billion in 2011.

Commenting on the research, Madhusudan Gupta, senior research analyst at Gartner, said, “With more marginal users forming the bulk of the addressable market, low service costs and inexpensive handsets will help to unlock the inertia, and facilitate adoption of mobile services. The reduction in call rates will continue to happen till they become more competitive with fixed-line rates. This, coupled with emerging initiatives by vendors and operators will boost adoption of mobile services in India’s semi-urban and rural provinces.”

While mobile penetration in rural markets is low, Gartner sees this as a huge opportunity for handset makers and cellular service providers. The firm expects cellular market penetration to increase from about 12.7 percent in 2006 to nearly 38.6 percent in 2011. Further, the increase will largely be driven by an increased focus on the rural market, as also handset bundle offers and aggressive promotions by players.

techtree: If reports are to be believed, Internet giant Google is eyeing mobile territory with plans for a new search service for mobile phones that would help users pay for and download digital content onto their handsets.

With a slew of mobile applications like search, mapping, news, email, and calendar services already in place, Google’s logical next step, reportedly, would be to launch a mobile transaction service enabling users pay for mobile content including ring tones and specially formatted videos.

Apparently, the upcoming service will incorporate certain features of existing services like Google Checkout, etc.

With industry analysts estimating mobile advertising revenues to grow nearly eight-fold in the next 4 years, Internet players too are actively targeting this space. And with a new breed of smart phones, especially the recent launch of Apple’s iPhone, this trend seems set only to accelerate in the coming years.

Then again, Internet groups have been increasingly put-off by painfully slow download speeds and high costs accompanying mobile Internet. As a result, they have been rushing to have software pre-installed on mobile handsets.

To this end, search major, Yahoo! is believed to have deals with handset manufacturers, Nokia, Motorola, RIM, HTC, LG and Samsung.