News

indianexpress: Economically backward students with merit will not have to pay astronomical fees for higher education technical courses. A new scheme to be implemented by All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) from the academic year 2008-09, will waive fees for some needy and deserving students in all engineering, polytechnic and MBA colleges.

While this was permitted for some polytechnic and engineering colleges in the current academic year, a government resolution (GR) has now been passed to make it mandatory from next year.

Ten per cent of the total student intake will be reserved for needy students identified according to specific criteria, of which at least two will be girls. These students will receive a complete fee waiver. The scheme will be mandatory for all engineering, polytechnic and MBA colleges participating in the state-organised Centralised Admission Procedure (CAP).

The rising cost of education, especially in engineering colleges, has made it unaffordable for economically backward families. “We received many requests from engineering colleges if they could waive the fees or offer a discount to some students,” said Director of Technical Education NB Pasalkar.

indianexpress: The State government approved the international exhibition centre slated to come up on 200 acres at Moshi on the fringes of Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation on Thursday. The centre, to be set up through private investment, will help industries find global buyers for their products.

Pimpri-Chinchwad New Township Development Authority (PCNTDA), Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) and Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) are jointly involved in the project which will be facilitated by Mahratta Chamber of Commerce, Industries and Agriculture (MCCIA).

“The exhibition centre will help local and foreign companies to showcase their products and find buyers,” PCMC municipal commissioner Dilip Band said on Friday. Band said global tenders would be invited in a month or two for setting up the Rs 200-crore centre. “It will be much bigger than the Rs 60-crore autocluster project at Chinchwad,” he said. The design and layout of the centre will be finalised after another meeting with State government officials, he added.

Band, who has visited Hanover, Frankfurt, Munich and Bremen to look at similar centres, said each hall was about 1-lakh sq ft. “Each centre had six such halls. I was asked by NCP chief Sharad Pawar to study the centres. We will call for global bids within two months,” he said.

The Moshi centre is expected to benefit local industries. “Today, if a small scale industrialist wants to display his product at foreign exhibition centres, it would cost him around Rs 50 lakh. There is also a huge fee for watching the exhibition,” he said.

indianexpress: The State government approved the international exhibition centre slated to come up on 200 acres at Moshi on the fringes of Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation on Thursday. The centre, to be set up through private investment, will help industries find global buyers for their products.
Pimpri-Chinchwad New Township Development Authority (PCNTDA), Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) and Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) are jointly involved in the project which will be facilitated by Mahratta Chamber of Commerce, Industries and Agriculture (MCCIA).

“The exhibition centre will help local and foreign companies to showcase their products and find buyers,” PCMC municipal commissioner Dilip Band said on Friday. Band said global tenders would be invited in a month or two for setting up the Rs 200-crore centre. “It will be much bigger than the Rs 60-crore autocluster project at Chinchwad,” he said. The design and layout of the centre will be finalised after another meeting with State government officials, he added.

Band, who has visited Hanover, Frankfurt, Munich and Bremen to look at similar centres, said each hall was about 1-lakh sq ft. “Each centre had six such halls. I was asked by NCP chief Sharad Pawar to study the centres. We will call for global bids within two months,” he said.

The Moshi centre is expected to benefit local industries. “Today, if a small scale industrialist wants to display his product at foreign exhibition centres, it would cost him around Rs 50 lakh. There is also a huge fee for watching the exhibition,” he said.

indianexpress: In a significant development that would help the city gain global recognition, two of the three entries from Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) have been shortlisted for the final round of the World Leadership Award, promoted by London-based World Leadership Forum.

Responding to the invitation from the non-profit NGO — which promotes leadership by highlighting the work of exceptional leaders and achievers in a host of disciplines, and stimulating debate on leadership issues — PMC recently had sent three entries for the award in different categories. The Unwire Pune — Wireless Fidelity (Wi-Fi) to provide wireless internet connectivity, in the science and technology category and Auto DCR — an automatic solution for approval of building plan proposal in the architect and civil engineering category — have been shortlisted for the final round by the forum.

However, the third entry ‘SMART’ — a self-help groups programme that gives employment to youngsters — did not get a go ahead. So, to participate in the final round by making presentation before the forum in London, the civic administration has sought a Standing Committee approval to sanction Rs 4.9 lakh to enable the civic team for making the presentation scheduled on December 6.

indianexpress: Pune airport authorities on Friday announced 30 take-offs and an equal number of landings for the restricted operational hours imposed by Indian Air Force (IAF) at Lohegaon with effect from Saturday for runaway re-carpeting work. The airport operates about 70 take-offs and landings daily.
Airport director Captain Deepak Shastri said they had accommodated the same number of flights as earlier and that recarpeting work would take nine months to complete. During this period the airport will remain open for civilian flights from 10.30 am to 6.30 pm.

In the approved slots issued, the timings on most routes have been rescheduled or merged in consultation with the airlines.

techtree: Sahara Computers & Electronics has announced the launch of new range of Sahara laptop and desktop computers.

The new range includes Core Duo and Core 2 Duo laptops and desktops computers and Intel’s new business Platform Santa Rosa based laptop.

Sahara’s new 15.4″ wide screen laptop is powered by Intel Core Duo Processor and is available with Windows XP, Vista, and Linux as operating system. The laptop has 1 GB DDR2-SDRAM and 120 GB HDD.

Weighing about 2.46 kg, the other features included are built-in high definition audio, inbuilt wireless card, super multi DVD-RW, wireless, LAN, HDD Access, Quick start buttons, and power button.

With 8-cell battery that has a life of 4 hours, it’s available with 3-year warranty and immediately available with Sahara dealers for Rs 35,999 (taxes excluded).

Next on the lot is Sahara Core 2 Duo desktop, which comes with a 17″ TFT monitor, multimedia keyboard, and optical mouse. Starting with Intel Core 2 Duo E4400 2.0GHz 800MHz 2MB processor, 512 MB RAM, 160 GB HD, and DVD-RW, this is one of the high end PCs launched by Sahara Computers on the Intel platform.

techtree: WebEx has come up with WebEx plug-in for Yahoo! Messenger. With a click of the mouse, the WebEx branded plug-in enables Instant Messaging (IM) users to ‘co-browse’ and view a website via the popular IM client.

No longer will users have to email or IM web links back and forth. The free plug-in provides end-users with the ability to simultaneously view and collaborate on Web searches suitable for online shopping, party planning, and picture viewing.

The new WebEx co-browsing plug-in can be easily accessed from the plug-in picker within the Yahoo! Messenger client or downloaded at www.webex.com/go/yahoo.

Kiran Datar, MD of WebEx Communications India, said, “The addition expands Yahoo Messenger’s selection of customizable conversation plug-ins, while introducing a new user base to the WebEx brand and on-demand collaboration solutions.”

With the introduction of plug-ins, Yahoo! Messenger opened up its platform for third party developers to create add-on applications to further personalize the end-user’s experience.

WebEx developed the co-browsing plug-in to enable Yahoo! Messengers’ tens of millions of users to easily interact during their live web searches and collaborate in real time.

WebEx provides on-demand collaboration applications to individuals, small businesses, and enterprise organizations. WebEx applications combine both synchronous and asynchronous collaboration capabilities and allow businesses to leverage the web as an efficient channel for collaborative interaction with customers, partners, and co-workers.

techtree: IDLDPL has introduced a compact and portable Parrot Party Bluetooth speaker system. The 3Watt speakers feature A2DP that stream in music from any Bluetooth compatible source. However, systems that don’t have Bluetooth can hook into the standard RCA input.

The 9″ long and 624-gram speaker can play music non-stop for 4 hours. It has Class-D amplifier and 2 wide-band speakers. The Parrot has 2 audio effects. The first effect - Stereo Widening broadens the music to fill a room; and the second effect - Virtual Super Bass - reinforces the bass frequencies, the company claims.

Also there’s a built-in rechargeable battery. Hence, if the battery goes off, the user just needs to charge the speakers and enjoy the uninterrupted music for another 4 hours.

The Bluetooth can gel with every Bluetooth enabled streaming device be it Cell Phone, PC, MP3, or CD player. Besides, the user doesn’t need to install special software to send the play list to the Party Bluetooth speaker wirelessly from any Bluetooth Stereo (A2DP) source.

Parrot Party also has a line-in input, which enables the system to play music from any analogue music device such as a CD player, standard MP3 player, or MD recorder. It automatically detects the music source whether it’s Bluetooth or line-in.

techtree: The first ever Web-based show named ‘quarterlife’ will debut exclusively on MySapce.

The show is a new online series from Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick, the creators of TV shows such as - My So-Called Life, thirtysomething, Legends of the Fall, and Blood Diamond.

The new ‘quarterlife’ series marks the first time a network-quality series will be produced directly for the Internet. The story will revolve around 6 creative people in their twenties.

The central character is Dylan, a young woman whose overly truthful video blog spills the closest secrets of her friends - viz., filmmakers Danny and Jed, actress-bartender Lisa, geek-extraordinaire Andy, and still-tied-to-her-parents Debra - who’re the other characters in the show.

The series will comprise 36 episodes each of about 8 minutes, which will be broadcasted exclusively on MySpaceTV, 2 episodes per week, starting November 11.

In addition to the content, MySpace will also create profile page including character profiles, behind-the-scenes video footage, and storyline secrets.

The trailer of this Web-based show is already available at www.myspacetv.com.

‘quarterlife’ will be immediately available across MySpaceTV’s 20 international territories and nearly 110 million global active users.

zdnet: A new microscope developed by the TEAM Project (Transmission Electron Aberration-corrected Microscope), supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, has recorded the highest-resolution images ever seen (0.05 nanometer and below). This is equivalent to a quarter of the diameter of a carbon atom. This microscope will be delivered to the Berkeley National Laboratory in 2008 and will be fully operational in 2010. To achieve this resolution, this microscope mixes two technologies, SEM (Scanning Electron Microscope) and TEM (Transmission Electron Microscope). Such a microscope will allow to ’study how atoms combine to form materials, how materials grow and how they respond to a variety of external factors.’

You can see above “a high resolution TEM image of the dumbbell structure (0.14nm) of Germanium, which reveals that inter atomic distances can be measured with ultrahigh precision. The intensity profile (insert) brilliantly proves that the contrast level in between the germanium dumbbell reaches the base level of the larger distances of the structure.” (Credit: FEI Company)

And on the left is a picture of the new multi-million dollar Titan microscope. (Credit: FEI Company) Please note that you will not find — yet — these pictures on the company’s website because the company sent them me directly.

This microscope has been built by FEI Company, based in Oregon, and CEOS GmbH, based in Heidelberg/Germany, for the TEAM Project.