Technology

By Brij Khandelwal, IANS Agra : Orphaned at seven, he ran away from home to escape the tyranny of his uncle and was taken care of by an affluent Muslim family in northern India. Now at 20, Rakesh Singh has through Google Earth traced his village near Agra and is fighting to get his property back. Rakesh, who developed an early fascination for computers, has found his village in Kiraoli, about 22 km from the Taj Mahal city, thanks to his interest in the internet.

By DPA Sydney : Australian scientists have come up with a contraceptive suitable for kangaroos that they claim could do away with the controversial killing of the nation's emblem, news reports said Saturday. Koala colonies are already on the pill to keep numbers down. The breakthrough comes after a standoff between sharpshooters and animal rights activists over a plan to kill the 3,000 kangaroos that have over-run a military base in Canberra. The worst drought in a generation has raised Canberra's kangaroo population to epidemic proportions.

By IANS, Washington : A powerful solar flare has triggered the largest space weather storm in four years, disrupting some ground communications on earth.

By IANS, Sydney : Scientists have discovered a secretive and exotic species of mosquito, which, unlike others of its kind, do not require a blood meal before laying eggs.

By IANS, London: Bungling NASA scientists are believed to have found tiny live microbes on Mars - but mistakenly killed them by boiling them alive, a media report said Saturday.

By RIA Novosti Moscow : A Russian Proton-M carrier rocket will put a Japanese telecommunications satellite into orbit in September, a leading Russian space company said Tuesday. JCSAT-11, an A2100 satellite built by US-based Lockheed Martin Commercial Space Systems, will join a cluster of nine satellites operated by Japan's JSAT Corporation. The new satellite will provide broadcast and transponder capacity for a number of telecom companies, including SKY Perfect TV, a leading digital broadcasting service provider in Japan.

By IANS, Washington : Robots may possibly play more complex roles in future such as performing surgeries in remote or dangerous locations like the battlefield or in space. Duke University engineers have taken the first concrete step towards realising this space age future, based on feasibility studies conducted in their lab. On a more immediate level, the technology that they have developed could make existing medical procedures safer and better for patients.

By IANS, Chennai : Break-up of the Rs.3.86 billion ($78.5 million) bill for India's maiden moon mission: Deep Space Network: Rs.1 billion ($20 million) Rocket: Rs.1 billion ($20 million) Payload development: Rs.530 million ($11 million) Spacecraft bus: Rs.830 million ($17 million) Scientific data centre, external network support and project management expenses: Rs.500 million ($10 million)

By Arun Kumar, IANS, Washington : An India-born rocket scientist has lifted the veil off Bloom Box fuel-cell, a revolutionary new technology that holds the promise to supply the world with abundant clean, cheap energy. "The core of our technology is simply sand," said K.R. Sridhar, 49, founder of the Silicon Valley clean tech start-up Bloom Energy at Wednesday's unveiling of his invention in San Jose, California on the campus of eBay, one of Bloom's first customers.

By DPA San Francisco : Yahoo has settled a lawsuit brought on behalf of two Chinese dissidents who were arrested and allegedly tortured after the company gave their details to Chinese authorities. The settlement came just a week after Yahoo was lambasted in a congressional hearing for supplying information that enabled the Chinese government to identify Shi Tao and Wang Xiaoning, who had written anti-government comments on a Yahoo website.

By IANS, London : The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has succeeded in creating a miniature version of the Big Bang by smashing stripped-down lead atoms together.

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By RIA Novosti, Moscow : Russia's Glonass satellite system is expected to become fully operational in 2010, if it receives sufficient financing, the head of the Russian Space Agency (Roscosmos) said on Saturday. Glonass (Global Navigation Satellite System) is the Russian equivalent of the U.S. Global Positioning System (GPS), which is designed for both military and civilian use, and allows users to identify their positions in real time.

By IANS, Toronto : Sprinters in lane eight may well be at a disadvantage, says a new study that suggests the reaction time of those close to the source of a loud sound - such as a starter's pistol - is faster. Researchers at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, who analysed the reaction time of the 100 and 110 metres athletics events at the 2004 Olympics, found that runners closest to the starter reacted much faster than those farther away.

By IANS, Washington : People have the tendency to presume the whole world likes what they like. But when it comes to things they dislike, they don't generalise the same way. For example, people are shocked when a cherished product is discontinued for lack of sale or the favourite confectionary offered by them is not eaten, according to a study. "The things we like are seen to contain primarily good characteristics, while things we dislike are seen to contain a mix of bad, neutral, or good characteristics," the study said.

Chennai : India is expected to launch at least two more navigation satellites this year and one more in 2016 to offer satellite navigation...

Singapore: Singapore welcomes the agreement reached by Iran and the major world powers over the Islamic republic's nuclear programme, the ministry of foreign affairs...

By Xinhua, Beijing : A huge black hole has been seen leaving its home galaxy after a colossal cosmic merger occurred. The event, seen for the first time, was announced Tuesday. When two colliding galaxies finally merge, it is thought the black holes at their cores may fuse together too. Astronomers have theorized that the resulting energy release could propel the new black hole from its parent galaxy out into space, but no one has found such an event.

By IANS/RIA Novosti, Dushanbe: Over 130 websites have been blocked in Tajikistan in connection with "technical repair work", the country's telecom agency said.

By IANS Abu Dhabi : Dolphin Energy Limited, a United Arab Emirates (UAE) based natural gas company, is conducting the first artificial coral reef growth study in the Persian Gulf off the coast of Qatar, WAM news agency reported Friday. The project is being implemented by the Continental Shelf Associates International (CSA) of the US. The CSA will use 'EcoReef' technology in the project that includes construction of complex reef habitats using ceramic modules that mimic natural branching corals. The ceramic is non-toxic, pH neutral, food-grade stoneware.

By IANS Washington : Vanguard I, the oldest satellite still orbiting the earth, will complete 50 years in space Monday. It was launched March 17, 1958 from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Vanguard-I, the first ever solar-powered space vehicle, is only six inches across and weighs about 1.5 kg. Its small size, compared to the Soviet Union's 200-pound Sputnik-I, caused then-Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev to dub it "the grapefruit satellite".

By DPA, Hamburg : Time spent working with computers can have a positive effect on children. Many games demand strategic thinking and skill. Online communities can also help children learn to report on their experiences, reports the Techniker Krankenkasse (TK), a German health insurer.

By DPA, San Francisco: Google is to add automatic captions to the tens of millions of English-language videos it hosts on YouTube, the web search giant said Friday. The move will make the videos more accessible to deaf viewers but will also help Google index the content and supply relevant ads alongside it, analysts said.

By IANS, Los Angeles : Facebook and PayPal Thursday announced a tie-up to use PayPal as the way to pay for Facebook's advertising and developer systems. Facebook has currently over 400 million users worldwide, including 120 million in the US alone. Owned by eBay, PayPal is the online mode to pay for e-commerce transactions worldwide. It has 81 million accounts in 24 currencies around the world. Under the tie-up, advertisers around the world will be able to use PayPal to pay for Facebook advertisements, PayPal said in a press release.

By DPA, Geneva: The number of Internet domain names under dispute saw a rise in 2009, the World Intellectual Property Organisation said Tuesday. The Geneva-based organisation dealt with claims on 4,688 domains last year, up from 3,985 the year before. The total caseload, however, declined by 9.5 percent, as many incidents involve multiple attempts to "squat". Cybersquatting is defined as "the abusive registration of trademarks as domain names."

By IANS, Washington : US internet search software giant Google plans to sell digital edition of books in late June or July, throwing the firm into a battle that already involves Amazon.com, Apple Inc. and Barnes & Noble Inc. Google has been discussing its plan for distributing books online for several years and for months has been evangelising about its new service, called Google Editions, a company official said Tuesday.

By IANS, Washington : Taking already proven technology to grow carbon nanotubes of record lengths, researchers have now found new applications in communications for these fibres by spinning them into strong threads. David Mast, an associate professor of physics at the University of Cincinnati's (UC) McMicken College of Arts and Sciences, took a 25-micron carbon nanotube thread and created a dipole antenna using double-sided transparent tape and silver paste. He was immediately successful in transmitting radio signals.

By IANS, New Delhi : India's solar mission will set up, in its first phase, 1,100 MW of solar power through the electricity grid and 200 MW off the grid, with the objective of making solar power as cheap as power from coal by the end of the mission, Minister for New and Renewable Energy Farooq Abdullah said here Monday.

Bengaluru: Global software major Infosys Ltd on Tuesday reported five percent net profit growth year-on-year (YoY) in rupee terms but a 1.3 percent YoY...

By Xinhua Beijing : A vault dubbed "Noah's ark of plant life" has been launched in the permafrost of a remote Arctic mountain to protect the world's crop seeds from man-made and natural disasters. An opening ceremony was conducted Tuesday at the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, as 100 million seeds from more than 100 countries were placed inside. The first day's deposits comprised 268,000 samples and filled 676 boxes.

By IANS, London : A Chinese researcher has used scrap iron to do the unthinkable - clean up and detoxity pollutants in industrial wastewater. Wei-xian Zhang, professor of civil and environmental engineering at Tongji Univesity, Shanghai, concluded a five-year research project with the help of colleagues to detoxify pollutants. The project, carried out in Shanghai, used iron, called zero valent iron (ZVI) because it is not oxidized. They obtained it in the form of shavings or turnings from local metal-processing shops for about 30 cents a kg.

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By DPA, Kuala Lumpur : More than 100 government officials and cyber security experts from around the world gathered Tuesday in Malaysia's capital Kuala Lumpur for a summit aimed at discussing policies to ensure tighter security on the internet. "Just as there are malicious individuals bent on causing harm to societies and nations in the real world, governments around the world must prepare to deal with similar threats in cyberspace," Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said.

By IANS, Washington : Surface temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere were warmer over the last 10 years than any time during the last 1,300 years, according to a study. If climate scientists include the somewhat controversial data derived from tree-ring records, the warming is anomalous (deviating from the normal or common order) for at least 1,700 years. "Some have argued that tree-ring data is unacceptable for this type of study," said Michael Mann, associate professor of meteorology and geosciences and director of Penn State's Earth System Science Centre.

By IANS, Beijing: Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi Saturday said that "cyber space needs rules and cooperation, not war" and stressed that China is vulnerable to cyber attacks.

By Xinhua, Beijing : Finished with its four-year primary mission to Saturn, the Cassini orbiter has turned its cameras upon the ringed planet's mysterious moons as it kicks off a two-year extended mission.

By RIA Novosti Washington : The Atlantis space shuttle will return to Earth on February 20 after its mission to the International Space Station (ISS) was extended, NASA said on Thursday. "The space shuttle Mission Management Team, at the request of the International Space Station Program, has extended the STS-122 mission to 13 days. Atlantis will undock from the space station on Monday, Feb. 18, and land at 9:06 a.m. Wednesday, Feb. 20, Kennedy Space Center, Fla," the NASA website said.

The Muslimah Network is a website dedicated to stories and commentary on Muslim women from an Islamic perspective. Started by the UAE-based writer/graphic designer...

By IANS, Washington : The yellow spice turmeric, that evokes associations with weddings and other auspicious occasions in India, has potent medicinal properties as well, India-American scientist Krishnan Dhandapani and a colleague have found. The active ingredient in turmeric not only cuts down one's chances of getting cancer and Alzheimer's disease, but may also reduce the size of a haemorrhagic stroke, said Medical College of Georgia (MCG) researchers. Timing is critical for patients who often don't know they have had a stroke and may not be seen by a physician for several hours.

By IANS, Hyderabad: Andhra Pradesh is targeting the third place in Information Technology exports in the country, a state government official said Wednesday. K. Ratna Prabha, principal secretary, IT, said the state, though started late in IT exports, has reached the fourth position. "Next year the state will reach third position," she told a programme organised to announce that Hyderabad will host eINDIA 2010, India's largest event on Information and Communication Technology. Karnataka tops in the IT exports in the country followed by Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu.

By DPA Washington : The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is planning the world's largest databank of biometric information allowing it access to the physical characteristics of thousands of people, the Washington Post reported. The $1-billion project of the FBI will give the federal police unprecedented access to information about people in the US and abroad in a massive computer database located in Clarksburg, West Virginia.

By IANS, Washington: Engineers have created energy-scavenging nanofibres that could one day be woven into clothing and textiles. The nanofibres can convert energy from mechanical stresses into electricity, and could one day be used to create clothing that can power small electronics, says a new study, conducted by University of California, Berkeley (UCB) researchers.

By IANS, Washington : Global warming is likely to imperil tropical species much more than fauna in the Arctic regions, even with a slight rise in temperature. "Many tropical species can only tolerate a narrow range of temperatures, as the climate they experience is pretty constant throughout the year," said Curtis Deutsch of the University of California and co-author of a new study.

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By DPA, New York : Internet powerhouse Google is muscling in on New York. The web search giant confirmed Wednesday that it had bought one of the most prestigious office buildings in Manhattan.

By SPA Cape Canaveral, Florida : Shuttle Endeavour and a crew of seven are on their way to the international space station, AP reported. The space shuttle blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, early Tuesday morning to begin what is expected to be the longest space station mission ever. It is a 16-day voyage to build a two-armed robot and add a float-in closet for a future lab. Five spacewalks are planned. Liftoff came in the middle of the night, and it was the first shuttle launch in darkness since 2006.

By IANS Kolkata : Media reports of a bright spherical object, streaking across the eastern sky have left many Kolkata residents intrigued, but scientists said it could be just an "optical illusion" - a result of cloud reflecting the city's lights.

By NNN-PTI, Sriharikota, India : Buoyed by the successful launch of Chandrayaan-1, Indian Space Research Organisation today said it would gear up for the complex and challenging task of the proposed manned mission to the moon by 2015. "Now we have a little bit of breathing time (after today's launch)... We are looking how we can design a capsule, which can carry two astronauts onboard a GSLV rocket," ISRO Chairman G Madhavan Nair said at a post-launch press meet here.

By K.S. Jayaraman, IANS, Bangalore : The very first communications satellite sold by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) to the European operator Eutelsat has failed abruptly after five weeks in orbit, in a setback to ISRO which just celebrated the 100th day of its successful moon mission. "Scientists at ISRO are analyzing the anomaly in the hope of reviving the satellite," ISRO spokesman S. Satish told IANS.

By IANS Bangalore : Smart Indian techie S. Somasegar, an employee of Microsoft India in Hyderabad, has been honoured with the Asian American Engineer Award, instituted by the US-based Chinese Institute of Engineers (CIE), the global software major said here Tuesday. According to a company statement, the award recognises Somasegar's contribution to science and engineering. As senior vice-president (developer division) of Microsoft Corporation and head of its India development centre, Somasegar is responsible for developer-related languages, tools and platforms.

By IANS/RIA Novosti, Moscow : Russian amateur astronomer Artyom Novichonok, a student of Petrozavodsk university, has discovered a new comet, website Astronet said.

By IANS Hyderabad : Suven Life Sciences Ltd, a Hyderabad-based life sciences company, has entered into collaboration with the University of Minnesota in the US to develop new and inexpensive therapies to treat HIV-1. The collaboration also includes the US-based Center for Infectious Diseases and Microbiology Translational Research (CIDMTR).

By Xinhua Beijing : China will make its own lunar globe soon, using pictures and data collected by its own moon orbiter, said an official in charge of the country's moon exploration mission on Tuesday. "I believe that China will soon come up with a full map of the moon," said Hu Hao, head of the lunar exploration center under the Commission of Science Technology and Industry of National Defense (COSTIND).

By TCN News, Hyderabad: XtreamIT, a software solutions and services company, is organising a series of hackathons to inspire the city students to build...

By IANS/RIA Novosti, Moscow: A memorial to renowned tech innovator and Apple co-founder Steve Jobs was unveiled in Russian city of St. Petersburg Wednesday.

By IANS, Austin: The new Formula one circuit being built here has got the FIA approval for the upcoming United States Grand Prix to be held Nov 18.

By IANS, Bangalore : India will launch its first manned mission in 2016 with two astronauts for a week-long odyssey in space, a top Indian space agency official said Wednesday. "We are planning a human space flight in 2016, with two astronauts who will spend seven days in the earth's lower orbit," Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chairman K. Radhakrishnan told reporters here.

By Jay Dougherty, DPA, Washington : Bad things can happen to good data. Hard drives can crash. Memory cards can be formatted accidentally. CDs or DVDs on which important files are stored can become scratched and unreadable. But there are steps you can take to try to retrieve damaged data. The course you take will depend upon the type of media on which the data is stored as well as how severe the damage is.

By Xinhua Shanghai : Scientists and astronomy enthusiasts all over the country all have access to data sent back from China's first lunar orbiter Chang'e-I, a leading scientist in the program said here Sunday.

By Xinhua Beijing : A French astronaut is tending a miniature garden on the International Space Station (ISS) as part of the first experiment inside the orbiting laboratory's new European research module. European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Leopold Eyharts is growing tiny seedlings inside the space station's Columbus laboratory, which he helped deliver during last month's STS-122 shuttle flight.

By IANS, Washington : Unfavourable climatic changes might have hastened the decline of Roman and Byzantine empires more than 1,400 years ago. Based on chemical signatures in a piece of calcite from a cave near Jerusalem, a team of American and Israeli geologists pieced together a detailed record of the area's climate from roughly from 200 B.C. to 1100 A.D. Their analysis reveals increasingly dry weather from 100 A.D. to 700 A.D. that coincided with the fall of both Roman and Byzantine rule in the region.

By IANS New Delhi : India has a mere 130,000 scientific researchers against seven times that number in China, and the government is taking steps to address the imbalance, parliament was told Wednesday. "We have just 130,000 researchers against some 700,000 to 800,000 in China," Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibil said during question hour in the Rajya Sabha. "The Scandinavian countries have 7,000 researchers per million of population. In India, the figure is 156," he added.

By IANS, London : Humankind's closest kin in the animal world - monkeys, apes and other primates - are disappearing from the face of the earth, warns a new report. The first comprehensive review of 634 kinds of primates found almost 50 percent of them are in danger of extinction, according to International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species.

By IANS, London: Photographers will soon be able to charge their camera batteries with the rays of the sun. A team of Chinese researchers are developing solar panels to straps that would make the charging easy. Inventor Weng Jie’s idea, of which a prototype may be ready in months, could spell the end of wall-socket charging, reports dailymail.co.uk. But there is a downside: In case there is not enough sunlight, regular batteries can not be used as a substitute.

By IANS, London : Beams collided at seven trillion electron volts in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, as the research programme got underway Tuesday. The LHC lies in a tunnel 27 km in circumference, as much as 175 metres beneath the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva, Switzerland. Particle physicists worldwide are looking forward to a potentially rich harvest of new physics as the LHC begins its first long run at an energy three-and-a-half times higher than previously achieved at a particle accelerator.

By IANS, Beijing : China will launch its second lunar exploration mission this year to test key landing technologies as well as take high-resolution images of the landing area, China Daily reported Tuesday. "China should not slow down its pace of lunar exploration even if other countries change their plans," said Ye Peijian, chief designer of the nation's first lunar probe Chang'e-1. The country plans to launch its second lunar probe, Chang'e-2, in the latter half of this year as well as send a lunar lander and rover by 2013.

By IANS, Bangalore : India suspended its first moon mission operation after the lunarcraft Chandrayaan-1 lost radio contact with the earth in the wee hours of Saturday, a top official of the Indian space agency said. "At the moment, we have suspended the operation. Calling off the mission depends on what elements we get back. Whether there is any possibility of restoring contact with the spacecraft. These things are being investigated," the state-run Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman G. Madhavan Nair told news channels at his residence in this tech hub.

By DPA Tokyo : NEC Corporation of Japan said Thursday it has launched the world's fastest vector-type supercomputer. The new SX-9 model is equipped with a central processing unit core that can process information at a maximum speed of 102.4 gigaflops. One gigaflop is equivalent to one billion floating point operations per second. When connected with up to 512 units, one unit of the SX-9, which can be equipped with up to 16 CPUs, can perform information processing at 839 teraflops. One teraflop represents one trillion floating point operations per second.

By IANS, Aligarh: The Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) may soon host the Indo-US energy centre.

By IANS, Washington : As if global warming was not alarming in itself, add one more sinister threat to the list -- mercury pollution. It has already spurred public health officials to advise eating less fish, but it could become a more pressing concern in a warmer world. Sue Natali, postdoctoral associate in botany at the University of Florida in a paper she co-authored compared mercury levels in soils under trees growing in air enriched with carbon dioxide to soil beneath trees in ambient air.

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By RIA Novosti Moscow : A Russian nuclear official said his country could launch cooperation with India in building fast neutron nuclear reactors for power plants if sanctions against India are removed. India has never been party to the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and has been under US, Japanese and European sanctions since 1998, when it detonated atomic devices.

By IANS, Chennai : The city's first broadband Internet service provider Hathway Cable and Datacom Ltd has unplugged its services here and started refunding its subscribers their dues, officials said. "We are forced to close down our business. We don't know why. This is the answer I give to all my subscribers," a company official, who did not want to be identified, told IANS. Part of the Mumbai-based Rajan Raheja group, Hathway Cable has around 50,000 subscribers in the city.

By IANS, Washington : Soot from the burning of fossil fuels contributes far more to global warming than has been thought. But, unlike carbon dioxide (CO2), soot lingers only a few weeks in the air, so cutting emissions could have a significant and rapid impact on the climate. If soot emissions were eliminated, more than 1.5 million premature deaths from soot inhalation could be prevented worldwide each year, reports the Journal of Geophysical Research.

By IANS Washington : When salty air and sunshine around busy ports mingle with industrial and shipping pollution, they aggravate the problem manifold, according to a study. Emissions from marine vessels may be polluting the globe to a greater extent than hitherto suspected. The disturbing phenomenon substantially raises the levels of ground-level ozone and other pollutants in coastal areas "This is a problem everywhere industrial pollution meets the ocean, as is the case in many of the largest cities around the world," said Hans Osthoff of university of Calgary.

By IANS, Washington : Researchers have found a way to make lightweight paper batteries and supercapacitors cheaply -- by just dipping paper or fabric in a special ink infused with nanoparticles. Capacitors, like batteries, store energy, but by electrostatic rather than chemical means, as well as stretchable textiles known as 'eTextiles' - capable of storing energy while retaining mechanical properties of paper or fabric. The type of nanoparticle used in Stanford University engineer Yi Cui's experimental devices varies according to the intended function of the product.

By Fakir Balaji, IANS, Bangalore : The countdown has begun for the launch of Ariane-5 rocket from Kourou spaceport in French Guiana, South America, early Sunday, carrying the Indian-built European satellite W2M along with Eutelsat's Hot Bird 9 satellite for broadcasting services, a top space official said here Saturday. The 3,462-kg W2M was designed and built at the satellite centre of the state-run Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) in Bangalore at $80 million (Rs.4 billion) for the European satellite operator (Eutelsat) under the ISRO-EADS-Astrium alliance formed in 2006.

By IANS, New Delhi : Scientists from prestigious Yale University of the US have discovered the earliest black holes ever detected, a statement from the university said Thursday.

Chennai : India is expected to have its own satellite navigation system by the first quarter of 2015 with four of its satellites in...

By IANS, Washington : NASA's plan to send another mission to the moon by 2020 may take a U-turn as US President Barack Obama is expected to propose the closure of the space agency's programme in his new budget to be presented before the Congress Monday. With the release of President Obama's budget request, NASA will finally get the new marching orders, and there won't be anything in there about flying to the moon, The Washington Post reported.

By IANS/EFE, Lima : Peruvian archaeologists have discovered two ceremonial temples believed to be buried since more than 4,000 years.

By IANS, London : "Music is always noise-related and often not appreciated," German poet and humorist Wilhelm Busch noted wryly. Busch's sarcastic saying embodies a bitter truth: Orchestra musicians jeopardise their ears with their own music. For instance, in a Wagner opera, sound values of 120 decibels (dB) and higher can be attained. Even the average sound level, depending on the repertoire and instrument, often takes on a magnitude that is considered hazardous to health.

By IANS Brussels : The selling of domain names has been receiving a bit of an image makeover with the launch of dot-asia. "As a not-for-profit organisation from Asia and for Asia, we want to create partnerships that will drive awareness and promote community benefits. One of the core mandates of the DotAsia Organisation is to contribute surpluses (of funds) back into community projects for Asia," Edmon Chung, CEO of DotAsia, told EuAsiaNews Tuesday night. Since its launch Feb 20, DotAsia has received 350,000 applications.

By IANS, New Delhi : In order to enable easy access to its cost-effective business productivity software, Microsoft Thursday launched its online services in India. Starting at $2 (about Rs.100) a month, the service will allow small and medium business and enterprise customers to access Microsoft's e-mail, collaboration, conferencing and productivity capabilities online. Customers can access the suite directly from www.microsoft.com/india/onlineservices and pay a use-based monthly subscription fee.

By IANS, Toronto : How could a contemporary of the great dinosaurs survive to this day? A rare leatherback turtle, which has existed since the time of the dinosaurs, has been found to be adept at making the longest ocean journey to breed in warmer places. Fitted with a satellite transmitter by Canadian scientists to track its journey, the turtle - which is the also world's largest turtle growing up to two metres long and weighing up to 500 kilogramme - travelled over 7,000 km to be found on the coast of Colombia in South America.

By Arun Kumar, IANS Washington : Warnings from pundits that the millions of engineers and scientists India and China produce each year would soon challenge the US' technical superiority may be a little premature, according to Newsweek International. While Delhi and Beijing are slowly moving in the right direction to improve their high-tech and science programmes, "yet getting either country up to speed will be an enormous task", said the magazine.

By Neena Bhandari, IANS Sydney : Is our Milky Way galaxy fatter than we thought? A team of astrophysicists from the University of Sydney - including an Indian researcher - have calculated that it is 12,000 light years thick - double the previous estimate. They made the amazing discovery not by gazing at our galaxy through a powerful telescope, but while being engrossed in a stimulating discussion and analysing data downloaded from the Internet.

By IANS, Washington : A powerful "molecular motor" that packages DNA into the head segment of some viruses during their assembly delivers twice as much punch as an auto engine, according to a new study. Packaging DNA is an essential step in the ability of virus to multiply and infect new host organisms. Parts of the motor move in sequence like the pistons in a car's engine, progressively drawing the genetic material into the virus's head, or capsid, said Michael Rossmann, Purdue University professor of biological sciences.

By Dipankar De Sarkar, IANS, London : A leading international space scientist says there is now clear evidence of life on Mars but that American authorities are hesitating from announcing it for political reasons. "The discovery of liquid water on Mars combined with earlier discoveries of organic substances in a meteorite that came from Mars, and also of methane in the Martian atmosphere all point to the existence of life - contemporary life - on the Red Planet," said Chandra Wickramasinghe, a globally renowned astrobiologist.

By IANS, Washington : Astronauts may now be able to satisfy their sweet tooth as researchers have found a strawberry that can grow in space with little maintenance and energy. Cary Mitchell, professor of horticulture, and Gioia Massa, a horticulture research scientist at Purdue University in the US, tested several cultivars of strawberries and found one variety named Seascape, which seems to meet the requirements for becoming a space crop.

By IANS, New Delhi : When the Sun goes down Monday evening, step outside to watch the best sky show of the year. Jupiter, Venus and Moon - three of the brightest objects up there at night - will be closest to each other then. Jupiter and Venus have been rapidly coming towards each other for the last few days, a phenomenon that will not be visible against till 2012. And soon they will have the Moon for company.

By IANS, Washington : Researchers have identified a gene which is linked with Labradors collapsing soon after an intense hunting or retrieving exercise, in a condition known as exercise-induced collapse or EIC. In most cases, their legs get wobbly and hind limbs give out, and in rare cases they may die. Labradors are the commonest dog breed in the world. An estimated three to five percent have EIC.

By IANS, Washington : A Washington University team has developed a software that enables deaf or hard-of-hearing Americans to use sign language over a mobile phone video link. The real-time video communication between cell phones, demonstrated for the first time in the country, has evoked tremendous response from the aurally challenged since its posting on YouTube. "A lot of people are excited about this," said principal investigator Eve Riskin, a professor of electrical engineering at the Washington University (WU).

By DPA, Washington/Moscow : A US satellite was destroyed in an unprecedented collision with a spent Russian satellite, raising fears of danger to other satellites, a report said Thursday. The collision between Iridium-33, a commercial US communications satellite and Russia's Cosmos 2251 satellite, which had been turned off for years, occurred Tuesday at 04:55 GMT above Siberia at a height of 790 km, the space.com site said, quoting a statement by US space agency NASA.

By IANS Hyderabad : The chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) G. Madhavan Nair believes that the organisation is entering the second phase of space vision with components of advanced technologies for low cost access to space planetary exploration and manned mission initiatives in the next few decades. Addressing the inaugural session of the 58th International Astronautical Congress (IAC) 2007 here Monday, Nair said the proposed launch of the mission to the moon, Chandrayaan-I, is part of this second vision.

By IANS, New York : Chandrayaan is on its way to the moon, regarded by many Indians as a god, but "devout Hindus - many of them, no doubt, rocket scientists - see no disharmony between ancient Vedic beliefs and contemporary scientific practice", according to a New York Times opinion article. A week before India's moon mission was launched Oct 22, millions of Hindu women embarked on a customary daylong fast of Karva Chauth, meant to ensure a husband's welfare, broken at night on the first sighting of the moon's reflection in a bowl of oil, Tunku Varadarajan wrote in the NYT Wednesday.

By IANS, Bhubaneswar: India early Saturday successfully tested two nuclear capable missiles Dhanush and Prthvi II in Orissa, official said. "Both the missiles were successfully lunched same time at 5.30 hours," SP Dash, director of the Integrated Test Range of Chandipur in Balasore district, told IANS. While Prithvi II surface to surface ballistic missile with a range of 350 km was launched from Chandipur, some 230 kms from state capital Bhubaneswar, Dhanush, a naval version of Prthivi with same range was launched from a naval ship off Orissa coast.

By DPA, New York : The chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Monday said there remained a "glaring gap" between the policy and science on climate change. "We need to connect science and policy," Rajendra Pachauri said at a news conference organised by the United Nations Environment Programme. The IPCC shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 with former US vice president Al Gore.

By DPA, Bonn (Germany) : A security hole has been discovered in the VLC Media Player, the German Federal Agency for Security in Information Technology (BSI) here reported. Attackers can exploit this vulnerability using rigged Real Media files (file ending with "rm") to install malicious software onto the user's computer. The victim has just to open the manipulated multimedia file.

By IANS, Beijing: In a move to strengthen emergency response capabilities in case of oil spill accidents, China has put the country's first oil spill response vessels (OSRV) into use.

By IANS, Mumbai : The Indian research arm of global semi-conductor manufacturing leader Texas Instruments has achieved a breakthrough: enhancing the processing and memory power of ultra-low power micro-controllers. The breakthrough generation of the ultra-low power micro-controllers can aid thousands of applications in fields as diverse as medicine, security, home automation and consumer goods, the company said Monday.

By Sharon Thambala Bengaluru : A key part of the "Digital India" initiative of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the free government scheme that...

By DPA Washington : The weather is a concern for the US space agency NASA as the countdown for the delayed launch of the Atlantis space shuttle for an 11-day mission continues. Weather forecasts gave a 30 percent chance of "acceptable conditions" at the scheduled 2.45 p.m. (1945 GMT) Thursday launch time from Cape Canaveral, Florida with the possibility of storms and clouds, NASA said. The launch could also take place Friday, when there is a 60 percent chance of acceptable conditions, or Saturday, with a 70 percent chance of good weather.

By IANS/EFE, Brasilia : Scientists have found bones in Brazil that belonged to a 20-foot-tall sloth that lived some 10,000 years ago.

By IANS, Washington : Astronomers have announced a robust detection of a vast reservoir of intergalactic gas about 400 million light years from earth. This discovery is the strongest evidence yet that the "missing matter" in the nearby Universe is located in an enormous web of hot, diffuse gas. This missing matter -- which is different from dark matter -- is composed of baryons, the particles, such as protons and electrons, that are found on the earth, in stars, gas, galaxies, and so on.

By IANS, New Delhi : India's telecom watchdog Tuesday revised the Telecommunication (Broadcasting and Cable Services) Interconnection Regulation, 2004, making it mandatory for all broadcasters to have reference interconnect offers (RIOs) for their addressable systems. The Telecommunication (Broadcasting and Cable Services) Interconnection (Fifth Amendment) Regulations, 2009, released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), covers regulatory provisions on issues relating to inter-connection for addressable platforms and registration of inter-connection agreements.

By IANS New Delhi : In-house research and development (R&D) should get 25 percent of science expenditure to strengthen India's stand in the global innovation map, the newly appointed director general of Council of Scientific Research (CSIR) Samir Brahmachari said Thursday. Bramhachari, who is also the secretary of Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR) said that an aggressive agenda needs to be followed to give a fillip to in-house R&D in industry and position India's innovation efforts in the international arena.

By IANS, Gurgaon : Swati, a college student, beat thronging crowds to become the first customer to get an Apple iPhone from a mall in this satellite town Thursday midnight. Swati was waiting at the Sahara Mall from 7 p.m. The phone was handed over to her by by Sanjay Kapoor, president of Bharti Mobile Services. The iPhone is priced at Rs.31,000 for 8GB and Rs.36,100 for 16GB of memory space, The phones are being given on first come first serve basis.

By IANS, Washington : NASA scientists will fabricate the biggest ever telescopes on the lunar surface with a mixture of carbon and plenty of moon dust. "We could make huge telescopes on the moon relatively easily, and avoid the large expense of transporting a large mirror from Earth," said Peter Chen of NASA. "Since most of the materials are already there in the form of dust, you don't have to bring very much stuff with you, and that saves a ton of money."

By Xinhua Zhongshan Station (Antarctica) : China has set up a background atmosphere observation site at Zhongshan station in Antarctica as part of its 24th scientific expedition to the region. Researchers at Zhongshan station will be able to observe surface ozone and gases like carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, as well as black carbon aerosol.

By IANS New Delhi : Indian students have enough capability and they should concentrate on exploring the universe more, American-Indian astronaut Sunita Williams said Monday. She expressed her desire to see Indian students smiling from the moon. "There is a lot to know and explore about the universe. Now you should dream of going to the moon, Mars and space. I want to see your smiling faces from the moon," Williams said while interacting with school students in the capital.

By Parveen Chopra, IANS New York : A faster version of Scrabulous, developed by two Kolkatans, has been uploaded on Facebook that sees half a million daily users of the Scrabble-like game. The US social networking site has also opened up the game and other plug-in applications to its competitors. Released by brothers Jayant and Rajat Agarwalla, two software developers, on Facebook in June, the game's popularity prompted the new version to make match uploads faster for the online players.

By IANS, London : Although few women occupy top slots in corporate hierarchies, a new study shows that they may be more accomplished in negotiations than their masculine counterparts. Yael Itzhaki of Tel Aviv University carried out simulations of business negotiations among 554 Israeli and American management students at Ohio State University and in Israel, reported EurekAlert.

By Xinhua Beijing : New spacecraft images show a lake that may have filled a crater for a long time on early Mars might once have been habitable. NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured the images that suggest the debris-strewn Holden Crater once held a calm body of water that could have harbored life. There is so far no convincing evidence life does or ever did exist on Mars, however. The crater debris includes a mix of broken boulders and smaller particles called megabreccia.

By DPA, New York : Citing increased international cooperation to curb nuclear weapons and global warming, scientists Thursday moved the so-called Doomsday Clock back by one minute. The clock was created by nuclear scientists in 1947 to symbolise the world's proximity to planetary catastrophe with midnight signalling the apocalypse. Following Thursday's move the clock now reads six minutes to midnight.

By IANS, Kolkata : Lenovo, Chinese manufacturer of PCs and partner of the Beijing Olympic torch relay, Saturday launched its second phase of three online auctions in India as part of the countdown to the games. The auction features notebook PCs inspired by the Olympic torch and is signed by Saif Ali Khan. Saif was one of the torchbearers who ran in the New Delhi leg of the relay April 17.

By IANS, Chandigarh : Popular social networking website Facebook has been caught in a 'smoky' row. An anti-tobacco activist here has served a notice to the website, accusing it of "promotion of smoking culture" through its web pages. Anti-tobacco activist Hemant Goswami Tuesday said he has served a notice to Facebook Inc. in California (US) and Facebook Ireland Ltd, which run the social networking website facebook.com, for violation of Indian laws that ban advertisement and promotion of tobacco products.

By DPA, San Francisco : Social networking site Facebook introduced a new set of privacy controls Wednesday in an attempt to quell criticism that it was lax about protecting users' personal information. The new controls are featured in a streamlined privacy panel that allows users much easier management of who can access their information. "We believe in privacy. We believe in giving people control," Facebook founder Marc Zuckerberg said at a press conference to announce the overhaul.

By IANS, Chandigarh : The union territory of Chandigarh is all set to become a "solar city" and reduce its dependence on conventional and non-renewable energy resources, officials said here Wednesday. The administration here has nearly finalised the draft plan for extensively utilising solar energy in collaboration with The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI). To finalise the modalities of this project, a meeting was held between officials of the union territory and TERI Tuesday evening.

By IANS, Washington : Global levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, the primary driver of climate change, increased by 0.6 percent or 19 billion tonnes last year. Additionally methane rose by 27 million tonnes after nearly a decade with little or no increase. National Oceanic And Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) scientists released these and other preliminary findings as part of an annual update on agency's greenhouse gas index, which tracks data from 60 sites worldwide.

By DPA, Washington : NASA has given the green light to the launch of Discovery Nov 1 after resolving a problem associated with a small fuel leak.

By Jay Dougherty, DPA, Washington : Will Office 2010 rescue Microsoft's ubiquitous productivity suite in the same way that Windows 7 resuscitated the reputation of Windows? That's the billion-dollar question. And this week, with the official unveiling of Office 2010, answers begin to emerge. Boasting a host of collaborative features, interface improvements, and seamless integration with the new, free Office 2010 Web Apps, Office 2010 is Microsoft's best attempt to redress the complaints that users had about Office 2007 while not throwing out the 2007 experiment entirely.

By DPA, Washington : Two astronauts from the Discovery space shuttle began a spacewalk Sunday to carry out further work on the International Space Station (ISS). Discovery astronauts Mike Fossum and Ron Garan were set to spend more than six hours installing a new nitrogen tank on the ISS and to carry out further work installing a robot arm on the Japanese module Kibo. It is the third and final spacewalk scheduled during the current 14-day Discovery mission.

By IANS, Hyderabad: The information technology industry in India has a challenging and an uncertain year ahead, feel the business leaders in the sector in this technology hub.

By DPA, Kuala Lumpur : Malaysia's fledgling space programme will be temporarily shelved due to a lack of funds, six months after sending its first astronaut to space, a news report said Tuesday. Science minister Maximus Ongkili said the initial plan to send a second astronaut to space could not be carried out due to a problem of budgeting. "There's zero money. The ministry will have to look for money if it wants to continue with the programme," Ongkili was quoted as saying by the New Straits Times daily.

By Prensa Latina, Nueva Delhi : After a successful lift-off, the Indian-built PSLV-C11 rocket on Wednesday placed lunar orbiting spacecraft Chandarayaan-1 into a transit orbit. With the launching, India entered the select group of countries that are exploring the Moon. Starting from that elliptic position, in a 158-mile perigee from the Earth's surface, Chandarayaan-1 will use its liquid transfer motor to ascend to farther earth's orbits, until it re-launches itself to the moon and occupy a position on its own North Pole.

By IANS

Bangalore : The research division of the global IT major IBM has come out with a slew of innovations that have the potential to change the way people travel.

The next-generation transport innovations revolve around driver-assist technologies, intelligent traffic systems using sensor technologies, advanced mass transit systems connected to mobile phones, ultra sophisticated voice recognition systems and smart airport system.

New Delhi: The decision on merging state-run BSNL and MTNL will be taken in the next four-five months, Telecom Secretary Rakesh Garg said on...

By IANS, Washington: A US trade panel Tuesday launched a probe after the Motorola company alleged that its patents were infringed by Apple Inc.

By DPA, Washington : Space shuttle Endeavour lit up the Florida coast before dawn Monday as it blasted off for a mission to the International Space Station. The start, at 10.14 a.m. Greenwich Mean Time was the final night-time launch for the ageing shuttle fleet, which is to be mothballed later this year. Endeavour is carrying a six-window viewing area that will give astronauts a panoramic look at earth, the station and visiting spacecraft. A planned Sunday launch for the shuttle had to be postponed due to low cloud cover at the launch site.

By IANS, Sydney : A new species of iguana, found by Australian and US researchers in central Fiji, takes the number of such existing Pacific species to three. Scientists named the new iguana species Brachylophus bulabula. Bulabula is a doubling of bula, the Fijian word for 'hello,' thus signifying an even more enthusiastic greeting.

New Delhi: New Delhi-based ETI Dynamics and Auckland-based Greenhouse Capital on Tuesday announced a partnership to invest $100 million in exporting clean technologies from...

By DPA, Frankfurt : Dell has released two new laptops from the nascent ULV class. The 13z and 15z are members of the Inspiron series and cost $550 and $580 respectively. ULV stands for Ultra Low Voltage and refers to processors designed to work at lower voltages and use less power. In the case of the new Dell laptops, that translates into respective battery lives of 11 hours (13z with a 13.3 inch monitor) and 10 hours (15z with 15.6 inch monitor).

Washington, Oct 10 (Xinhua) The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Dawn spacecraft successfully completed the first test of its ion propulsion system over the weekend, according to mission status updates. The system is vital to the success of Dawn's eight-year, 1.6-billion-km journey to asteroid Vesta and dwarf planet Ceres.