New Portable Hard Drives from Transcend

Transcend released two new 2.5-inch 500GB portable HDDs for the Indian market. Hailing from the StoreJet series, the drives will come in two variants - 25C and 25M. The only difference between both the drives is that the former oozes class and style while the latter gives up all for better rugged protection. 25M complies with US military drop-test standards MIL-STD-810F giving protection from unexpected spills and shocks.

Both the drives are USB 2.0 compliant and support SATA interface for improved data transfer rates. The software package pre-installed in the drives consist of Website AutoLogin, Mobile Favorites with NoTrace Internet browsing, Secret-Zip 256-bit AES file encryption, Mobile E-mail, Online Update and intelligent backup scheduling functions.
Both the drives are priced at Rs.13,300 + tax and come with two year of warranty.

Destination Moon, Mars and beyond

Chandrayaan-I spacecraft carrying 11 payloads (scientific instruments) weighs about 1,400 kg at the time of its launch and is shaped like a cuboid with a solar panel projecting from one of its sides.





The countdown for the launch of Chandrayaan-1, India's first unmanned moon mission, has begun today at the Satish Dhawan Space centre at Sriharikota.
The spacecraft will be launched on Wednesday at 6.20 a.m. The spacecraft would be carrying 11 payloads (scientific instruments) and weigh about 1,380 kg at the time of its launch, according to reports.
Chandrayaan-1 satellite would orbit the Moon at an altitude of 100 km mapping the topography and the mineralogical content of the lunar soil. Chandrayaan-1 would also carry a Moon Impact Probe payload for demonstrating the technology needed towards landing on the Moon''s surface. India believes the Rs 386-crore lunar mission is a step towards its quest for exploration of outer space and inter-planetary missions. (ANI)
CHANDRAYAAN-1 Live Webcast 22nd Oct 2008 0550 - 0650 Hrs(IST)http://www.isro.org/

REAL PHOTOGRAPHY !

MY PICKS of the week- WHAT? HOW?

Leading IT encyclopedia and learning centre : www.whatis.com

How to just about every thing : www.ehow.com

NEW PHONE FOR DIWALI ?
EXPERT REVIEW- RANGE 10 To 15K

The Nokia 6210 (Rs14,900) Navigator is a special phone; one that comes loaded with Nokia Maps and helps you find your way around 8 cities in India, all metros included. The earlier Navigator could be criticized as being too bulky and poorly constructed. Also, its Multimedia features weren't up to the mark. The 6210 looks to clear out all of those problems with its 3.15MP autofocus camera with flash and a much better audio player.

The main focus though still remains on navigation for which the 6210 Navigator is loaded; A-GPS function and Digital compass through its built-in GPS receiver.






The Nokia E51 (Rs.11,500 ) is a rather small device but is pretty powerful. The E51 can handle professional convergence much more than phones in its price range. The phone is provided with a 2-inch display and every connectivity option available to phones these days. Such a small package with Wi-Fi is a lot to boast about for Nokia. This is also the cheapest mobile device to provide Wi-Fi connectivity. The phone has a 369 MHz processor, one that Nokia has even used in its most powerful handset, the N95.

Yes, the N95 is more powerful than the newly launched N96. This helps the E51 to work documents, enjoy audio wirelessly (A2DP) and at the same time attain high speed surfing, all done smoothly. The E51 is one hell of a device and it's available for around Rs. 11,500 with a 1-year warranty and a 1GB memory card bundled. There is also a version of the phone without the camera. The phones camera fares badly while capturing stills but does a decent job with the video.


HTC Touch: Rs.13,500
The HTC Touch is one touch screen phone that can replace the M600 -
one of the cheapest touch screen phones. The HTC Touch is a worthy replacement as it offers a lot more than the M600. Its TouchFLO interface and Windows Mobile 6.0 Professional is well supported by a powerful TI OMAP 850, 201 MHz. It's got Wi-Fi connectivity and a 2MP camera that were missing in the M600.

This phone comes with document viewer but you can upgrade Pocket Office to create and edit Word, Excel, PowerPoint files. The Audio player is also pretty decent; though not too extensive, it has the quality. The bundle includes a 1GB card and if you want you can always upgrade it or exchange it at the time of purchase. The only problem I see is that this phone doesn't have a great battery life.

So if you're the talkative type then it's better to carry a charger along or charge the phone every day. The HTC Touch is available for around Rs. 13,500.
Here's the link to the spec sheet for the phones.

CREATIVITY!!!!!!!!!

DICTIONARY MEANINGS

School: A place where Papa pays and Son plays.

Nurse: A person who wakes u up to give you sleeping pills.

Marriage: It's an agreement in which a man loses his bachelor degree and a woman gains her masters.

Tears: The hydraulic force by which masculine willpower is defeated by feminine waterpower.

Lecture: An art of transferring information from the notes of the Lecturer to the notes of the students without passing through 'the minds of either'


Dictionary: A place where success comes before work.


Conference Room: A place where everybody talks, nobody listens and everybody disagrees later on.


Father: A banker provided by nature.


Boss: Someone who is early when you are late and late when you are early.

Smile: A curve that can set a lot of things straight.


Etc.: A sign to make others believe that you know more than you actually do.



You want to add some more?
Go on and write them in comments....

"S" FOR SUCCESS? NO SACHIN!

Sachin Tendulkar became the highest run-scorer in the history of Test cricket on 17/10/2008, eclipsing Brian Lara's record during India's match against Australia. The batsman, accorded demi-god status in his country, required 15 runs to pass Lara's total of 11,953 and he finally got there with a push to third man for three off the bowling of Peter Siddle to send the home supporters into raptures. He was eventually dismissed for 88 as India fought back in the afternoon of the second Test.

Fireworks were released as the game came to a brief standstill moments into the evening session. Australia's players, including captain Ricky Ponting, were among the first to congratulate Tendulkar, who also holds the records for the most runs and most centuries scored in one-day internationals. The 35-year-old 'Little Master' reaches the milestone in his 152nd Test appearance; though Lara accumulated just 131 caps in setting the previous mark. Tendulkar has now scored 12,027 Test runs at an average of just over 54.

FEEL PROUD TO BE INDIAN

While posting NOBLE Laureates of 2008, My heart was feeling for not finding any name of Indian/Indian origin. However Booker's selection consoled it to some extent. The news that we missed Nobel in Economics reminds me mistake committed by Noble Committee in respect MAHATMA GANDHI and taking half a decade to realise it. This is an occasion recapitulate the achievements of Indians

• GM of Hewlett Packard (hp) -Rajiv Gupta
• Creator of Pentium chip - Vinod Dahm
  
• creator of Hotmail------- Shbeer Bhatia
• president of AT & T-Bell Labs --- Arun Netravalli
• We Indians are the wealthiest among all ethnic groups in America, even faring better than the whites and the natives.
  
• There are 3.22 millions of Indians in USA (1.5% of population). YET,
  
• MORE THAN 30% of Doctors, NASA Scientists, Micro Soft Employees are Indians
• India never invaded any country in her last 1000 years of history.
• India invented the Number system. Zero was invented by Aryabhatta.
• The world’s first University was established in Takshila in 700BC. More than 10,500 students from all over the world studied more than 60 subjects. The University of Nalanda built in the 4 th century BC was one of the greatest achievements of ancient India in the field of education.
• According to the Forbes magazine, Sanskrit is the most suitable language for computer software.
• Ayurveda is the earliest school of medicine known to humans.
• Although western media portray modern images of India as poverty striken and underdeveloped through political corruption, India was once the richest empire on earth.
• The art of navigation was born in the river Sindh 5000 years ago. The very word "Navigation" is derived from the Sanskrit word NAVGATIH.
• The value of pi was first calculated by Budhayana, and he explained the concept of what is now k! nown as the Pythagorean Theorem. British scholars have last year (1999) officially published that Budhayan’s works dates to the 6 th Century which is long before the European mathematicians.
• Algebra, trigonometry and calculus came from India . Quadratic equations were by Sridharacharya in the 11 th Century; the largest numbers the Greeks and the Romans used were 106 whereas Indians used numbers as big as 10 53.
• According to the Gemmological Institute of America, up until 1896, India was the only source of diamonds to the world.
• USA based IEEE has proved what has been a century-old suspicion amongst academics that the pioneer of wireless communication was Professor Jagdeesh Bose and not Marconi.
• The earliest reservoir and dam for irrigation was built in Saurashtra.
• Chess was invented in India .
• Sushruta is the father of surgery. 2600 years ago he and health scientists of his time conducted surgeries like cesareans, cataract, fractures and urinary stones. Usage of anaesthesia was well known in ancient India .
• When many cultures in the world were only nomadic forest dwellers over 5000 years ago, Indians established Harappan culture in Sindhu Valley ( Indus Valley Civilisation).
• The place value system, the decimal system was developed in India in 100 BC.

Quotes about India .
We owe a lot to the Indians, who taught us how to count, without which no worthwhile scientific discovery could have been made. Albert Einstein.

India is the cradle of the human race, the birthplace of human speech, the mother of history, the grandmother of legend and the great grand mother of tradition. Mark Twain.
If there is one place on the face of earth where all dreams of living men have found a home from the very earliest days when man began the dream of existence, it is India. French scholar Romain Rolland.
India conquered and dominated China culturally for 20 centuries without ever having to send a single soldier across her border. Hu Shih (former Chinese ambassador to USA )

Aravind Adiga becomes the fourth debut novelist to win BOOKER PRIZE 2008 for his "THE WHITE TIGER"

ARAVIND ADIGA is named the winner of the £50,000 Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2008 for his novel The White Tiger, published by Atlantic.

The thirty-three year old novelist was presented the prize at an awards ceremony at Guildhall, London. Adiga becomes the fourth debut novelist, and the second Indian debut novelist, to win the award in the forty year history of the prize. The three other debut novelists to have won the prize are Keri Hulme for her novel The Bone People in 1985, DBC Pierre in 2003 for his novel Vernon God Little and Arundhati Roy in 1997 for The God of Small Things.

Aravind Adiga's winning novel The White Tiger is decribed as a ‘compelling, angry and darkly humorous' novel about a man's journey from Indian village life to entrepreneurial success. It was described by one reviewer as an ‘unadorned portrait' of India seen ‘from the bottom of the heap'.

Adiga, who has wanted to be a novelist since he was a boy, was born in Madras and now lives in Mumbai. He becomes the fifth Indian author to win the prize, joining VS Naipaul, Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy and Kiran Desai who won the prize in 1971, 1981, 1997 and 2006 respectively. In addition, The White Tiger is the ninth winning novel to take its inspiration from India or Indian identity.


Mr. Aravind hails from Mangalore and did a major part of his schooling here. His extended family still lives in Mangalore. Sydney is where his father, a surgeon, is now settled.

ABOUT ADIGA

He comes from a family of doctors and his maternal grandfather, Dr. Mohan Rao, was a well-known surgeon in Chennai.

Mr. Aravind did most part of his education at St. Aloysius group of education institutes, barring the two years of primary education at Canara English Higher Primary School, Dongarakery.

After his family moved here from Chennai, he joined the Canara School in 1981-82 for standard II. He joined St. Aloysius primary school in 1983-84 and completed his SSLC in 1990. He secured the first rank in the State in SSLC.

WHO WON THE NOBLE PRIZE THIS YEAR

The 2008 Nobel season ended Monday with the announcement of the winner of the prize for Economics.

Here is a summary of this year’s laureates.

* ECONOMICS

– Paul Krugman, professor of economics and international affairs at Princeton University and a critic of the Bush administration, won for work that integrates the previously disparate research fields of international trade and economic geography, helping to explain issues such as what drives worldwide urbanization.

* PEACE:

– Former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari won for a three decades-long career of peacemaking around the globe from Namibia to Kosovo.

* LITERATURE:

– French writer Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio took the Literature prize. The writer, whose early work in the 1960s was acclaimed for its wordplay and imagery, later delved into childhood themes. His breakthrough first novel, “Le proces-verbal” (”The Interrogation”), was published in 1963.

* CHEMISTRY:

– Osamu Shimomura of Japan and Americans Martin Chalfie and Roger Tsien won for their discovery of the protein GFP. The green fluorescent protein was first observed in jellyfish and it helps scientists spot the onset of maladies such as cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.

* PHYSICS:

– Yoichiro Nambu, a Tokyo-born American citizen, and Makoto Kobayashi and Toshihide Maskawa of Japan won for separate work that helped explain why the universe is made up mostly of matter and not anti-matter via processes known as broken symmetries.

* PHYSIOLOGY OR MEDICINE:

– Luc Montagnier, director of the World Foundation for AIDS Research and Prevention, and Francoise Barre-Sinoussi of the Institut Pasteur took half the prize for discovering the HIV virus that has killed 25 million people since it was identified in the 1980s.

– Dr. Harald zur Hausen of the University of Duesseldorf and a former director of the German Cancer Research Center shared the other half of the prize for work that went against the established opinion about the cause of cervical cancer.

Motorola MOTOZINE ZN5

Frazier Barretto, Oct 10, 2008 1916 hrs IST

This is Motorola's first attempt at a 5MP camera and that too a Kodak Imaging branded camera.

Expert Rating:

Good Build, Design and build, 5MP Camera with Xenon Flash, Music Quality, WiFi, Price.

Incomplete Multi-tasking, Poor QCIF video recording, No Sport Mode, Memory Card slot not hotswappable.

EXPERT REVIEW

Motorola had last made a huge noise about the MOTOROKR E8 and the launch of their online music portal. Today we will look at the Motorola MOTOZINE ZN5.

Now it's more of a surprise because this phone brings a lot to the table. It's Motorola's first attempt at a 5MP camera and that too a Kodak Imaging branded camera. The phone touts even of Wi-Fi connectivity and all of this is almost a steal.

Bundle

Motorola MOTOZINE ZN5

Stereo Headset

USB Cable

2GB microSD Memory Card (SD adaptor)

TV Cable

Software and Manual

Global warming:Preventive measures

Carbon Capture
One way to keep carbon dioxide emissions from reaching the atmosphere is to preserve and plant more trees. Trees, especially young and fast-growing ones, soak up a great deal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store carbon atoms in new wood. Worldwide, forests are being cleared at an alarming rate, particularly in the tropics. In many areas, there is little regrowth as land loses fertility or is changed to other uses, such as farming or housing developments. In addition, when trees are burned to clear land, they release stored carbon back into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. Slowing the rate of deforestation and planting new trees can help counteract the buildup of greenhouse gases.
Carbon dioxide gas can also be captured directly. Carbon dioxide has traditionally been injected into depleted oil wells to force more oil out of the ground or seafloor. The same process can be used to store carbon dioxide released by a power plant, factory, or any large stationary source. For example, since 1996 this process has been used at a natural gas drilling platform off the coast of Norway. Carbon dioxide brought to the surface with the natural gas is captured, compressed, and then injected into an aquifer deep below the seabed from which it cannot escape. In most cases, the process of carbon capture would also involve transporting the gas in compressed form to suitable locations for underground storage. Deep ocean waters could also absorb a great deal of carbon dioxide, although the environmental effects may be harmful to ocean life. The feasibility and environmental effects of these options are under study by international teams.

HTC's WiMAX enabled T8290

Samir Makwana, Oct 11, 2008 1151 hrs IST

A new model that looks like the HTC Touch HD with WiMAX capability

While the world drools over touchscreen phones with Wi-Fi, HTC has plans to go a step beyond. Leaked photos of the HTC model T8290 indicate WiMAX support is in the pipeline. The model looks like the HTC Touch HD with an added WiMAX capability as its defining feature.

See that inverted human figure on the back of the phone? That's the logo of Russia based Mobile WiMAX technology service provider Yota.

So far the following specs were leaked:

- 3.8-inch WVGA 800x480 LCD display
- WiMAX & WiFi (802.11g)
- Bluetooth 2.0

With mobile WiMAX on the phone, speeds of over 14mbps can be expected over a stable WiMAX network. But do we have WiMAX yet? We're yet to see even 3G operational in India.

Being the first ever WiMAX phone -- would take it to where even not many notebooks plan to go; expect the T8290 to be priced phenomenally if it rolls out in other countries.

Source: Nedge2K

BIT TORRENT

Now for most of you who want to know about how
BitTorrent works:
BitTorrent is a protocol that enables fast downloading of large files using minimum Internet bandwidth. It costs nothing to use and includes no spyware or pop-up advertising.

Unlike other download methods, BitTorrent maximizes transfer speed by gathering pieces of the file you want and downloading these pieces simultaneously from people who already have them. This process makes popular and very large files, such as videos and television programs, download much faster than is possible with other protocols.

In this article, we'll examine how BitTorrent works and how it is different from other file-distribution methods. In addition, you'll learn how to use BitTorrent and what the future might hold for this innovative approach to serving files over the Internet.

Like most Internet phenomena, BitTorrent has its own jargon. Some of the more common terms related to BitTorrent include:

Leeches - People who download files but do not share files on their own computer with others

Seed or seeder - A computer with a complete copy of a BitTorrent file (At least one seed computer is necessary for a BitTorrent download to operate.)

Swarm - A group of computers simultaneously sending (uploading) or receiving (downloading) the same file

.torrent - A pointer file that directs your computer to the file you want to download

Tracker - A server that manages the BitTorrent file-transfer process