Higher Education in USA

US to promote US higher education in India

An official US delegation will visit India March 24-30 to promote the quality, dynamism and diversity of higher education in America as also their desire to expand educational partnerships with Indians.

Led by Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Karen P. Hughes, the delegation will comprise senior US government officials and US college and university presidents, the state department announced Thursday.

In meetings with students and leaders in higher education, government, and business in
Mumbai and New Delhi, the delegates will convey the message that America welcomes and values international students who want to study in the United States.

They will highlight the importance of international education to strengthening US-India ties and preparing globally competitive American students at educational institutions. This unique pairing of US government and higher education leaders is the second in a series of delegations stemming from a commitment to greater partnership in the national interest, the announcement said.

It was made at the US University Presidents Summit on International Education co-hosted by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and US Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings in January 2006.

Besides Hughes, the delegation will include Thomas A. Farrell, deputy assistant secretary of state for academic programmes, Dr John J Bowen, Dr Mark A Emmert and Dr John M Lilley, presidents of Johnson and Wales, Washington and Baylor Universities, respectively.

It will also have Dr James L Oblinger, chancellor, North Carolina State University and Dr Eileen Wilson-Oyelaran and Dr Margaret B Lee, presidents of Kalamazoo College and Oakton Community College respectively

US visa policies

Bill Gates criticises US visa policies

Slamming American immigration policies, Microsoft Chairperson Bill Gates has said the US was shutting the door on the best and the brightest at a time when the country needed it the most.

Gates, one of the most vocal in the industry to constantly plead for an increase in skilled worker visas, told the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labour and Pensions that the United States must also come to terms with the issue of permanent residency over and above what it intended to do with the H1B visas.

The Senate panel headed by Senator Edward Kennedy was focused on "Strengthening American Competitiveness for the 21st century" with Gates as the principal witness.

The Microsoft chairperson slammed the visa policies that has now come to heavily restrict foreign-born US college graduates from working in the US and limit citizenship or permanent residency opportunities for scientists and engineers.

"It makes no sense to tell well-trained, highly skilled individuals many of whom are educated at our top universities that they are not welcome in US.

"We have to welcome the great minds in this world, not shut them out of our country," Gates said. "Unfortunately, America's immigration policies are driving away the world's best and brightest precisely when we need them most."

He also made the point that if the federal government did not make it easier for foreign scientists and engineers to obtain permanent US residency, the talent would flow to India and China.

Ten things to know about Google

Ten things you didn’t know about Google

Google is part of Net surfers’ everyday life. It is in fact difficult to imagine life without Google, the search engine company that is now as revered as the mighty software giant Microsoft, if not more. But there are a number of things about Google that few people know about.

Here is a list of 10 such very interesting things about the search giant.

The name Google is a spelling error. The founders of the site, Larry page and Sergey Brin, thought they were going for 'Googol.' Googol is the mathematical term for 1 followed by 100 zeros. The term was coined by Milton Sirotta, nephew of American mathematician Edward Kasner, and was popularized in the book, Mathematics and the Imagination by Kasner and James Newman. Google's play on the term reflects the company's mission to organize the immense amount of information available on the web.

Initially, Larry and Sergey Brin called their search engine BackRub, named for its analysis of the of the web's "back links." The search for a new name began in 1997, with Larry and his officemates starting a hunt for a number of possible new names for the rapidly improving search technology.

The reason the google page is so bare is because the founder didn’t know HTML and just wanted a quick interface.

Due to the sparseness of the homepage, in early user tests they noted people just kept sitting staring at the screen, waiting for the rest to appear. To solve the particular problem the Google Copyright message was inserted to act as an end of page marker

Google started as a research project by Larry page and Sergey Brin when they were 24 and 23 years respectively. Google's mission statement is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.

The company’s first office was in a garage, in Menlo Park, California. Google’s first employee was Craig Silverstein, now Google's director of technology.

The basis of Google's search technology is called PageRank that assigns an "importance" value to each page on the web and gives it a rank to determine how useful it is. However, that is not why it is called PageRank. It is actually named after Google co-founder Larry Page

Google receives about 20 million search queries each day from every part of the world, including Antarctica and Vatican.

You can have the Google homepage set up in as many as 116 different languages -- including Urdu, Latin, Cambodia, Tonga, and Yoruba. In fact, Google has the largest network of translators in the world.

In the earliest stage of Google, there was no submit button, rather the Enter key needed to be pressed.

Google has banned computer-generated search requests, which can sop up substantial system resources and help unscrupulous marketers manipulate its search rankings

The Google’s free web mail service Gmail was used internally for nearly two years prior to launch to the public. The researchers found out six types of email users, and Gmail has been designed to accommodate these six.

The free e-mail service recently changed its name for new UK users. Following a trademark dispute with a London-based Independent International Investment Research, the mail account has been renamed Google Mail.

It would take 5,707 years for a person to search Google's 3 billion pages. The Google software does it in 0.5 seconds.

Google Groups comprises more than 845 million Usenet messages, which is the world's largest collection of messages or the equivalent of more than a terabyte of human conversation.

The logos that appear on the Google homepage during noteworthy days and dates and important events are called Google Doodle. The company has also created an online museum where it has all the logos it has put on various occasions so far.

Dennis Hwang, a Korean computer artist in the United States, is the guy behind these witty Doodles. Hwang has been drawing the face of Google for over two years.

You have heard of Google Earth, but not many know there is a site called Google Moon, which maps the Lunar surface.

Google Moon is an extension of Google Maps and Google Earth that, courtesy of NASA imagery, enables you to surf the Moon’s surface and check out the exact spots that the Apollo astronauts made their landings

Keyhole, the satellite imaging company that Google acquired in October 2004 was funded by CIA.

Keyhole's technology runs Google's popular program Google Earth that allows users to quickly view stored satellite images from all around the world.

Future tech breakthroughs to come from Asia

Future tech breakthroughs to come from Asia: Gates

Future technology breakthroughs will increasingly come from Asia, Microsoft Corp Chairman Bill Gates said, adding that research being done at the software giant's regional development centers was among the best in the world.

Gates' comments come at the end of a visit to China yesterday during which he announced several new ventures, including USD 3 software packages for government-subsidised student computers.

In a speech to a regional economic forum in southern China, Gates said Americans were increasingly expecting Asia to produce major new leaps in computers and other technology, citing in part the region's strong showing in engineering and the sciences.

"And so not only is Asia benefiting from the uses of new technology, Asia will increasingly be the source of advances in technology," Gates told participants at the opening ceremony of the Boao Forum for Asia, a gathering of business leaders and politicians modeled on the World Economic Forum held each winter in Davos, Switzerland.

Gates said Microsoft has been gratified by the results of its Asian research and development centres and was planning to expand campuses in Beijing and Shanghai.

"The results and the quality of the work is absolutely among the best in the world," Gates said.

Gates repeated calls made earlier in his visit for greater investments in technology to improve health care and education, saying all students would soon be equipped with super powerful tablet computers no bigger than a piece of notebook paper..

Privacy groups challenge Google

Privacy groups challenge Google - DoubleClick deal

Consumer privacy groups on Friday sought to derail Google Inc's $3.1 billion deal to buy online ad supplier DoubleClick Inc, filing a complaint with US regulators to block the merger on privacy grounds.

Groups led by the Electronic Privacy Information Center have filed the complaint with the US Federal Trade Commission arguing the merger would violate agreed limits on how much data advertisers collect on consumers and seeking an injunction.

"Google's proposed acquisition of DoubleClick will give one company access to more information about the Internet activities of consumers than any other company in the world," the complaint by the privacy activist groups argues.

New York-based DoubleClick responded in a statement by denying any plan by Google and itself to link the various pools of anonymous data their automated services collect on consumer Web surfing and Internet search behavior.

DoubleClick serves up billions of graphical display ads every day from corporate marketers on thousands of sites across the Web. Google, the leader in an alternative form of online marketing that places ads alongside Web search results, would emerge as an even more powerful force in the online ad market if the DoubleClick deal closes as planned later in 2007.

DoubleClick denied that the data it collects through its system for serving graphical ads to Web site visitors would be combined with Google data on consumer Web-searching habits so as to keep tabs on consumers' spending or browsing habits.

DoubleClick said information collected by its ad-delivery technology is retained by marketing clients who use its system, not DoubleClick itself, and that those rights would not change once Google acquires it. DoubleClick has only limited rights to use such data to identify aggregate trends, the company said.

"Further, Google would not be able to match its search data to the data collected by DoubleClick, as DoubleClick does not have the right to use its clients' data for such purposes," the company said.

The challenge comes a month after Google, which collects mountains of data on its users Web search habits, said within 18 to 24 months it aimed to "anonymise," or obscure key details on, surfing habits that could identify individuals. Previously, Google had kept data "as long as it was useful."

The 11-page EPIC complaint filed on Friday with the FTC criticizes the privacy safeguards both Google and DoubleClick have in place and seeks an injunction to block their combination unless the companies present a plan that provides for stricter data privacy protections.

The groups urge the FTC to force Google to adopt stricter privacy guidelines applied in Canada and some European nations on how much personal data organizations can collect and store.

They asked the FTC to assess the ability of Google to record, analyze, track, and profile the activities of Internet users with data that is both personally identifiable and data that is not personally identifiable.

Unless such steps are taken, EPIC asked the FTC to halt Google's tie-up with DoubleClick, its largest deal to date.

Washington, D.C.-based EPIC led a successful campaign in 2000 to block a plan by DoubleClick to combine data from a national marketing database it had acquired and its own anonymous data collected from the computers of Web surfers.

The fallout from the controversy led DoubleClick to back off the plan and to provide consumers with an "opt out" option to block DoubleClick software that tracks Web surfing habits. The FTC then dropped a probe of the company.

Tips for Avoiding Online Fraud

How to avoid online fraud?

How to avoid online fraud?

Picture this: a complete stranger comes up to you and asks you for your apartment keys. Would you hand them over? Most certainly not! But you’d be amazed at the number of people who are ready to part with their login names and passwords to strangers.

Take the case of Rohit Sharma . One morning he got an email, apparently from his bank, which simply stated that they were checking on the validity of their customers’ email accounts. And to validate his account he should fill in his account number and online banking username and password or else his account would be blocked. He followed the instructions and his bank account was cleaned out the very next day.

The truth is that despite countless headlines screaming about online frauds-phishing , pharming and online scamsthe idea of online security is still pretty abstract for most people. So instead of ranting about the sneaky scams fraudsters pull on us, here are a few quick checkpoints that will help you take stock of your security quotient:

How to avoid online fraud?

Picture this: a complete stranger comes up to you and asks you for your apartment keys. Would you hand them over? Most certainly not! But you’d be amazed at the number of people who are ready to part with their login names and passwords to strangers.

Take the case of Rohit Sharma . One morning he got an email, apparently from his bank, which simply stated that they were checking on the validity of their customers’ email accounts. And to validate his account he should fill in his account number and online banking username and password or else his account would be blocked. He followed the instructions and his bank account was cleaned out the very next day.

The truth is that despite countless headlines screaming about online frauds-phishing , pharming and online scamsthe idea of online security is still pretty abstract for most people. So instead of ranting about the sneaky scams fraudsters pull on us, here are a few quick checkpoints that will help you take stock of your security quotient:

Be wary of emails that ask for your personal details:

The first thing you need to remember about such scams is that most of these scamsters don’t rely on the technology, they rely on you! Agreed that they keep thinking up new ways to con you and technology does help them, but remember that it’s still a con game, which won’t work without your “cooperation”.

They are playing mind games with you, which work better if you are upset or excited. So think calmly. In Sharma’s case for instance, if he wasn’t upset about his bank account being blocked, he may not have filled in his details.

Therefore always be suspicious of any email that contains urgent requests for any kind of personal or financial information. Read it over and over again.

Give it some thought. Ask questions such as has this institution ever contacted you via email? If it’s a bank won’t they know my details? Why would an online survey need your credit card number? The easiest way to check validity of websites is to get an antiphishing toolbar. New versions of most browsers, such as IE 7 FireFox version 2, come with such toolbars built-in. You can also download this from sites like Earth-Link (www.earthlink .net/earthlinktoolbar).

Be wary of emails that ask for your personal details:

The first thing you need to remember about such scams is that most of these scamsters don’t rely on the technology, they rely on you! Agreed that they keep thinking up new ways to con you and technology does help them, but remember that it’s still a con game, which won’t work without your “cooperation”.

They are playing mind games with you, which work better if you are upset or excited. So think calmly. In Sharma’s case for instance, if he wasn’t upset about his bank account being blocked, he may not have filled in his details.

Therefore always be suspicious of any email that contains urgent requests for any kind of personal or financial information. Read it over and over again.

Give it some thought. Ask questions such as has this institution ever contacted you via email? If it’s a bank won’t they know my details? Why would an online survey need your credit card number? The easiest way to check validity of websites is to get an antiphishing toolbar. New versions of most browsers, such as IE 7 FireFox version 2, come with such toolbars built-in. You can also download this from sites like Earth-Link (www.earthlink .net/earthlinktoolbar).

Be wary of emails that ask for your personal details:

The first thing you need to remember about such scams is that most of these scamsters don’t rely on the technology, they rely on you! Agreed that they keep thinking up new ways to con you and technology does help them, but remember that it’s still a con game, which won’t work without your “cooperation”.

They are playing mind games with you, which work better if you are upset or excited. So think calmly. In Sharma’s case for instance, if he wasn’t upset about his bank account being blocked, he may not have filled in his details.

Therefore always be suspicious of any email that contains urgent requests for any kind of personal or financial information. Read it over and over again.

Give it some thought. Ask questions such as has this institution ever contacted you via email? If it’s a bank won’t they know my details? Why would an online survey need your credit card number? The easiest way to check validity of websites is to get an antiphishing toolbar. New versions of most browsers, such as IE 7 FireFox version 2, come with such toolbars built-in. You can also download this from sites like Earth-Link (www.earthlink .net/earthlinktoolbar).

SMS to catch erring students

SMS to catch erring students

A private higher secondary school in Tirunelveli district of Tamil Nadu has come out with a unique SMS alert system to inform parents about their wards who bunk classes.

The facility at St John's Higher Secondary School, was the brianchild of D Jebastin Rajan, a computer teacher, who has also developed a computer software for the purpose.

The software, 'Easy', would help the school store details of all students and update on a regular basis, besides generating SMS alerts to parents, according to Rajan.

"Some students did not attend classes frequently. Some forged signatures of their parents on progress reports. This inspired me to work on a software that would help the school inform the details about students to parents," Rajan said.

Parents could also seek details of their children by sending SMS to a designated number.

For getting details about the character of their wards, parents should type CHR followed by child's registration number, ATT for attendance and FM for first term marks and send SMSs, he said.

A reply containing the details will be quickly generated by the SMS software.

Rajan is even ready to share the software with other needy schools at a cheap rate of Rs 50

Latest Mobile Technology

New mobile phones detect motion

Some of the latest mobile phones in Japan come with motion sensors that let users detect motion or play action games like those on the Nintendo Wii console.

The D904i from NTT DoCoMo, Japan's top mobile carrier, contains a tiny motion sensor that detects shaking and tilting, company spokesman Nobuyuki Hatanaka said.

Instead of punching a keypad, users can move the handset like a tennis racket or fishing pole in easy-to-play games, similar to those on Nintendo Co's popular Wii.

In the "Tokyo Highway Battle" racing game, users twist the handset like a steering wheel to control driving. In "Skateboard Dash," the phone can be tilted to control the board's speed and direction.

Meanwhile, two new phones from Sharp and Matsushita Electric Industrial use their built-in cameras to detect motion. Users can control a hip-hop dancer by wagging a finger in front of the camera, for example, or throw punches in the air for a boxing match.

DoCoMo warns users not to go overboard with the handsets, however.

"If you swing or swerve too hard, it'll be hard to keep your eyes on the screen, and you might bother those around you," Hatanaka said. "We're talking about somewhat subtler motions."

Downloading games to play on the go is popular in Japan, where most mobile phone users are signed up for third-generation networks that offer fast data communication. Users download games onto their handsets to play for a set monthly fee.

The new phones are expected to hit Japanese stores in May. There are no current plans for overseas sales.

China's Mobile User Market

China adds 6.5 mn mobile users each month:

China added 6.5 million mobile phone subscribers each month in the first quarter of the year, taking the total number of cell phone users to over 480 million by the end of March, the government said on Friday.

6.5 million Chinese have subscribed to new mobile phone connections every month in the first quarter, figures with the Ministry of Information Industry (MII) show.

The number of new subscribers averaged five million a month last year.

Mobile phone use was expanding rapidly in rural areas and some people had more than one phone number, according to the MII report.

The MII figures also showed the Chinese sent 135.8 billion text messages in the first quarter, up 37.4 per cent over the same period of last year.

Meanwhile, the number of fixed-line users topped 370 million by the end of March, with 1.06 million new subscribers added per month in the first quarter.

More fixed-line users would choose to use cell phones as the cost of handsets and user charges continued to fall, the report said.

The number of cell phone users reached 460 million at the end of last year, an increase of 67.7 million than 2005. On average, every 100 Chinese people had 35.3 cell phones and 28.1 fixed-line phones.

China imported its first mobile phone telecommunication facilities in 1987 and it took a decade for the number of subscribers to reach 10 million. Four years later, the country had the largest number of mobile phone subscribers in the world.

Microsoft hints at IE8

Microsoft hints at IE8

Microsoft gave a few hints about the next version of its browser Internet Explorer 8 at the company’s web developer conference Mix07 in Las Vegas.

Though Chris Wilson, Microsoft's platform architect for Internet Explorer, dodged questions on when it plans to update its Internet Explorer browser to Version 8, he did outline some of the goals for the next version of the browser.

Wilson told media that security will be the key priority. The development team will also focus on ease of use and seek to improve web development with current standards compatibility. Wilson said that the company intends to create a follow-on version, IE 8, within two years of IE 7’s release - which was released in October.

He said that Microsoft will invest more in layout and adhering to the Cascading Style Sheets 2.1 specifications. He also added that the company wants to make its browser object model more interoperable to make it easier to work with other browsers and allow more flexible programming patterns.

He told that the Ajax web programming style needs more client-side application programming interfaces to allow developers to create more powerful applications. According to him, Microsoft is working with the W3C on standardising HTML version 5 and XHTML version 1 and 1.1.

Responding to audience questions, on the IE 8 timeframe, Wilson reiterated Microsoft’s promise that it will never again go five years without an upgrade to the platform. He noted that the company was suggesting a 12- to 18-month development cycle at last year's Mix conference.

However, he added that so far no exact date has been set for the release. He accepted that consumer expectation of having a new browser platform every couple of years is definitely a valid one.

Top copyright offenders

India among worst copyright offenders

India, China, Russia and nine other nations have been targeted by the United States for failing to sufficiently protect American producers of music, movies and other copyrighted material from widespread piracy.

The Bush administration on Monday placed the 12 countries on a "priority watch list" which will subject them to extra scrutiny and could eventually lead to economic sanctions if the administration decides to bring trade cases before the World Trade Organization. Another 31 countries were placed on lower level monitoring lists, indicating the concerns about copyright violations in those nations did not warrant the highest level of scrutiny. The annual report, known as a "Special 301 Report," for the section of US trade law that it covers, said that China has a special stake in upgrading its protection of intellectual property rights, given that its companies will be threatened by rampant copyright piracy as they increase their own innovation.

The designations occurred in the report that the administration is required to provide Congress each year highlighting problems American companies are facing around the world with copyright piracy, which they contend is costing them billions of dollars in lost sales annually.

"We must defend ideas, inventions and creativity from rip-off artists and thieves," US Trade Representative Susan C. Schwab said in a statement accompanying this year's report. In addition to India, Russia and China, the nine countries placed on the priority watch list were Argentina, Chile, Egypt, Israel, Lebanon, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine and Venezuela.

Google home pages to be more stylish

Google home pages to be more stylish

Google on Tuesday will add a bit of style to home pages customized by users of its globally popular Internet search engine.

The Mountain View, California-based firm is adorning personalized homepages with an "iGoogle" logo and rolling out "Gadget Maker" tools for people to easily tailor pages with pictures, videos or musings.

"Gadget Maker allows users to bring their favorite offline information online and share with their friends and family, or the whole world," Google said.

"Anyone who can upload a photo or write an e-mail can use one of Gadget Maker's seven modules to create a personalized gadget without knowing how to write code."

People can use the service to customize iGoogle homepages with features such as pictures, online "blog" journal postings, YouTube videos, and "Google Gram" animated greeting cards.

The iGoogle service is adding 15 new languages on Tuesday, bringing the total to 26. Increasing the ranks of people using iGoogle homepages enables the Internet firm to make more money from online advertising and refine its search formula by studying the terms people use to seek information online

Disadvantage of Orkuting

Orkut's tell-all pact with cops

Disadvantag of Orkuting

Think twice before you let loose your thoughts on Orkut. The Google-run community site, which has become a global platform for sharing personal information, ideas and sentiments and already has nearly 6.6 million registered Indian users (of a total of 49 million worldwide), has entered into a pact with the Cyber Crime Cell of Mumbai police saying it will not only block those 'forums' and 'communities' that contain 'defamatory or inflammatory content' but also provide the IP addresses from which such content has been generated.

In one of the first such cases, Mumbai police recently got Orkut to block allegedly defamatory content about Dr B R Ambedkar, Chhatrapati Shivaji and Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray.

The pact, which is actually an "informal arrangement" called the Priority Reporting Tool, comes as a big surprise to internet users as Orkut has successfully blocked attempts by various countries to control content.

Confirming the arrangement, a Google spokesperson said: "The Priority Reporting Tool between Mumbai police and Google has been designed to improve communication between Google and police . We are happy the police has found it useful. Google is a responsible company, and we also ensure we protect users' privacy ."

Deputy Commissioner of Police (enforcement ) Sanjay Mohite said the pact means they do not have to go through the lengthy process of asking the Central government to communicate with Orkut.

The practice so far has been to first send a request to the Centre's computer emergency response team in New Delhi. This team processes the request through its channels and even if a forum is finally blocked, the "culprits" still remain untraceable as no IP addresses can be obtained. If these addresses are to be found, the CBI then has to get into the picture, which makes the whole process even longer.

Now we can do away with the process and not just directly ban content but also obtain details of IP addresses and service providers quickly," Mohite said.

The IP addresses will enable the Cell to track down people who have posted messages and book them if the need arises, police officials said.

After the Cell blocked the content about Ambedkar, Shivaji and Thackeray that had created an uproar in the state legislature, it has also got requests from other states to help them in similar cases.

Recently, on a request from Kolkata cops, the Cell got Orkut to block a forum that contained allegedly defamatory material about West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya and also obtained details of the IP address, Mohite said.

The arrangement has also been made foolproof with the introduction of an encrypted code to prevent anyone from impersonating as Mumbai police.

“We are also planning to have a similar arrangement with YouTube soon,” Mohite added.

Restoring Lost Memories

Lost memories can be restored: Study

Mental stimulation and drug treatment may help people with brain ailments such as Alzheimer’s disease regain seemingly lost memories, according to research published on Sunday.

Scientists used two methods to reverse memory loss in mice with a condition like Alzheimer’s - placing them in sort of a rodent Disneyland to stimulate their brains, and also using a type of drug that encourages growth of brain nerve cells.

Neuroscientist Li-Huei Tsai of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said such methods might yield similar benefits in people with Alzheimer’s disease or other types of dementia that rob them of their memory and ability to learn.

“We show, I believe, the first evidence that even if the brain suffered some very severe neurodegeneration and the individual exhibits very severe learning impairment and memory loss, there is still the possibility to improve learning ability and recover to a certain extent lost long term memories,” Tsai said.

Tsai said if apparently lost long-term memories could be retrieved, this suggested the memories had not been actually erased from the brain. Instead, she and colleagues reported in the journal Nature, the memories probably remained in storage but could not be accessed or retrieved due to the brain damage.

The researchers used genetically engineered elderly mice in which they were able to activate a protein that triggered brain pathology very much like that of people with Alzheimer’s, with atrophy and loss of nerve cells.

Previous research has shown that regular mental stimulation such as reading or playing a musical instrument may reduce one’s risk for Alzheimer’s.

And a stimulating environment also has been shown to improve learning in mice.

In one part of their study, the researchers took mice out of their usual bland cages and placed them in a sort of mouse playground loaded with an ever changing assortment of colorful toys, treadmills and other mice.

The researchers previously had used a “fear-conditioning” test - placing mice in a chamber and delivering a mild electric shock to their feet - to establish an enduring memory.

Mice with Alzheimer’s-like brain damage put in the stimulating environment could remember that shock test far better than similar animals kept in standard cages. The playground mice also were better at learning new things than those kept in cages.

After exploring the biological mechanism behind the improvement in mice placed in the enriched environment, the researchers tested on the mice a class of drugs called histone deacetylase, or HDAC, inhibitors.

Advantage of Blogging

Blogs become the voice of shy techies

Times surely are a changing. With blogs emerging as a nifty information-management tool, techies are donning the mantle of new age communicators. While they code for a living, blogging is their favourite pass time. For most of them, web logs offer multiple options, from being a discussion forum to a platform to mobilise public opinion against an issue to a place to share inner most fears and funny experiences.

According to an MSN research report, having a platform for self expression factored heavily into the motivation to blog in India with 58% of bloggers starting a blog because they wanted to express passionate views. "Blogs offer a venue for seamless sharing and it also has an informal transparency," says Ashok N, who works with Satyam Computers.

He maintains two blogs, one collectively with his college classmates and another to express his own thoughts. "I realised the power of blog when the reservation issue came up. This was our main platform to exchange ideas and to analyse the issue. While doctors went on the street to protest against it, we decided to express our opinion on the web," he points out.

Blogs are of great help in professional life also. Rajiv M, a former TCS employee, for example, has a technology blog where he writes new software codes. "I decided to start this blog after joining for MS in the US. Now my blog attracts a select set of people from all over the world and I realised that comment section provides me with so much practi-cal knowledge, which one seldom find in books," he says.

The MSN report says that India's blogosphere is still nascent with only 14% of the net users blogging actively. It also indicates that content of the blog is almost as trusted as traditional media and that blogs may emerge as the new fourth estate. "Unlike other countries in Asia, Indians don't like reading blogs written by business leaders as only half of the users were found enjoying them. Bloggers in India are spending more time online with 87% spending up to 5 hours per week reading blogs or updating their blog and 50% of all blogs receive 10 visitors or less a week. Interestingly, men dominate blogosphere in India," the study says.

Besides current affairs and technology, the next best content for blog-ing is personal experience. "Time does not permit me to write long mails to all my friends. At times even online chat becomes difficult. In such a situation, I'll just post one article on the blog and that is enough to tell everyone what I'm feeling," says Sunil M, a Wipro employee . In fact, during his recent trip to the US, blog came in handy for com-municating with his family in India. "Due to the difference in time zones, I could not call my wife immediately. So I wrote a blog and the next day morning in India, she got a picture of how my trip was to the US.

It also gave my folks an idea how security checks at airports has become such an ordeal. Media may give you a general idea about the existing condition as it has a professional way of dealing with it whereas blogs are an informal way of describing the nuances to a group of people, who share the same interest," he points out. Women may not be into active blogging but they surely are avid read-ers .

"Availability of computers at home and laptops provided by the company are the main reasons, people devoting so much time for blogging. I also started blogging after getting a computer at home. For some women it might be difficult to find time as they have to balance both family and professional life. But most of the women, whom I know regularly read blogs written by friends and colleagues," says Lata of Virtusa.

Richest man in Britain

Lakshmi Mittal richest in Britain

NRI Steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal today for the third successive year topped the list of the richest persons in Britain with a wealth of 19.250 billion pounds even as the Hinduja brothers and Lord Swraj Paul emerged as the second and third richest Asians in the UK.

According to The Sunday Times Rich List 2007, 56-year-old Mittal, President and CEO of Arcelor Mittal - the world's largest steel producer, saw his wealth shoot up from 14.881 billion pounds in 2006 to 19.250 billion pounds this year, an increase of staggering 4.369 billion pounds in one year.

The wealth of Sri Chand and Gopi Chand Hindujas, Chairman and President respectively of the Hinduja Group, registered a steep increase during the last one year - from 3.6 billion pounds to 6.2 billion pounds catapulting them to the position as the second richest Asians and fourth richest in the UK.

Similarly, Lord Swraj Paul, founder-Chairman of the Caparo Group, also witnessed substantial growth during the year with the total wealth increasing from 465 million pounds to 1.5 billion pounds this year. The 76-year-old Lord Paul's wealth is almost five times that of Queen Elizabeth II, whose wealth has been estimated at 320 million pounds.

The Rich List stated that Caparo Group posted profits of about 55 million pounds on 2.7 billion sales in 2006 and is expanding worldwide.

"Meanwhile, one of Paul's sons, Ambar, is growing the family's Contemporary Hotels operation, while another son Angad, the CEO of the Group has undertaken setting up of a series of automobile metal pressing, fasteners and Tools and Dies plants in India. With record prices for steel businesses, Caparo is worth at least 1.4 billion pounds on its 2006 figures. We add 100 million pounds for Indian assets and property, including hotels and restaurants."

Chinese 'e-cigarette' helps people stub out the habit

Reuters

It feels like a cigarette, looks like a cigarette but it isn’t bad for your health.

A Chinese company marketing the world’s first “electronic” cigarette hopes to double their sales this year as it expands overseas and as some of China’s legions of smokers try to quit.

Golden Dragon Group Ltd’s Ruyan cigarettes are battery-powered, cigarette-shaped devices that deliver nicotine to inhalers in a bid to emulate actual smoking

“The nicotine is delivered to the lungs within 7 to 10 seconds,” said Scott Fraser, vice president of SBT Co Ltd, the Beijing-based firm that first developed the electronic cigarette technology in 2003 and which is now controlled by Golden Dragon. “It feels like a cigarette, looks like a cigarette, it even emits vapor. In many ways, it is like an actual smoking experience, and that’s what makes us different,” he said

The cigarettes sell for around $208 apiece and are already available in China, Israel, Turkey, and a number of European countries, but not yet in the United States.

Golden Dragon’s competitors include global giants Pfizer and Novartis AG, which sell more familiar nicotine replacement products such as chewing gum, patches, and inhalers. But Golden Dragon’s financial results show it might be onto a good thing. Sales more than doubled to HK$286.1 million in 2006, after surging more than ten-fold to HK$135.6 million in 2005, a year after the technology was perfected.

China - home to 400 million smokers and a roughly $160 billion dollar tobacco industry - accounts for 65% of Ruyan sales. The firm estimates around 10% of China’s smokers are attempting to quit, and averaging a 2% success rate.

After Hotmail, now a new Outlook Express

After Hotmail, now a new Outlook Express

After giving users an-all-new-look-n-feel Hotmail, Microsoft has promised replacements for the Outlook Express and Windows Mail Desktop clients along with new software to integrate Web mail with the corporate Outlook programme.

"In just a few short weeks, a beta release of our new consumer email client – Windows Live Mail – will be available for download," says Windows Live Mail blog.

Windows Live Mail will replace Outlook Express on Windows XP and Windows Mail on Vista. The programme, which will handle POP, IMAP and Windows Live Hotmail accounts, is claimed to be faster, more robust version of Windows Live Mail desktop (WLMd) beta, which has been in testing for Windows XP. "For consumers out there who don't use Outlook, in the coming weeks, we'll be providing free access to a great new consumer client mail service that will connect with any POP, IMAP and of course Windows Live Hotmail account," says the blog

According to the blog, the new client will sport features from Outlook Express, Windows Mail and the Windows Live Mail desktop beta. It says that the Windows Live Mail will include all the great features that were available to the users in WLMd plus a new and improved UI, set-up and account migration improvements; more parity with OE and Windows Mail; and also no Ads.

The company also said that it will soon be releasing an updated Outlook Connector. The new Microsoft Office Outlook Connector beta will enable people to view and manage their Windows Live Hotmail account from Outlook for free, with full contact, e-mail and e-mail folder synchronization. The company had released an earlier edition of the Connector in last November.

YouTube, eBay win 'Oscars of the Internet'

YouTube, eBay win 'Oscars of the Internet'

Video sharing website YouTube, the eBay online auction community and rock icon David Bowie were among the winners announced of this year's Webby Awards, the so-called "Oscars of the Internet."

The awards honor online excellence and are considered the leading international gongs for websites, interactive advertising and online video. YouTube co-founders Steve Chen and Chad Hurley, who came up with the idea of people posting video clips on a shared website, were to receive the Webby person of the year award for the fantastically successful site.

YouTube had played a key role in "transforming the media landscape and reshaping everything from politics to pop culture," the Webby organizers said.

Rock legend David Bowie was to pick up a lifetime achievement award for pushing the boundaries of art and technology with UltraStar, his digital media company that creates online content for The Rolling Stones and The Police.

He also runs BowieArt, a website that connects emerging visual artists with collectors, and launched BowieNet, an Internet service provider, in 1998.

The more than 200 million users of online auction platform eBay were also to receive a lifetime award for "a cultural phenomenon" that had "permanently changed the way people connect, discover and interact with each other."

"The Webby winners and special achievement honorees represent the very best in online creativity and innovation," Webby Awards executive director David-Michel Davies said in a statement, announcing the winners.

"We're proud to salute the people and organizations whose ideas and vision are transforming how we experience the world," he said.

Past winners of Webbies include pop icon Prince and former vice-president Al Gore, who memorably used his acceptance speech -- limited to a maximum of five words -- to ask the judges: "Please don't recount this vote."

The winners are selected by the 550-member International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, whose members include "The Simpsons" creator Matt Groening, columnist and writer Arianna Huffington and Hollywood Titan Harvey Weinstein.

Winners of the almost 70 categories in the 11th annual awards are to be honored at a ceremony in New York on June 5.

Can Google stand up to Microsoft, Yahoo combine

Can Google stand up to Microsoft, Yahoo combine

Microsoft and Yahoo have tried just about everything to close in on Google, the internet’s biggest goldmine in the online ad and search business. Now talks are they might combine their muscle in a merger. As it stands now, the estimated $50-billion deal between Microsoft and Yahoo would up the combined companies’ share of the search advertising market to 27% against Google’s 65%. It would also close the gap between the combined entity and Google in online advertising to 13%, according to third party research estimates on the internet.

According to web traffic analysis firms, Alexa Internet and Netcraft, Yahoo’s US portal is the most visited portal on the internet with more than 412 million unique users. In India too, its internet properties enjoy higher market share than that of MSN. At a recent conference, Yahoo India managing director George Zacharias claimed Yahoo touches about 80-85% of the online community in India either through e-mail, search or its portal.

“Agreed that MSN may not enjoy the largest market share, but you have to understand that Microsoft’s focus in India was not purely internet as in the case of other competition. We had a major focus on software and enterprise businesses, the portal business assumed importance only about a year ago when India started showing signs of growth,” MSN country manager India Jaspreet Bindra told ET.

Commenting on the India operations, he added that MSN India’s focus was primarily in three areas: online entertainment, mobile content and localisation of portals within India. The company last year had introduced its portal in five different Indian languages. It also introduced Windows Live, a set of more personalised services for internet users. According to Mr Bindra, MSN has a user base of approximately 500 million with nearly 250 e-mail users and 150-200 million instant messenger users.

No figures were available from Yahoo India. Yahoo has been more aggressive in India than Microsoft in the internet space while Google has been focussed more on developing technological capabilities from India. Last year, in an indication of the country’s importance Yahoo COO Dan Rosensweig, visited India. It is also the only firm among the three to have invested in an Indian online venture, Bharatmatrimony.com. It was first off to announce IM in Indian languages, even before internet home-grown majors.

In India, Microsoft has over 4,000 staff with all its six global divisions being represented here. These include MSN, support centre in Bangalore and development centre, Microsoft IT (which develops IT for Microsoft globally) and Microsoft Global Services in Hyderabad while it has nine sales and marketing offices across the country. On the other hand Yahoo has over 1,000 employees (20% of its global engineering workforce) in India in its two divisions — the R&D centre and the India specific site. Yahoo’s R&D centre in Bangalore is the largest that the company has outside the US. It develops products for Yahoo India and the global markets. The Bangalore centre is also the hub for Yahoo’s emerging markets.

On a visit to India, Yahoo co-founder David Filo had said, “India will play an important role in supporting growth in emerging markets. We will continue to give more responsibility to our group here.” As far as Microsoft acquisitions are concerned, in the last decade or so the Redmond giant has bought out over 75 companies. While in 2006 it acquired 11 companies, including Whale Communications and Lionhead Studios. Among the most crucial recent acquisitions for Microsoft was Groove, in 2005. Interestingly, Groove CEO Ray Ozzie is today Microsoft’s chief software architect.

Mr Ozzie has the hard task of reinvigorating the 70,000 employee company that is no longer seen as the thought leader of the internet age. He has also been entrusted with the task of ‘webifying’ Microsoft — taking its products online — software, Xboxes et al. In an interview to ET late last year Mr Ozzie had said, “One of the characteristics of Microsoft that many people envy is that once Microsoft sets its sights on a market, it will continue to invest in building solutions that satisfy the customer even if it takes lot of time.’’

However, Microsoft has not always been successful with acquisitions. Microsoft was in talks to buy SAP after database major Oracle announced that it was launching a hostile bid for PeopleSoft (which Oracle eventually bought). Now Microsoft is determined to acquire at least a piece of a the Internet portal company Yahoo, if not the whole of it.

Microsoft announces team of Indian student innovators

Microsoft announces team of Indian student innovators

Microsoft in association with Nasscom on Friday announced three teams of student innovators from India, of which one will compete at the worldwide finals of 'Imagine Cup' in August at Seoul, Korea for a prize money of around Rs 76,50,000.

The Imagine Cup is a global contest held by Microsoft to provide student innovators from across the world a platform to showcase their software development skills.

"This award is an effort to unlock the potential the student community represents," Microsoft India Developer and Platform Evangalism General Manager Tarun Gulati said.

He said by felicitating the young innovators, the company aims at providing them with a platform to get them in eyes of industry representatives and venture capitalists to help commercialise their ideas.

However, the company itself does not promise to include the ideas of these innovators as a part of its own business proposition. "As a company we only provide a platform to these young minds and we are very clear on our business strategy which does not include such activities," Gulati said.

Over 12,000 students from around 1,000 colleges across India participated in this contest,of which three teams have made it to the finals.

The three winning teams represent IIIT Allahabad, BITS Pilani, Goa Campus and Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of technology. One out of these will be awarded with a cash prize of Rs one lakh and go for the global level competition to be held at Seoul for a total prize money of around Rs 76,50,000.

Yahoo offers web-based instant messaging

Yahoo offers web-based instant messaging

Yahoo on Thursday launched a web-based version of its free instant messaging service for internet users who want to stay connected while away from their home computers.

The service is initially launching in India, Brazil, Malaysia, Philippines, Vietnam and the United States. It is to be made available in other countries through the rest of the year.

Yahoo Messenger for the Web lets people use the online search titan's service from any Internet-linked computer without needing to download or install software, as was the case previously.

The service is tailored for use by travelers, workers whose employers block software downloads to company machines, cyber-cafe dwellers and people who simply cannot afford their own computers.

"This really has great implications for the road warriors out there who are on the go," Yahoo senior vice president of communications Brad Garlinghouse said.

"People have become quite accustomed to a non-stop accessible life."

Industry statistics indicate that nearly a quarter of US Internet users go online from places other than home or work.

The new service is introduced as Yahoo vies with rivals Google and Microsoft for the devotion of Internet users whose visits can be parlayed into online advertising revenue.

Yahoo Messenger for the Web is available online at http://webmessenger.yahoo.com, according to the Sunnyvale, California-based Internet firm.

Google has high very standards for user privacy

Google has high very standards for user privacy:

"The Google team met with the police from various states earlier this year and offered them the priority reporting tool that enables a direct line of contact with Google. This new tool does not affect the way we treat users data- it only enables a faster, direct communication channel to report inappropriate content on orkut. Authorities will still be required to follow the legal process in order to get user-identifying information.

Google has very high standards for user privacy and a clear privacy policy. When dealing with requests from authorities, we are careful to balance the interests of our users while still being as cooperative in the investigation and prosecution of crimes as possible.

Orkut is a community website and we take obligations set forth in the community standards seriously: we want to foster an environment in which users feel safe, as well as free to speak and interact. But criminals cannot hide behind privacy and use the service for illegal purposes."