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Vivacious India defeats Australia by 15 runs

2007-09-23T02:18:00.000-07:00

Nobody dared move an inch from the edge of their seats at the Kingsmead Cricket Ground lest they miss any action and man, wasn't that some action in the ICC World Twenty20 semi-final! India held its nerve against a brave charge by Australia to win the spectacle by a handsome margin of 15 runs to set up a marketing man's dream – a final against Pakistan.

And on Saturday, the Indian cricketers showed that they were brave hearts. First it was Yuvraj Singh and company with the bat as they powered India to 188 for five with 128 runs in the final 10 overs. Then Sreesanth and Harbhajan Singh who led the bowling attack with their calm demeanour to help India extend its stupendous showing and give itself the chance to win the top prize on Monday.

The Australians, as is their wont, were game for the challenge. Skipper Adam Gilchrist set the tone with his big hitting against Rudra Pratap Singh. And it was when Matthew Hayden and Andrew Symonds came together for a stand of 66 runs that the thousands of tricolour-waving fans fell quiet but Sreesanth delivered them from their agony.

Sreesanth was focussed on the task at hand and unmindful of the mayhem unleashed at the other end. He produced 140 kmph corkers to send back Gilchrist, and when he came back to bowl the crucial 15th over, Hayden. His spell of 4-1-12-2 will be etched in the minds of all those who watched it for its intensity and 16 dot balls!

Harbahajan Singh was control and variation personified as he brought in Test match quality bowling to the crease under pressure. The others like RP Singh, Irfan Pathan and even Joginder Sharma showcased an ability to take a beating and bounce back strongly. Each of them accounted for at least one over each.

You could reach out and touch the electricity in the air as a charged up Yuvraj Singh led an India resurgence to a comfortable 188 for five in 20 overs. For the second time in five nights, he creamed the opposition attack to make a breezy half-century. His knock of 70 off 30 deliveries (five fours and five sixes), coupled with spirited efforts by Robin Uthappa (34, 28 balls, one four, three sixes) and skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni (36, 18 balls, four fours and a six) strengthened the dreams of thousands in the stadium and millions in the sub-continent – a juicy India-Pakistan final.

Before the start of the match, the question on top of everyone's mind was whether Yuvraj would be fit to play the game. The explosive left-hander had sat out of the match against South Africa with a sore elbow but he ruled himself fit to take on the Australians. And he engineered so much electricity in the atmosphere that the stadium lights could have been powered by that.

Yuvraj Singh walked in at the fall of Gautam Gambhir's wicket at 41 after the opener had made 24 but eight overs had already been played and Australia was on top of its game. He pulled the second ball he faced over square-leg and announced his intentions of leading an India fightback in a knock that reminded many of his innings against Australia in Nairobi back in 2000.

His clinical aggression negated the many dot balls that Uthappa was forced to play in his quest to ensure that India would not lose more wickets and come under additional pressure. India raced from 60 in the 10th over to finish with 188 – a whopping 128 runs in the second half of the innings. Yuvraj can take credit for giving direction to the 84-run stand with Uthappa.

Gilchrist, leading the side in Ricky Ponting's absence, and Stuart Clark – man of the match in the team's sensational win over Sri Lanka a couple of days ago challenged Yuvraj with a strong leg-side. The Indian vice-captain picked up the gauntlet and creamed the pace bowler for 20 runs, including a pulled six over mid-wicket and two fours over the cover fielder.

One thing became sure. T20 cricket is not for the weak-hearted. Not it if packs in so much excitement in one evening.

Mercedes' AMG tuning house coming with factory tour

2007-09-22T05:10:00.000-07:00

For many BMW fans, visiting the automaker's M performance division in Munich is akin to finding the Holy Grail, which is why the workshop's factory tour program has been a runaway success. Strangely, rival tuner AMG has been very slow to open its doors to the public.

All that could change, as new European delivery arrangements may give AMG customers a chance to visit the factory and see their cars being built. Management at the Affalterbach-based tuner is considering opening the doors to the factory to satisfy a growing desire from many of its customers to visit the premises. "We have been working on a factory tour in Affalterbach for awhile," revealed AMG's director of marketing and sales Mario Spitzner. "We are starting slowly because the demand would be more than we could handle."

Unlike BMW's M range, which is limited to a handful of cars, AMG offers a substantial number of cars, meaning getting a chance to go behind the scenes will likely entail dealing with long waiting lists. or could be limited to customers ordering only the most expensive models.

[Source: Edmunds]

Want To Make Your BlackBerry Pearl Look Like An iPhone?

2007-09-21T04:26:00.000-07:00

Do you desire to make your BlackBerry Pearl look like an iPhone? Well, your’re in luck… RogersMJ.com has released a free BlackBerry theme named bPhone that should do the trick.

Inspired by the iPhone, bPhone for BlackBerry features icons straight from the iPhone in addition to custom-made icons that fit into the iPhone theme. The top banner is dark glass, the signal and battery indicators were created from scratch to mimic the iPhone’s, the “busy” indicator is the Mac OS X beachball, and there is liberal use of gray and blue (Mac and iPhone’s primary interface colors) throughout the theme.

You can download a copy of bPhone here…

From Portable Housing to Temporary Hotel Rooms

2007-09-19T05:20:00.000-07:00

The world’s interest physical mobility has, to the surprise of many urban theorists, not decreased with the rise of global digital communication. In fact, people are more mobile than ever, changing jobs, cities, or even countries with increased frequency. This trend has played out in a variety of interesting ways when it comes to architecture and urbanism. More and more designers are developing nomadic alternatives to traditional models of static urban living.

The GMC PAD was designed as an alternative to the financial problems of fixed living, particularly in areas with high land prices such as Southern California. Others have proposed it would be useful as an alternative FEMA-type emergency residence. Sustainability is, of course, of great concern in something that is in effect a souped-up kind of advanced mobile home. This portable living unit was therefore designed a diesel-electric hybrid. It also comes equipped with photovalic cells that charge onboard batteries, increasing the necessary time between refuels to weeks or even months

As the global number of available shipping containers grows, more and more designers are considering creative ways to adapt underused or discarded containers to architectural purposes. Such shipping container architecture has exists in a surprising variety of settings. Cargo containers have been used for institutional, commercial and residential projects including museums, stores and single- or multi-family housing. Their use as emergency medical units has also been advocated.

The world’s first mobile hotel room, though still in a test phase, is designed to be placed virtually anywhere. These portable rooms can be taken or delivered to remote or urban locations, from campgrounds and festivals to driveways and parking spaces. They contain virtually all of the standard amenities - from the basics, such as running water, to air conditioning and television, though, of course, no forseeable room service! The sustainability of these is, however, questionable. Are they the next wave of urban mobility or a sign of decadent times?

Painting of Tagore to be auctioned in NY

2007-09-17T20:51:00.000-07:00

A rare painting by the great Indian poet, Rabindranath Tagore, is being auctioned in New York by the Sotheby's on September 19.

Drawn on a handmade paper, the painting depicts a duck. It is signed and dated by Tagore in Bengali.

Robin Dean from Sotheby's told NDTV.com that the painting is the property of a private Swedish collector. It was acquired in Calcutta by the present owners' parents sometime between 1930 and 1938.

Sotheby's has priced it between $15,000-20,000. Sized 10 by 14 and half inch, the rare painting would go under hammer along with 117 other miniatures and modern Indian paintings.

The paintings include those of eminent Indian painters M F Hussain, Akbar Padamsee, V S Gaitonde, F N Souza, Ram Kumar, S H Raza and R Broota.

The first Indian to get Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913, Tagore took up painting at a very later stage of his life. His first exhibition was in Paris in 1930 followed by the one in Calcutta (now Kolkata) in 1931.

His early paintings were rendered in monochromatic schemes, followed by two-toned and three-toned drawings.

The style of the present painting - scheduled to be auctioned - suggests that it was painted in the mid-30s, which coincides with the period when the current owner's parents lived in India.

Though at the face of it, the painting is a duck, which appears to be swimming in a pond, Tagore normally did not describe/explain his pictures.

''People often ask me about the meaning of my pictures. I remain silent even as my pictures are. It is for them to express and not to explain,'' Tagore wrote.

Sotheby's said the entire auction of about 118 Indian paintings on September 19 is expected to fetch between $6.4 to $9.4 million.

Two days later on September 21, Sotheby's would again put to hammer some paintings from Indian under the banner of Contemporary Art South Asia: India and Pakistan.

This includes some 84 lots of paintings, sculpture, photographs, video art and installations by artists Subodh Gupta, Ashim Purkayastha, Mrinalini Mukherjee, Jyothi Basu and Atul Dodiya. It is expected to bring $1.9-2.6 million.

As late as June this year, the Indian government had stepped in to stop the auctioning of a rare letter written by Mahatma Gandhi some 19 days before his assassination. The letter was to be auctioned by Christie's in London.

Source: NDTV

Indian King Cobra....

2007-09-16T21:51:00.000-07:00

The Irula Co-operative society is a self-help project recognised by the State government of Tamil Nadu.� The project taps the skills of the Irula tribe in venom production, rodent control and termite control.� The Irulas are expert snake catchers and this skill was earlier being exploited by smuggling cartels to procure snakeskins for the international market.� But following the ban of this trade for ecological reasons, the Irulas were deprived their means of living.� The Irula Snake Catcher’s Society now buys venomous snakes from the Irula members, extracts the venom and then the snakes are released back to the wild.� The venom is then sold to laboratories.

The antidote is prepared by injecting a small and non lethal dose of venom ‘milked’ from the fangs of a live King Cobra, into a healthy horse.� Once the horse’s body has developed antibodies to the venom, blood is removed from the jugular vein of the horse.� The blood is then mixed with an anticoagulant and a preservative, and the antibodies are separated and stored as antivenin.

The snakes from which venom is extracted are known as the ‘Big Four’.� They are the most dangerous snakes in India - the Cobra, Krait, Russells Viper and Saw scaled Viper.� The venom is extracted at the Snake Venom Extraction Centre located in the precincts of the Madras Crocodile Bank (MCB) on East Coast Road.�

Uses of Snake Venom

Snake venom is used to make anti-venom serum – the only real cure for snakebites.� Another use of snake venom is in medicine, as it contains many useful enzymes, proteins and toxins.� Russells Viper Venom is a coagulant and is used to control bleeding, while Cobra venom is used to control Cancer and also relieve pain.�

Captive breeding of King Cobra at Madras Crocodile Bank

The Madras Crocodile Bank or Centre for Herpetology successfully bred King Cobras in 1996.� 29 hatchlings resulted from the eggs of three females.� Although King Cobras are primarily snake-eaters in nature, the hatchlings and the adults that produced them have become accustomed to feeding on rats.� The largest of the hatchlings is now 2.45 meters and the others average 1.2 – 1.4 meters.

Golden Temple of Tamil Nadu

2007-09-16T21:39:00.001-07:00

‘Golden’ temple: A view of the Sri Lakshmi Narayani Temple near Vellore.

VELLORE: The Sri Lakshmi Narayani Temple located in ‘Sripuram’ (spiritual town) in Thirumalaikkodi, about seven km from here, was consecrated by Sri Sakthi Amma, head of the Sri Narayani Peedam, Thirumalaikkodi, on Friday.

A large number of devotees gathered for the occasion.

Unique structure :

It is a unique temple whose ‘Vimanam’ and ‘Ardha Mandapam’ have been coated with gold both in the interior and exterior.

Twelve layers of gold foils have been pasted on copper sheets embossed with the designs of Gods and fixed on the walls.

One-and-a-half tonnes of gold has gone into the design of the Sri Lakshmi Narayani Temple, which has been built at a cost of Rs.300 crore.

100-acre site :

According to Sri Sakthi Amma, the decision to have the temple coated with gold is only to attract visitors and enable them to get wisdom through the messages of the Vedas, which they will have to read before reaching the temple located on sprawling a 100 acre-site.

The temple has been designed in such a way that visitors can reach the golden temple only after going through a star-shaped pathway, which has the messages from the Vedas on both sides.

Tamil Nadu can boast of its own Golden Temple now

Vellore: If you see the temple, you might even think that the temple is made of gold. And your guessing will be correct.

The Golden Temple is about 140 km from Chennai at Tirumalaikodi in Vellore district.

Sri Narayani Peedam, a private religious charitable organisation, built the temple. And the glittering monument also boasts of some glittering figures.

"The actual estimate is about 300 crores. The amount of gold that went into it's making is 1,500 kilos," says head, Sri Narayani Peedam, Sri Sakthi Amma.

A breathtaking wonder of intricate designs, the temple dedicated to Goddess Narayani is in the midst of lush greenery spread over 100 acres.

Except the pathways, even the roofs and the pillars of the temple are made of gold as about 1.5 tonnes of the metal went into its making.

The Peedom says the funds for building the temple were collected from NRIs.

But is this an attempt to match up to the other golden temple?

"Well! We need to see the people's reaction-how the world is accepting it," says Shakti Amma.

The temple will be formally consecrated on Friday and will be thrown open to the public from the next day.

Now even Tamil Nadu can boast of a wonder of its own- the Golden Temple created with about 1.5 tonnes of gold and which is already on its way to making history.

Polytechnic students fly airplane with a mobile phone

2007-09-13T06:26:00.000-07:00

Although we are getting used seeing mobile phones expanding their functionality every day, this one came as a surprise. Apparently, a research team of Mechanical Engineering Polytechnic College in Dattewal village of Moga district in Punjab was able to fly a scaled-down version of an airplane with the help of a mobile phone that worked as a remote control. Naturally, a special software was developed in order to control the plane. We’re not aware which platform the phone runs, but we’re quite confident it’s either Windows Mobile or Symbian. Nice work folks!

Attend multimedia virtual meetings on your iPhone

2007-09-12T03:14:00.000-07:00

In case you haven’t realized so far, you can organize virtual meetings with your iPhone. There are a number of solutions available on the market, and today we’re presenting you with the one developed by the collaboration service provider - Genesys.
First thing they like to underline is that they were the first company to release the iPhone-optimized version of their Meeting Center service — it’s our bad that we’ve missed it.

As with other such services, Genesys’ solution relies on heavy use of AJAX technology to deliver its service via iPhone’s built-in Safari web browser. The interface is as simple as you would expect it for the iPhone web-based application and will allow users to effortlessly join a voice and web meeting — the latter is suggested while you’re on an EDGE network. As for the features, Genesys emphasizes that iPhone users will have access to “full virtual meeting capabilities.”

Nice work guys. You make the iPhone look more enterpriseish.

Koreans can now pay highway tolls with their mobile phones

2007-09-09T07:27:00.000-07:00

Now, we already know you can pay the parking fees using your mobile phone in many cities around the globe. We’ve even seen citizens of London paying congestion charge fees via SMS. And now, thanks to the LG Telecom’s new service called PassON, people of South Korea can pay highway tolls with their mobile phones, thus reducing the time spent at toll gates up to a seventh as well as saving toll both running costs by 23%.

The system is linked to the “high pass” service of the Korea Expressway Corporation and when a car with OnBoard Unit passes toll gates, the toll is automatically subtracted from “high plus card.” To use PassON, Koreans should get the mentioned OnBoard Unit which is linked with the phone using the standard Bluetooth technology…

Nice move, hopefully we’ll see this system implemented in other parts of the world in the near future.

Nokia: Sorry iPhone early adopters, at least you can use MOSH

2007-09-07T01:48:00.000-07:00

So it looks like early iPhone adopters aren’t the only ones feeling the pain of having their uber-expensive devices price-slashed like last year’s fashions. Nokia feels our pain too. Not a day after Apple announced their early-adopter screwing policy, Nokia has launched a Google ad campaign to empathize with our $200 loss and offer a chance to redeem our iPhone’s worth by using the Nokia mobile social-network, MOSH.

Apparently, the MOSH social network is enough to help us “salvage” our newly cheap iPhones. We’re not sure we’re MOSH is going to help us feel any better about seeing our neighbor pick up an 8GB iPhone for just $399, but hey, it’s the though that counts.

25% of Nokia's sales in India are from E and N Series devices, flagship store to open in Mumbai

2007-09-06T02:07:00.000-07:00

In a statistic that is sure to shock you as much as it did me, a quarter of Nokia’s sales in India are from the mid to high end E and N series devices. Talk about impressive, Nokia is also going to locate the headquarters of NSN in India. Read more about this country who recently took America’s spot as Nokia’s number 2 region in sales in this Business Week interview with Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo.

On that same token, there is news that Nokia’s 7th flagship store will open in Mumbai. All my inital connootations of the Indian market have been incorrect, I’m actually keen on visiting now and seeing the region for myself.

China and India lead the globe in new wireless subscribers

2007-09-05T01:09:00.000-07:00

When you have fully one-third (1/3) of the world’s population caged within your borders, you’re bound to be a leader in the burgeoning mobile phone market. Such is the case with China and India. Between them, they have signed up almost 200 million new wireless subscribers in the first quarter of 2007 alone.

China is good for 87 million new mobile phone users, while India claims an astounding 110 million new wireless customers.

According to the United Nations telecommunications agency, the new surge in wireless use is being spearheaded by the developing nations that China and India lead.

It’s a good thing Nokia invested in that new design center and additional battery recall infrastructure in India. With 100 million new potential customers in just four months, it’d be foolish not to cater to that market.

Why should the big boys be afraid of the Google Phone?

2007-09-04T06:02:00.000-07:00

This post is entirely speculation on my part, I don’t have any inside information and you shouldn’t listen to people who say they do either.

The Google Phone, it might be an operating system, it may be an actual device or series of devices, whatever it is I know that if Google gives this thing the proper tender loving care it deserves then they can really shake things up.

Forget about the actual phone for a minute and think about all the services Google offers. Gmail is hands down the best web based email client out there for a lot of people thanks to the threaded conversation view. The search is robust, the interface is straight and to the point and they even offer hosted services for small business and universities.

Google Maps, used by everyone out there since people need to find where things are. Highly accurate, offers phone numbers, customer reviews of restaurants and hotels and it is free.

Google Documents, quintessential for college students who can’t figure out how to pirate Office 2007 and for collaborating with your peers. All your documents, available all the time, as long as you’re somewhere with an internet connection.

Google Spreadsheets, again just like Google documents.

Calendar is great for keeping your life on track and the interface for a web based application is surprisingly robust. Typing in one line “Lunch with Janet on Monday at 12:30″ enters it into the system with zero fuss.

Reader for all you RSS addicts.

And there are simply too many to list so just go to this website.

All of these Google Services are fantastic, but there is one problem. They aren’t mobile and can’t be built in mobile browsers (iPhone, S60) either since there are no standards for that technology, yet. People buy Windows Mobile devices because they know Office Mobile will handle their documents and Exchange Server support is best in class. People install Google Maps Mobile and Gmail Mobile because they like having these services with them no matter where they are.

If Google released a device with all their services bundled in, think how useful it would be. You could be writing a document on your computer and on the way to work you can edit it with one hand. Want to send it to your coworkers? No problem, just email it to them directly from the application. Get to work and finish doing what you have to do and then shoot it off in an email to the boss.

You can work from any internet connected device as long as it is connected to the net. You don’t need to install Word 2007 and you don’t need Outlook for email since all your contacts are already in Gmail. You don’t need to backup since all your data is in the cloud. You don’t need to worry about version tracking or forgetting your USB key at home.
It is a Google world, in your pocket and you don’t have to install anything. It just works. One sign in and boom you have access to everything. It doesn’t stay in sync with the cloud because everything is happening in real time.

If people get used to this then what will the other handset makers have to do? Will Microsoft have to offer their Office Suit in the cloud? Will Nokia have to buy someone like Zimbra or Zoho? Will the old desktop application model or opening files, saving files and emailing them as attachments still be the world we live in given one years time?

I don’t have an answer, but I do know I am excited. I really want to stop caring about where my content is and worry more about producing, editing and refining it.