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Bhopal: Former chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, Dr Anil Kakodkar, said that India should not depend on foreign technologies, if the country wants to become the world leader.
"If we remain dependent on foreign technologies, we can never become a world leader. Our education system must produce empowered youths who can pull the country up the ladder," Kakodkar said here on Saturday while addressing the sixth convocation of the Maulana Azad National Institute of Technology (MANIT).

The eminent nuclear scientist said, "Education is a route to enlightenment and a tool for empowerment. If carried out effectively education can transform our youths into a huge human capital and make India one of the most powerful nations in the world."
Stressing on the need for making orientation of students India-centric, he said, it is necessary that the orientation of students should remain India-focused and not focused to the west.

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BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. – Forty-five men you’ve probably never heard of were honored with an Academy Awards ceremony of their own that recognized scientific and technical achievements in moviemaking.

The engineers behind the latest in ambient occlusion, digital intermediate processing, sub-pixel offsets and micro-positioning platforms were celebrated at a Saturday night gala at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and hosted by a very unscientific Elizabeth Banks.

The 36-year-old actress joked that she would "read — yet not fully understand — our journey through the scientific and technical awards."

Wearing a sparkling white gown and standing in front of four giant Oscar statues, Banks presented 15 plaques and certificates to scientists from Germany, Sweden, Austria, England, New Zealand, Hungary, Denmark, Japan and the United States.

The men were honored for developing systems to improve color on film, advancing performance-capture technology, creating new means to light actors in computer-generated scenes and building high-tech scanners used in modern filmmaking. You may have seen the results of their work in films such as "King Kong," "The Lord of the Rings," "Spider-Man 2" and "Iron Man."

While the March 7 Academy Awards ceremony will be all A-list glitz and televised glam, the Sci-Tech Awards are an off-camera, low-key event, with one humble scientist after another taking the stage and nervously thanking his family and colleagues.

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  HUNDREDS of Xerox sales reps have flown here from around the country for an annual pump-up-the-troops meeting. The main attraction during a marathon day is a face both familiar and new: Ursula Burns. She’s an old friend to many of them, and there are plenty of hugs to go around for the people she’s grown up with during her 30 years at the company.

But there is also a new distance, a new curiosity about what she will do, given that she is no longer just Ursula.

She is Ursula M. Burns, the C.E.O. And even though she became chief executive in July, taking the baton from Anne M. Mulcahy, she has been keeping a low profile, spending months working on the details of a huge Xerox bet, the $6.4 billion acquisition of Affiliated Computer Services, an outsourcing company.

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New Delhi, Oct. 26: Umpires should be left to adjudge only leg-before decisions while technology takes care of the rest, according to batting legend Sachin Tendulkar.
Tendulkar, 36, who begins his 21st year in international cricket next month, even advocated rotating on-field umpires every session of a Test match to give them adequate rest, but denounced the referral system.
Tendulkar, a veteran of 159 Tests and 431 ODIs, said he was in favour of more technology in cricket to make the umpire’s task more accurate.
“It is tough for the umpires to watch the no-balls and watch what’s happening in the front,” he was quoted as saying on the India Today website.
“For basic line decisions, like no-balls and run outs, you must have a laser or something like that. Something like what you have in tennis to decide serves.

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Visitors to technology blog Gizmodo are being warned that they could have picked up more than tips about the latest must-have gadget.

According to security firm Sophos, the website was delivering advertisements "laced with malware" last week.

A statement on the Gizmodo website admits that it was tricked into running Suzuki adverts which were in fact from hackers.

It follows a similar problem on the New York Times website.

Last month the New York Times’ website was targeted by a gang of hackers who purchased ad space on the site by posing as internet telephone company, Vonage.

In both cases the adverts served up fake anti-virus software – known as scareware.

Scareware attempts to convince users that their computer is infected with viruses and trojans, and tricks them into downloading "remedies" which are harmful and can be used by criminals to get at information such as credit card details.

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A group of the world’s largest internet companies has written a letter of support to the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

The letter is the latest in an ongoing debate about "network neutrality" – or how data is distributed on the web.

Some internet providers have called for a tiered system, in which bandwidth-heavy data like videos travel slower.

The FCC is opposed to this and wants to preserve an open internet in which all data is treated equally.

The letter, signed by the chief executives of Google, Ebay, Skype, Facebook, Amazon and Sony Electronics among others, says that maintaining data neutrality helps businesses to compete on the basis of content alone.

"An open internet fuels a competitive and efficient marketplace, where consumers make the ultimate choices about which products succeed and which fail," the letter read.

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FRANKFURT  —  Google is launching a new service for booksellers next year called Google Editions, which will let readers buy books and read them anywhere on gadgets ranging from cell phones to possibly e-book devices.

It’s the first foray into charging for books for the Californian company, which began its Google Books program in 2004.

Tom Turvey, head of Google Book Search’s publisher partnership program, said the price per book would be set by their publishers and would start with between 400,000 to 600,000 books next year.

"It will be a browser-based access," Turvey said Thursday at the 61st Frankfurt Book Fair. "The way the e-book market will evolve is by accessing the book from anywhere, from an access point of view and also from a geographical point of view."

Google will collect 55 percent of the profits, Turvey said, giving a "vast majority" of that to retailers, and the rest will go to the publisher.

"Google Editions allows retail partners to sell their books, especially those who haven’t invested in a digital platform," he said. "We expect the majority (of customers) will go to retail partners not to Google. We are a wholesaler, a book distributor."

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Thousands of Hotmail passwords have been hacked and posted online, BBC News has learnt.

Microsoft, which owns the popular web-based e-mail system, said that it was aware of the claims and that it was "investigating the situation".

BBC News has seen a list of more than 10,000 accounts, which technology blog Neowin.net said had been posted online.

The blog suggested the accounts had been hacked or had been collected as part of a phishing scheme.

Phishing involves using fake websites to lure people into revealing personal details such as bank accounts or login names and passwords.

"At the moment we don’t know how the hackers got the passwords or how many they got," Graham Cluley, consultant at security firm Sophos, told BBC News.

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Prime Minister Raila Odinga has called for the accelerated development of green energy technologies.

While chairing the 19th session of the National Economic Social Council meeting at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre, Odinga said climate change is currently a major threat to realizing the growth envisaged in the Vision 2030.

The Prime Minister said green energy development could improve energy security in the country which could lower energy costs while at the same time reducing the bill incurred on imported petroleum products.

Odinga said for Kenya’s economic blueprint, the Vision 2030 to succeed, measures ought to be put in place to mitigate the impact of climate change while increasing the capacity for adaptability.

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(CNN) — Google Wave, a product that promises to revolutionize online communication, will go out to about 100,000 beta testers Wednesday.

Google Wave hopes to replace e-mail as the main way people communicate online.

The Web application from Google Inc. combines elements of e-mail, chat, Wiki documents, blogs and photo-sharing sites to create a form of Internet communication called a "hosted conversation," or a "wave."

Google demonstrated Wave at the Google I/O developer conference in San Francisco, California, in May. The closed group of beta testers will help Google fish bugs out of the application before a public release by the end of the year, according to the Google Wave Web site.

The app was created by Jens and Lars Rasmussen, the Australian brothers who developed Google Maps. The Rasmussen brothers said they hope Google Wave will eventually replace e-mail as the main way people converse on the Internet.

"This should be something everybody uses and something everybody knows," Jens Rasmussen said.

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