A `USA Today’ piece talks of zookeepers planning to find
a mate for orangutans over the Internet and wanting to
expand it as an online dating service where apes could get
to know one another and keepers could find them
compatible mates. Read the rest of this entry »

Just overheard this: “This city will take a beating and rise again”. It’s a very depressing subject to write about as bodies are strewn about and relatives are panicking about their near and dear ones in this city of mine. Love it or hate it, I stay here and have no regrets. But what gets my goat is the MISPLACED BRAVADO that is highlighted after each such incident. ‘Life goes on in Mumbai. It is a city full of resilient people’. THIS IS OUR PLIGHT. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s beyond Random Access Memory (RAM) or DRAM or DDRII. Freescale Semiconductor has introduced a magnetic form of computer memory — MR2A16A chip — which the company says is the first commercial MRAM, or Magnetoresistive Random Access Memory, device. MRAM is faster than most other types of computer memory; Freescale’s chip promises to read or write data in 35 nanoseconds. It can also hold data even after the computer is turned off. Proponents say it could replace both flash memory, used inside cell phones and cameras, and DRAM, employed inside computers to shuttle data to the processor.

World-renowned physicist, Stephen Hawking
(remember “Brief History in Time”?), recently asked a question on yahoo:
In a world that is in chaos politically,
socially and environmentally, how can
the human race sustain another 100 years? Read the rest of this entry »

Chris Anderson’s (editor of Wired magazine) book
“The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More”
will hit shelves on Tuesday. Dan Mitchell of NYT has an interesting
article in this regard. Read the rest of this entry »

A Reuters report states that firms in India are now turning to ancient philosophies of `vaastu shastra’ and Chinese `feng shui’ “in a bid to boost their businesses through “balanced” Web pages”. Believers in vaastu shastra say the Indian science, which seeks to create harmony between nature’s five elements — earth, fire, water, air and space — man and objects, can be directly applied to the Web, just as it is to home design. Read the rest of this entry »

Women dominate mobile gaming

Hey you guys who thought that gaming was a man’s domain. A new study has found that women represent 59 per cent of all U S mobile gamers. The report, titled, “Electronic Gaming in the Digital Home,” by market research and consulting firm Parks Associates, also revealed that females comprise 61 per cent of those who play mobile games one to four hours per month, and 58 per cent of those who spend more than four hours per month playing games on a cell phone screen. Read the rest of this entry »

Believe it or not: Palm and RIM to merge? A buzz is starting to build around the possibility that Palm and RIM might announce plans to merge when both companies plan to announce their quarterly earnings on Thursday. The two well-known mobile computing companies do complement each other. Palm has been searching for ways to connect with enterprise customers for years, finally agreeing to use Microsoft’s Windows Mobile operating system on one of its Treo phones to improve its corporate chances. Read the rest of this entry »

NASA’s ideas for increasing US literacy

NASA is seeking proposals for creating and managing innovative activities, events, products, services and other education methods for increasing America’s science and technological literacy. One objective of this request for entrepreneurial offers is to distribute information nationally about the agency’s programs and projects. NASA’s intent is to enter into partnerships that will result in the establishment of one or more non-reimbursable Space Act Agreements with organizations. Read the rest of this entry »

The Siemens-Nokia pact is likely to spark a new global wave of consolidation and a round of price wars. The deal will create the world’s third-largest network equipment concern behind Ericsson and a combined Lucent and Alcatel. The transaction is also likely to put considerable pressure on Motorola which will be reduced to the No. 4 position as network
equipment maker in the world just as its business is turning around as a result of its hot-selling Razr cell phones. Read the rest of this entry »