Google Cautioned Against Internet Filtering

Senior Vice President and General Counsel for Google Inc. has warned House Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, Competition and the Internet that even the proposed measures of fighting copyright infringement are inefficient, because even if Internet service providers blocked domains of infringing services through DNS interference, they will still be reachable via its IP address or other means like browser plug-in software.

A couple days ago the House Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, Competition and the Internet held another hearing on protecting copyright, during which the search engine giant Google provided some words of caution for legislators.

The backdrop for the event is again the controversial COICA legislation, renewed a week ago by a few Congressmen from the Senate and House Judiciary Committees. During the hearing, Kent Walker, Senior Vice President for Google, claimed that the government should aim at the worst foreign services without targeting legitimate businesses. Nevertheless, pro-copyright outfits like the MPAA and RIAA keep repeating the same nonsense about “notorious websites” and the necessity of taking action against them. In the meantime, Kent Walker argues that American current legislation is quite capable of addressing the problem of services subject to US jurisdiction, and therefore doesn’t need any further causes of action. He believes that extra enforcement tools should only be used for targeting the services residing outside the US, engaged in commercial infringement.

Besides, Google’s Senior Vice President pointed out that defining what exactly constitutes a “notorious website” isn’t that simple task, because an overbroad definition would ensnare millions of popular American sites letting users to sell products or upload material. Meanwhile, there are a lot of sites that are responsible and promptly respond to takedown notices and comply with the DMCA. Those websites shouldn’t be deemed rogue and be pursued.

Talking about using the DNS system to fight illegal activity, Google’s representative pointed out that such effort must be properly weighed against its limited efficiency and implications for core US values like innovation and fundamental freedom. In fact, when discussed, it appears that the largest real threat to US content industry that the COICA is supposed to protect is the reluctance by American rights owners to develop new innovative services the customers need so much.

ip address reveal where you are

Your IP address tells basically not where you are. So it is not usually possible to determine your position just by looking at ip address. But now scientists have developed a method of making reasonably accurate positioning by simply looking at the ip address for each unit. It could be used to deliver services that are tailored to the user's location - but it could also be used to deliver advertisements for local shops.

Scientists from the China University of Electronic Science and Technology in Chengdu and the U.S. Department of Northwestern University in Illinois and a researcher from Microsoft Research, who have presented their new method in a sensational research.Positionsbestemmelse is usually something going on each client device - either by using an integrated GPS or by looking for known wireless networks nearby. The user can of course even enter his position. But in all these scenarios, the user control over whether the position must be determined.

The new method means that the position is automatically detected as soon as you contact a Web server and thus sends its IP address - may be prevented by using a proxy server or otherwise blur address.

Scientists use three different steps to fix your position from ip address. In the first step sent a data packet to the device and the time it takes the packets to arrive are used to calculate the device located with a coarse accuracy of 200 kilometers.

In the next step is sent back data packets - but this time for computers where physical location is known. It is typically universities and companies that host their own servers. Here, we know that is the address where the server says. Researchers have drawn around 76,000 physical addresses for servers onto Google Maps.

Scientists send packets to servers in the area where the searched device is located. Then compare the Datapak pathways. If a data packet to a server with a known physical address passes the same router as a data packet to the device which attempts to determine the position, then compared transport time for the package.

The last step takes the system so out which of the known computers that is closest to the searched device. It gives a fairly good positioning of the device. On average, the accuracy of 700 meters but in some cases is as low as 100 meters. So you can eg. find out in which district the computer is located and perhaps also on the street.

It sounds like a technically complicated process, but it can probably be automated so tracking only takes a few seconds.

In their paper employs the researchers did not deal with the ethical and legal implications of their technology, which of course allows you to track all Internet users without their knowledge or consent.

A Pirate Hard Drive that provides Infinite Capacity !!!

Chinese Engineers did it again. It seems like they have adopted a trend of making copies of the latest gadgets in a larger scale and in very less time. This time, a Chinese Engineer manipulated a Samsung 500GB Hard Drive and turned it into an infinity capacity hard drive or so it was assumed.

The trend of replicating latest products, manipulating and selling them is going on with a fine pace in this era in China. Not everyone can identify which product is genuine and which product is the Replica and in this confusion, the consumers get ripped off when they choose the replica thinking it is genuine or as good as the genuine one. Whether its iPhone,Movies or any other new gadgets , almost everything gets replicated and launched in the market resulting into great profits to the replicas makers.

Replica can be launched as fast as genuine products but it always comes with some glitches in them. There are always many possibilities of glitches in the replicas , like an “iPhone” may look good from outside just like the real “iPhone” but there’s always lack of real OS in it.

The hard drive that has infinite capacity was discovered when a Computer engineer in Russia who lives nearby the Chinese border, got a 500GB Hard Drive for repairing.

The engineer was of course surprised getting a brand new Samsung 500GB Hard Drive for repairing. Although it looked great from the outside but somehow it had got some issues which stopped it from working properly.

The hard drive reports that its capacity is full and it even shows each and every file transferring to it with no problem. But the owner of that hard drive reported that when he transferred a movie which was 1.5GB in size, to his hard drive, he found only the last few minutes of the movie present in it.

There were many things that occurred under the sheets as the Chinese makers claimed to changing the capacity of the Samsung 500GB Hard Drive into an infinity capacity hard drive. In the above picture, there are two large nuts of metal which are placed in pair to support a 128MB flash drive. Moreover, the nuts were placed to give some weight to the drive and make the feel of it as similar to the real hard drive .

The tricky thing in the drive is that it’s just a simple 128MB flash drive which behaves like it provides infinite capacity. In other words, it’s a fake. The most interesting thing about it is that it stores the data up-to its capacity from the computer it’s connected to & after that it starts deleting all the data as soon as it’s left with the last part of the file. Rest of the file remains untouched and the size of the incomplete file remaining in the drive is reported as correct size.

It’s like a treasure for File-sharers, who have a strong belief on that hard drive and they are buying it without any doubt about it. They are bugged off after using it and knowing that it is nothing but useless piece of metal and waste of money.

World’s first Facebook bullying alert system ‘developed’

A British man has developed what he claims is the world’s first bullying alert system for social networking site ‘Facebook’, which scans text and flags up abusive behaviour.

The father-of-four Paddy Clarke’s software scans walls and inboxes for trigger words and phrases such as “gay” and “fat” and alerts parents when they appear -- he came up with the idea after reading a string of cyber-bullying horror stories, the ‘Daily Mail’ reported.

Clarke said he hoped his system, called “Know Diss”, will keep children safe from online bullies. “Cyber-bullying is very topical at the moment, but this software is the only one in the world to search through text on social networking sites to protect children.

“Know Diss is a very simple concept. It is also a partnership between parent and child because one cannot sign up without the other,” the 48-year-old said.

Clarke, a consultant in pain relief at Gloucestershire Royal Hospital in Gloucester, joined forces with friend Alan Saul to design and implement Know Diss, which costs 12 pounds for a yearly subscription.

Together they trawled through sites such as Urban Dictionary and watched the television series Skins to build their comprehensive database of insults.

Clarke’s program continuously searches through all text on Facebook accounts signed up to the service, including messages, picture comments and posts. It uses a database of several thousands of words to identify bullying trigger words in a number of spelling variations.

Parents and their children must both sign up by email for the software to work. The child is then sent a link for them to click in order to download Know Diss.

When a bullying phrase is detected, it is copied and immediately emailed to the child’s parent or “Facebook guardian” who can decide whether further action is needed.

An example of a “bullying” phrase which would be picked up by the system is -- “Go slash your wrists, fat boy” or words such as “gay boy“.

When triggered, Know Diss automatically sends an email to the parent which reads: “The following text has been picked up on your child’s Facebook account. Go and have a look at it.”

Home network market up 11pc in 2010

CALIFORNIA, USA: Sales of home networking devices grew 11 per cent in 2010, to $5.15 billion, on the heels of a 46 per cent jump the previous year, with all segments of the market posting increases, finds market research firm Infonetics Research in its latest report.

Jeff Heynen, directing analyst for broadband access at Infonetics Research, says: "We are expecting a challenging year for residential gateways this year, though, as operators have a lot of inventory on hand but are having trouble adding new DSL and cable subscribers. Quarter-over-quarter, the home network device market was up just 0.1 per cent in 4Q10 as residential gateway and broadband router sales slowed in Asia Pacific and Central and Latin America after a surge the previous quarter.

"This trend will keep the overall market flat in 2011 despite strong sales of Homeplug Powerline adapters, MoCA coax-Ethernet adapters, and home NAS," he adds.
The small but fast-growing MoCA coax-Ethernet adapter segment posted the highest revenue growth in 2010, up 93 per cent.

D-Link leads the highly competitive broadband router market in 4Q10. Whereas, Pace, which recently acquired 2Wire, now leads the residential gateway market.

The EMEA region leads the world in HomePlug adapter and home NAS device sales, primarily because IPTV penetration is so much higher there, particularly Europe, where telco operators typically offer a HomePlug kit to connect an IP set-top box in the home to a residential gateway.

While relatively small now, the home NAS (network attached storage) market is forecast by Infonetics to more than quadruple between 2010 and 2015 as more consumers purchase these devices to centrally store digital content to share across multiple PCs, tablets, gaming consoles, connected TVs, Blu-ray players, smartphones, and other platforms in the home.# Quarter-over-quarter, the home network device market was up just 0.1% in 4Q10 as residential gateway and broadband router sales slowed in Asia Pacific and Central and Latin America after a surge the previous quarter
# The small but fast-growing MoCA coax-Ethernet adapter segment posted the highest revenue growth in 2010, up 93% # D-Link leads the highly competitive broadband router market in 4Q10

Apps: Third of smartphone users refuse to pay

 LONDON, UK: A new study into the application use of Smartphone owners in the UK has revealed that more than a third, 34 per cent, of Smartphone users 'never' pay for applications. Despite this, 98 per cent of Smartphone owners taking part in the study had downloaded free applications on to their mobile device.The study polled 1,472 Smartphone owners across the UK, and was conducted by the company behind the MyVoucherCodes App. The research was conducted in a bid to discover more about usage habits of Smartphone owners and how the cost of apps impacts their decision to download them.

Respondents to the study were initially asked, “How often to you download paid-for apps?” to which a third, 34 per cent, of respondents answered 'never.' Just a fifth, 21 per cent, of respondents answered 'regularly;' whilst the majority, 45 per cent, answered 'occasionally.'

Those who claimed to 'never' purchase paid-for apps were asked why this was the case. The majority, 46 per cent, cited that they felt 'ripped off' when having to pay for Smartphone apps; whilst a third, 31 per cent, of those asked simply felt that all Smartphone applications 'should be free'. 13 per cent stated that they 'couldn't afford' to purchase apps.

Respondents to the study were also asked, 'Do you think that paid-for apps are of a better quality than free apps?' More than half, 58 per cent, of respondents answered 'no', whilst 12 per cent said that paid-for apps are 'occasionally' better than free apps.According to the research, just over a tenth, 12 per cent, of the respondents who took part in the study had downloaded more 'paid apps' than 'free apps' on their Smartphone. However, in contrast, 79 per cent, of the respondents admitted to having downloaded more 'free apps' than 'paid apps'. The remaining 9 per cent had equal numbers of apps, or were unsure.

Google co-founder Larry Page takes over as new chief executive

Google has a new chief executive. Company co-founder Larry Page took over the reins of the internet giant on Monday from Eric Schmidt, who was brought on board in 2001 to provide “adult supervision” to the then-young company, and who will now serve as chairman.

The company announced the move in January, ending a 10-year stint in which Schmidt ran the company through an elaborate decision-sharing system in a triumvirate with Page, 38, and Sergey Brin, 37, the other co-founder of Google.

All three are among the richest people in the world, with the two co-founders’ fortunes each estimated by Forbes to be around 20 billion dollars, while Schmidt is worth some 6 billion dollars.

Page, who was chief executive until 2001, is expected to attempt to revitalize Google and return the world’s leading search engine and mobile software company to its aggressive start-up roots, after largely missing out on the social networking trend that allowed the rise of new rivals like Facebook and Twitter.

The Michigan-born computer scientist is widely regarded as a technology visionary with an astute business mind. But his patience — or lack of it — for those he regards as his intellectual inferiors has been frequently criticized. So has his brusquely honest and often undiplomatic approach to issues, where a deft touch might prove more successful.

It may or may not have been coincidental that Google’s first major announcement following Page’s appointment was a 900-million-dollar bid for the patent portfolio of Nortel, a move described by BusinessInsider.com as “exactly the kind of move everyone said Page’s Google would start making — a bold use of Google’s huge pile of cash to solve a problem quickly.” But Google’s problems extend far beyond the relative paucity of its patent portfolio.

The company is facing a rising tide of antitrust issues in both the EU and US. It agreed last week to a 20-year oversight review of its privacy practices by the Federal Trade Commission to settle complaints about privacy violations stemming from Buzz, Google’s ill-fated social-networking initiative.

The company was rebuffed last month when a US judge rejected its plan to digitize millions of books to create the world’s largest digital library.

But the biggest problem facing Google, a company that has grown at warp speed to more than 24,000 employees in 40 countries with revenue of 29 billion dollars, is that under Schmidt it became too big to innovate nimbly.

According to analyst Trip Chowdry, the company’s sprawling R&D efforts are draining Google’s focus and resources, and some 60 per cent of projects could be shut down. “Many stupid, hobby—type projects are getting the management attention and the resources, and the problem was the old CEO never took a hard look at these projects,” he wrote in a research note.

The problem is that while many of these projects will undoubtedly prove tangential to Google’s future, one of them may yield the company’s next big hit — the surprising application that will allow Google to expand beyond its two main arenas of internet search and smartphone operating systems.

Page has set the tone for his reign by announcing that senior managers will meet daily in a public area of its Mountain View headquarters to improve their approachability. He has canvassed workers for ideas to make meetings more productive — like appointing a decision maker and refraining from using smartphones and laptops.

Canara Bank launches 4 more technology products

Bangalore: Leading public sector Bank, Canara Bank, today said it has launched four technology products, enabling cashless services to its customers.

A company release said the Canara Bank Debit Card-Platinum, a premier variant of its Debit Card offers many more benefits than the normal debit card for premier segment customers. It offers higher purchase limit of Rs two lakh per day. The card makes available complementary insurance cover and Global Customer Assistance Service provided by VISA/MasterCard. The Canara Campus Card is a co-branded debit card in association with educational institutions issued to students of identified institutions to facilitate payment of fees.

The card ensures cashless transactions that avoids hassle of handling Cash/Cheque/DD for student/Institution in fee payment. This Card can also be used by student as normal debit card in other merchant locations/ATMs, it said.

Smartphone ownership doubling in America: study

COLUMBIA: The percentage of Americans age 12 and older who have a smartphone has more than doubled in the past year, from 14 percent to 31 percent of the population according to the new national survey from Arbitron Inc. and Edison Research, The Infinite Dial 2011: Navigating Digital Platforms.The study, released today, is the 19th in a series of studies dating back to 1998.  Among the many other findings•Facebook is now being used by a majority of all Americans age 12 and over (51 per cent); this number was only 8 per cent when Arbitron/Edison Research first measured the social media phenomenon in 2008.
•A majority of American households now have two or more computers (51 per cent); as compared to 24 per cent of households in 2002.
•Usage of online radio is up significantly, with weekly usage of all forms of online radio having doubled in the last five years; self-reported weekly time spent with online radio is now nearly 10 hours (9 hours 47 minutes).
•Daily time spent with TV, Radio and the Internet combined has increased by 20 percent in the last ten years, with self-reported daily usage now at 8 hours 11 minutes compared to 6 hours 50 minutes in 2001.
•Just under one-third of all Americans (31 per cent) have plugged an MP3 player such as an Apple iPod into their car stereo systems.
•One in ten Americans report listening to Pandora Internet Radio in the week before they were surveyed.
•Among the 81 per cent of American households with Internet access, two-thirds now have a Wi-Fi network installed.
•More than one-tenth of all cell phone owners have listened to online radio streamed in their cars by connecting their phones to their car stereo system.


"When you consider the rapid growth in ownership of smartphones in context with the continued rise in the use of social media it becomes increasingly clear that these platforms are fueling fundamental changes in consumer expectations and how they use media," said Bill Rose, Senior Vice President of Marketing, Arbitron Inc.

"What's fascinating about the Internet over the past ten years is the additive effect it has had upon the American media diet, which continues to expand," said Tom Webster, Vice President of Strategy and Marketing, Edison Research. "Rather than crowding other forms of media off the plate, so to speak, digital media is being consumed simultaneously with offline media, and in venues and opportunities where media might not have been consumed previously."

Since 1998, this notable research series has reported on and analyzed consumer use of the Internet, digital platforms and their impact on radio.

"This study provides further evidence of radio's continued resilience and relevance in today's digital landscape," said Arbitron's Rose.

"The ubiquity of social media usage -- and Facebook, in particular  -- has had an enormous impact upon the ways in which people communicate with each other - which has profoundly affected not only how companies market themselves, but also how they hire and train internally," said Webster from Edison Research.

Desi brands take feisty Indian tablet PC market by storm

Bangalore: There is no doubt that India is warming up to tablet PCs. It may not be the most pulsating of the markets like that of the U.S., Europe or China, but it is picking up slowly. India's tablet PC market is estimated at 25,000 units a quarter, but holds the promise of growing quickly as 3G penetration gathers momentum. Tablets from international companies like Apple and Samsung apart, India has seen some decent tablets from some of the 'desi' players. It all started with Olivepad. And adding to the list, there's the home grown Notion Ink Adam, the $35 government sponsored prototype, and the recently announced $150 tablet from India's largest private service provider Reliance. According to industry experts, this should set the alarm bells ringing for global biggies vying for a piece of the Indian tabletPC marketA time when the iPad reintroduced tablets to the world, India got its first tablet, the OlivePad, launched by Olive Telecom in August 2010. Priced at 25,000, Olivepad became available at the end of October with the update of Android 2.2 Froyo. Olivepad packs in a lot of hardware. It is ideally suited for mobile internet and browsing with 3.5G HSUPA, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. It comes with a 3 megapixel in-built camera, a front camera and a 7-inch capacitive touch screen.

Notion Ink Adam entered the scene with the features of the Galaxy Tab in a price point better than the Olivepad. Like the iPad, the Adam also sports a 10-inch screen with a resolution support of 1024x600. Its other features include a 178 degree rotating swivel camera, a touchpad at the back, pixelQI screen to facilitate sunlight reading and a radio to go with it. It has got a dual core ARM processor based on the NVIDIA Tegra chip and ULP GPU. There is also 1GB DDR2 and 8GB onboard storage. Notion Ink Adam tablet PC is priced between $375 and $425 ( 17,000- 19,000). However, it does not have a local distribution network and is sold mainly through the company's website.

In the first half of 2010, Infibeam.com, one of India's largest e-commerce site launched Infibeam Phi tablet which is similer to Amazon Kindle device. Priced at 14999, Infibeam Phi is an 7 inch touch screen media device comes with 8GB inbuilt memory with expandable memory up to 32 GB via micro SD card. Phi runs ARM9's 600 MHz processor. Phi has Wi-Fi but doesn't have Bluetooth or microphones on-board.
In this list of 'desi' tablets, the next one to come is the $35 government sponsored prototype called Sakshat that hardly looks posh. The tablet is said to have 2GB memory, run Linux, be able to connect to the internet over WiFi, open PDFs, and even play YouTube videos.

Recently, India based IT Service Company HCL has come up with three tablet PCs with prices starting from 14, 990 for the base model to 32, 990 for the highest speced model. The HCL ME range tablets are all based on Android 2.2 OS instead of the newer Honeycomb OS. The last time HCL associated with tablet PCs was during the Indian government's effort to launch a $35 tablet Sakshat, though the deal with HCL fell through.

Adding to all these, two Indian mobile phone manufacturers Lava International and Micromax Informatics are also planning to launch their own tablet PCs in the Indian market by July-August. Both Lava and Micromax expect demand for tablet PCs to touch a lakh unit by the end of 2011.

The demand for tablet PC devices has boomed globally much beyond the initial estimates of market research firms like Gartner. Till December 31, 2010, Apple sold 15 million iPads worldwide. Driven by this, Gartner estimates worldwide media tablet sales of around 54.8 million units in 2011, up 181 percent from 2010, and surpass 208 million units in 2014. Sniffing the possible profits in the growing tablet PC market, a lot of domestic players are showing interest in rolling out their own devices. The competition has heated up, and all the players will try the hardest to take the center stage, which is an important concern for the global players as well.

Dell bets big on India

Leading computer manufacturer Dell plans to invest more in India to expand its operations besides hiring more people in the next one year.

The second largest PC-maker globally also hopes to cross the $2 billion annual revenue mark in India soon.

“India today offers a fantastic opportunity to use technology for a wide range of applications. We see a tremendous opportunity for growth of the PC segment in this country…$2 billion is the milestone that our India team is now working on,” Dell CEO Michael Dell told journalists at an event organised by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry here on Tuesday.

Dell already has around 23,000 employees in India and looking at adding a ‘few thousand' more people in its Indian workforce, which is now the second largest employee base outside the U.S. Dell's business activities in the country include research and development and manufacturing in Sriperumbudur near Chennai (Tamil Nadu).

Three focus areas

Pointing out that the company sees good growth for its business in India as the PC penetration level hovers around just 20-30 PCs per 1,000 people, Mr. Dell said in India, the company had adopted three focus areas — growing its India presence in the hardware business; entering into education and healthcare segment for the production of customised products and services; and managing and servicing offerings sold in India.

Dell saw its revenues in India grew by 37 per cent last year, while its consumer business grew by 41 per cent. Dell's small and medium businesses unit and public sector vertical grew by 52 per cent and 41 per cent, respectively. Speaking at the event, Prime Minister's Adviser on Public Information Infrastructure and Innovation Sam Pitroda said India was starting to build four IT data centres in Poona, Hyderabad, Bhubaneswar and Delhi, while the government had agreed to set up a data centre in each State capital. This initiative would help in providing IT solutions for realising social and economic welfare gains for the people.

“Innovation holds the key to India's ability to compete and solve problems for people at the bottom of the pyramid. With that in view, the Centre has set up a National Innovation Council. We have decided to request the State chief ministers to create State-level innovation councils and are asking Central ministries to constitute industry-related innovation councils,” Mr Pitroda added. 

‘Supermoon’ to be visible on Saturday

An exceptional celestial treat is in store for sky gazers as ‘supermoon’, the biggest and brightest full moon of the year which will be closest to Earth in 18 years, will be seen in the night sky on Saturday.

“The ‘supermoon’ will be closest to the Earth in 18 years tomorrow and will appear to be the biggest and brightest of 2011, Director of Science Popularisation Association of Communicators and Educators (SPACE) C.B. Devgun said on Friday.

Saturday’s full moon will be around 10 per cent bigger and 30 per cent brighter as compared to other full moons during the year, he said.

The term ‘Supermoon’ was first coined by Astrologer Richard Nolle in 1979. According to him, it is a situation when the moon is slightly closer to the Earth in its orbit than average, which is 90 per cent or more of its closest orbit, and the moon is a full or new moon.

On Saturday, the moon will be only 3,56,577 km away from the Earth, the closest while at the full moon phase in 18 years.

Earlier, there were supermoons in 1955, 1974, 1992 and 2005.

Regular situations of full moons coinciding with the moon’s closest point to Earth in fact happen after about every one year, one month and 18 days when it is about 3,63,104 km away from the Earth, Mr. Devgun said.

“This is because the moon’s orbit is an ellipse with one side 50,000 km closer to Earth than the other. In the language of astronomy, the two extremes are called ‘apogee’ (far away) and ‘perigee’ (nearby),” Mr. Devgun said.

At the closest, our natural satellite moon lies roughly 3,56,630 km from the Earth compared to its average distance of 3,84,800 km from the planet.

“The moon will not only shine brighter but will also appear bigger as compared to other full moons during the year,” he said.
The full moon will be at its best at around 3:30 a.m. R.C. Kapoor, a retired professor of Indian Institute of Astrophysics said.A perigee-syzygy of the Earth-Moon-Sun system or "supermoon" is a full or new moon that coincides with a close approach by the Moon to the Earth. The Moon's distance varies each month between approximately 357,000 kilometers (222,000 mi) and 406,000 km (252,000 mi) due to its elliptical orbit around the Earth (distances given are center-to-center.The name SuperMoon was coined by astrologer Richard Nolle in 1979, defined as:

    ...a new or full moon which occurs with the Moon at or near (within 90% of) its closest approach to Earth in a given orbit (perigee). In short, Earth, Moon and Sun are all in a line, with Moon in its nearest approach to Earth.

(The phrasing "within 90% of its closest approach" is unclear, but an example on Nolle's website shows that he means that the Earth–Moon distance is in the lowest tenth of its range.)

The term supermoon is not widely accepted or used within the astronomy or scientific community, who prefer the term perigee-syzygy. Perigee is the point at which the Moon is closest in its orbit to the Earth, and syzygy is a full or new moon, when the Earth, the Moon and the Sun are aligned. Hence, supermoon can be regarded as a combination of the two, although they do not perfectly coincide each time. Syzygy may occur within a maximum of 12 hours from perigee during a supermoon, and 1 hour from perigee during an extreme supermoon.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/04/100421111353

NASA spacecraft becomes first to enter Mercury orbit

 Washington: A NASA spacecraft, after over six years of space travel, has become the first to enter the orbit of Mercury, the agency said Friday.

The Messenger spacecraft began the orbit insertion manoeuvre at 0045 GMT Friday, RIA Novosti reported.

"NASA's Messenger spacecraft successfully achieved orbit around Mercury. This marks the first time a spacecraft has accomplished this engineering and scientific milestone at our solar system's innermost planet," the NASA website said. It took the spacecraft more than six years to enter the orbit of Mercury, the least explored planet of the solar system.

To reach its destination point, the spacecraft, launched in 2004, covered over 7.8 billion km. It followed a route through the inner solar system, which included one fly-by of Earth, two fly-bys of Venus, and three fly-bys of Mercury.

Engineers will check how the spacecraft's systems are sustaining in Mercury's harsh thermal environment, and equipment will be turned on March 23. The scientific mission will begin April 4.

Mercury is the smallest and the densest planet among the four terrestrial planets, including Venus, Earth and Mars. Before the Messenger mission, only 45 percent of Mercury's surface had been photographed by a spacecraft. The previous mission was Mariner-10, launched in the 1970s.   

Japan nuclear plant firm gets Twitter

TOKYO: Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO), which operates the quake-hit Japanese nuclear reactors, opened an official Twitter account, immediately drawing more than 117,000 followers.

"We sincerely apologise for causing serious worries and trouble over the accident at Fukushima No.1 Nuclear Power Plant, radiation leak, planned blackouts," TEPCO said in its profile in Japanese on the micro-blogging site.

TEPCO said it planned to provide information about radiation leaks and blackouts through its Twitter blog, which has already attracted 117,838 followers in the first six hours with only two messages.

Its first tweet was about the threat of major power blackouts in the capital unless electricity use was reduced in the aftermath of the massive earthquake and tsunami. Prime Minister Naoto Kan had authorised managed outages to prevent any sudden major supply disruption, as electricity supply has fallen sharply since the quake-tsunami disaster hit power plants.

The Tokyo-based power company follows accounts of local news media, regional authorities, Twitter users offering messages on earthquake alerts and support for quake victims.

TEPCO has been under fire over delays in disclosing information related to the plant, where helicopters dumped tonnes of water in a desperate bid to cool reactors crippled by the earthquake to prevent a catastrophic meltdown.

Its Twitter account is @OfficialTEPCO available only in Japanese.

Bomb Disposal Robot Getting Ready for Front-Line Action

The University of Greenwich has joined forces with a Kent-based company in the design and manufacture of a bomb disposal robot for use by security forces, including the British Army.The organisations have come together to create a lightweight, remote-operated vehicle, or robot, that can be controlled by a wireless device, not unlike a games console, from a distance of several hundred metres.

The innovative robot, which can climb stairs and even open doors, will be used by soldiers on bomb disposal missions in countries such as Afghanistan.

Experts from the Department of Computer & Communications Engineering, based within the university's School of Engineering, are working on the project alongside NIC Instruments Limited of Folkestone, manufacturers of security search and bomb disposal equipment.

Much lighter and more flexible than traditional bomb disposal units, the robot is easier for soldiers to carry and use when out in the field. It has cameras on board, which relay images back to the operator via the hand-held control, and includes a versatile gripper which can carry and manipulate delicate items.

The robot also includes nuclear, biological and chemical weapons sensors.

Measuring just 72cm by 35cm, the robot weighs 48 kilogrammes and can move at speeds of up to eight miles per hour.

Scientists Control Light Scattering in Graphene

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California at Berkeley have learned to control the quantum pathways determining how light scatters in graphene. Controlled scattering provides a new tool for the study of this unique material -- graphene is a single sheet of carbon just one atom thick -- and may point to practical applications for controlling light and electronic states in graphene nanodevices.The research team, led by Feng Wang of Berkeley Lab's Materials Sciences Division, made the first direct observation, in graphene, of so-called quantum interference in Raman scattering. Raman scattering is a form of "inelastic" light scattering. Unlike elastic scattering, in which the scattered light has the same color (the same energy) as the incident light, inelastically scattered light either loses energy or gains it.

Raman scattering occurs in graphene and other crystals when an incoming photon, a particle of light, excites an electron, which in turn generates a phonon together with a lower-energy photon. Phonons are vibrations of the crystal lattice, which are also treated as particles by quantum mechanics.

Quantum particles are as much waves as particles, so they can interfere with one another and even with themselves. The researchers showed that light emission can be controlled by controlling these interference pathways. They present their results in a forthcoming issue of the journal Nature, now available in Advance Online Publication.

Manipulating quantum interference, in life and in the lab

"A familiar example of quantum interference in everyday life is antireflective coating on eyeglasses," says Wang, who is also an assistant professor of physics at UC Berkeley. "A photon can follow two pathways, scattering from the coating or from the glass. Because of its quantum nature it actually follows both, and the coating is designed so that the two pathways interfere with each other and cancel light that would otherwise cause reflection."

Wang adds, "The hallmark of quantum mechanics is that if different paths are nondistinguishable, they must always interfere with each other. We can manipulate the interference among the quantum pathways that are responsible for Raman scattering in graphene because of graphene's peculiar electronic structure."

In Raman scattering, the quantum pathways are electronic excitations, which are optically stimulated by the incoming photons. These excitations can only happen when the initial electronic state is filled (by a charged particle such as an electron), and the final electronic state is empty.

Quantum mechanics describes electrons filling a material's available electronic states much as water fills the space in a glass: the "water surface" is called the Fermi level. All the electronic states below it are filled and all the states above it are empty. The filled states can be reduced by "doping" the material in order to shift the Fermi energy lower. As the Fermi energy is lowered, the electronic states just above it are removed, and the excitation pathways originating from these states are also removed.

"We were able to control the excitation pathways in graphene by electrostatically doping it -- applying voltage to drive down the Fermi energy and eliminate selected states," Wang says. "An amazing thing about graphene is that its Fermi energy can be shifted by orders of magnitude larger than conventional materials. This is ultimately due to graphene's two-dimensionality and its unusual electronic bands."

The Fermi energy of undoped graphene is located at a single point, where its electronically filled bands, graphically represented as an upward-pointing cone, meet its electronically empty bands, represented as a downward-pointing cone. To move the Fermi energy appreciably requires a strong electric field.

Team member Rachel Segalman, an associate professor of chemical engineering at UC Berkeley and a faculty scientist in Berkeley Lab's Materials Sciences Division, provided the ion gel that was key to the experimental device. An ion gel confines a strongly conducting liquid in a polymer matrix. The gel was laid over a flake of graphene, grown on copper and transferred onto an insulating substrate. The charge in the graphene was adjusted by the gate voltage on the ion gel.

"So by cranking up the voltage we lowered the graphene's Fermi energy, sequentially getting rid of the higher energy electrons," says Wang. Eliminating electrons, from the highest energies on down, effectively eliminated the pathways that, when impinged upon by incoming photons, could absorb them and then emit Raman-scattered photons.

Quantum Pen for Single Atoms Is a Big Step Toward Large-Scale Quantum Computing

Physicists at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics succeeded in manipulating atoms individually in a lattice of light and in arranging them in arbitrary patterns. These results are an important step towards large scale quantum computing and for the simulation of condensed matter systems.

Physicists around the world are searching for the best way to realize a quantum computer. Now scientists of the team around Stefan Kuhr and Immanuel Bloch at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics (Garching/Munich) took a decisive step in this direction. They can now address and change the spin of single atoms with laser light and arrange them in arbitrary patterns. In this way, the physicists strung the atoms along a line and could directly observe their tunneling dynamics in a “racing duel” of the atoms. A register of hundreds of addressable quantum particles could serve for storing and processing of quantum information in a quantum computer.

In the present experiment, the scientists loaded laser-cooled rubidium atoms into an artificial crystal of light. These so-called optical lattices are generated by superimposing several laser beams. The atoms are kept in the lattice of light in a way similar to marbles being contained in the hollows of an egg carton.

A few months ago, the team of Stefan Kuhr and Immanuel Bloch showed that each site of the optical lattice can be filled with exactly one atom. With the help of a microscope, the scientists visualized the array atom by atom and thereby verified the shell-like structure of this “Mott insulator.” Now the scientists succeeded in individually addressing the atoms in the lattice and in changing their respective energy state. Using the microscope, they focused a laser beam down to a diameter of about 600 nanometers, which is just above the lattice spacing, and directed it at individual atoms with high precision.

The laser beam slightly deforms the electron shell of the addressed (targeted) atom and thereby changes the energy difference between its two spin states. Atoms with a spin – i.e. an intrinsic angular momentum – behave like little magnetic needles that can align in two opposite directions. If the atoms are irradiated with microwaves that are in resonance with the modified spin transition, only the addressed atoms absorb a microwave photon, which causes their spin to flip. All other atoms in the lattice remain unaffected by the microwave field.

The scientists demonstrated the high fidelity of this addressing scheme in a series of experiments. For this purpose, the spins of all atoms along a line were flipped one after the other, by moving the addressing laser from lattice site to lattice site. After removing all atoms with a flipped spin from the trap, the addressed atoms are visible as holes, which can easily be counted. In this way, the physicists deduced that the addressing worked in 95% of the cases. Atoms at the neighboring sites are not influenced by the addressing laser. The method provides the possibility to generate arbitrary distributions of atoms in the lattice.

Starting from an arrangement of 16 atoms that were strung together on neighboring lattice sites like a necklace of beads, the scientists studied what happens when the height of the lattice is ramped down so far that the particles are allowed to “tunnel” according to the rules of quantum mechanics. They move from one lattice site to the other, even if their energy is not sufficient to cross the barrier between the lattice wells. “As soon as the height of the lattice has reached the point where tunneling is possible, the particles start running as if they took part in a horse-race”, doctoral candidate Christof Weitenberg describes. “By taking snapshots of the atoms in the lattice at different times after the "starting signal", we could directly observe the quantum mechanical tunneling-effect of single massive particles in an optical lattice for the first time.”

Is cloud computing really green?

Bangalore: Apart from its key advantages of increased efficiencies, scalability, redundancy and decreased costs, another significant concept that hails cloud computing today is its potential to operate business applications more efficiently, resulting in a potentially lower environmental impact. This is what makes cloud computing one of today's IT buzzwords, and there are studies to back this up.A recent study, titled, "Cloud Computing and Sustainability" from Microsoft (with Accenture and WSP) compared the environmental footprint of running business software internally or with an outsourced provider. The study showed that, compared to running their own applications, by outsourcing companies can reduce the energy use and carbon footprint of computing by up to 90 percent. We could rattle off another dozen reasons why cloud computing should be greener. But is it really?

Network-based cloud computing is rapidly expanding as an alternative to conventional office-based computing. Not only this. Our day-to-day computing activities are also migrating from hard drives to Internet servers. Recently, Facebook came up with a statistic that shows how much new data enters cyberspace on a regular basis. According to the networking site's count, more than 100 million photos get uploaded to Facebook each day. As cloud computing becomes more widespread, the energy consumption of the network and computing resources that underpin the cloud will grow. Environmental groups are worried that the trend will result in a bigger carbon footprint.

At a time when there is increasing attention being paid to the need to manage energy consumption across the entire information and communications technology (ICT) sector, there has been less attention paid to the energy consumption of the transmission and switching networks that are key to connecting users to the cloud.

Going back to the Facebook example, data that is created and uploaded to websites like Facebook is stored at data centers. In order to keep these data warehouses running and comfortably air-conditioned to prevent overheating, uninterrupted power supply is a must. This can result in some heavy energy consumption. As of now, data centers are responsible for two percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, and according to experts, the number will increase in near future.

However, there are companies telling that the growing trend towards cloud computing is making online computing more energy-efficient. An analysis of Pike Research has backed up some of these reported benefits, suggesting that a reduction in the cost of the energy of global data center can take place by up to 38 percent by 2020 because of the extremely efficient cloud computing. But, environmental groups and other skeptics still have doubts with regard to how green cloud computing can truly be.

According to a Gartner report that examined the carbon footprint of the ICT industry, environmentalists are concerned about the industry's apparent confusion with the difference between efficiency and sustainability. It says that companies need to recognize that energy efficient is not green on its own, and is no longer enough.

Another point to be noted here is none of the cloud providers such as Amazon, Microsoft or IBM are publishing metrics at all. Is it because companies using cloud computing are simply outsourcing their emissions? Until cloud providers start becoming more transparent around their utilization and consumption numbers, how green is cloud computing it is still a subject to debate.

Facebook unveils option to let friend know of online bullying

Facebook users can now tell a “trusted friend” if they feel they are being bullied or harassed online, thanks to a new option introduced by the popular social networking site.

Facebook has said that its reporting option allows members to alert someone in their support system, like parents or teachers, to the problem so that online behaviour is linked to “real world consequences”.

“Often the best way of sorting offensive content is for friends to flag those things to each other. In the real world you have a sense of when you need to escalate something to the right organisation.

“If someone is calling you names, it might not be appropriate to go directly to the police,” the Daily Mail quoted Facebook’s Director of European Policy Richard Allan as saying.

However, the social networking site said users would be put in contact with police or suitable organisations in the event of more serious concerns.

Screenshots of the new safety options reveal that users could, for example, select a tick box that says a new photo is “harassing or bullying me”.

The user can choose to block the person who posted the offending material but can also “Get help from a trusted friend”, with the option to send a message to a friend or person of responsibility.

The website also confirmed it was simplifying the language of its safety centre and adding more multimedia material to make the site safer and easier to use.

Soon, mobile phones may run for months on single charging

Imagine a mobile phone that runs for months after a single charging. Well, it could soon be a reality as scientists are developing a new battery which they say could be 100 times more powerful than the existing ones.

A team of engineers at the Illinois University are developing the new battery which will have “nanotubes” instead of metal wiring.

The scientists believe using nanotubes — carbon tubes 10,000 times smaller than a human hair — the battery’s life could be extended by up to 100 times, the Daily Mail reported.

“I think anyone who is dealing with a lot of chargers and plugging things in every night can relate to wanting a cell phone or laptop whose batteries can last for weeks or months,” said Eric Pop, of Illinois University’s Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, who led the research.

Pop claimed that their research could one day mean a mobile device like an iPhone could see hugely extended battery life, possibly to the point that it could run by harvesting thermal or solar energy rather than relying on a battery.

It could also prove groundbreaking for devices much larger than mobile phones or portable computers, Pop said.

“We’re not just talking about lightening our pockets or purses,” he explained. “This is also important for anything that has to operate on a battery, such as satellites, telecommunications equipment in remote locations, or any number of scientific and military applications.”

The scientists, who detailed their work in the journal Science, said the research is just the beginning for improving battery life and hope to make devices’ power consumption 1,000 times more efficient. 

iPad 2 hits stores

Apple’s iPad 2 hits stores on Friday in the U.S., as the company bids to extend its dominance of the tablet computer market, which it created virtually single-handedly when it launched the original iPad last April. Early reviews of the device note that it’s better than its pioneering predecessor, but not astoundingly so. Apple’s engineers and designers have outdone themselves by creating a machine that is lighter and thinner than the original iPad, yet packs in double the processing power, nine times the graphic performance and front and rear facing cameras. In an amazing demonstration of the economic laws that govern technology development, Apple is also able to sell the iPad 2 for the same price as its now clunky forerunner, starting at 499 dollars for the base model. But it speaks volumes for the limits of the new gadget that the innovation that seems to have garnered the most attention is an ingeniously simple screen cover that doubles as a device stand. The Smart Cover, which starts at 36 dollars, connects to the iPad 2 via magnets. The device automatically shuts off when the cover is closed and turns itself on when it opens. The big question is whether these incremental improvements will be enough to ward off Apple’s growing legion of competitors at the same time as they entice many of the 15 million current iPad owners to trade in their less than one-year-old models for a shiny new device clad with a curved satin aluminium back. Walt Mossberg, doyen of the US tech press, doesn’t believe it will. Though he considers the iPad 2 the best tablet currently available, it does not have enough plusses to warrant an upgrade, unless you’re desperate to video conference, he wrote. “I don’t think you would need to rush out and get this new one,” he advised current iPad owners. “However, remember most people don’t have any tablet so there’s an enormous addressable market of people.” There’s little doubt that the device’s tightly integrated hardware and software justify Mossberg’s evaluation. But given the rapid development of rivals from companies like Motorola, Samsung and Toshiba, plus Google’s relentless improvements to its Android operating system, it is virtually certain that the iPad 2 will be overtaken at some point in its life-cycle and probably well before Apple is ready to announce its successor next year. Toshiba is already boasting that its upcoming tablet is more than a match for the new debutant, featuring better cameras, the ability to play flash video, a higher resolution screen, stereo speakers and a haptic feedback touch-screen keyboard. Like the iPad 2, the Toshiba tablet will also feature a dual core processor and will retail for roughly the same price, the company says. That’s more than can be said for the current challengers to the iPad. Motorola’s Xoom also offers some features unavailable on the iPad, but is more expensive and is generally regarded as clunkier. Dell’s iPad rivals have also failed to set the market alight. That’s the fate that many would be iPad challengers can expect, according to JP Morgan Research analyst Mark Moskowitz. While manufacturers plan to build more than 80 million tablets in 2011 he figures 17 million will remain unsold -- and they won’t be sporting the famous Apple logo.

Americans slow to pay for local mobile apps

WASHINGTON: Nearly half of Americans are using their cellphones and tablet computers to get local news and information but just one percent are paying for applications to do so, according to a new report.

Forty-seven percent of Americans use cellphones or tablet computers like Apple's iPad to get information on local weather, restaurant listings, local news and sports scores and traffic conditions, the report said.

But only 13 per cent of mobile device owners are using applications, or apps, to tap into local information, the report found, and just 10 per cent of that group pays for an app -- amounting to just one percent of the total US adult population.

The findings are from a survey of 2,251 adults conducted in January for the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism, the Pew Internet & American Life Project and the Knight Foundation and released on Monday.

They suggest that newspapers hoping to make up for falling print advertising revenue and eroding circulation with local mobile offerings may have some time to wait.

"Many news organizations are looking to mobile platforms, in particular mobile apps, to provide new ways to generate subscriber and advertising revenues in local markets," said Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project.

"The survey suggests there is a long way to go before that happens."

Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism, said "tablet penetration is growing so rapidly -- as quickly as any device we have seen to date.

"It will be fascinating to see whether that changes whether people will pay for content online, but for now it hasn't happened," Rosenstiel said.

Overall, 36 percent of adults pay for some form of local news, the report said, with the vast majority being local print newspaper subscriptions.

Apple reported selling 15 million iPads last year and dozens of other companies are developing their own devices in a bid to grab a share of the fast-growing tablet market.

Eighty-four percent of American adults currently own a cellphone while seven percent own a tablet computer, according to the report.

Apple offers more than 350,000 paid or free applications for the iPhone through its App Store and more than 65,000 for the iPad.

According to the report, 42 per cent of cellphone or tablet computer owners use the device to check local weather reports online and 37 per cent use their mobile devices to find local restaurants or other businesses.

Thirty percent get information or news about their local community, 24 per cent check local sports scores and 22 per cent use the devices to get information about local traffic conditions or public transportation.

Nineteen percent turn to their mobile devices to get or use coupons or discounts from local stores and 15 percent get news alerts about their community sent via text or email.

Twenty-three percent of those surveyed said they would pay $5 a month to get full access to local newspaper content online and 18 percent said they would pay $10 per month.

Around 75 per cent said they would not pay anything.

E-mail tricks for greater productivity

For most of us, attending to e-mail is not just an optional part of our daily routine. It’s a requirement — and sometimes not a pleasant one. That’s why it makes sense to work smarter and more efficiently with e-mail. Adopt some of the tricks below, and you’ll be well on your way.

Leave mail on server

Almost no one today retrieves their e-mail in just one way.

Smartphones, web-based mail, and traditional e-mail programs all can look for mail from the same source.

So how do you make sure you have the mail you need on your main mail program if you’ve already downloaded and read it on another device? Set up your primary mail program to download your mail, and set up the other mail retrieval devices to download the mail but leave a copy on the server. That way you can read your e-mail on your smartphone, for example, but still retrieve the same messages on your main computer later on. Look in your mail settings for an option to “leave a copy of messages on server.”

Synchronise mail

There will be times when you just have to synchronise you mail on two different computers. How you do that will depend in part on the type of e-mail you use. For web based e-mail like Gmail, synchronisation is generally not a problem.

For mail that you download into programs like Outlook or Thunderbird, however, synchronisation is a bit more difficult. For Outlook, programs like Outback Plus (http://ajsystems.com) and OsaSync (http://www.vaita.com) make the chore easier. For Thunderbird, the procedure is a bit more involved, but you can read about the options at Mozilla’s Synchronising Mail page (http://bit.ly/PaJ1C).

Use signatures creatively

Most people think of an e-mail signature as a bit of boilerplate text containing the sender’s name and contact information. But signatures can be much more. In fact, they can be used to compose an entire e-mail message.

Almost all e-mail programs allow you to define multiple “signatures” and to select the appropriate one as you’re composing a message. Think of defining signatures that contain most of the text needed for stock responses that you often provide to certain types of messages. Then just select the appropriate signature and fire off your responses.

Send e-mail later

Remember that you don’t have to send an e-mail message immediately after it’s been composed. Instead, with most e-mail programs, you can schedule the mail to be sent at a specific time. There are plenty of reasons for wanting to do so. You might want to queue up a message to be sent on someone’s birthday. You might have time to write a message now but not later, when it should be sent. Or you may wish to have a note delivered when you know someone will be in the office.

Typically, if your e-mail program will allow you to schedule messages, you will do so from the message composition window. In Outlook, for instance, you start an e-mail message, open the View menu, click Options, and then select the “Do not deliver before” check box, specifying a date and time. Just be sure your mail program remains running so that it can send your message when you want it to.

Use BCC

The “CC” (carbon copy) line gets a lot of use in e-mail messages.

But people tend to forget about the “BCC” (blind carbon copy) line.

That could be because it’s hidden by default in some e-mail programs.

In Outlook, for instance, you have to activate it from a message composition window by pulling down the View menu and selecting “Bcc field.” BCC allows you to designate e-mail recipients that no one else on your recipient list can see. For instance, if you don’t want anyone on your recipient list to be able to see the e-mail addresses of other recipients, put your own e-mail address in the To field and all of the other recipients in the BCC field. Ever get an e-mail addressed to “newsletter” and wonder how you ended up receiving it? It’s probably because your e-mail address was entered into the BCC box.

Send huge attachments

The common advice for sending large attachments by e-mail is this: don’t. That’s because some recipients will simply be unable to download the attachments because of size limitations imposed by the e-mail provider.

If you have to get a large file to someone by e-mail, however, there are options. First, try splitting the file into smaller parts.

You can do that by using a standard Zip program such as the open-source 7-Zip (http://www.7—zip.org). Your recipient can then assemble the parts using the same program. Or you could upload the large file to a free transfer service such as YouSendIt (https://www.yousendit.com), which will send your recipient a link that, when clicked, will download the file.

Nokia launches E7

Nokia on Monday launched all-in-one business smartphone — Nokia E7 — priced at Rs.29,999. Called ‘the new age Communicator', the handset comes with Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync support alongside a 4-inch AMOLED touchscreen display and slide-out four-row QWERTY keyboard.

“The smartphone market in India is witnessing a phenomenal growth. Trends such as 3G, social networking and video will further drive this growth in the coming years. Consumers today seek a device that allows them to do a lot more — both in their personal and professional lives. Nokia E7 offers a superior ‘mobile office' experience coupled with compelling entertainment options,” Nokia India Vice-President and Managing Director D. Shivakumar told journalists here.

Nokia E7 comes pre-loaded with many applications including ‘Mail for Exchange', Quick office Dynamic Premium, Adobe PDF reader and F-Secure anti-theft software and is complemented by the full suite of multimedia and Ovi experiences.

“Keeping Indian consumers in mind, we have introduced over 10,000 pieces of locally relevant content on the Ovi Store, optimised for the Nokia E7,” said Mr. Shivakumar. Consumers can also purchase the Nokia E7 under an easy payment scheme and pay for it in three equal monthly instalments at zero per cent interest. Nokia has tied up with Citibank, HDFC Bank, Standard Chartered and ICICI Bank for the easy EMI scheme and the offer will be available to consumers with credit cards only from any of these banks.