New Delhi, September 09: Kenwood Corp, a leading developer and manufacturer of audio and video products for home, car and professional use, Wednesday said it would begin introducing 10 new car entertainment systems in India this month.
Every model features connectivity to external devices and advanced music file search, and will deliver high-quality sound, the company said in a statement.
—Agencies
New Delhi, September 09: Nikon India on Wednesday launched two digital cameras – D3000 and D300s. The Nikon D3000 10.2 megapixel comes with an extensive retouch menu, enabling users to edit photos without a computer and offers an 11-point autofocus system.
The Nikon D300s 12.3-megapixel camera offers 51-point autofocus system and faster seven frame-per-second of continuous shooting. The D3000 will retail for Rs.30,450 with the kit priced at Rs.37,950, while the D300s will cost Rs.109,950.
—Agencies
Washington, September 09: Space shuttle Discovery and its seven astronauts have pulled away from the International Space Station (ISS) to head back to Earth.
Discovery’s departure on Tuesday ended after a nine-day stay at the ISS, where it delivered more than 18,000 pounds of equipment and supplies.
It delivered a freezer to store research samples, a new sleeping compartment and a treadmill named after television comedian Stephen Colbert, host of “The Colbert Report.”
Washington, September 09: The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) needs an extra $3 billion a year in a bid to conduct meaningful missions, a White House panel has said.
“The committee finds that no plan compatible with the [Financial Year] 2010 budget profile permits human exploration to continue in any meaningful way,” a panel convened by the White House to review human spaceflight plans said on Tuesday.
Tehran, September 09: Iranian university students at Qazvin’s Azad University — northwest of Tehran — have designed and produced a new two-seat electric car.
A fifteen-member team of university students worked on the new plug-in car for 10 months.
The new car, named the Parax, weighs 450 kg and is lighter than another electric car that was unveiled at Tehran’s Khaje Nasir Toosi University last week.
The Qasedak-e-Nasir (Dandelion of Nasir) weighed 700 kg.
London, September 08: Moths, caterpillars and fruit flies could soon take the place of millions of mice used every year by scientists testing drugs, researchers said Tuesday.
Biologists have discovered that certain key cells in mammals and insects react in the same way when attacked by infections and produce similar chemical reactions to fight them off.
The findings could mean up to 80 percent of the mice used for testing new pharmaceutical compounds may no longer be needed, offering drug firms sizeable time and cost savings.
Florida, September 08: A pair of spacewalking astronauts from the U.S. shuttle Discovery worked outside the International Space Station on Saturday to lay power cables for the orbital outpost’s last connecting node.
The node, named Tranquility, was due to arrive in February, leaving NASA with four supply runs to outfit the $100 billion station before the space shuttles are retired.
The last flights will include delivery of a Russian docking module and the $1.5 billion Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, a particle physics experiment involving 60 agencies in 16 countries.
France, September 08: Robots that can make their own decisions have so far been confined to science fiction movies, but a child-sized figure with big eyes and a white face is trying hard to turn fiction into reality.
Its name is iCub and scientists are hoping it will learn how to adapt its behavior to changing circumstances, offering new insights into the development of human consciousness.
Six versions of iCub exist in laboratories across Europe, where scientists are painstakingly tweaking its electronic brain to make it capable of learning, just like a human child.
London, September 08: The Beatles take a step closer to selling their music online on Wednesday with the simultaneous release of the band’s re-mastered catalog and the MTV video game The Beatles: Rock Band.
The Beatles collection, available from 09/09/09, is expected to dominate the charts in key markets like the United States and Britain, bringing a windfall to the group’s label EMI Music and the Fab Four’s company Apple Corps Ltd.
Baby chimps are better at controlling their emotions than human babies of a comparable age, which could help to explain why some babies cry so much and are so inconsolable, a study has found.
Scientists investigating the facial expressions of young chimpanzees have found that baby chimps almost always cry for a reason, in contrast to some of the crying of human babies.
The researchers believe the finding may result from difference in brain development between the two species, with human babies being born with slightly less developed brains than chimps.
A week after Chandrayaan-1’s sudden end, 10 scientists from international space agencies met on Monday at the Indian Space Research Organisation headquarters here to review the data the satellite collected during its 312-day odyssey of 3,400 orbits around the Moon.
Of the 11 payloads on board Chandrayaan, six were developed by international space agencies and institutes: the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the European Space Agency, and the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.
Cape Canaveral, September 08: The astronauts aboard the orbiting shuttle and station packed up Buzz Lightyear on Monday for the ride home from “infinity and beyond.”
The 12-inch action figure has been at the international space station for more than a year.
Mission Control asked Discovery’s crew to do a final check to make certain Buzz was safely stowed on the shuttle, before the hatches between the linked spacecraft were sealed late Monday night. The shuttle will depart Tuesday.
Beijing, September 08: Google is again fully up and running in China after a row in which authorities accused the US internet giant of illegally spreading pornographic content, the firm’s outgoing regional chief Kaifu Lee said on Monday.
Google restored in China after porn row, ex-chief Kaifu Lee says
China had accused Google of illegally spreading pornographic content
New Delhi, September 07: A social networking website for the elderly is helping Internet-savvy seniors in India battle loneliness and make new friends with the click of a mouse and in the comfort of their own homes.
Verdurez.com (www.verdurez.com), described by its creator as a Facebook for those aged 55-years and above, has around 4,000 registered users who blog, chat, read health news or play puzzles online.
Traditionally, several generations of one family have lived under the same roof, with the grandparents often taking care of their grandchildren while the parents go to work.
Brussels, September 07: Google, the Internet search group, defended its scanning and publishing of millions of books online on Monday by saying the project was making finding information on the Web more democratic.
The Californian company struck a deal with author and publisher groups in the United States earlier this year, allowing it to copy books for the Internet.
New Delhi, September 07: ISROThe Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has finally admitted that country’s first lunar mission Chandarayaan-1 was abruptly terminated due to a miscalculation of the Moon’s temperature at the orbit height from 100km to 200km.
The height was raised to get a better view of moon’s surface that led to faulty thermal protection and finally killed the mission.
Helsinki, September 06: Faced with increased competition from up-and-coming rivals, Finnish telecom giant Nokia plans to launch a slew of new products this year but analysts say it faces a tough battle to hold on to its position as the world’s number one mobile phone manufacturer.
To fight back against Apple’s iPhone and RIM’s Blackberry, Nokia announced plans to launch three new smartphones with touch screens, a portable notebook PC, and will tie up with Microsoft to use its popular Office software on its handsets.
London, September 06: Apple’s iPhone will soon officially go on sale in China, more than two years after its US debut, but it may not make much of a splash, with smuggled units and similar devices available, analysts say.
China Unicom late last month announced a multi-year deal to sell the trendy smartphone in the world’s largest mobile market of more than 700 million subscribers, starting in the fourth quarter of 2009.
Hanover, September 06: USB sticks outfitted for eSATA ports can save time.
Data stored on those sticks can be read much faster than on traditional USB sticks, reports German computer magazine c’t.
Users will need a computer with a combo USB/eSATA port. That lets the tiny storage devices draw power from the USB portion while transferring the files via eSATA. The sticks are roughly half as expensive as standard sticks with comparable capacity. Several producers offer units with capacities of up to 64 gigabytes.
—–Agencies
Hanover, September 06: Wireless internet access is rapidly becoming the standard for online access. In Germany alone, 40 per cent of all households accessed the internet wirelessly in 2008, reports BITKOM, a German industry association.
These wireless local area networks (WLAN) can let people access the internet from computers anywhere in their home – the living room, the garden or on a balcony – without going to the trouble of plugging their computer into a phone or cable outlet. But that doesn’t mean these connections are always without problems.
Washington, September 06: Astronauts from the US space shuttle Discovery ventured out of the International Space Station (ISS) on Sunday for a third spacewalk that will be the last of their mission.
NASA astronaut Danny Olivas and European Space Agency astronaut Christer Fuglesang left the ISS at 0209 IST for what is expected to be a 6.5 hour spacewalk, the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration said.
The pair are expected to “deploy an attachment system” and “replace a device designed to help the station determine its position relative to the Earth,” NASA said.
New Delhi, September 06: India may lose one of its crucial lifelines — the south west monsoon, which brings rains across the country during the summers, in the next 150 years, warns a new study by Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology.
The phenomenon is the result of global warming which has led to increase in the rate of temperature rise over Arabian Sea, researchers say.
This rise is reducing temperature difference between land and sea, known as Temperature Gradient (TG), responsible for attracting rain causing winds from Arabian Sea towards Indian mainland.
Chennai, September 06: Further research was being carried out for the Chandrayaan-2 project, based on the quality data and photographs taken by Chandrayaan-1, whose mission came to an abrupt end last week, a top ISRO official said today.
“We have received about 70,000 photographs and data from Chandrayaan-1. Based on these data, further research is being carried out for the Chandrayaan-2 project, which is expected to be completed by 2012”, Project Director of the Chandrayaan-1 mission M Annadurai told reporters here.
Switzerland, September 06: A MODEL that replicates the functions of the human brain is feasible in 10 years according to neuroscientist Professor Henry Markram of the Brain Mind Institute in Switzerland. “I absolutely believe it is technically and biologically possible. The only uncertainty is financial. It is an extremely expensive project and not all is yet secured.”
Geneva, September 05: Countries could speed up their action against climate change if they tackled air pollution as well as carbon dioxide emissions, the UN Environment Programme said on Friday.
UNEP executive director Achim Steiner said there is strong evidence that the world’s climate is changing faster than initially expected, adding to the urgency for concrete measures against global warming.
“It is… becoming clear that the world must also deploy all available means to combat climate change,” Steiner said.