March 24th, 2008
| China will impose strict security on the Olympic Games torch relay through restive Tibet to Mount Everest, as the government seeks to prevent any protests upsetting the symbolic display of national unity.
The torch to light the flame of the 2008 Games will be lit in Greece on Monday and reach the host city Beijing on March 31 to start a relay that passes through a number of countries.
As the date approaches, Beijing has stepped up its drive to rally support for the Games in the face of international attention on Tibet and pin the blame for unrest on the Dalai Lama, Tibetan Buddhism’s spiritual leader.
“The political monk’s statement of supporting the Beijing Olympic Games has been proven a lie; his followers boycotted the torch relay and resorted to violence in Lhasa and elsewhere,” the official Xinhua news agency said of the Dalai Lama.
“But their plot to sabotage the Beijing event is doomed to fail,” it said.
China alleges the Dalai Lama conspired to wreck the country’s Olympics and masterminded the wave of protests that began with peaceful rallies in Tibet’s capital Lhasa on March 10, the 49th anniversary of a failed uprising against Chinese rule.
Five days later, the marches erupted into a riot in Lhasa that China says killed 19. Since then, anti-government demonstrations have flared throughout ethnic Tibetan parts of China, leading to violence.
Tibetan groups say as many as 100 have died in the unrest. The government restricts foreign journalists from the area, making independent verification of the reports difficult
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March 19th, 2008
| Equities zoomed at the open on Wednesday extending a rally in stocks overseas after the US Federal Reserve cut interest rates by 75 basis points in an effort to provide more liquidity to crumbling financial markets. At 10:05 am, the Bombay Stock Exchange’s Sensex was up 538 points or 3.63 per cent at 15,371.32.
Jaiprakash Associates (up 10.02%), HDFC Bank (7.01%), ICICI Bank (5.33%), HDFC (4.66%) and Bharti Airtel (4.61%) were the biggest index gainers. The National Stock Exchange’s Nifty was up 154 points or 3.41 per cent at 4687.35.
“Though we have a gap up opening due to very positive global markets, at the same time, fresh short build up could be seen at higher levels (4750-4800 levels). The PCR (put-call-ratio) has come down to 0.83 indicates short built up is happening in call options. The market might face very strong resistance around 4800 levels of Nifty,” Standard Chartered - STCI Capital Market, said in a note.
Asian stocks surged on Wednesday as big interest rate cuts in the United States and surprisingly resilient results from two top Wall Street banks sent exporters higher and revived moribund financial shares. The Nikkei 225 was up 3.03 per cent, the Hang Seng rose 2.78 per cent and the Straits Times added 1.85 per cent.
US stocks on Tuesday blasted skyward, with the Dow Jones rocketing to its fourth-largest point gain ever after earnings from Goldman Sachs Group and Lehman Brothers Holdings proved better than expected and a rate cut by the Federal Reserve. The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 3.5 per cent, while the Nasdaq Composite and Standards & Poor’s 500 rose more than 4 per cent.
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March 18th, 2008
| A Japanese university plans to return about 250 pieces of original animation art to the Walt Disney Company that were mislaid in storage after traveling to Japan nearly five decades ago.
Disney said that the art — cels, backgrounds, preliminary paintings and storyboard sketches — was part of a collection that was handpicked by Walt Disney himself. It was sent to Japan in 1960 for a touring exhibition timed to the opening of the film “Sleeping Beauty.” The exhibition opened at Mitsukoshi Department Store in Tokyo in May of that year and traveled to 16 other stores throughout Japan.
“Walt wanted to explain every element of the animation process, so he chose artwork from all phases of production and a number of films,” said Lella Smith, creative director of the Disney Animation Research Library in Burbank, Calif., which preserves the studio’s artwork. “But the primary focus was ‘Sleeping Beauty.’ ”
Although most of the art is from that film, the collection also includes rare set-ups (cel and background combinations) from two Oscar-winning Silly Symphony cartoons: “Flowers and Trees” (1932), the first Technicolor cartoon and the first film to win the Academy Award for animated short film, and the landmark short “Three Little Pigs” (1933).
“The ‘Flowers and Trees’ set-up is an extremely important piece,” Ms. Smith said in an interview at her office in the library. She said other highlights included two backgrounds from the “Nutcracker Suite” and “Rite of Spring” sequences in the 1940 film “Fantasia.”
Among other striking works is a sequence of images by the designer Eyvind Earle that show how he created the stylized forest backgrounds for “Sleeping Beauty.” The delicate clusters of leaves and intricately textured bark on the trees reflect Mr. Earle’s interest in 15th-century French manuscripts and the painting of Van Eyck, and foreshadow his later serigraphs.
After the department store tour, Disney donated the artwork to the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo. But the material was not considered a good fit for its permanent collection, so the museum gave the pieces to Chiba University to enhance the study of the visual arts.
Chiba’s academic focus was on science, engineering and medicine, however, and the Disney art was consigned to a janitor’s closet and forgotten until it was found by chance four years ago. Although the artwork suffered some damage because of dampness, the rarest pieces were sealed in frames, which protected them somewhat.
After a year of restoration work by technicians at Disney’s Animation Research Library, some 200 works went on tour in Japan, along with 350 additional pieces lent by the studio in an exhibition titled “The Art of Disney.” The show toured seven museums around the country in 2006 and 2007, including the Tokyo Museum of Contemporary Art . At the end of its run, Chiba University offered to return the artwork to Disney.
In a statement Chiba University’s president, Toyoki Kozai, said, “The response to the exhibit gave us a new appreciation for the historical and artistic value of these works.”
Because the university was concerned about keeping them in good condition for the next generation, he said, it “concluded that entrusting them to Disney would be the best route to take.”
In return, Disney is giving Chiba University high-resolution digital copies of the artworks and $1 million for scholarships. But both sides said the deal should not be viewed as a sale.
In 1960 little value was placed on artwork from animated films, and cels were sold at Disneyland for a few dollars apiece. Today animation art is prized by collectors, and a top-quality Earle background from “Sleeping Beauty” might sell for $20,000 to $30,000. Given the rarity of some of the pieces, it is hard to assign a dollar value to the collection over all, because nothing comparable has been offered for sale.
“There is no way to put a price on these works — they represent our artistic heritage,” Ms. Smith, of Disney, said. “That said, their value as archival materials for study and research is very high.” She added that when the works were discovered, they did not have much commercial value because of years of accumulated damage from mold.
Mr. Kozai said that Chiba University would channel the donated money into its overall educational programs and into research on art and animation and what he called “the sound growth of children.”
.
source: nytimes
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March 17th, 2008
| Taber Spani, one of the best high school girls basketball players in the nation, holds hands with two opponents as a coach reads a Bible verse. It is the way each game in the National Christian Homeschool Basketball Championships begins.
This is more than a postseason tournament for the 300 boys and girls teams from 19 states that have competed here over the past six days. As the stands packed with parents and the baselines overrun by small children attest, this is also a jamboree to celebrate faith and family.
“You build friendships here with other girls who know what it’s like to be self-motivated and disciplined and share your values,” said Spani, a junior who plays for the Metro Academy of Olathe, Kan. “I wouldn’t trade this tournament for anything.”
Only a decade ago, home-school athletics was considered little more than organized recess for children without traditional classrooms. Now, home-school players are tracked by scouts, and dozens of them have accepted scholarships to colleges as small as Blue Mountain in Mississippi and as well known as Iowa State
Women’s basketball tournament is selected Monday, there will be plenty more evidence that standout players can be plucked from a prayer circle as well as from a playground. Rachel McLeod of Liberty University, Corrie Hester of Oral Roberts and Shalin Spani of Kansas State, Taber’s older sister, all played in the national home-school tournament.
Taber Spani, however, is the movement’s most celebrated player. Two coaching giants in women’s college basketball, Connecticut’s Geno Auriemma and Tennessee’s Pat Summitt, who between them have won 12 national titles, are pursuing her.
An estimated two million children are schooled at home, and only 18 states have laws that grant them access to athletic teams at public schools. So it was perhaps inevitable that home-school programs and tournaments developed.
“As the home-school movement has gotten older, there has been much more demand for extracurricular activities,” said Ian M. Slatter, a spokesman for the Home School Legal Defense Association. “Parents had already crossed the hurdle of educating children at home, so now they have turned their energy and resources to athletics.”
Many of the best teams here were founded by some of the home-school athletic movement’s pioneers. In 1992, Tom Sanders bought some reversible jerseys and founded the Homeschool Christian Youth Association Warriors in Houston so his 14-year-old son could play organized basketball with his friends. He had to plead with small Christian schools, even reform schools, to schedule 14 games that season.
By 1998, Sanders’s program had sent Kevin Johnson, a 6-foot-8 center, to the University of Tulsa on a scholarship. Before this tournament, the Warriors had a 33-3 record against some of the best high school teams in Texas. Sanders’s son Jesse will play for Rice next season. The Warriors were represented by 12 teams and more than 100 players last week.
Likewise, Tim Flatt has built the Oklahoma City Storm into a feared opponent among the state’s high schools the past 10 years. His program has 125 boys and girls, ages 8 to 18, on 11 teams. As with most home-school groups, it was built on word of mouth and financed out of parents’ pockets and the occasional bake sale.
“We went from not being very good to not being scheduled again after we beat some big schools,” said Flatt, whose varsity boys team was 20-6 this season. “The culture has changed, and there is less of a stigma if you lose to a home-school team. It’s not a slap in the face now when we beat a high school team. They know we make them better for their state playoffs.”
In 2001, Flatt, a retired sports memorabilia dealer, took the National Christian Homeschool Basketball Championships here. He wanted to create not only a basketball showcase, but also a destination for families. He understood that fielding a home-school team remained an independent and often taxing endeavor. Rounding up opponents is a grind, as is raising as much as $20,000 annually for uniforms, renting gyms and traveling to tournaments.
“A lot of home-school teams play in small gyms, church gyms, and they play against weaker competition,” Flatt said. “They don’t get to experience something at a national scale. I wanted to make the kids feel like they were getting big-time treatment, and their parents want to take a week of vacation to come here.”
Flatt’s vision was on full display Wednesday at the 5,000-seat Sawyer Center at Southern Nazarene University. It was standing room only as parents and children shared pizza and watched the National Christian Homeschool all-American boys and girls teams compete in all-star games, as well as 3-point and dunk contests.
source: nytimes
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Tags:athletics bloga: basket ball COMMON WEALTH Energy Entertainment health INDIA tournament youth |
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March 17th, 2008
| Taber Spani, one of the best high school girls basketball players in the nation, holds hands with two opponents as a coach reads a Bible verse. It is the way each game in the National Christian Homeschool Basketball Championships begins.
This is more than a postseason tournament for the 300 boys and girls teams from 19 states that have competed here over the past six days. As the stands packed with parents and the baselines overrun by small children attest, this is also a jamboree to celebrate faith and family.
“You build friendships here with other girls who know what it’s like to be self-motivated and disciplined and share your values,” said Spani, a junior who plays for the Metro Academy of Olathe, Kan. “I wouldn’t trade this tournament for anything.”
Only a decade ago, home-school athletics was considered little more than organized recess for children without traditional classrooms. Now, home-school players are tracked by scouts, and dozens of them have accepted scholarships to colleges as small as Blue Mountain in Mississippi and as well known as Iowa State
When the field for the women’s basketball tournament is selected Monday, there will be plenty more evidence that standout players can be plucked from a prayer circle as well as from a playground. Rachel McLeod of Liberty University, Corrie Hester of Oral Roberts and Shalin Spani of Kansas State, Taber’s older sister, all played in the national home-school tournament.
Taber Spani, however, is the movement’s most celebrated player. Two coaching giants in women’s college basketball, Connecticut’s Geno Auriemma and Tennessee’s Pat Summitt, who between them have won 12 national titles, are pursuing her.
An estimated two million children are schooled at home, and only 18 states have laws that grant them access to athletic teams at public schools. So it was perhaps inevitable that home-school programs and tournaments developed.
“As the home-school movement has gotten older, there has been much more demand for extracurricular activities,” said Ian M. Slatter, a spokesman for the Home School Legal Defense Association. “Parents had already crossed the hurdle of educating children at home, so now they have turned their energy and resources to athletics.”
Many of the best teams here were founded by some of the home-school athletic movement’s pioneers. In 1992, Tom Sanders bought some reversible jerseys and founded the Homeschool Christian Youth Association Warriors in Houston so his 14-year-old son could play organized basketball with his friends. He had to plead with small Christian schools, even reform schools, to schedule 14 games that season.
By 1998, Sanders’s program had sent Kevin Johnson, a 6-foot-8 center, to the University of Tulsa on a scholarship. Before this tournament, the Warriors had a 33-3 record against some of the best high school teams in Texas. Sanders’s son Jesse will play for Rice next season. The Warriors were represented by 12 teams and more than 100 players last week.
Likewise, Tim Flatt has built the Oklahoma City Storm into a feared opponent among the state’s high schools the past 10 years. His program has 125 boys and girls, ages 8 to 18, on 11 teams. As with most home-school groups, it was built on word of mouth and financed out of parents’ pockets and the occasional bake sale.
“We went from not being very good to not being scheduled again after we beat some big schools,” said Flatt, whose varsity boys team was 20-6 this season. “The culture has changed, and there is less of a stigma if you lose to a home-school team. It’s not a slap in the face now when we beat a high school team. They know we make them better for their state playoffs.”
In 2001, Flatt, a retired sports memorabilia dealer, took the National Christian Homeschool Basketball Championships here. He wanted to create not only a basketball showcase, but also a destination for families. He understood that fielding a home-school team remained an independent and often taxing endeavor. Rounding up opponents is a grind, as is raising as much as $20,000 annually for uniforms, renting gyms and traveling to tournaments.
“A lot of home-school teams play in small gyms, church gyms, and they play against weaker competition,” Flatt said. “They don’t get to experience something at a national scale. I wanted to make the kids feel like they were getting big-time treatment, and their parents want to take a week of vacation to come here.”
Flatt’s vision was on full display Wednesday at the 5,000-seat Sawyer Center at Southern Nazarene University. It was standing room only as parents and children shared pizza and watched the National Christian Homeschool all-American boys and girls teams compete in all-star games, as well as 3-point and dunk contests.
source: newyork times
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March 14th, 2008
| Researchers at the University of Tokyo said on Wednesday that they have succeeded in generating kidneys and pancreases in mice that had been reprogrammed to grow without such organs, by injecting embryonic stem cells from healthy mice into fertilised eggs.
The outcome of the research at the university’s Institute of Medical Science raises hopes for producing human organs from stem cells, in addition to the nerve cells and cardiac muscles already possible.
A potential application of this technique in the future includes reproducing in reprogrammed swine the pancreas of a diabetic patient using stem cells produced from the patient’s skin tissue, they said.
The researchers injected embryonic stem cells from healthy mice into eggs of genetically engineered mice that do not grow kidneys and pancreases three days after fertilization and implanted the eggs into surrogate mice.
The newborn mice turned out to have kidneys and pancreases and the researchers confirmed that they derived from the embryonic stem cells while vascular tracts and nerves were those of the host mice. Both types of organs functioned normally, the researchers said.
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March 12th, 2008
| US-based Aerion Corporation has indicated that it has secured orders for five of their Supersonic Business Jets (SBJ) from India
While the company has declined to name the businessmen who have ordered the jets, the market is abuzz with rumours about the usual suspects: the Ambanis, Vijay Mallya. At $80 million apiece (about Rs 325 crore), it’s not a toy everyone can afford. But then not everyone needs to jet around at mach 1.6, or 1.6 times the speed of sound.
Peter Smales, executive director, ExecuJet, the sales representatives for Aerion, said: “The first flight of the aircraft is scheduled for 2012 with deliveries starting in late 2014.”
“With time being as important as it is in business, a few hours could mean the difference between deal or no deal. Many Indian companies are now running businesses which are quite global and this product should bring value to them.” He added that the orders have been secured through payment of an advance of a quarter of a million dollars each.
Over the past year, some of India’s billionaires have built up fleets comparable to small airlines. Mukesh Ambani inducted an Airbus Corporate Jet last year and has also ordered a Boeing Business Jet. A Reliance spokesperson refused to comment on the SBJ.
Not to be left behind, Anil Ambani too has ordered birds like the Gulfstream V and Falcon Jet, besides owning other aircraft, including a Bombardier Global Express. Vijay Mallya has been living the good life with four planes, including an Airbus Corporate Jet, Boeing 727, Gulfstream and Hawker.
While Ratan Tata has been doing most of his flying in a Falcon 2000, the Tatas have not yet been as active in acquiring bigger aircraft.
Aerion Corp estimates a market for around 300 to 400 SBJs globally. Of these 50-100 would be used by the militaries and governments around the world. The company is expecting further orders from India and plans to open an office in the country soon.
The aircraft, which would touch speeds of up to mach 1.6, is still under development. Aerion will not manufacture the aircraft by itself and will announce a partner later this year.
As most countries have regulations controlling the use of supersonic aircraft over land, aircraft like these will have to cruise at altitudes of 51,000 feet. The regulations are meant to protect structures from sonic booms — shocks caused by the supersonic flight — which generates enormous amounts of sound energy.
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March 11th, 2008
Data care solutions provider, Unistal Systems, has announced the launch and availability of its new software product called “Locate Laptop”.
As the name suggests, “Locate Laptop” powered by proprietary WebSniff technology can locate stolen laptops leveraging on the World Wide Web. “Locate Laptop” not only tracks and recovers stolen laptops, but also deters theft.
When a laptop is stolen, it’s not just the physical loss of a machine, but also of valuable and sensitive information that it stores.
According to Alok Gupta, director of Unistal Systems, laptop thefts and loss are on an incessant rise, and have led to serious damages for professionals and corporates. About 97 percent of stolen PCs are never recovered, and 57 percent of corporate crimes are linked to them.
In case of corporates, “Locate Laptop” keeps track of the whereabouts of each employee while traveling, and the moment he logs in via the Web, a report is generated with his complete details and is sent to a designated individual within the organization. This is done without the knowledge of the employee, so as to maintain privacy.
Users have to just install “Locate Laptop” on their PCs. It resides and operates in stealth mode. In case of loss or theft, users may login to their Web-based Personal Tracking and Monitoring Page through www.locatelaptop.com to view and trace where the laptop has been accessed from.
As soon as the offender connects the laptop to the Internet, the WebSniff technology informs the owner about the city and IP address where it is being accessed. It continues to track all the locations whenever the offender connects to the Internet. And the laptop can be retrieved with the help of local law enforcement authorities.
Since theft is almost impossible to eradicate, consumers can at least work towards minimizing the impact of theft through the timely recovery of stolen hardware.
“Locate Laptop” is available online at http://www.locatelaptop.com for a price of Rs 3,000 per license.
source: google news
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March 11th, 2008
Data care solutions provider, Unistal Systems, has announced the launch and availability of its new software product called “Locate Laptop”.
As the name suggests, “Locate Laptop” powered by proprietary WebSniff technology can locate stolen laptops leveraging on the World Wide Web. “Locate Laptop” not only tracks and recovers stolen laptops, but also deters theft.
When a laptop is stolen, it’s not just the physical loss of a machine, but also of valuable and sensitive information that it stores.
According to Alok Gupta, director of Unistal Systems, laptop thefts and loss are on an incessant rise, and have led to serious damages for professionals and corporates. About 97 percent of stolen PCs are never recovered, and 57 percent of corporate crimes are linked to them.
In case of corporates, “Locate Laptop” keeps track of the whereabouts of each employee while traveling, and the moment he logs in via the Web, a report is generated with his complete details and is sent to a designated individual within the organization. This is done without the knowledge of the employee, so as to maintain privacy.
Users have to just install “Locate Laptop” on their PCs. It resides and operates in stealth mode. In case of loss or theft, users may login to their Web-based Personal Tracking and Monitoring Page through www.locatelaptop.com to view and trace where the laptop has been accessed from.
As soon as the offender connects the laptop to the Internet, the WebSniff technology informs the owner about the city and IP address where it is being accessed. It continues to track all the locations whenever the offender connects to the Internet. And the laptop can be retrieved with the help of local law enforcement authorities.
Since theft is almost impossible to eradicate, consumers can at least work towards minimizing the impact of theft through the timely recovery of stolen hardware.
“Locate Laptop” is available online at http://www.locatelaptop.com for a price of Rs 3,000 per license.
source: google news
http://www.commonwealthtv.tv
http://blogs.mindbodynsoul.com
Tags:blogs: laptop CAREERS internet SCIENCE software stolen Technology unistal systems |
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March 10th, 2008
| Members of India’s Davis Cup squad have agreed to play under captain Leander Paes in next month’s zonal tie against Japan but are still demanding his sacking.
“With our only goal being playing for the country and with all other issues very much on the table, we look forward to playing Japan at home in April,” the players said in a statement.
“And just to reiterate, the letter still stands,” it added.
Mahesh Bhupathi backed a revolt against his former doubles partner by younger team mates Prakash Amritraj and Rohan Bopanna who threatened to boycott unless Paes was replaced.
But the federation backed Cup stalwart Paes by postponing any decision at its executive committee meeting last week.
In a stand-off which could hamper India’s preparation for the Beijing Olympics, the Davis Cup players accused Paes of undermining team spirit and running them down in the media.
Paes’ decision not to field Amritraj, son of former Davis Cup player Vijay, for the opening singles in an Asian zonal win over Uzbekistan last month sparked the controversy.
Paes, who won a singles bronze medal at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, had accused Amritraj of lacking commitment, saying a stomach ailment before the tie was down to the player’s decision to attend a party.
Amritraj, who insisted he was fit to play, clinched the decisive reverse singles after he was fielded by Paes.
Bhupathi, Amritraj, Bopanna signed the letter calling for Paes to be sacked.
“Having grown up with this dream (of playing for the country), nothing pained us more than writing the letter we did to the All India Tennis Association regarding Davis Cup,” the players said in the statement read out by Vijay Amritraj, who brokered the deal with the federation.
“It was done after a lot of thought and with a heavy heart.” (Reporting by Sanjay Rajan; Editing by Ed Osmond
spource: google news
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