INDIANS MOMS ONLINE

NEW DELHI -- India's Tata Motors plans to unveil its ultracheap $2,500 car at an auto show here next month, the company said today.

Analysts believe the car may force other manufacturers to lower their own pricing.

While the price has created a buzz, critics say the vehicle will lead to millions more cars hitting choked Indian roads, adding to mounting air and noise pollution problems. Others have said Tata will have to sacrifice quality and safety standards to meet the price tag.
The four-door car, which will have a rear engine, is expected to go on sale in the later part of 2008, the company said in a statement.

Company chairman Ratan Tata has said the car will be the least polluting vehicle on the Indian roads and meet necessary safety standards.

Initially, the company plans to make between 250,000 to 500,000 of the cars each year, Tata told The Associated Press in a recent interview. While the base model will cost 100,000 rupees, the company will offer two variants with added features, he said.

German auto consulting firm CSM Worldwide has said the new car could help Tata Motors emerge as the country's largest manufacturer of cars and light commercial vehicles by 2013.

Currently, Tata Motors has a 17 percent share of India's market.

Besides the ultracheap car, Tata Motors will also display several new cars that it plans to bring to the Indian market in collaboration with Italian auto maker Fiat Spa. The auto show in New Delhi opens Jan. 9.SOURCE-detnews.com
Will Tata's Rs. One Lakh car be the Sitara of our eyes?
Yesterday, we came to know about a Rs. One lakh car. The car will transport four people, and is supposed to be a bridge between two-wheelers and cars. Only, this wasn't Ratan Tata's famous people's car.

The Sitara, the four-seater car in question is hardly a car. It wasn't made in India either. Launched by Habib Motors in Pakistan, this is a bare-bones four-wheeler. Sporting a 175 cc engine, the Sitara is an open top city-cart. The car runs on petrol, has a 10-litre fuel tank and a four speed manual transmission. It can achieve a top speed of 60 kmph.

We can be almost sure Tata's proposed Rs 1 lakh car will not look anything like this. It will be a no-frills car, yes, but it definitely will not look like a cart, or a four-wheeler autoriskshaw. This is not to take away anything from Habib Motor's heroic attempt. Maybe it is not a proper car or a microcar, but perhaps there is a market in Pakistan for a rickshaw-scooter-cart crossover. I have no clue. Look at it as a four-wheeled motorcycle or scooter, and perhaps all those who have attached sidecars to their scooters and travel with an entire nuclear family in it in India could buy it.We are pretty sure this is nowhere near Tata's car because of one reason - coming out with something like the Sitara would have been too easy for Tata, and they would have already done it if they wanted to.

The latest confirmation on the Rs. 1 lakh small car project came from Ratan Tata himself after the launch of the 'no-frills' hotel. "The Rs 1-lakh car is being developed by us. It will hit the road in three years," Ratan Tata said. It would probably take Tata Motors three months to develop an Indian Sitara. Three years is a reasonable period in which a decent, socially acceptable microcar can be developed. The proposed peoples' car would not be a stripped down version of any existing car. Rather, it would be a ground-breaking experience for Tata Motors, Ratan Tata had said. He had also said that the Rs, One lakh car would meet global safety norms and emission standards. That is going to be one tough task.

Two questions arise: Will it become a reality? If it does, will a sizeable number of people buy it?

Tata Motor's competitors do not - at least publicly - believe it is practical. Business Standard said that 'with taxes accounting for almost half a car's ex-factory cost, Tata will have to produce a car within Rs 70,000 for it to be priced at Rs 1 lakh in the market. At present, they say, it is not possible to make a car for less than Rs 1.5 lakh and costs will only increase over the next five years.' Maruti Udyog's Jagdish said that he did not believe it is possible for Maruti to bring out a car model that costs less than Rs. 1.5 lakh. In the next few years, the possibility of having to meet Euro III or IV emission norms would make it even costlier, according to him.

Hyundai said that it did not believe it is possible for such a car to meet safety standards.
Let us look at Tata's past to find an answer for this.

Remember the one year before the Indica was launched? We had read it over and over in the newspapers and magazines that Tata was working on a car that had the space of a Hindustan Motors Ambassador at the price of a Maruti 800.

Finally, what did we get? We got the Indica, which had nearly the interior space of an Ambassador, but the price was not met. The car cost less than other comparable cars in the market, and was excellent value for money. Seems like that was a case of good intentions that didn't work out as well as expected.

Consider that prices now range from Rs 40,000 to Rs 60,000 for your average 125cc-180cc motorcycle. These prices are inching up. The top-end price for this type of motorcycle would be Rs 70,000 to Rs 80,000 in three years, which is when Tata is expected to launch its Rs. 1 lakh car. The price difference between this kind of a two-wheeler and Tata's car would be Rs 30,000. It is unlikely that Tata would be able to meet that target. Also remember that it has not been specified in cast-iron terms that the car would cost Rs 1,00,000 THEN. Accounting for inflation, Rs. One lakh in 2007 would be something like Rs 85-90,000 today? (I am bad at this - would appreciate if some reader can give me better figures!) Also, consider that most likely, the car would have a larger engine leading to higher costs.

There have been reasonably good microcars with 600-800 cc engines. Tata Motors do not employ loudmouths, and it is quite possible that they may produce a brilliant automobile. It is just the Rs. One lakh that we are doubtful about. So what if it costs a little more? The critical thing is to make it affordable to those who would not otherwise buy a car.

Next question: Will anyone buy it?

Ah, wish we had a psychologist working with us.

This is the real 0.1 million rupee question! Would it be embarrassing to be seen in a car everyone and his dog costs only Rs One lakh, less than some two-wheelers expected to be in the market by then?

Our guess: If the car looks obviously 'no-frills', no. Indians are pretty much status conscious, and few would want to see the smirks. If the build quality is good, it may sell in some villages, but then it won't be the 'people's car' we expect.

Let's say it costs what Tata says it would, but looks stylish or cute. Things change then. A combination of price, apparent safety, looks which you could fall in love with, no autorickshaw sounds, sufficient power and we may have a cult car that people can't resist buying.

Our prediction: That is Tata's chance. Build a car that costs around Rs one lakh, meet safety and emission standards, but make it look adorable. When you have that lovability factor in a four-wheeler, it has proven irresistible for cars worldwide. That is Tata's only chance to make people forget it costs only Rs One Lakh. Speed does not matter, neither does a large engine. Aren't autorickshaws the fastest off a traffic signal and the quickest way to reach point B from point A in most of the cities?!

With the holiday shopping season in full swing, the battle between Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft over which company will win the end-of-year sales crown is heating up.
Sony's PlayStation 3 sales nearly quadrupled in November at the expense of Nintendo's Wii and Microsoft's Xbox 360. The launch of a new 40-GB model along with price reductions buoyed the PS3, shuttling it beyond the Wii to earn top consoles sales in Japan for the first time.

"The Wii will be the big winner in 2007, but does anybody think Sony is going to be an also-ran player in this market?" asked Mike Goodman, a video game analyst at Yankee Group. "When all is said and done, it's going to be a very close race and different products that are going to dominate in different marketplaces." Games by the Numbers

Nintendo, however, is still king of the next-generation consoles in the U.S. Nintendo sold 981,000 Wii consoles in November, according to the NPD Group. That marks the Wii's highest tally since the console first launched in November 2006. Nintendo could have sold more, if there weren't Wii shortages across the nation. Microsoft's Xbox 360, meanwhile, sold 770,000 units.

For its part, Sony sold 466,000 PS3 units, NPD reported. That's nearly four times the number it sold just a month earlier. Sony slashed the price of its PS3 by $100 in October, peddling the units for $499. The company also launched a new $399 40-GB model last month.

"In the end, it will be a race of percentage points. We won't have a market completely dominated by Sony like we saw in the last generation where the PS2 had 60-plus percent market share," Goodman said. "But in the long run, it's still Sony's market to lose and there's an installed base of 140 million units that says why."

Long Battle Ahead

Sony figures it will sell more than 11 million PS3 units globally by the end of 2007. Analysts said those who are dooming the PS3 are failing to look at the product lifecycle for Sony consoles. Sony's consoles tend to have a 10-year lifespan. In fact, Sony sold 10 million units of the PlayStation 2 in 2007 and projects it will sell another 10 million next year.

"When the Wii and Xbox 360 are gone, Sony is still going to be selling 10 million PS3s a year," Goodman predicted. "For now, they are still making a killing on the PS2." Indeed, the profit margins on the PS2 are healthy, the game royalties are strong, and new software is still being introduced for the platform, Goodman said.

"Sony wanted to sell 20 million units like it did with the PS3 launch. Sony didn't intend to be in third place, but when you look at it in the long run, it's not a bad story for Sony. In some ways, the PS3 is a console that's built for 2010, not necessarily for 2007,Goodman concluded.
SOURCE-yahoo news

1. Hydrogen
Like the new BMW TV ads say, their still-unavailable Hydrogen 7 is "ready for the world… when the world is ready." But progress on California's "hydrogen highway" hasn't quite hit the numbers supporters hoped it would. Fuel-cell technology has alternately been a darling of Wall Street and Detroit for almost a decade now, but we've yet to see many hydrogen-powered vehicles in the wild. The technology seems like an environmentalist's wet dream (literally), with hydrogen bonding with oxygen to produce power and water — and no greenhouse-gas emissions to speak of. But building a new series of hydrogen power stations hasn't been as easy as once thought, and people still think "Hindenberg" when they think "hydrogen," although it seems to be a safe enough technology that transit authorities uses hundreds of hydrogen-powered buses to move us around urban centers. Still, hydrogen's ultimate downfall may be battery technologies and other clean fuels that could overtake it before it has the chance to get wide adoption.

2. Biofuels
This is a fractious bunch of youngsters, with fraternal twins biodiesel and corn-based ethanol trying to keep its younger sibling — cellulosic ethanol — from hogging the family photos. Enormous amounts of capital have flowed into developing both biodiesel (Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen is funding the biggest biodiesel refinery in the country in Washington State) and corn-based ethanol (Sun Microsystems founder and venture capital Vinod Khosla has made big bets in this space). Converting vehicles and power plants to these renewable fuels that act and burn like fossil fuels has certainly made much headway. Heck, you could be burning an ethanol blend in your car right now and not even know it, and installing conversion kits for biodiesel makes putting on new spinning rims look tough.

3. Solar
Solar is probably the sexiest of the renewables, what with its black shiny arrays, tilting half-interested at Old Sol. Between tax breaks to install solar panels and new sleeker technology that makes your neighbors want to say "cool roof, man," solar is beginning to take off. Thin-film technology — allowing you to bend the silicon components into more flexible shapes — and increases in solar-cell efficiency mean you can install solar in the Northeast more viably. And momentum is there among legislators as well. In Colorado, the state has passed a "renewable portfolio standard," meaning that not only do utilities need to produce a great deal of renewable energy in the coming decades or face penalties, but they also have to buy a portion of that renewable energy from its customers with solar roofs.

4. Wind
Windmills have come a long way from Kansas farm country and being Don Quixote's nemesis. Wind power first took off — as did many renewable energy sources — in the late '70s and early '80s with the last spike in the price of oil. But after that it stalled until fairly recently. With many states forcing utilities into renewable energy production, this has spurred great technological advances in wind power, and now wind projects are installed or planned in almost every state. The era of having your own windmill, and going "off the grid," is also back, with personal household models costing under $20,000, assuming you have forgiving neighbors. And efficiencies in technology mean you don't need a hurricane to generate a lot of power. But wind's popularity has also created a bottleneck — estimates are that you'll be waiting longer for a wind turbine (about 18 months) than you will for a black Prius.

5. Batteries
They're not really a fuel, but they're the "universal solvent" to our current rate of use of fossil fuels. Technically, we still burn more dinosaur soup making electricity for buildings than on the road, but all those cars and trucks we sit in use energy in other ways, too. They require gas stations everywhere, and that means yet more trucks to haul three grades of gas and Cinnabons to highway rest stops across the country. But new battery technology will last longer and charge more quickly, making it possible to burn the right fuel in the right place, rather than transporting the wrong fuel all over the place. So maybe as you drive from Seattle to Boston, you'll top up your electric or hybrid car with tidal power in Seattle, wind power in Colorado, cellulosic ethanol in Nebraska, biogasoline in Illinois and biomass to carry you into Boston.

6. Tides
Think about how it feels to have someone chucking a bucket of water in your face, then multiply that by several hundred million, and you get an idea of the energy going untapped around our coastlines every day. Test facilities for harnessing tidal power in Canada's Bay of Fundy have been around since the '70s, and San Francisco will be putting in a high-tech tidal plant at the Golden Gate soon. There are certainly environmental concerns around tidal power, since these projects usually involve some kind of plant at the narrow mouth of a bay or inlet, where the water is moving fastest and most violently, meaning it's not so great for the fish or birds nearby. But the future of ocean power is wave technology, where floating platforms and buoys, dozens of miles offshore, harvest the energy of wave motion. Think of an upside-down yo-yo, except your finger is an anchor at the bottom of the ocean, and the spinning spool floats on the surface. As each wave passes, the yo-yo gets pulled up, and pulls your finger… or a turbine.

7. Garbage
Meet the newest member of the energy family: last year's trash. While incinerators haven't really been widespread since the '60s because of pollution concerns, companies like American Combustion are working on the next generation of burning, like their PyreJet. It combines a long-range supersonic oxygen jet and focused carbon injection — essentially a jet engine — to reduce last night's Dominos, a year's worth of Sports Illustrateds you didn't get a chance to read and that old blow-up doll into valuable energy for everyone. Now there's always an answer to, "Who would want that?" when you're at someone else's house.

. Nuclear Fusion
Like that kid in eighth grade who tried to be really cool but annoyed everyone, the nuclear industry has been talking a lot lately, telling everyone at recess about how their emissions "carbon-free." True, but wind power doesn't need to go around the lunchroom calling itself "plutonium-239-free," so quit being a punk or I'll be seeing you after school by the monkey bars at Three Mile Island, and don't tell your homeroom teacher. But if the opposite of hate is love, then the opposite of fission is fusion, and while it's not exactly around the corner, it holds out a lot of promise. Yes, it's the energy choice of the Sun itself, but simply put, in fusion, two lighter atomic nuclei fuse together to form a heavier nucleus. In doing so, it releases a few megatons of energy, ideally producing a waste product more benign, though not harmless, compared to its fissile brother. A European test plant managed to produce an output of 16 megawatts of electricity using fusion (about as much as a coal plant), but only for a few seconds. New test facilities are planned, so who knows? The atom may be our pal after all.

— Trevor Curwin
source-http://blog.scifi.com

Our next stop will be Japan, where we will investigate the language of cleanliness. The Japanese have a fascination with cleanliness – separating their living spaces into “clean” and “unclean” areas – and this naturally results in a culture obsessed with toilets. (Seeing that my most popular posts have dealt with man marble injuries and truck nuts, I thought that the subject of toilets may satisfy you need for “potty humor”).

Wikipedia describes the culture of cleanliness in Japan quite well:


In Japan, being clean is very important, and some Japanese words for 'clean' can be used to describe beauty. The word kirei (??, ???) can be defined as "pretty, beautiful; clean; pure; orderly."

Perhaps this explains the popularity of the Japan-based company Toto, the world’s largest manufacturer of toilets. Toto not only produces the largest number of toilets worldwide, they’re also responsible for the world’s most advanced toilets, known as Washlets (???????) in Japan.

For example, the Toto s400, pictured above, includes cleansing water jets with adjustable water temperature, adjustable temperature air blowers, air purifiers (for the benefit of bystanders), an auto open and close heated seat, and a remote control panel that looks like the cockpit of the space shuttle. Some even play the first few tunes of Op. 62 Nr. 6 Frühlingslied by Felix Mendelssohn to relax your…mind.

Now, I agree that cleanliness is next to Godliness. But Holy Crap! Ahem…seems like holy crap is something you would want to flush down one of those things. And I’d be afraid I would push the wrong button and blast my nubblies off into outer space. In fact, in Britain, an advanced “Super Toilet” did recently blow itself to pieces due to an electrical malfunction. Talk about explosive diarrhea…

Seriously, it looks like you can order pizza and withdraw money from that control panel. Japanese people will soon be able to live their entire life from a sitting position. I mean it’s pretty neat and all that an entire Culture of Crappers has emerged in Japan, but I just don’t get the Japanese language of cleanliness.

Can you help me translate?

Samsung claims to have created the world’s fastest dual-layer DVD burner, a drive with Lightscribe label-etching technology that can write a DVD+R DL disc at 16x speed.

Samsung said that since 10-12x is the current standard for dual-layer burning, its new internal drive, the SH-S203N, takes a 30-40 per cent less time to fill a dual-layer disc.
The drive's other write speeds aren’t world firsts, but keep up with rivals’ dual-layer drives. For example, the SH-S203N writes to DVD-R dual-layer media at 12x and single-layer DVD±R at 20x. By contrast, Toshiba’s dual-layer SD-R5472 drive writes to dual-layer DVD+R discs at 6x and single-layer DVD+RW at 8x.

The SH-S203N drive has a 1.5Gbps SATA interface.

Nokia has unveiled its latest concept phone, designed to highlight the company's focus on products that allow users to more readily stamp their personality on their gadgets.




The concept phone, dubbed Aeon, combines two touch-sensitive panels mounted on a fuel-cell power pack. The handset's connectivity and electronics are built into the panels to allow them to be used independendently. When assembled, one panel would operate as the display, the other as the keypad. Since the buttons are entirely virtual, Aeon can flip instantly between a numeric pad for dialling, a text-entry pad for messaging, or a media-player controller.


It's a cute idea and one that ties in with Nokia's expectation that phones will become essentially "wearable" devices - if foresees users removing one of Aeon's display panels and mounting it on a watch-like strap or worn as a badge.

More than a phone, Aeon might tap into local wireless networks to transmit data acquired from sensors such as devices that monitor the user's health signs - which is the kind of application the company has in mind for its Wibree personal-area network technology. ®

Is it time to say goodbye to CDs, DVDs, Zip drives?

A Kerala student has developed a technique for portable data whereby the data can now be stored on ordinary paper. And to boot, larger amounts of data can be had on lesser space.

The immediate question that pops into the mind is how to retrieve the data. Will it be as easy as feeding a floppy disc or CD into the drive and having it on the monitor? Perhaps it will be much easier than that. The piece of paper or even plastic sheet storing the data has only to be scanned in the scanner and read over the monitor. So wait, scan drive would be part of your computer.

Named “Rainbow Technology”, the new technique is the brainchild of Sainul Abideen, who has just finished his MCA at Muslim Educational Society Engineering College in Kuttipuram in Kerala’s Malappuram district.

The extremely low-cost technology will drastically reduce the cost of storage and provide for high-speed storage as well. Files in any format such as movie files, songs, images and text can be stored using this technology.

Currently, of the several options available for data storage, DVDs are the best mode. But a high quality DVD, which is very expensive can store only about 4.7 gigabyte (GB) of data. In contrast, the Rainbow Versatile Disc (RVD) can store 90 to 450 GB. And Sainul has simultaneously developed a scanning drive based on his Rainbow software which will come in smaller sizes to be initially carried with the laptops and later to fit into their bodies.

Sainul says a CD or DVD consumes 16 grams of polycarbonate, a petroleum by-product. While a CD costs Rs.15 (SR1.25), his paper or plastic-made RVD will cost just about Rs.1.50 and has 131 times more storage capacity.

Sainul, who has just turned 24, says that instead of using zeroes and ones for computing, he used geometric shapes such as circles, squares and triangles for computing which combine with various colors and preserve the data in images. An RVD therefore looks like a printout of modern art.

He says all kinds of data has to be first converted into a common format called “Rainbow Format.”

In a demo at his college laboratory, this writer could see text typed on 432 pages of foolscap paper being stored in a four square inch paper. The writer was even shown a 45-second video clip of a Malayalam film stored on an ordinary paper. Sainul was guided by Prof. Hyderali, head of the MCA Department at the College in all these projects.

Sainul says the biggest advantage of the new technology will be the biodegradable nature of his storage devices which will do away with e-waste pollution.

He says with the popularity of his Rainbow Technology, computer or fashion magazines in future need not carry CDs in a pack.

read full story here

Jai Hind: Proud to be an Indian

Billionaire Mukesh Ambani today became the richest person in the world, surpassing American software czar Bill Gates, Mexican business tycoon Carlos Slim Helu and famous investment guru Warren Buffett, courtesy the bull run in the stock market.

Following a strong share price rally on in his three group companies, India's most valued firm Reliance Industries, Reliance Petroleum and Reliance Industrial Infrastructure, the net worth of Mukesh Ambani rose to $63.2 billion (Rs 2,49,108 crore).

In comparison, the net worth of both Gates and Slim is estimated to be slightly lower at around $62.29 billion each, with Slim leading among the two by a narrow margin.

The five richest people in the world with their net worth

1. Mukesh Ambani ($63.2 billion)

2. Carlos Slim Helu ($62.2993 billion)

3. William (Bill) Gates ($62.29 billion)

4. Warren Buffett ($55.9 billion)

5. Lakshmi Mittal ($50.9 billion)

Warren Buffett, earlier the third richest in the world, also dropped one position with a net worth of about $56 billion.

Ambani's wealth of about Rs 2,49,000 crore includes about Rs 2,10,000 crore from RIL (50.98% stake), Rs 37,500 crore from RPL (37.5%) and Rs 2,100 crore from RIIL (46.23%).

Slim's wealth has been calculated on the basis of his stake in companies like America Movil (30%), Carso Global (82%), Grupo Carso (75%), Inbursa (67%), IDEAL (30%) and Saks Inc (10%).

According to information available with the US and Mexican stock exchanges where these companies are listed, Slim currently holds shares worth a total of $62.2993 billion, with more than half coming from Latin American mobile major America Movil. Slim is closely followed by Gates with a net worth of $62.29 billion currently.

Earlier last month, US business magazine Forbes had named Gates as the richest American with a net worth of $59 billion, calculated as on August 30. The magazine had said that a movement of $2 in the share price for Microsoft, the world's biggest software maker, could "add or subtract $1 billion" from his wealth.

Since August-end, Microsoft's share price has risen by $6.58 (based on yesterday's closing on Nasdaq at $35.03), which results into a gain of $3.29 billion in Gates' wealth based on Forbes assumption.

Besides a stake in Microsoft, Gates' wealth also includes the commission and license fees earned by him and gains through his shares in an investment holding company that invests across the market.

Gates is followed by Buffett at the fourth place in the league of the world's richest with a net worth of $55.9 billion through his holding in his investment vehicle Berkshire Hathaway and in other companies. At the end of August, Buffett's wealth stood at $52 billion, as per the Forbes magazine. Berkshire Hathaway's share price has gained by about 7.5% since then.

Earlier on September 26, Ambani had overtaken steel czar Lakshmi Mittal to become the richest Indian in the world.

Mittal currently ranks as the fifth richest in the world with a net worth of $50.9 billion through his 44.79% stake in world's biggest steel maker ArcelorMittal.

While most of Mittal's wealth comes from his steel empire, though he has also spread his wings into businesses like oil and real estate, those of Ambani and Gates are mostly through petrochemicals and software respectively. However, Buffett and Slim are making money from investments across a host of sectors.

source-business-standard

If you are working across multiple computers that are not connected to each other, you probably use the good old USB drive (or external hard drive) to store and carry your Office documents, Photoshop drawings, personal pictures and other multimedia files.

Perfect. Now imagine a situation where you have all required data on the USB drive but the computer you are currently working on (say in the cyber café or a friend’s place) doesn’t have the necessary software programs that are required to view or edit those files.

That computer neither has Microsoft Office for creating PowerPoint presentations or Excel sheets, nor Photoshop and AutoCAD for you to edit those important CAD drawings. Even the media player is missing so you cannot watch your personal video and music collection that you have been carrying in the pocket.

What if you could carry all your favorite software applications (and their settings), Office files, emails and everything else with you on a portable drive? You just plug-in that drive into the USB port of any computer and start working as if that was your own PC.

Well, your dreams can come true with Mojopac from Ringcube - an absolutely brilliant tool that very-easily clones your existing computing environment onto any USB Drive. And if you have an iPod or a USB based cell phone or Digital Camera, Mojopac will work just fine so you have one less device to carry.

To get started, you connect the USB drive to the main computer (that has the stuff you need most) and install the free Mojopac software. What you then see is a fresh Windows XP environment without any software. Now install all the applications (and even games) that you want to carry around– they are not installed on your computer but on the USB drive.

Once you are done, eject the USB drive and plug into any Windows computer. All those programs and documents can now run off the USB drive. Mojopac will also save your application settings and software preferences as you move around computers.

Mojopac uses the resources of the host computer but runs entirely on the USB drive without modifying anything on the host. Once you eject the USB device out of the friend’s computer, there are no traces left – not even your web browsing history. Nothing less than magic.