Information – Knowledge +
BBC launches free Internet TV service
BBC launches free Internet TV service
Agencies/GULF NEWS Published: July 30, 2007, 09:13
London: Billed as the biggest change in the way viewers watch television in 40 years, the BBC launched an online service on Friday that allows people to download many programmes from the last week.
BBC Director General Mark Thompson says the arrival of the “on-demand” iPlayer is as important as the first color broadcasts in the 1960s.
Viewers can choose from 400 hours of programmes, between 60 and 70 per cent of the total TV output, including hit shows such as “EastEnders, “Doctor Who” and “Planet Earth”.
It faces competition from similar services provided by Channel 4 and ITV and from increasingly popular video-sharing sites such as YouTube.
The growth of the Internet, mobiles and hard-drive recorders that save hours of programmes, has destroyed the notion of fixed TV schedules delivered through a TV in the corner of the room.
Broadcasters are under pressure to hold on to viewers by letting them watch programmes when and where they want.
“Our vision is for BBC iPlayer to become a universal service available not just over the Internet, but also on cable and other TV platforms, and eventually on mobiles and smart handheld devices,” said the BBC’s Ashley Highfield, director of future media and technology.
The service, at http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer, is free, but people will not be allowed to save permanent copies to their computer. It could take 30 minutes to download an hour-long show.
It is only available to people living in Britain with computers that run the Microsoft XP operating system.
Programs will be automatically deleted after viewing or after 30 days. Copyright protection software will prevent the copying of shows.
Online backups: easier, faster, safer
Online backups: easier, faster, safer
Saturday,28 July 2007 9:37 hrs IST
http://www.manoramaonline.com
english edition / technology reviews
Washington: There’s a lot to be said for the idea of online backup. You get a copy of your important data and system files in a remote location. You can access the backup from any computer that has an internet connection. And you can even use the backup to share your data, if desirable, with others.
But one significant problem has prevented most folks from taking advantage of the online backup solutions available: their internet connections were too slow to make the process bearable.
A lot has changed over the past year, however, to make the reality of online backup more palatable. First, Internet connections continue to get faster, with broadband gaining traction around the world and, thanks to fibre rollouts giving cable and DSL real competition, forcing internet providers to offer higher and higher speeds for less money.
Second, online backup services have gotten smarter about how they use your internet connection, making the prospect of backing up your data over even a relatively slow internet connection more realistic.
Mozy (http://mozy.com/) and Carbonite (http://www.carbonite.com) both employ a “slow go” approach to backing up your computer. To overcome the drawback of slower Internet connections making online backup an unrealistic option, these services both employ smart applications that, once installed on your PC, take care of backing up your data behind the scenes. The backups occur so slowly that you probably won’t even be aware that they’re occurring.
If you end up doing something intensive online – such as game playing or video conferencing – you can temporarily suspend both Mozy and Carbonite until you’ve finished. It makes sense to compare these services because both employ essentially the same backup model and both appear intent on remaining competitive with one another in terms of the service offered.
Should you ever need to restore a file, you just log in to your account and select the files you wish to restore. Doing an “image” backup of your entire hard drive and restoring an entire computer using one of these services is not possible.
If you’re not sure whether online backup is for you, Mozy offers a free trial that does not require you to give out a credit card but does provide you with two gigabytes of storage space for your backups. That’s enough to back up many people’s most precious data files – ones you’d never want to lose under any circumstances.
And while many of the applications required to use online backup are Windows-only, Mozy now offers a beta version of its Mac-compatible client. Mozy’s unlimited plan removes limitations on storage space and costs $4.95 per month or $54.45 per year.
Carbonite also offers a free trial, but it’s limited to 15 days rather than two gigabytes. The upside is that should you decide to make online backup a part of your strategy for data security, you can get an unlimited storage option for a bit less than Mozy charges: $4.16 per month or $49.95 per year – less if you choose a two-year option.
Privacy is obviously a concern of most computer users these days, and both Mozy and Carbonite insist that your data will be encrypted and safe from prying eyes. The full privacy policies of both companies are readily available.
Taking a slightly different approach to online backup is XDrive (http://www.xdrive.com), which has been around for many years now but is finally becoming a more realistic option for those with faster Internet connections.
Instead of taking the slow, behind-the-scenes approach to backing up your data, XDrive’s Windows-compatible installation lets you use the service as though it were an external hard drive connected directly to your PC. Once XDrive is installed, you simply drag and drop files to your XDrive or set up a backup routine with your backup application of choice.
The backups do not occur slowly, over time, but immediately, using all of the bandwidth available to you, so XDrive makes senses for those with a good Internet connection. XDrive offer five gigabytes of storage space for free. Fifty gigabytes of storage runs for $9.95 per month.
Although many of us are loathe to take on yet another monthly or yearly subscription charge, the security offered by online backup services is compelling – and may even be cost-effective, if you consider that a typical external hard drive and enclosure runs for about $200 dollars.
Ideally, any backup you make should be stored off-site anyway, in case of an on-site disaster, and few computer users who make backups bother to take them off site.
Online backup accomplishes that task easily and often transparently. What’s more, if Google gets into the online backup market – as has been rumoured, with its yet-to-be-announced product GDrive – you can expect the price of online backup to come down in a hurry.
The Economic Times Knowledge Forum
Greetings from The Times Group!
The Times Group has always been known for its visionary approach not just in the media space but in its numerous endeavors to provide knowledge to people at large. They are empowered on Information/News/Analysis not just through our various publications like ‘The Times of India’ & ‘The Economic Times’ to name a few, but also through professional forums, seminars and symposiums.
In our effort towards such knowledge empowerment, we have designed yet another program. The Economic Times Knowledge Forum is a platform for our esteemed clients/readers/associates to experience the power of learning and development through relevant and professional training. As you would know, training today has become the backbone of every organization across the globe in terms of developing knowledge, skills and attitude
To facilitate the same, The Times Group has got in to a strategic tie-up with the world’s leading training institutions, such as Dale Carnegie, DOOR Training, TMI, TACK International and FICCI to name a few. Through these alliances we are looking at delivering world class professional trainings in the core areas of Management.
Our solutions focus mainly on Open-Programs. We cover various concepts like Managerial & Leadership skills, Soft skills, Sales & Customer Care, Behavioral Skills and Team Building programs across India.
Attached, please find our program calendar up till January 2008. All these workshops are conducted across 17 locations in the country.
Based on the workshops of your interest, we will be able to share additional information on each of the programs.
We sincerely hope that you will be a part of this learning space. Kindly nominate yourself and recommend the same to your colleagues and business associates to benefit from the listed programs.
Registration is restricted to not more than 25 persons per program. Please send us your registrations at the earliest.
For further details, please feel free to contact us.
Thanks & Regards,
Vickram Swamy
Senior Manager
Response & Training Activation (South)
The Economic Times
Tel: Direct: 25594724
Cell: 99452 14666
Email: vickram.swamytimesgroup.com
How organizations were named….
This is again a nice forward by Mr. Shanawas & team from Bangalore. And it was again an opportunity for introducing the Team 1 for the new members. With Team 1, an opportunity will never be wasted.
Read on……
Yahoo!
The word was invented by Jonathan Swift and used in his book Gulliver’s Travels. It represents a person who is repulsive in appearance and action and is barely human. Yahoo! founders Jerry Yang and David Filo selected the name because they considered themselves yahoos. 
Xerox
The Greek root “xer” means dry. The inventor, Chestor Carlson, named his product Xerox as it was dry copying, markedly different from the then prevailing wet copying. 
Sun Microsystems
Founded by four Stanford University buddies, Sun is the acronym for Stanford University Network.
Sony
From the Latin word ‘sonus’ meaning sound, and ‘sonny’ a slang used by Americans to refer to a bright youngster. 
Motorola
Founder Paul Galvin came up with this name when his company started manufacturing radios for cars. The popular radio company at the time was called Victrola. 
Microsoft
It was coined by Bill Gates to represent the company that was devoted to MICROcomputer SOFTware. Originally christened Micro-Soft, the ‘-‘ was removed later on. 
Hotmail
Founder Jack Smith got the idea of accessing email via the web from a computer anywhere in the world. When Sabeer Bhatia came up with the business plan for the mail service, he tried all kinds of names ending in ‘mail’ and finally settled for Hotmail as it included the letters “html” – the programming language used to write web pages. It was initially referred to as HoTMaiL with selective upper casings. 
Google
The name started as a jockey boast about the amount of information the search-engine would be able to search. It was originally named ‘Googol’, a word for the number represented by 1 followed by 100 zeros. After founders – Stanford graduate students Sergey Brin and Larry Page presented their project to an angel investor, they received a cheque made out to ‘Google 
Apple Computers
Favourite fruit of founder Steve Jobs. He was three months late in filing a name for the business, and he threatened to call his company Apple Computers if the other colleagues didn’t suggest a better name by 5 o’clock.
And last but not the least Team 1.
In 2005, it was just a spark – a thought – an idea to motivate a select group of students who joined the MBA programme of IGNOU and to request the IGNOU Partner Institution in Dubai to organise regular contact classes for those students who were interested and available. From then on, it gently started its growth and took various size and shape – first that of a yahoo group, then came the weekly newsletter, then the daily mails and now the blog.
Several of those joined during that time had to discontinue the programme due to various reasons, but many of them remained on board to continue their quest for knowledge.
Like a passenger train, when many people got off, many new came in and the train journey continued – of course some regular passengers who took season ticket for life and the GUARD remained.
It has a long way to go, as it has certain destinations in mind, which will all be announced at appropriate times. Till then enjoy the journey, feel comfortable and bring along your friends – because this is one place where you will love to come back often and often. Because WE ARE COMMITTED TO QUALITY & CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT – WHEREVER WE ARE AND WHATEVER WE DO.
Have a pleasant journey throughout.
God Bless and let God’s Grace Prevail.
Ramesh Menon
26062007
*Two moons on 27 August*
*Two moons on 27 August*
*27th Aug the Whole World is waiting for…*
Planet Mars will be the brightest in the night sky starting August.
It will look as large as the full moon to the naked eye. This will
cultivate on Aug. 27 when Mars comes within 34.65M miles of earth. Be
sure to watch the sky on Aug. 27 12:30 am. It will look like the earth
has 2 moons. The next time Mars may come this close is in 2287.
Share this with your friends as NO ONE ALIVE TODAY will ever see it
again.
$152,000 for Your Thoughts
$152,000 for Your Thoughts
by Gary Carini and Bill Townsend
To draw out employees’ creativity, get tougher on them. Don’t let them get away with summarizing their ideas on simple forms. Make them prove their concepts’ viability, right from the start.
That advice may sound counterproductive, considering the dearth of worthwhile innovations that are emerging from the rank and file. In our interviews over the past 12 years with more than 300 managers in technology, media, venture capital, and other fields, executives have said that employees don’t come close to filling the need for workable ideas. So why would we recommend raising the bar?
Because putting the burden of proof on the proposers results in well-formed ideas and knowledgeable, motivated employees who understand the value of their innovations. Raising the bar won’t stifle innovation as long as the company couples that policy with the right support and incentives for encouraging employee entrepreneurship. Companies must give workers the tools to prove their ideas’ worth—in other words, firms must teach the economics of innovations. Managers must repeatedly instill in employees’ minds the concept that ideas are valued. The process for reviewing proposals must move quickly.
Companies must also put serious rewards on the table. All too often, bonuses don’t inspire employees to shape and articulate their ideas. We estimate that in most companies, the ratio of employee reward to savings or increased revenue from innovation is about .001%, or $100 for that $10 million idea.
Firms should establish specific and trackable rewards or bonuses, preferably a set percentage of the savings or the increased net, and should publicize success stories internally. Companies that required employees to present business cases for their ideas and offered substantial rewards saw the number of workable innovations rise significantly. (We’ve found increases in the 20% to 40% range, depending on a variety of factors and baseline conditions.) Firms that had implemented such programs but discontinued them, usually as a short-sighted cost-cutting measure, observed a significant decline in workable innovations, our research shows.
Interminds, the consulting firm that one of us (Bill Townsend) founded, is a good example of a company that puts its money where its mouth is. An employee who comes up with an idea to save money while promoting the company’s vision gets half of the first year’s savings. The policy was instrumental in drawing a great idea from a $38,000-a-year executive assistant. Her process improvement was to automate the laborious system of manually tracking 900 field representatives. She built the business case with an individual in the finance department. The company implemented her plan and saved $304,000 in the first year. She earned a $152,000 bonus.
This was a success story for Interminds’ employee entrepreneurship program, which proved its value in generating a money-saving idea and in energizing an employee to think more creatively about her job. This new attitude became contagious at the firm. It can happen at your company, too.
Watch out for eye flu outbreak
Watch out for eye flu outbreak
25 Jun, 2007 l 0307 hrs ISTlKamayani Singh/TIMES NEWS NETWORK
NEW DELHI: The early shower in city might be a pleasant sight, but watch your eyes. The rain not only spells relief, but is an invitation to number of infections like conjunctivitis.
Doctors claim they have already started getting cases of conjunctivitis. With monsoon round the corner, such infections are likely to rise in the coming days. ‘‘Delhi is getting rain for the past few days. Many cases of haemorrhagic conjunctivitis have started pouring in, where bleeding starts in the conjunctiva and can affect the eyesight. A rise in the humidity levels will certainly lead to an increase in the number of cases of infectious conjunctivitis,’’ said Dr Ritu Aurora, consultant eye surgeon, Max Healthcare.
While infectious conjunctivitis, which is caused by pathogens (viral or bacterial), has just started manifesting in the city, cases of allergic conjunctivitis are an all time this year.
‘‘Allergic conjunctivitis, which is an allergy or reaction in the eye due to a foreign particle, has been extremely high this year. I would say that there is an increase of almost 20%-30% in the cases of allergic conjunctivitis this year. The high number of dust storms in the city has been responsible for the surge in the cases,’’ said Dr Mahesh Chandra, professor of Ophthalmology AIIMS.
Doctors suggest wearing dark glasses, avoid touching the eye and frequently washing face to prevent allergy. Infectious conjunctivitis is contagious and one has to be careful to not share eye drops, tissues, eye-makeup, towels, clothes and bedsheets.
People wearing contact lenses should take extra care as the allergens in the air, like pollen and dust, can create problems for them. ‘‘With lenses one needs to be more hygienic, avoid using them for long and preferably wear disposable contact lenses,’’ added Dr Aurora.
The symptoms of conjunctivitis start with an irritation and redness in the eye and inner eyelid. In infectious conjunctivitis, there might also be discharge from the eye. Antibiotic drops, ointments and artificial tears are prescribed as medicine. Use of steroids — which are often prescribed for allergic conjunctivitis — should be avoided.
Eat potatoes for strong immunity
Eat potatoes for strong immunity
25 Jun, 2007 l 1107 hrs ISTlIANS
LONDON: Eating potatoes could have a beneficial effect on the immune system, says a study conducted by Spanish researchers.
The vegetable is considered to be rich in vitamin C, B-complex vitamins and has good doses of minerals like iron, calcium, manganese, magnesium and phosphorus. It has long been known that potatoes are good for bowel health.
It is believed to be good for the immune system, particularly if eaten cold or in a salad, the researchers write in Chemistry & Industry, a magazine of the Society of Chemical Industry.
The scientists carried out a study where they fed growing pigs large quantities of raw potato starch (RPS) for over 14 weeks and found that they had healthier bowels.
They also found that these pigs had decreased levels of white blood cells – such as leucocytes and lymphocytes in their blood. White blood cells are produced due to inflammation or when a person is ill to fight the disease, reports the science portal EurekAlert.
The general decrease in leucocytes observed by the researchers suggests an overall beneficial effect, according to immunology expert Lena Ohman at the Department of Internal Medicine, Göteborg University, Sweden.
Said José Francisco Pérez, the lead researcher from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona: “The use of raw potato starch in this experiment is designed to simulate the effects of a diet high in resistant starch.”
Humans do not eat raw potatoes, but they do eat a lot of foods that contain resistant starch, such as cold boiled potatoes, legumes, grains, green bananas, pasta and cereals.
About 10 per cent of the starch eaten by humans is resistant starch – starch that is not digested in the small intestine and so is shunted into the large intestine where it ferments.
Starch consumption is thought to reduce the risk of large bowel cancer and may also have an effect on irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).
The decrease in white blood cells observed is therefore interesting, and a diet of resistant starch may be worth trying in IBS patients, an expert said.
Indians crack mental illness
Indians crack mental illness
26 Jun, 2007 l 0043 hrs ISTlMadhavi Rajadhyaksha/TIMES NEWS NETWORK
SMS NEWS to 8888 for latest updates
MUMBAI: For the millions living with mental retardation, this breakthrough holds out a ray of hope. An international group of researchers, including two Bangalore neuroscientists, has identified an enzyme that causes the syndrome called Fragile X and successfully reverses its symptoms in mice.
Fragile X Syndrome is a genetic condition caused by a defect in the X chromosome. It’s the chief cause of mental retardation, and in some cases, a known cause of autism. It can cause varying degrees of impairment, from minor learning problems to cognitive disability. Until now, there’s been no known treatment for Fragile X.
Bangalore, was published in the ‘Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences’ on Monday. Scientists say we can expect similar results in human beings in five years.
“We found that a specific enzyme in the brain called P21-Activated Kinase (PAK), when inhibited, reversed the debilitating symptoms of Fragile X in mice,” said Sumantra Chatterji of the National Centre for Biological Sciences.
The second researcher, Shankaranarayana Rao of NIMHANS, explained that in the brain, connections between neurons are formed by protrusions called ‘spines’. The Indian contribution to the research involved monitoring how these spines were altered in the mentally challenged.
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