Here are some of the latest cars showcased in various auto shows around the world. Check them out. . .
The Lincoln MKT concept car valued $1 million is presented to the media, during the International Hall of the Automobile 2008, in Mexico City, on September 26, 2008. | Photograph: Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP/Getty Images
1. Wind is cheap
No one owns the wind, so it might seem like wind energy should cost less than other technologies that require costly fuel, such as coal or natural gas, to operate.
However, the initial investment for wind energy is high. Large scale wind turbines cost a few million dollars per megawatt to put up, which at face value appears competitive with new coal-fired power plants, but the wind doesn’t always blow. In effect, wind turbines typically only produce electricity about 30 percent of the time, so it takes longer to pay back the building costs.
Taken together with government incentives and maintenance costs over a turbine’s 20-year lifetime, wind energy ends up costing about 4 cents per kilowatt-hour, according to DOE estimates. That’s slightly more than coal, but the two are getting closer all the time.
2. America is way behind the rest of the world
Denmark gets 20 percent of its energy from wind. Germany has the most wind turbines of any country. China is set to nearly double its wind energy capacity in just one year.
You might think the United States is dragging its heels, but in terms of the raw total, America produces more wind energy than any other country (thanks to it being windier here than in Germany).
And more investment is on the way.
One recent headline grabber is the world’s large wind farm project in Pampa, Texas, proposed by oil magnate T. Boone Pickens. This is part of the so-called Pickens Plan to invest $1 trillion on wind turbines throughout the wind corridor from the Dakotas down to the Texas panhandle.
3. Wind turbines are loud
Wind turbines used to be loud, but newer designs are less so.
Some of the bad rap about noise can be attributed to a single wind turbine constructed in 1978 outside of Boone, N.C., which generated low-frequency sound waves that rattled windows and made some people sick in nearby homes.
Since then, most new rotors turn slower and are mounted in front of (not behind) their towers. These and other changes have dramatically lowered the noise, said Pat Moriarty of the National Renewable Energy Lab in Golden, Colo.
Still, some neighbors complain, and the wind industry continues to search for even quieter designs.
4. Wind turbines kill birds
This one is actually true, but the problem is not as bad as some people claim.
The impression that all turbines are dangerous to birds comes from Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area in California. This was one of the first big wind farms, and unfortunately it was placed in a migratory bird pathway, Moriarty said.
In addition, Altamont’s 4,800 small wind turbines - many installed in the early 80s - have rotors low to the ground and packed close together, which may be why more than 1,000 birds (half of which are raptors) die there each year.
Newer wind farms report fewer bird deaths probably because the turbines are taller and spread further apart. And for comparison’s sake, studies show that many more birds die colliding with cars and buildings than die in turbine blades.
5. Any house can own a windmill
Unless you have a good chunk of land around your house, it’s probably not a good idea to get a wind turbine. If it’s too close to buildings or trees, the wind will be turbulent and won’t produce the power that it’s supposed to.
But what do we know. The small wind turbine market grew by 14 percent in 2007. Some of these are for boats, but others supply homeowners who live off the grid.
Here are some things you might have wondered about your penis, but were afraid to ask.
No. 1: Your Penis Does Have a Mind of Its Own
You’ve probably noticed that your penis often does its own thing. You may remember times when it was completely inappropriate to have an erection; and yet you couldn’t wish it away.
It’s true that you have less command over your penis than body parts like your arms and legs. That’s because the penis answers to a part of the nervous system that’s not always under your conscious control. This is called the autonomic nervous system, which also regulates heart rate and blood pressure.
Sexual arousal usually isn’t voluntary. The conscious mind is complicit in it, but a lot of sexual arousal goes on in the sympathetic nervous system. In addition, impulses from the brain during the REM phase of sleep cause erections, whether you’re dreaming about sex or about a test you forgot to study for. Heavy lifting or straining to have a bowel movement can also produce an erection.
Just as the penis grows without your consent, sometimes it shrinks. "The flaccid penis varies in size considerably within a given man," says Drogo Montague, MD, a urologist at the Cleveland Clinic. Exposure to cold water or air makes your penis shrink. That’s a function of the sympathetic nervous system.
Psychological stress also involves the sympathetic nervous system, and stress has the same effect as a cold shower, Montague says. When you’re relaxed and feeling well, your flaccid penis looks bigger than when you’re stressed out.
The penis is "kind of a barometer of the sympathetic nervous system," Montague says. So the greeting, "How’s it hanging?" is more apt than you might have realized.
No. 2: Your Penis May Be a ’Grower’ or a ’Show-er’
Among men, there is no consistent relationship between the size of the flaccid penis and its full erect length.
In one study of 80 men, researchers found that increases from flaccid to erect lengths ranged widely, from less than a quarter inch to 3.5 inches longer.
Whatever the clinical significance of these data may be, the locker-room significance is considerable. You can’t assume that a dude with a big limp penis gets much bigger with an erection. And the guy whose penis looks tiny could surprise you with a big erection.
An analysis of more than thousand measurements taken by sex researcher Alfred Kinsey shows that shorter flaccid penises tend to gain about twice as much length as longer flaccid penises.
A penis that doesn’t gain much length with an erection has become known as a "show-er," and a penis that gains a lot is said to be a "grower." These are not medical terms, and there aren’t scientifically established thresholds for what’s a show-er or a grower.
Kinsey’s data suggest that most penises aren’t extreme show-ers or growers. About 12% of penises gained one-third or less of their total length with an erection, and about 7% doubled in length when erect.
No. 3: Your Penis Is Shaped Like a Boomerang
Your penis is shaped like a boomerang. Just like you don’t see all of a big oak tree above ground, you don’t see the root of your penis tucked up inside your pelvis and attached to your pubic bone.
In an MRI picture, the penis looks distinctly boomerang-like, as noted by a French researcher who studied men and women having sex inside an MRI scanner.
One method of surgical "penis enlargement" is to cut the ligament that holds the root of the penis up inside the pelvis. This operation may give some men a little extra length if more of the penis protrudes from the body, but there are side effects. This ligament, called the suspensory ligament, makes an erection sturdy. With that ligament cut, the erect penis loses its upward angle and it wobbles at the base. The lack of sturdiness can lead to injury.
No. 4: You Can Break Your Penis
There is no "penis bone," but you can break your penis all the same. It’s called penile fracture, and it’s not a subtle injury. When it happens, there’s "an audible pop or snap," Montague says. Then the penis turns black and blue. And there’s terrible pain.
Penile fracture is rare, and it typically happens to younger men because their erections tend to be quite rigid.
Here’s how to avoid penile fracture: don’t use your penis too roughly. A common way that penile fracture happens, Montague says, is when a man is thrusting too hard and fast during sex, and slams into his partner’s pubic bone. Also, a woman who moves wildly while on top of a man during sex can break a man’s penis.
Peyronie’s syndrome is a related condition that tends to show up more in older men, Montague says. An older man’s erection may not be as rigid, but still is hard enough for sex. Over time, if the penis bends too much a certain way during sex, small tears in the tissue can form scars, and the accumulated scar tissue gives the penis an abnormally curved shape.
Not all penis curvature is a problem, however. "There is a lot of variability in what normal is," Cummings says.
No. 5: Most Penises in the World Are Uncut
A report by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) estimates that worldwide only 30% of males aged 15 and up are circumcised.
Rates vary greatly depending upon religion and nationality. Almost all Jewish and Muslim males in the world have circumcised penises, and together they account for about 70% of all circumcised males globally.
The United States has the highest proportion of males circumcised for non-religious reasons. A whopping 75% of non-Jewish, non-Muslim American men are circumcised. Compare that to Canada, where only 30% are. In the U.K. it’s 20%; in Australia it’s merely 6%.
The practice of circumcising baby boys for medical and cosmetic reasons has become controversial in the U.S. But recently the World Health Organization (WHO) and the UUNAIDS recommended circumcision for adult men, based upon evidence that men with circumcised penises have a lower risk of being infected with HIV.
Full Story with More pictures...Intel officially launched the third generation of its vPro technology on Monday, adding new remote management and patching applications that can operate even if the PC is turned off or hibernating.
All of the new features are built directly into the Intel silicon. "We realize by embedding solutions directly in silicon it unlocks new capabilities and helps IT and businesses solve challenges," said Gregory Bryant, Intel’s vice president and general manager of its Digital Office Platform Division, during a Webcast Monday.
About half of the Global 100 firms already have implemented vPro in some capacity, Bryant said.
According to Intel executives, the most important capability of the new technologies, code-named "McCreary," is the ability to manage and update PCs that reside outside of the corporate firewall. A Remote Scheduled Maintenance feature allows scheduled tune-ups of PCs. But if a PC is failing, it can "call for help" via a new Remote Alert feature. If it has already failed with a "crippled" OS or hard drive, users will be able to enter a key sequence to place a "Fast Call for Help," or manually call for IT assistance and give them access to the PC for repairs.
Source: PCmag.com
Full Story with More pictures...World’s most visited Internet search site Google has filed a patent application in the country for its recently developed social network site based on user preferences and format performance data.
The US-headquartered firm has filed a patent application before the Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks, following which the authorities have issued a public notice in its recent journal and has sought public opinion.
In its application filed on June 27 this year, Google has claimed that a user network site could be formed on the basis of preferences and format performance data, which means a website could be developed on the basis of some personal information that would be helpful in many ways.
A social network site based on this technique would help a user to find out friends and groups in better ways than a general site using universal criteria for the same, it said.
Developed by Alexandra Baugher, Google has already registered this invention with the Geneva-based World Intellectual Property Organisation in November, 2006.
When contacted, a Google spokesperson in India said, "We file patent applications on a variety of ideas that our employees come up with. Some of those ideas later mature into real products or services some don not".
Founded by two-young men --Larry Page and Sergey Brin-- Google Internet search engine turned 10 on September 27.
In Google’s social network site-based, user preferences and format performance data would help a company to display only relevant advertisements to a user, meaning maximising the advertisement revenue opportunity for host. A similar criterion is being used by many search engines in finding search results.
Source
Full Story with More pictures...Saudi Arabia is building a supercomputer that could rank among the 10 most powerful systems in the world. And the country isn’t stopping there.
It has plans to turn this marquee system for the Middle East into a petascale system in two years, and beyond that, an exascale system.
The move represents a big leap for Saudi Arabia and the region generally, which, despite massive oil wealth, has not had much of an impact on IT, except as consumers.
But Saudi Arabia is turning its oil wealth in a new direction. This supercomputer, which is being built by IBM, will be located at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), a research university that was announced in 2007 and is due to open in September 2009.
A data center that will house the supercomputer will be completed next summer.
"The best thing about KAUST is we have no legacy systems and no legacy thinking," Majid Al-Ghaslan, the university’s interim CIO, told Computerworld.
Click here to read the full story
Full Story with More pictures...Google is offering $10 million as prize money in a competition aimed at transforming the world’s best ideas into useful products. As part of the company’s 10th anniversary celebrations, Project 10 to the 100th asks people to submit ideas in seven categories to the project.
"Never in history have so many people had so much information, so many tools at their disposal, so many ways of making good ideas come to life," said an announcement Thursday on the website. "Yet at the same time, so many people, of all walks of life, could use so much help, in both little ways and big."
The competition is open to anyone. The seven categories include sustainable energy use, environment, health, education, shelter, encouraging communities, and building opportunities to help people better provide for themselves and their families. An eighth category is simply titled "everything else".
Ideas can be submitted through a form available on the website, which poses questions including, "If your idea were to become a reality, who would benefit the most and how?" and "Describe the optimal outcome should your idea be selected and successfully implemented".
A panel of independent judges will choose the best ideas and divide the prize money equally among the winners. The website says that Google is looking for simple ideas that will help large numbers of people, especially those with urgent needs.
Among the products cited on the website is the Hippo Water Roller, a 90-liter container that holds water and can be easily rolled on the ground with a handle, taking some of the burden off people in areas where clean water is scarce, such as parts of Africa.
Full Story with More pictures...Passing gas can be uncomfortable, not to mention embarrassing.
It is however a fact of life.
Most people avoid discussing it though, and for as common as it is -- everyone passes gas either by belching (burping) or flatulence (farting) -- not too many people know what normal levels are and whether they truly suffer from excess gas.
Causes
Gas is created in the human digestive system through one of two ways.
First, during regular activity, there is a certain amount of air that is swallowed -- while speaking, eating. This collects in the stomach and is later released through burping or belching. A small amount of this gas may make its way to the intestines, and may be released through flatulence.
The second cause of gas is the digestive mechanism. During digestion, foods are broken down in the stomach and intestines by harmless bacteria and enzymes. While food is being digested, certain gasses like hydrogen, carbon dioxide and methane are produced. Usually, flatulence is odour-less. However, some people do produce gasses that contain sulphur � due to the presence of certain bacteria in the large intestine -- which can cause malodor. This again is harmless.
Foods
There is no particular list of foods that cause gas. While some foods can cause gas in some people, others may not have a problem.
The usual culprits most people blame are beans, cabbage, onions, pears, apples, peaches, milk and milk products. Basically, foods that are high in carbohydrates rather than fats or proteins tend to cause gas. However, as mentioned earlier, not everyone reacts in the same way to a given food, so cutting out a particular food or food group would not be advised, since you may be denying yourself essential nutrients.
Often, as a person ages, certain enzymes stop being produced by the body resulting in the creation of excess gasses from certain foods.
Symptoms
The most common symptoms are belching, flatulence, abdominal bloating and pain. Most people experience the first two frequently and occasionally the latter, these are very rarely signs of a serious medical problem. According to medicinenet.com, an average, passing gas 15-20 times a day is considered normal.
When it comes to bloating, often it is not that the body is producing excess gas but rather that the person is excessively sensitive to the presence of gases in the body. This can be relieved by over the counter medication or even ayurvedic and homeopathic medication that will help relieve the discomfort. Before resorting to medicines however, consult your doctor to find out if medication is required.
It is possible that you body is signaling a more serious medical condition such as lactose intolerance. In that case, you will probably also exhibit more symptoms like bloating, pain, loose stools, says health portal emedicine.com. The best thing to do in case a change in diet or mild medication doesn’t work, is to consult your doctor.
Prevention tips
1. Eat slowly and chew your food well. Gulping down your food leads to swallowing larger amounts of air, which may leave you feeling gassy later, according to nhsdirect.nhs.uk.
2. Smoking and excessive chewing of gum or sweets also cause you to swallow more air than you should be.
3. When you know you are heading for a social gathering or meeting, it is advised that you do not overeat. When the stomach is full, it tries to ease the pressure by releasing trapped gas.
4. An obvious tip -- avoid fizzy drinks
5. Exercise regularly. This is a solution to most minor physical ailments. A regular exercise regime conditions all the organs of the body, keeping them working as they should.
6. Yoga is also a great way to improve the functioning of your digestive system.
7. Changing your diet to reduce foods like beans, cabbage and onions might help. However, before you decide to quit or reduce certain foods, keep track of your diet for a week or two to make sure you’ve got the right culprit.
8. Avoid sweeteners or health products containing sorbitol, which is used in sugar-free sweets and some medicines.
9. Tea and even red wine is found to help prevent flatulence.
10. Wear clothes that are comfortable and not too tight. This will prevent you from feeling uncomfortable in case of bloating and also allow the free movement of gasses within the body.
Full Story with More pictures..."The United States is so broke, its people at every level -- from the Federal Reserve on down -- don’t know whether to shit or go blind," wrote James Howard Kunstler an American author and social critic - in one of his blogs.
But what unprecedented events led to this great financial catastrophe? As an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal puts it, "With the benefit of hindsight, everyone can see that the US economy built up an enormous credit bubble that has now popped. . . this bubble was created principally by a Federal Reserve that kept real interest rates too low for too long. In doing so the Fed created a subsidy for debt and a commodity price spike."
The Fed’s ’cheap money’ policy created artificial demand for housing which drove prices to unsustainable levels. As greed took over, dubious sub-prime liabilities were sold to hedge funds, insurance companies and foreign banks. And then the American financial markets were hit by a severe liquidity and credit crunch. High oil tags, lower spending by the corporate sector, rising unemployment, etc added to the woes of not just the Americans, but the entire world.
August 9, 2007 is the official date when the crisis is said to have hit global finances. But the rot had started much earlier.
In 2006, the US housing market started to feel the pain of high interest rates -- which, between 2004 and 2006, had risen from one per cent to 5.35 per cent -- resulting in default rates on *sub-prime loans rising to record level.(*High risk loans to customers with poor or no credit histories).
February 22, 2007: HSBC fires head of its US mortgage lending business as losses reach $10.5 billion. On February 23, the Bombay Stock Exchange’s sensitive index -- the Sensex -- ended down 356 points at 13,656. (Because of the time difference between India and the US, the market figures are of those a day later)
March 8, 2007: Biggest US house builder DR Horton warns of huge losses from sub-prime fall-out.
March 12, 2007: Shares in New Century Financial, one of the biggest sub-prime lenders in the US, were suspended amid fears it might be heading for bankruptcy. Sensex gained 80 points to close at 12,983 on March 13.
March 13, 2007: Wall Street hit by sub-prime fears and on March 14, the sell-off on US and Asian markets saw the Sensex close with a loss of 453 points at 12,530. The NSE Nifty closed at 3,641, down 130 points.
March 16: US-based sub-prime firm Accredited Home Lenders Holding said it would sell $2.7 billion of its sub-prime loan book -- at a heavy discount -- in order to generate some cash.
On March 19, the Indian market closed at 12,645, up 215 points.
April 2 2007: New Century Financial, which was once the second-largest originator of subprime mortgages in United States files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and lays off 3,299 people.
Sensex gained 169 points to close at 12,625 on April 3, 2007.
May 3, 2007: GM finance unit loses heavily on sub-prime mortgages, and UBS closes its US sub-prime lending arm, Dillon Read Capital Management.
Sensex ends down 144 points at 13,934, on May 4.
June 22, 2007: Investment bank Bear Stearns revealed it had spent $3.2 billion bailing out two of its funds exposed to the sub-prime market. The bailout of the fund was the largest by a bank in almost a decade. The Index ended with a gain of 21 points at 14,488.
July 18, 2007: Bear Stearns rings the warning bell. It tells investors that they will get little, if any, of the money invested in two of its hedge funds after rival banks refuse to help it bail them out.
The India market was unrattled by the news, and it closed with a gain of 249 points at 15,550, on July 19.
July 20, 2007: US Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke warns that the US sub-prime crisis could cost up to $100 billion.
The Sensex continued with its march and ended up 167 points at 15,732 on July 23.
July 27, 2007: Worries about the sub-prime crisis hammered global stock markets and the main US Dow Jones stock index slipped.
The Sensex was no exception as it ended down 542 points on that day.
July 31, 2007: Bear Stearns stopped clients from withdrawing cash from a third fund, saying it has been overwhelmed by redemption requests. The lender also filed for bankruptcy protection for the two funds it had to bail out earlier.
Next day, that is, August 1, the Sensex ended with a hefty loss of 645 points at 14,936. The NSE Nifty ended at 4,346, down 183 points. Elsewhere in Asia, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng slumped 730 points to 22,455. Japan’s Nikkei plunged 378 points to 16,871. Taiwan’s Taiwan Weighted index crashed 395 points to 8892, and China’s Shanghai Composite index shed 170 points at 4,301.
August 6, 2007: American Home Mortgage, one of the largest US independent home loan providers, filed for bankruptcy after laying off the majority of its staff.
And Sensex ended down 235 points on that day and on August 7 it gained 30 points at close.
August 9, 2007 French banking major, BNP Paribas announced that it could not fairly value the underlying assets in three funds -- Parvest Dynamic ABS, BNP Paribas ABS Euribor and BNP Paribas ABS Eonia -- as a result of exposure to US subprime mortgage lending markets.
Faced with potentially massive exposure, the European Central Bank immediately stepped in to ease market worries by opening lines of euro 96.8 billion (then $130 billion) in low-interest credit. The Federal Reserve, the Bank of Canada and the Bank of Japan also intervened.
On August 10, 2007, the Sensex marginally shrugged off the US subprime woes and closed with a loss of 232 points at 14,868.
August 16, 2007: Largest mortgage lender Countrywide draws on its entire $11.5 billion credit line as liquidity crisis looms. Australian mortgage lender Rams also admits liquidity problems.
And on August 17, the Sensex tanks 217 points at 14,142
August 17, 2007: The Fed cut the rate at which it lends to banks by half of a percentage point to 5.75 per cent, and once more warns of credit crunch. Taking cues from the global markets following the surprise 50bps rate cut by the US Fed on Friday (Aug 17), the Sensex closed with a gain of 286 points at 14,427 on Monday. The NSE Nifty ended at 4,209, up 101 points.
August 21, 2007: UK sub-prime lenders begin to withdraw mortgages. On August 22, the Sensex ended with a gain of 260 points at 14,249.
August 28, 2007: Leipzig, Germany based Sachsen LB Landesbank faced collapse after investing in the sub-prime market. Landesbank Baden-Wuerttemberg buys it for euro 250m. It was one of Europe’s biggest victims of the credit crisis.
But the ripple effect had not touched the Indian markets and the Sensex ended with a gain of 74 points at 14,993. NSE Nift closed up 39 points at 4,359 on August 29.
September 3, 2007 German corporate lender IKB announces a a loss of $1bn on investments linked to the US sub-prime market.
Sensex gained 43 points on September 4 to close at 15,465.
September 4, 2007: London Interbank Offered Rate or *Libor rate rises to 6.7975%, highest since December 1998. (*It is the rate of interest at which banks offer to lend money to one another).
Bank of China reveals $9bn in sub-prime losses but Chinese government said its foreign exchange reserves will not be affected. The Sensex ended September 5 with a marginal loss of 19 points at 15,446. The NSE Nifty ended at 4,476, down 3 points.
September 14, 2007: British bank, Northern Rock, which relied heavily on the markets, rather than savers’ deposits to fund its mortgage lending asked for and was granted emergency financial support from the Bank of England. The bank is now owned by the UK government. On September 17 the Index closed with a loss of 99 points at 15,504.
September 18, 2007: The US Federal Reserve cut its main interest rate by half a percentage point for the first time in four years, to 4.75 per cent, a move that resulted in a strong rally across the globe. On September 19, the Sensex ended with its biggest-ever single-day gain of 654 points at 16,323. The Nifty gained 186 points to close at 4,732.
September 19, 2007: The Bank of England announces that it will auction pound 10 billion. The Sensex gained 25 points at 16,348 on September 20. The Nifty gained 15 points to close at 4,748.
October 1, 2007: Swiss bank UBS world’s biggest bank announced losses of $3.4 billion from sub-prime related investments. Later investment bank chairman and chief executive officer Huw Jenkins stepped down.
Citigroup unveils a sub-prime related loss of $3.1 billion. Two weeks later Citigroup is forced to write down a further $5.9 billion. Within six months, its losses stand at a whopping $40 billion. On November 5, its chief executive and chairman Charles Prince resigned. On October 3, Sensex nears 18K, ends up 561 points. The NSE Nifty ended at 5211, up 142 points
October 5, 2007: Investment bank Merrill Lynch reveals $5.6 billion sub-prime losses. On October 30, Merrill Lynch chief Stan O’Neal resigned. Next day, the Sensex ended with a loss of 282 points at 17,491.
November 9, 2007: US’s fourth largest lender Wachovia revealed a $1.1 billion loss due to decline in value of its mortgage debt plus $600m to cover loan losses (total $1.7 billion).
Sensex ends down 171 points.
November 12, 2007: The three biggest US banking groups -- Citigroup, Bank of America and JPMorganChase -- agree to a $75 billion superfund to restore confidence to credit markets.
November 13, 2007: Bank of America writes off $3 billion in sub-prime losses. Sensex bounced back and ended up nearly 300 points.
November 14, 2007: Mizuho, Japan’s second largest banking group, saw a 17 per cent drop in first-half net profits and cut its full-year operating profit forecast by 13 per cent, largely as a result of sub-prime-related losses at its securities arm. On November 14, in one of the biggest ever rally, the Sensex zoomed 894 points, but the next day it ended down 144 points at 19,785.
November 15, 2007: British banking major Barclays said it had written down $2.6 billion in sub-prime losses. Sensex ended down 87 points at 19,698 on November 16.
November 20, 2007: US mortgage guarantor Freddie Mac sets aside $1.2bn to cover bad loans and reports a $2bn loss. Sensex ended with a loss of 678 points at 18,603 on November 21, one of the biggest single-day loss in absolute terms. The Nifty lost 220 points to close at 5,561.
December 4, 2007: US mortgage giant Fannie Mae issues $7 billion of shares to cover losses linked to the housing market. On December 6, the Sensex ended up 58 points at 19,796.
December 6, 2007: President George W Bush outlines plans to protect more than a million homeowners hit by the US housing slump. The Bank of England cut UK interest rates for the first time since 2005, amid signs that the economy is slowing. Sensex ended up 170 points at 19,966 on December 7.
December 10, 2007: Swiss bank UBS reports a further $10-billion write-down caused by bad debts in the US housing market. Lloyds TSB reveals that bad debt linked to the US sub-prime mortgage crisis will cost it pound 200 million.
December 11, 2007: Fed cut interest rates for a third time to 4.25 per cent to ease the credit crunch. On December 12, the Sensex gained 85 points.
December 13, 2007: World central banks agree coordinated action to inject at least $100 billion into short-term inter-bank credit markets to restore confidence. The Sensex, however, ended down 74 points at 20,031 on December 14.
December 19, 2007: Morgan Stanley writes off $9.4bn in sub-prime losses and sells a 9.9 per cent stake in the company to the Chinese state investment company CIC for $5bn to rebuild its capital. Sensex ended up 71 points at 19,163 on December 20.
January 4, 2008: US unemployment rises sharply as job report sparks fall in stock market Sensex remains unfazed and ends up 126 points on January 6.
January 7, 2008: President George W Bush admits that the credit crunch could slow the US economy in 2008, but says it is still fundamentally strong. Sensex hits 21,000; ends up 61 points on January 8.
January 9, 2008: Bear Stearns boss James Cayne steps down after the firm reveals $1.9 billion in sub-prime losses, the largest in its history.
World Bank said that world economic growth will slow in 2008 due to credit crunch, but strong performance in China and India will cushion impact. The Sensex ended with a loss of 288 points at 20,582 on January 10.
January 15, 2008: Citigroup, the largest bank in the US, reported a $9.8 billion loss for the fourth quarter and wrote down $18 billion in sub-prime losses. Sensex tumbled to a low of 19,513, down 738 points on January 16.
January 28, 2008: Belgian bank Fortis warned its losses connected to bad US mortgage debt could be as high as $1.47 billion. Sensex ended down 61 points at 18,091.
January 29, 2008: The US Federal Bureau of Investigation launched an investigation into 14 companies involved in the sub-prime mortgage crisis. Sensex continued to be in the red, as it ended down 333 points at 17,759 on January 30.
January 30, 2008: The US Federal Reserve cut interest rates to 3% from 3.5%. It was the second cut in nine days. US economic growth slowed. Sensex ends down 110 points at 17,649 on January 31.
February 5, 2008: US financial firm GMAC, which owns sub-prime lender Residential Capital, said it has made a $2.3 billion loss in 2007, compared with a $2.1 billion profit the year before.
February 6, 2008: Wall Street saw its worst share losses in almost a year, amid fears that the worst US housing slump in 25 years is crippling the wider economy. On February 7 the Sensex closed with a loss of over 600 points at 17,527. The NSE Nifty closed with a loss of 190 points at 5,133.
February 10, 2008: Leaders from the G7 group of industrialised nations said worldwide losses from the US mortgage crisis could reach $400 billion. Sensex shed 834 points to close at 16,631 on February 11.
February 12, 2008: Swiss bank Credit Suisse said losses on sub-prime investments were $1.8 billion. Sensex ends up 341 points.
February 13, 2008: Britain’s Bradford & Bingley cut the value of its sub-prime mortgage-related investments by $284.5 million. Japan’s financial watchdog said Japanese banks suffered losses of $5.6 billion by the end of 2007. The Sensex closed with a huge gain of 817 points at 17,764 on February 14.
February 14, 2008: Commerzbank, Germany’s second-biggest bank, cut $1.1 billion off the value of investments linked to the sub-prime mortgage crisis and warned its losses could worsen.
March 7, 2008: The former bosses of Merrill Lynch and Citigroup were questioned by a Congressional panel over their bumper pay -- despite huge, sub-prime related bosses at their banks.
The Sensex ended the day with a marginal loss of 52 points at 15,924 on March 10. The NSE Nifty finished with a gain of 29 points at 4,800.
March 11, 2008: Central banks made another coordinated attempt to ease conditions in the credit markets, by announcing $200 billion of new emergency lending for banks.
March 14, 2008: Investment fund Carlyle Capital failed as the credit crisis spreads from sub-prime related products to other mortgage-backed investments.
Bear Stearns received emergency funding, after its exposure to mortgage-backed investments undermined confidence in the bank. And on March 17, Sensex ended with a hefty loss of 951 points at 14,809 -- one of its biggest single-day falls.
March 17, 2008: Wall Street investment bank Bear Stearns was acquired by JPMorgan Chase for $240m, a fraction of its share price, in deal backed by $30 billion in Fed loans.
The bank got into trouble over its huge exposure to sub-prime mortgage-backed securities. The Sensex settled at 14,833 -- up 24 points. The NSE Nifty ended with a gain of 30 points at 4,533.
March 18, 2008: Wall Street investment banks Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers revealed that their first quarter profits have been halved by the credit crunch. On March 19, Sensex gained 161 points.
March 31, 2008: US Treasury announced major package to reform regulation of US financial markets and prevent future financial crises. Sensex ends down 18 points.
May 22, 2008: Swiss bank UBS, one of the worst affected by the credit crunch, launches a $15.5bn rights issue to cover some of the $37bn it lost on assets linked to US mortgage debt.
Sensex fell 336 points on May 23.
June 19, 2008: The FBI arrests 406 people, including brokers and housing developers, as part of a crackdown on alleged mortgage frauds worth $1 billion.
Separately, two former Bear Stearns workers faced criminal charges related to the collapse of two hedge funds linked to sub-prime mortgages. It is alleged they knew of the funds’ problems but did not disclose them to investors, who lost a total of $1.4 billion. Sensex ends down 278 points on June 23.
July 13, 2008: US mortgage lender IndyMac collapsed -- the second-biggest bank in US history to fail.
On July 14, the Sensex finally ended with a loss of 139 points at 13,331.
July 14, 2008: Financial authorities step in to assist America’s two largest lenders, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. As guarantors of $5 trillion worth of home loans, they are crucial to the US housing market and authorities agreed they could not be allowed to fail. On July 15 Sensex tumbled by 654.32 points at 12,676.19, a level last seen on March 6, 2008.
September 5, 2008: US unemployment rate rose to 6.1%.
September 7, 2008: Mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- which account for nearly half of the outstanding mortgages in the US -- were rescued by the US government in one of the largest bailouts in US history. On September 8 the Sensex rose by 461 points.
September 10, 2008: Wall Street bank Lehman Brothers posted a loss of $3.9 billion (�2.2 billion) for the three months to August. Sensex traded in the negative and ended down 339 points at 14,339.
September 15, 2008: After days of searching frantically for a buyer, Lehman Brothers filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, becoming the first major bank to collapse since the start of the credit crisis.
US bank Merrill Lynch agreed to be taken over by Bank of America for $50 billion.
On September 17 Sensex declined by 255.90 points.
September 17, 2008: Insurer American International Group apparently was too big to fail. The mammoth insurer, which had been pushed to the brink of bankruptcy by problems originating in the US mortgage crisis, is being bailed out by the Federal Reserve.
The Fed will extend a 24-month bridge loan of $85.0 billion to the insurer, in return for an unprecedented acquisition of a 79.9 per cent stake in the firm by the central bank.
Barclays announces that it will buy Lehman US units for $1.75 billion.
In a sharp pull-back: Sensex recovered over 700 points, to end up 53 points on September 18.
September 19, 2008: The US government proposed to create a $700-billion rescue fund for the American financial sector.
The fund will be used to buy back bad debt from ailing US banks and other financial institutions.
President George W Bush urged the Congress to endorse his plan as soon as possible. Congress is expected to take a decision in the coming days.
The move increased the US public debt to $11.3 trillion.
The President said: "This is a big package because it was a big problem." He argued that the drastic measures were necessary to keep the economy going. The president admitted that the plan would be funded with tax money, but added that "over time, we’re going to get a lot of the money back."
Relieved investors sent stocks soaring on Wall Street and around the globe. The Dow-Jones industrials average rose 368 points after surging 410 points the day before on rumours that the federal action was afoot.
The Sensex on September 19 ended with a significant gain of 5.5% (727 points) at 14,042. The NSE Nifty soared over 5% (207 points) to 4,245.
That, till now, is the scenario. If the events that led to the world’s worst-ever financial crisis are not scary enough, some economists fear that this might not be the end of the problem. So will things worsen? Only time will tell. . .
The deal between the Reliance ADAG group and Steven Spielberg’s DreamWorks SKG is just another instance of fund-starved Hollywood looking eastward.
Hollywood’s production houses now find themselves in the midst of situations similar to the ones they churn out in their own films on Wall Street. The raging financial crisis overseas is pinching them as well.
According to several foreign media reports, the film financing is speedily drying up for Hollywood’s big names. After this week’s collapse of Lehman Brothers and buy out of Merrill Lynch by Bank of America, a number of production houses are in a fix, say reports. So much so that certain production houses are turning to Asia for garnering funds.
Reuters quoted US’s film-finance attorney, Mr John Burke, on Monday: “A financial market that’s in a meltdown is not good for the industry in so many ways.” The report also points out that some studios and new ventures took funds from institutions such as Merrill Lynch and “have locked in money and interest rates for the near-term”.
Giving a specific example, the report points out that MGM’s United Artists division could be in for some trouble, “in the most dramatic scenario that could lead to the facility being pulled”. The company is believed to have raised $500 million for a production facility with Merrill, says the report.
Merrill Lynch & Co reduced film financing in May, when Mr Michael Blum, who led divisions that packaged mortgage bonds and raised money for Hollywood films, left the company, says a Bloomberg report.
Other film companies, such as The Weinstein Company, Walt Disney Company and Paramount, are also believed to be looking at alternative plans (Asian sources of funding or picture-by-picture funds) once their existing fund agreements come to a close.
GULF CALLING
Hollywood is seeking funds from Gulf destinations, apart from Asia. According to a Bloomberg report, Abu Dhabi plans to spend $1 billion over five years to finance Hollywood and international films. Abu Dhabi Media Co. formed Imagenation Abu Dhabi to work with producers to make as many as eight films a year, says the report. “Abu Dhabi is stepping in as other sources of movie funding dry up amid the credit crunch”.
The Abu Dhabi company is believed to be working closely with Time Warner Inc. and MGM Mirage to build theme parks, says the report.
Among the Asian tie-ups and joint ventures is Walt Disney’s recent tie-up with Yash Raj Films to produce animated features for Indian audiences and to release one animated movie a year.
Full Story with More pictures...The south Indian State of Kerala has long been held up as a shining example of developmental success in the face of economic odds. Several academics have analysed the “Kerala model” of development. G.K. Lieten, for instance, writing in the Journal of Contemporary Asia on “The Human Development Puzzle in Kerala”, says “In the increasing attention to human development, Kerala has started to serve as a metaphor for a high human development index (HDI) despite a low gross national product (GNP). In terms of literacy, morbidity, child mortality, longevity and fertility, it closely approaches the standards reached in the developed countries. Even in comparison with China and South Korea, admittedly success stories in human development management, Kerala did much better.”
Richard W. Franke and Barbara H. Chasin, state: “Kerala shows that Third World people can make their lives better in the absence of industrialisation or large-scale economic growth. The key ingredients: active grassroots organisations, redistribution of wealth and democratic participation.
“Despite low per capita income, Kerala’s 31 million people have achieved nearly total literacy, long life expectancy, low infant mortality and birth rates and high access to medical care. Kerala’s development indicators compare favourably with the rest of India, low-income countries in general and even rich nations such as the United States.”
“The main elements of the Kerala model are: a land reform initiative that abolished tenancy and landlord exploitation; effective public food distribution that provides subsidised rice to low-income households; protective laws for agricultural workers; pensions for retired agricultural labourers; and a high rate of government employment for members of formerly low-caste communities.”
In this context, two recent reports from international agencies on poverty measurement are pertinent from the “Kerala model” point of view. The World Bank , in its update on ‘International Comparison Programme’, has said that out of an estimated population of about 100 crore in 2005, “the number of poor people living below $1.25 a day has increased from 42.1 crore in 1981 to 45.6 crore in 2005. This is the biggest challenge facing India.”
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Full Story with More pictures...South Korea said it would launch its first carbon trading firm to fund clean energy projects and encourage investment in emission trading, joining the global push to tap the $64 billion carbon market to fight climate change.
Korea Carbon Finance will launch this month with 5 billion won ($4.3 million) in capital, financed by Korea Investment & Securities and private companies, South Korea’s energy ministry said.
"The company will trade carbon offset credits (CERs) produced by domestic companies and secure investments from private equity funds to invest in carbon derivatives and greenhouse gas reduction projects," it said in a statement.
In the $13 billion Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) market, a trading scheme under the Kyoto Protocol, companies from rich nations can invest in clean energy projects in developing countries and in exchange receive offset credits, called CERs, which they can use toward their emissions targets or sell for profit.
South Korea’s CDM market is the world’s fourth largest after China, India and Brazil.
Technorati Tags: Carbon, Pollution, World, China, India
Del.Icio.Us Tags: Carbon, Pollution, World, China, India
Hackers armed with laptop computers, camping tents and dreams of software glory invaded Yahoo during the weekend as the Internet pioneer opened its strategy and its doors to outside developers.
The "hackathon" was as much a symbol of Yahoo rising from the ashes of a burned-out courtship with US technology colossus Microsoft as it was a chance for software wizards to work their magic on Yahoo’s platform.
The approximately 300 hackers that swept onto the firm’s campus in Sunnyvale, California, had the first chance to tinker with the inner workings of Yahoo online offerings such as its globally popular free email.
Yahoo earlier in the week outlined a shift to an "Open Strategy" that it believes will jazz-up the website and lead to meshing offerings from hot online properties such as Amazon and iTunes with its Web pages.
"Open is a really important strategy for us," Yahoo Developer Network head Chris Yeh told AFP as hackers fuelled up on pizza, keg beer and caffeine-based energy drinks for all-night software writing sessions.
"It is a new course for the ship. Our ability to turn Yahoo from a company that owns and operates its own sites to a company that lets other people in on the action is a critical growth moment. This is really exciting."
Breaking down walls between websites where people store digitised photos, videos, messages, and musings is a trend that’s overdue, according to Internet users and developers.
"It’s something that really needs to happen," Developer Ryan Moore said as he worked on a hack in a purple-and-yellow armchair overlooking sand volleyball courts. "It’s the way everything ought to work."
Yahoo announced plans to revamp its homepage in coming months to allow people to customise home pages with mini-applications, including those crafted by third-party developers and vetted by Yahoo.
"Jerry (Yang) and I are dedicated to keeping that spirit of openness and innovation alive, but we know that we can’t come up with all the great ideas ourselves," Yahoo co-founder David Filo wrote in a ’Hack Day’ message.
"Hackers, bring it on." Hackers working alone or in teams set up camps in booths or tables in URL’s Cafe in the heart of Yahoo’s campus while others retreated to classrooms or stuffed chairs on the second floor of the two-story building.
"This is the Yahoo that you know; that you’ve always dealt with," said Moore, who attended the company’s first and only other US hack day in 2006.
"It’s the old Yahoo: ’We have eyeballs; we have data -- have at it.’ "
Some broke from coding intermittently through the night to nap in tents pitched in a grassy courtyard or play classic arcade videogames including Pac-Man and Galaga.
Musically inclined hackers tested their skills on faux instruments playing pretend rock stars in the Rock Band video game. Nearly 50 "hacks" were completed by the time the event wrapped after dark on Saturday.
Software creations included a "Ganzbot" robot that reads people news, weather, Twitter messages or other information streamed to their home pages by automated delivery mechanisms known as "feeds."
An Icarus.tv hack served up music videos in online radio style, scouring the Internet and fetching performances that promise to fit people’s tastes.
"The people here from Yahoo are psyched, excited," Yeh said. "It’s a great event. It is one of the things we can rally about as a company."
Yahoo claims more than 500 million users worldwide but has been struggling to cash-in on its popularity. Yahoo’s sagging fortunes and Google’s ascension as Internet advertising king prompted Microsoft on January 31 to offer to buy Yahoo for $44.6 billion in a half-cash, half-stock deal.
Microsoft was eager to combine online resources with Yahoo in order to better battle Google. Microsoft walked away from negotiations May 3 after Yahoo rejected an offer it raised from $31 to $33 per share, which amounted to $47.5 billion.
Yahoo subsequently made a deal with Google to put its online advertising expertise to work on Yahoo websites. That deal is to take effect later this year if it passes muster with US anti-trust regulators.
"It’s been a remarkable year so far and it is going to continue to be a remarkable year," Yeh said. "I like interesting times. I think when things are in flux good things happen."
Full Story with More pictures...Google Inc is all set to launch its own "computer navy" -- a set of supercomputers necessary to operate its Internet search engines on barges anchored up to 11km offshore. As per Indiatimes, the "water-based data centres" would use wave energy to power and cool the computers. Their offshore status would also mean the company would no longer have to pay property taxes on its data centres sited across the world.
In the patent, Google writes, “Computing centres are located on a ship or ships, anchored in a water body from which energy from natural motion of the water may be captured, and turned into electricity and/or pumping power for cooling pumps to carry heat away.”
The increasing number of data centres necessary to cope with the massive information flows generated on the Web has made companies look at radical ideas to reduce their running costs.
The supercomputers housed in data centres, which can be the size of football pitches, use massive amounts of electricity to ensure they do not overheat. As a result, the Internet is not very Green. In fact, data centres consumed 1 per cent of the world’s electricity in 2005.
To address the problem, Microsoft has investigated building a data centre in the cold climes of Siberia; while in Japan, Sun Microsystems plans to send its computers down an abandoned coal mine, using water from the ground as a coolant.
Sun said it could save $9 million of electricity costs a year and use half the power the data centre would have required if it was at ground level. Technology experts said Google’s “computer navy” was an unexpected but clever solution.
Source: Indiatimes
Marriage software
This is what a guy wrote to our systems analyst:
Dear Systems Analyst, I am desperate for some help! I recently upgraded my program from Girlfriend 7.0 to Wife 1.0 and found that the new program began unexpected Child Processing and also took up a lot of space and valuable resources.
This wasn’t mentioned in the product brochure. In addition Wife 1.0 installs itself into all other programs and launches during systems initialization and then it monitors all other system activities. Applications such as “Boys’ Night out 2.5″ and “Golf 5.3″ no longer run, and crashes the system whenever selected. Attempting to operate selected “Saturday Football 6.3″ always fails and “Saturday Shopping 7.1″ runs instead. I cannot seem to keep Wife 1.0 in the background whilst attempting to run any of my favourite applications. Be it online or offline. I am thinking of going back to “Girlfriend 7.0″, but uninstall doesn’t work on this program. Can you please help?
……………….AND THE ANALYST SAID,
Dear Customer, This is a very common problem resulting from a basic misunderstanding of the functions of the Wife 1.0 program. Many customers upgrade from Girlfriend 7.0 to Wife 1.0 thinking that Wife 1.0 is merely a UTILITY AND ENTERTAINMENT PROGRAM. Actually, Wife 1.0 is an OPERATING SYSTEM designed by its Creator to run everything on your current platform.
You are unlikely to be able to purge Wife 1.0 and still convert back to Girlfriend 7.0, as Wife 1.0 was not designed to do this and it is impossible to uninstall, delete or purge the program files from the System once it is installed. Some people have tried to install Girlfriend 8.0 or Wife 2.0 but have ended up with even more problems. (See manual under Alimony/Child Support and Solicitors’ Fees).
Having Wife 1.0 installed, I recommend you keep it Installed and deal with the difficulties as best as you can. When any faults or problems occur, whatever you think has caused them, you must run the……… C:’ APOLOGIZE’ FORGIVE ME.EXE Program and avoid attempting to use the *Esc-Key for it will freeze the entire system. It may be necessary to run C:’ APOLOGIZE’ FORGIVE ME.EXE a number of times, and eventually hope that the operating system will return to normal. Wife 1.0, although a very high maintenance programme, can be very rewarding.
To get the most out of it, consider buying additional Software such as “Flowers 2.0″ and “Chocolates 5.0″ or “HUGS’ KISSES 600.0″ or “TENDERNESS’ UNDERSTANDING 1000.0″ or even Eating out without the Kids 7.2.1″ (if Child processing has already started). DO NOT under any circumstances install “Secretary 2.1” (Short Skirt Version) or “One Nightstand 3.2″ (Any Mood Version), as this is not a supported Application for Wife 1.0 and the system will almost certainly CRASH.
If you work on an unsecured wireless internet network, beware. Someone right now could be moving around in the city looking for open WiFi spots for sending anonymous terror emails or accessing confidential information with almost no risk of being caught. Welcome to the dark world of wardriving.
A wardriver is a person who moves in a vehicle with a laptop - or a PDA like iPhone or BlackBerry - which has a software that detects WiFi networks. If an unscrupulous wardriver finds an "open" network, one that is not password-protected, he could use it for a range of nefarious activities.
The terror emails sent from the WiFi connections of an American in Navi Mumbai and Mumbai’s Khalsa College could possibly be examples of such misuse. These networks can also be used for identity thefts and corporate espionage.
Unless caught in the act, it’s virtually impossible to trace a wardriver. The wireless network can be accessed within a 25-30m radius of the point of installation. The malicious user can then piggyback on the network to send emails or access websites using the owner’s IP address, which when traced back leads to the owner of the network.
Says Sumit Grover, a vigilante wardriver, "I discovered many unprotected networks, observed their misuse. Over the past year, I tried to alert the ISPs involved, the Computer Emergency Response Team which analyzes threats to computers and networks in India, Trai, the ISP Association of India and even the IT ministry. Nobody took notice. Sadly, this was followed by a spate of terror attacks."
Software for wardriving - breaking into unsecured wireless internet - is freely available on the internet or even pre-installed in the device and such attacks are increasing with the rapid rise of wireless networks as laptop and broadband prices fall. The WiFi Alliance has estimated the WiFi market to be worth over $270 million and expects it to touch $900 million by 2011-12. Almost 90% or more of these networks aren’t password-protected.
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Full Story with More pictures...One of the oldest and most stable ’free’ operating systems, Debian, has entered into a new phase of its life. The operating system is now available on live CDs as well. The current release of Debian’s Lenny (Lenny is the name of the version as Vista and XP are the names of the versions of Windows OS) is in beta stage and is available for users to download and try.
Windows and Mac users may not be much aware of what a Live CD is. The best thing about a Live CD is unlike Windows you don’t have to install it on your machine to use it; all you need to do is put the CD in the tray and restart the PC. Your PC will boot from the Live CD and you can use and test all the features of the operating system without installing anything on your hard drive. These Linux-based Live CDs are very helpful when your C drive of Windows gets corrupted and you have some critical data on it. You can simply put the Live CD and take back-up of your critical data, then do whatever you want to do with your C drive.
The GNU/Linux-based operating systems are gaining popularity these days as they are getting more and more user friendly and offering eye-candy looks. Another, or the major advantage of the GNU/Linux-based operating systems is they are virus-free. You will never have to install any anti-virus software or format your PC for removal of viruses. Another major advantage is that the Linux-based operating systems are available ’free’ of cost as well; the GNU/Linux community defines the word free as in freedom, which implies you are free to do anything with the OS.
Now, coming back to Debian, it is one of the oldest and most stable operating systems. Many popular Linux-based operating systems are based on Debian -- the most popular being Ubuntu. Till date, Debian did not have an option of Live CD, but last week, the Debian Live team announced the first beta of Debian Lenny’s Live images.
When you install a Linux-based system, you get most of the software along with it. For writing letters or word processing, there are OpenOffice.org and kOffice, free equivalents to MS Word, you get GIMP, an alternate to Photoshop, you get VLC and Amarok to watch movies and listen to song, you get PidGin, an awesome tool which allows you to log into Yahoo! Messenger, MSN, Gtalk and many more chat programmes simultaneously. In a nutshell, you will find almost everything you need for your day-to-day life in Linux. However, there are some commercial products which are not yet available for Linux.
To download your free copy of Debian, click here.
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