Intel, the world’s largest chipmaker, is understood to be in talks with leading Indian telecom companies like Tata Communications (formerly VSNL), Bharti Airtel and Reliance Communications that could bid for broadband wireless access (BWA) spectrum to be auctioned by the government in January 2010.
Talks are currently centred on Intel offering Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access or WiMAX (which provides for wireless transmission of data and up to 75 Mb/sec speed) technology — one of the popular BWA technologies — to the operator, and the possibility of taking a minority stake through its venture capital arm, Intel Capital.
There has been a good deal of research done on music and the brain, some of which is described in recent books such as Daviel J. Levitin’s This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession and Oliver Sacks’s Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain. The areas of the brain involved in processing music are well understood, and anatomical differences in the brains of musicians and non-musicians have been described. Far less research has been done on what happens within the brains of musicians while they are performing. One reason for this is no doubt due to a practical difficulty — pianos and guitars don’t fit into MRI instruments. However, a few recent studies that examine the brains of musicians provide some interesting insights.
Renowned author Salman Rushdie has decided to go to Romania next month to find out why his books are so popular in Transylvania.
The 62-year-old writer, who was seen with Romanian actress Monica Birladeanu at Venice Film Festival, is eager to know the reason for his popularity.
"Some people are big in America but I'm big there," the Daily Express quoted Rushdie as saying.
"I don't know the reason for that. Maybe in translation they have turned my books into vampire novels," he added.
Meanwhile, Rushdie is planning to move on from magical realism and historical fiction to pen a graphic novel.
"Recently I got asked if I'd like to write a graphic novel. When I was a kid I was a real comic book nut and I can tell you a lot about superheroes," he said earlier.
Apple hasn't messed too much with the white plastic MacBook for this late 2009 refresh, but it has spruced up its entry-level laptop to bring it into line with its MacBook Pro models.
The most obvious change is the move to a unibody enclosure, but this is cast from a single slab of slick polycarbonate rather than the aluminium ingot of the MacBook Pro. Nonetheless, the single-piece construction improves overall rigidity and even reduces weight by a small amount, but its construction isn't completely seamless. The base is a separate strip of non-slip plastic that's better suited to being scraped across desktops than the rest of the shiny case.
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The MacBook's 'Scrabble tile' keyboard hasn't changed, but this is no bad thing as it's one of the most comfortable to be found on any laptop. Apple has swapped the standard trackpad for the same jumbo multi-touch model as the MacBook Pro, though. This has no button and instead can be clicked across its entire glass surface, with a two-finger click taking the place of the right button.
With rivals nipping at its heels, search giant Google is breathing fresh ideas into its social networking site Orkut in a war to win back eyeballs from Facebook.
The new user interface is slick and colourful, with a lot more spunk, but not everything is hunky-dory.
Though Orkut may have more subscribers, Facebook has more active users, pointed out Deepak Goel, founder and CEO of the social media and branding firm Drizzlin. Moreover, Facebook, which started off as an urban phenomenon and is seeping into tier II cities, shows more promise.
To add exclusivity, the new Orkut experience is now available only by invitation.
Orkut has leveraged on its group properties to muscle the interface. For instance, users can add scrap video clips that were earlier restricted to text.
Chetan Bhagat magnanimously dedicates this book to his in-laws. He admits that book is inspired by his own experiences and yet he requests the book be treated as fiction. Its hard to considering every second couple in this country undergoes similar experiences. Not to mention, every Boolywood movie harps on same theme.
The book is all about an IIMA couple’s struggle to marry. Krish is north Indian Punjabi boy Krish in love with Tamilian Brahmin girl Ananya. (Chetan Bhagat too is Punjabi and his wife is a South Indian.) The only catch is, Krish and Ananya don’t want to elope or be estranged to their families, therefore, they choose to convince their parents for the marriage.
Hayley Williams didn't spend her adolescence stalking the halls of a New England prep school. And her Christian faith probably precludes her from using the word goddamn like an indefinite article. But the flame-haired Paramore frontwoman is, without question, rock's Holden Caulfield: There's no limit to Williams' disgust with phoniness in all its forms.
After building a devoted fan base through tours with the B-list emo likes of Bayside and Cute Is What We Aim For, her young suburban Nashville quintet busted out in a major way with 2007's Riot!, a powerful little smart bomb of righteous-babe rhetoric that earned Paramore a Grammy nomination for Best New Artist alongside Taylor Swift and Amy Winehouse.
While doing head to head comparisons at the local audio shop of several different types of headphones from various manufacturers I finally tried the Sennheiser HD380 Pro headphones and I was taken aback by how rich and full they sounded! The first thing that hit me was how good the bass sounded. The bass response of the HD380 Pro headphones is deep but not mushy. You can hear the attack of the bass drum very well and then a full blossoming of bass frequencies behind it. It’s really hard to describe in words as it’s just something you have to hear. The overall sound of the headphones is warm without being overly bright or crisp. I hate it when headphones have too much sizzle to them which other headphones are prone to do with cheap drivers. The HD380 Pro’s have very smooth frequency response and seem to slightly favor bass frequencies but in a well balanced way. They do seem to be more suited to rock and electronic music than orchestral or classical music. That makes them perfect for the rock music that I love.
Translated from the Portuguese version by Margaret Jull Costa
I used to know a guy who hated daylight saving time. Every time it rolled around, he devoted a week to denouncing it, along with corporate greed, artificially fertilized lawns, the American highway system and white bread. When his wife bought a loaf to make the kids' lunches, he hung it out the kitchen window with a rope. He wouldn't have it under his roof.
I agreed with him on principle. There are plenty of things to dislike about our culture. His best friend hated standard time, for instance. It ate up the hours of honest working men; it was part of a system to line the pockets of electricity executives; it was -- like American cars and processed frozen food -- a blight on good people everywhere, etc.
Micro Four Thirds has been heralded as the next big thing in digital photography, but it might be more accurately described as the next small thing. The Olympus PEN E-P1 is a bold example of what the Micro Four Thirds technology is capable of doing, a major innovation that is sure to get camera enthusiasts very excited and give casual shoppers some pause as they decide whether to step-up to a more robust camera.
The Panasonic G1 and GH1 were the first Micro Four Thirds cameras on the market, and they were simply more compact versions of the traditional SLR body. The Olympus E-P1 abandons SLR-body types for a more retro look, specifically echoing the original Olympus PEN SLR from 1959. It is available in both stainless steel and white versions. Personally, I prefer the vintage look and feel of the latter, though the former is formidable and eye-catching as well.
Publisher’s Weekly (starred review): Jealous thriller writers will despair, doubters and nay-sayers will be proved wrong, and readers will rejoice: Dan Brown has done it again.
Entertainment Weekly (grade: C+): The codes are intriguing, the settings present often-seen locales in a fresh light, and Brown mostly manages to keep the pages turning — except when one of his know-it-all characters decides to brake the action for another superfluous, if occasionally interesting historical digression.
The New York Times: Within this book’s hermetically sealed universe, characters’ motivations don’t really have to make sense; they just have to generate the nonstop momentum that makes The Lost Symbol impossible to put down.
October 23rd to 25th,
Palace Grounds, Bangalore
20 terrific bands from across India and UK are scheduled to enthrall the TGIOF guests in an international class setup that will be a huge draw this year. There are two different stages for performances this year – the main outdoor stage and an indoor one at the TGIOF café.
This year there is a very different combination of Live Acts. For the first time it brings together Jazz, Heavy Metal, Reggae, Funk, Hindi, Kannada, International Acts, and some of the best of Indian Rock performances. It promises to be a great treat for music lovers.
Great Indian Rock returns for its thirteenth installment this October. The otherbig annual Indian rock gig comes back this year far leaner (just like the other one). With gigs in just four cities and two relatively unknown international headliners, the effects of the financial slowdown have visibly taken their toll on GIR (though some gigs don’t need a recession to disappear).
The two international headliners are US metal act Intronaut (pictured) and Norwegian hardcore act Benea Reach. Intronaut toured recently with Mastodon while Benea Reach is, well, a Norwegian hardcore act. Last year’s headliners were metal acts Sahg, Satyricon and Freak Kitchen.
Intel, the world’s largest chipmaker, is understood to be in talks with leading Indian telecom companies like Tata Communications (formerly VSNL), Bharti Airtel and Reliance Communications that could bid for broadband wireless access (BWA) spectrum to be auctioned by the government in January 2010.
