Google adds Video and Voice chat to Gmail

Starting right now, Google is rolling out voice and video chat to all Gmail users. The audio-video chat feature is fairly simple and works straight from the browser. Unlike Skype and other VOIP services, you can’t make phone calls and scores of other features are missing, but still it’s a great add-on for Gmail.

Google decided to ditch flash, and build their proprietary add-on for the feature. The add-on weighs around 2 MB and supports IE, Firefox, Chrome in PC and Firefox-only for Mac users. Once the video feature is enabled in your account, you’ll see "Video & more." option in the lower left corner of the Gmail chat box. If you are trying to make a video call to someone, who has not installed the add-on, you’ll be able to invite them to do so. You have an option to go full-screen while video chatting.

gmail_video_chat


I’m quite disappointed that Google didn’t consider using the cross-platform Flash plugin. Since most people already have Flash plugin installed, users don’t need to install another browser add-on. Google Talk application has supported voice chat right from its early days. I’d like to see some of these new features added to the downloadable client as well.

U.S. Seizes Counterfeit IT Equipment

More than 420,000 pieces of counterfeit IT hardware were seized at U.S. ports during May and June, reports the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

It estimates it seized $1.3 million in networking equipment and hardware components at 11 different ports, reports vnunet.com. On the street, that equipment could have been sold for an estimated $3.5 million. The story warns that such equipment is more likely to fail than authentic products.

The story doesn’t say which brands the counterfeiters were trying to replicate, but they in particular seem to try to pass off Cisco products and have been successful in selling them to the U.S. military in some cases.

India is Exploring the Moon

India launched its first unmanned spacecraft to explore the Moon on October 22, 2008.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) calls the Moon flight project Chandrayan Pratham, which has been translated as First Journey to the Moon or Moonshot One in ancient Sanskrit.

The 1,157-lb. Chandrayan-1 was launched on a two-tyear mission on one of India's own Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) space rockets from the Sriharikota Space Center in southern India.

The spacecraft circled Earth in a geosynchronous transfer orbit (GTO) from where it flew on out into a polar orbit of the Moon some 60 miles above the lunar surface.

The Chandrayan mission will send back to Earth high-resolution 3-D images of the moon's surface including the shadowy polar regions. It is searching for evidence of water or ice. It also will try to identify the chemical breakdown of some lunar rocks.

Chandrayan-1 carries X-ray and gamma-ray spectrometers sending data to scientists on Earth for use in a high-resolution digital map of the lunar surface.

Its remote-sensing instruments are sensitive to visible light, near-infrared light, and low-energy and high-energy X-rays.


Shar Space Launch Center on Sriharikota Island off India's east coast state of Andhra Pradesh is used by ISRO to launch spacecraft on PSLV and other rockets.
Chandrayaan-1 has payloads from the United States and European countries Germany, Britain, Sweden and Bulgaria. India plans to share its Moon data with NASA and other space agencies.

The European Space Agency (ESA) provided three science instruments for Chandrayan-1. They are identical to those already in orbit around the Moon on ESA's Smart 1 spacecraft, which is surveying chemical elements on the lunar surface.

The Indian lunar satellite also houses a U.S. radar instrument designed to locate water ice.

Previously, India has launched weather and communication satellites to Earth orbit.

Why send a probe to the Moon? While the South Asian nation has the second largest population on Earth, it is not a rich country with millions of uneducated and even homeless residents.

Like all other nations sending machines and people to space, India considers funding of its space program to be a matter of prestige. In making the announcement in 2003, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee said a Moon flight would showcase India's scientific capabilities.

A former science minster in the Indian government, physicist M.G.K. Menon told news media then that Chandrayan-1 would "excite the younger generation." Menon also said the Moon flight would have the effect of "enormously increasing the confidence of the nation."

ISRO said Chandrayan-1 is the first mission in "India's foray into a planetary exploration era in the coming decades." Chandrayan-1 will be the "forerunner of more ambitious planetary missions in the years to come, including landing robots on the Moon and visits by Indian spacecraft to other planets in the Solar System."

Other nations have probed the Moon. The former Soviet Union and the United States conducted the earliest lunar exploration in the late 1950s and the 1960s. Soviet spacecraft were the first to fly by, then land on, and finally orbit the moon. The U.S. Apollo flights were the first manned missions to reach the moon, culminating with six missions that set down on the surface.

Much more recently, India's Asian neighbors, China and Japan, sent spacecraft to orbit the Moon in 2007.

BEIJING — When athletes from all 204 nations competing at the Beijing Games marched into the National Stadium, it was obvious that this Olympics was not like any other.
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The Olympic rings were up in lights at the opening ceremony Friday.

The athletes from Greece, the birthplace of the Olympics, marched in first, as usual. The athletes from the host country, China, marched in last, as usual. But the rest of the athletes walked into the pulsating National Stadium, packed with 91,000 fans, according to the number of strokes it takes to write the first character of their names in Chinese. So, following Greece came Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Turkey, then Turkmenistan. Next came Yemen and Maldives.

“It was a very Chinese ceremony, from beginning to the end,” said Zhou Hui, a 20-year-old college student who came to watch the ceremony from Hong Kong. “And look at the sky. It’s gray. That’s very Chinese, too.”

On the night of the opening ceremony, for the fifth day in a row, the air was thick and smoggy, the conditions Olympic organizers feared the most. The local air quality rating was 94, which would be considered very poor in the United States. But the standards are not the same here. In Beijing, anything below a 101 qualifies as a Blue Sky day, according to the standards set to monitor air quality for the Olympics.

On Friday, as Olympic and city officials continued to defend the air quality here this week, athletes were faced with a decision: whether to attend the opening ceremony in the smog and, if they did go, whether to do anything to protect their lungs.

The American contingent, each person dressed in white pants, a blue blazer, a white cap, and a red, white and blue tie, did not seem much smaller than usual for an opening ceremony. As expected, most of the swimmers and other athletes whose competitions were early in the Games did not attend. The swim team’s doctor, Scott Rodeo, said the swimmers had previously made the decision to skip it because their competition begins this weekend.

Athletes who are expected to star at these Games, including the swimmer Michael Phelps and the gymnast Shawn Johnson, either did not attend or were not easily identifiable from the stands.

Among those American athletes who did attend were Kobe Bryant, LeBron James and many of their teammates on the basketball team; the track stars Tyson Gay and Jeremy Wariner; and the tennis player Lindsay Davenport. The flag bearer for the United States team was the 1,500-meter runner Lopez Lomong, one of the Lost Boys of Sudan. As a child, he was kidnapped by a militia, then sent to a refugee camp in Kenya. On Friday night, he led the United States contingent.

None of the American athletes — and no athletes from other countries, for that matter — marched in wearing masks to filter the pollution. Some, including the American triathlete Matt Reed, said they would wear a mask after the march into the stadium, when the athletes collected in the infield. But from the spectator area, none of the athletes looked as if they were wearing masks in the steaming heat.

They might have learned their lesson. Earlier this week, four cyclists on the United States team wore masks when they arrived at the airport, and then were scolded by the United States Olympic Committee for embarrassing their Chinese hosts. The cyclists subsequently issued a written apology.

The morning before the opening ceremony, local environmental officials organized a news conference about the air quality because it had become such an issue at the Games. They said they were happy with the fruits of their labor.

“We have gone through a very extraordinary process to improve its air quality and we have achieved outstanding results,” said Du Shaozhong, deputy director and spokesman of the Beijing municipal environmental bureau.

Du said Beijing had met the World Health Organization’s international standards of air quality. The Beijing Olympics organizers had promised the International Olympic Committee that in 2001, when the city was awarded the Games. Later, Du said that the city did meet the standards that were set in 1999, not the updated standards that include measures of tiny dust particles that cause much of the pollution.

On Thursday, Jacques Rogge, the president of the I.O.C., praised Olympic organizers for their efforts that have improved the air in this city. Officials have been implementing measures like shutting down factories that burn coal and reducing the number of cars on roads.

On Thursday, John Coates, the Australian Olympic Committee president, was among the first Olympic officials to criticize the Chinese for the smog at the Olympic Village.

Unlike other officials, Coates acknowledged it was caused by pollution, not by fog from the high humidity, which is the label other officials have given the haze hanging over this city.

“I don’t know how you reverse some of these things,” Coates said. “Let’s hope that’s one of the legacies of these Games, that the realization of the damage that’s been done and will continue to be done unless they are more careful.”

India celebrates silver jubilee of `83 triumph

Cricket-crazy India yesterday celebrated 25 years of the greatest triumph it has achieved so far in the sport by reliving the historic 1983 World Cup glory.

National dailies and television channels here paid glowing tributes to `Kapil`s Devils`, going down memory lane to recreate the moments leading up to the victory that changed the cricketing landscape of the country.

In fact, a documentary reviving the memories, complete with interviews of the victorious team members, was released today to mark the occassion.

The men who made it happen, however, are not here. Kapil Dev and his teammates are in London, where 25 years ago they went as no-hopers but came back heroes.

They are set to be felicitated all over again at Lord`s and will also celebrate their achievement at a dinner hosted by Sunil Gavaskar, an integral part of the 1983 World Cup team.

BCCI President Sharad Pawar will be their to honour the team all over again.

They have already been felicitated by the Indian Board, which gave away Rs 25 lakh to each member of the triumphant squad.

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Although Kapil`s alignment with the rebel Indian Cricket League (ICL) has made him a pariah for the Board, the differences were firmly put on the backburner when the Board honoured the legendary all-rounder for achieving a feat that no other Indian captain has managed to emulate.

Before the BCCI felicitation, the team came together to play a round of golf and take a walk down memory lane.

And the stories they revealed ranged from having to wash their own laundry during the tournament to save money to reminding a British journalist of his promise to eat his words for saying that a weak team like India should not have been allowed to play in the World Cup in his preview.

That sports writer washed down his words quite literally with a glass of wine and cricket took its first step towards becoming a religion in India.

India ranked 74 on corruption index among 180 nations

New York, June 26: India has been ranked a lowly 74, two steps down since last year, among 180 countries of the world on the worldwide Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), prepared by independent international agency Transparency International.

However, corruption is much higher in Pakistan which occupies 140th place, a little below Iran, Libya and Nepal which are ranked 133, 134 and 135 respectively.

Meanwhile, China which was ranked a joint 72 with India in 2007, slided a step down to occupy a place above its neighbour this year.

Among other Asian countries, Russia is placed still lower on 145, while Sri Lanka occupies the 96th position and Maldives is ranked 90.

The least corrupt country in the region is the nascent democracy Bhutan, which has been placed at the 41st spot by the Non-Government Organisation Tracking Prevalence of Corruption Worldwide.

Denmark, Finland, New Zealand, Singapore and Sweden corner the top five spots retaining positions as the least corrupt nations of the world, while bottom of table is occupied by Myanmar and Somalia.

The United States also retains its position and is ranked 20th, just below Germany, Ireland, Japan and France. Besides, Britain occupies the 13th spot and is just ahead of Hong Kong.

Gulf to earn $1.3 trillion from oil in two years: Report

Kuwait City, June 21: The oil-rich Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states are projected to earn close to USD 1.3 trillion in oil revenue in 2008 and 2009, a Kuwaiti economic report said on Saturday.

The six-nation alliance -- Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia -- earned USD 364 billion from oil in 2007, the Al-Shall Economic Consultants said in its weekly report.

The GCC oil revenues are projected to reach 636 billion dollars in 2008 and USD 657 billion in 2009, Al-Shall said.

Oil powerhouse Saudi Arabia`s earnings in the two years will be just under USD 700 billion. The kingdom posted USD 194 billion in oil revenues in 2007.

The six states, which boast just less than half of the world`s crude proven reserves, produce around 16 million barrels per day, or just under one-fifth of the world`s consumption.