Latheef's Web Log

India is actually starting to outsource some of their IT functions back the U.S. One example of this is new trend is Tata's new facility: "Tata Consultancy Services said last week it has opened a development center in a former paper plant outside Cincinnati, with initial plans to employ 1,000 people, which would make it one of the largest U.S. development centers by an India-based IT services company. The 200,000-square-foot facility will include a lab where TCS hopes to show off its experience in such areas as industrial engineering and services. TCS plans to hire Midwest tech talent for the facility." Tata isn't alone, the trend of IT jobs returning to US shores via foreign employers may only be beginning. We'll keep our fingers crossed. Thanks

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands : The Web site where Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders was promoting his not-yet-released anti-Quran film has been suspended by its U.S. hosting service, Network Solutions. The site formerly showed the film's title, "Fitna" — "Coming Soon" — and an image of a gilded Quran. Now it shows a note that the company is investigating whether the site violates its terms of service. "Network Solutions has received a number of complaints regarding this site that are under investigation," the note said. While the exact contents of the 15-minute movie, due to be released by March 31, are unknown, Wilders has said it will underscore his view that Islam's holy book is "fascist." Dutch officials fear the movie could spark violent protests in Muslim countries, similar to those two years ago after the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in a Danish newspaper. Wilders has said he will release his movie on the Internet after tel...

An old man, probably some ninety plus years, sat feebly on the park bench. He didn't move, just sat with his head down staring at his hands. When I sat down beside him he didn't acknowledge my presence and the longer I sat I wondered if he was ok. Finally, not really wanting to disturb him but wanting to check on him at the same time, I asked him if he was ok. He raised his head and looked at me and smiled. Yes, I'm fine, thank you for asking, he said in a clear strong voice. I didn't mean to disturb you… but you were just sitting there staring at your hands and I wanted to make sure you were ok I explained to him. Have you ever looked at your hands he asked? I mean really looked at your hands? I slowly opened my hands and stared down at them. I turned them over, palms up and then palms down. No, I guess I never really looked at my hands as I tried to figure out the point he was making. Then he smiled and related this story: Stop and think for a moment about...

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An innovative technique for detecting different biomarkers could result in a precise, easy-to-use diagnostic tool. T echnology Review

1. Don’t spend more money than you have. 2. Stick to your grocery lists – compile them based on an itemized overview of your household needs and never stray too far from it. 3. In a similar vein, never go grocery shopping hungry! 4. Keep your receipts, or write your own – at the end of each day, list your expenditures. At the end of the month, group those expenditures to create a simple overview of where you’re spending too much or even too little. 5. Pack a brown bag lunch each day. Save hundreds, or even thousands, of dollars each year. 6. Develop a distaste for Starbucks. 7. Talk yourself out of purchases. Ask yourself, do I need this? Think of various ways you can avoid a purchase that seems necessary through innovative MacGyvering. 8. You don’t need the $100 shirt from the pricey store when there’s a $10 equivalent at the thrift store. You don’t need a room-sized plasma TV when your old CRT still works. 9. Remind yourself frequently of your financial goals, especially when you’re ...

The most powerful computer known is the brain, and now scientists have designed a machine just a few molecules large that mimics how the brain works. So far the device can simultaneously carry out 16 times more operations than a normal computer transistor. Researchers suggest the invention might eventually prove able to perform roughly 1,000 times more operations than a transistor. Yahoo News

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Scientists say the data download has started from the international Cassini spacecraft as it moves through geyser plumes from one of Saturn's moons. An unmanned probe will sweep through geysers on one of Saturn's moons to measure the chemical makeup. Todd Barber, NASA's lead propulsion engineer on the project, says the transmission signal from the unmanned probe was received at 10:01 p.m. ET Wednesday and "everything looks great." The probe was expected to be at a height of nearly 120 miles above the surface of the moon Enceladus as it sweeps through the edge of the geysers and measures their chemical makeup. The carefully orchestrated event will take Cassini "deeper than we've been before," mission scientist Carolyn Porco of the Space Science Institute said in an e-mail. CNN News

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (AP) -- A pair of astronauts have ventured out on the first spacewalk of Endeavour's space station mission despite a problem getting power to a giant robot that they needed to assemble. CNN News

MyTobii, a Swedish-based world leader in eye-tracking software and hardware, has launched their Middle East division at the Dubai International Rehabilitation Forum 2008. ITP Link

A tiny chemical "brain" which could one day act as a remote control for swarms of nano-machines has been invented. BBC Link

A British company has developed a camera that can detect weapons, drugs or explosives hidden under people's clothes from up to 25 meters away in what could be a breakthrough for the security industry. Full Story

A man came home from work late, tired and irritated, to find his 5-year old son waiting for him at the door. SON: "Daddy, may I ask you a question?" DAD: "Yeah sure, what is it?" replied the man. SON: "Daddy, how much do you make an hour?" DAD: "That's none of your business. Why do you ask such a thing?" the man said angrily. SON: "I just want to know. Please tell me, how much do you make an hour?" DAD: "If you must know, I make Rs.100 an hour." SON: "Oh," the little boy replied, with his head down. SON: "Daddy, may I please borrow Rs.50?"The father was furious, "If the only reason you asked that is so you can borrow some money to buy a silly toy or some other nonsense, then you march yourself straight to your room and go to bed. Think about why you are being so selfish. I work hard everyday for such this childish behavior." The little boy quietly went to his room and shut ...

GREENSBORO (GEORGIA): Nearly four decades after this rural Georgia county stopped segregating its schools by race, it wants to divide students again—this time by sex. Greene County is set to become the first school district in the nation to go entirely single-sex, with boys and girls in separate classrooms—a move born of desperation over years of poor test scores, soaring dropout rates and high numbers of teenage pregnancies. Full Story

A well-made cup of hot tea can warm the heart and soul of any tea lover, but it can be unpleasantly bitter or disappointingly tasteless when improperly steeped. A conscientious approach to tea preparation can maximize the flavor and health benefits provided by the tea bush, Camellia sinensis. Here's how to get it just right. Link

Let’s say you are wrestling with a tough issue - maybe at work, at home, with your children or in your social life. You have been stuck for a while and you can’t seem to make a breakthrough. You want to come up with some really creative ideas. What can you do? Here are ten great practical ways to boost your inventiveness and to crack the problem: 1. Ask why, why? Ask, ‘why has this issue arisen?’ Come up with six different reasons and for each of them ask, ‘why did this happen?’ Keep asking why for each cause. This helps you to better understand the different reasons why this is a problem and so in turn you will see different possible solutions. 2. Sleep on it. Ponder the issue and all its aspects for some time and then put it out of your mind. Get a good night’s sleep. The subconscious mind goes to work and often you come up with great ideas the next day. 3. Talk it over with someone who has nothing to do with the situation. They will often ask basic questions or make seemingly silly ...

"Scientists have developed a computerised mind-reading technique which lets them accurately predict the images that people are looking at by using scanners to study brain activity. The breakthrough by American scientists took MRI scanning equipment normally used in hospital diagnosis to observe patterns of brain activity when a subject examined a range of black and white photographs. Then a computer was able to correctly predict in nine out of 10 cases which image people were focused on. Guesswork would have been accurate only eight times in every 1,000 attempts. The study raises the possibility in the future of the technology being harnessed to visualise scenes from a person's dreams or memory." Thanks

Learning looks set to undergo a big change as novel technologies make it into the classroom, says Bill Thompson. BBC's - Full Story Once you start looking at the way schools operate then you start to question teaching methods, assessment, exams and even the very existence of "schools" and "classrooms" Bill Thompson

Saving money is one of those tasks that's so much easier said than done. There's more to it than spending less money (although that part alone can be challenging). How much money will you save, where will you put it, and how can you make sure it stays there? Here's how to set realistic goals, keep your spending in check, and pay yourself first. Link

The Nationwide Building Society has admitted an ATM blunder which has seen thousands of customers not charged for machine cash withdrawals. The building society has been forced to apologise to thousands of customers after a technical glitch in Northern Ireland led to accounts not being debited at the time of withdrawals. The problem reportedly affects about 7,500 customers who took money from their accounts using cash machines at Northern Bank between last November and this February. The total amount in question is said to be about £400,000. An IT fault in the building society's connection to the national Link processing system is believed to be the cause of the problem. Jay Colville, area director of Nationwide in Northern Ireland, told the BBC that Link upgraded the ATM network at the end of last year, but that the building society did not handle the upgrade correctly. ADVERTISEMENT Nationwide has told affected customers it will now debit the cash from their accounts on 10 March....

Thieves operating in the UAE have compromised an ATM machine and stolen bank card details over a seven day period, according to a statement from the Central Bank of the UAE. The gang is understood to have installed a card reader inside the ATM to read card data, along with a video camera to record PIN numbers. The Central Bank statement warns that the thieves were able to "copy data of all the cards used in the said ATM during the period 19-25 February 2008". The location and owner bank of the ATM was not disclosed. The Central Bank has contacted the banks of card users who were affected, with instructions to block usage of affected cards and to replace them or PINs, as well as to check ATM machines for sign of tampering. Skimming attacks normally involve the placement of a fake card reader over or inside the regular card reader in an ATM, which reads and records the data from the card's magnetic strip, while either a hidden camera or a nearby observer (a so-called ‘shoul...

To track their blood sugar levels, patients with diabetes typically prick their fingers at least three times a day and feed blood samples into glucometers. It's a tedious and sometimes painful process, and a patient will often need to run a second test due to "insufficient blood" in the first sample. Now, researchers at Baylor University, in Waco, TX, have engineered a thumb-pad sensor that measures glucose levels via electromagnetic waves--no finger pricking required. "There are many patients that don't monitor because of the pain of monitoring," says John Buse, president of the American Diabetes Association. "So there's certainly the potential to improve the lives of people with diabetes." According to Randall Jean, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at Baylor, the prototype of the new device matches the performance of conventional glucometers. "It is accurate enough for people to make decisions about whether or n...

When I applied for my faculty job at the MIT Media Lab, I had to write a teaching statement. One of the things I proposed was to teach a class called "How to Think," which would focus on how to be creative, thoughtful, and powerful in a world where problems are extremely complex, targets are continuously moving, and our brains often seem like nodes of enormous networks that constantly reconfigure. In the process of thinking about this, I composed 10 rules, which I sometimes share with students. I've listed them here, followed by some practical advice on implementation. 1. Synthesize new ideas constantly . Never read passively. Annotate, model, think, and synthesize while you read, even when you're reading what you conceive to be introductory stuff. That way, you will always aim towards understanding things at a resolution fine enough for you to be creative. 2. Learn how to learn (rapidly). One of the most important talents for the 21st century is the ability to learn...

The Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar has rolled out a Polycom video conferencing suite that will enable the school to link to its US campus to share lectures and seminars.The Global Classroom initiative will be used to deliver lectures between the two campuses, to ensure a consistent learning experience for undergraduate students.Polycom's RealPresence Experience High Definition (RPXTMHD) technology includes high-definition displays, low profile microphones, controls and cameras, and special dual lens camera technology that enables speakers in different locations to make realistic eye contact during sessions, to improve communications.James Reardon-Anderson, dean of the School of Foreign Service in Qatar commented: "The point of the global classroom is to enable students and teachers in separate locations to experience learning as if they were in the same room. This gives students from different countries and cultures an opportunity to talk directly to ...

The TANKER (an acronym for Tamilnad Kidney Research)Foundation is a registered, non - profit charitable trust, founded on 30th June 1993. TANKER aims to provide health care and financial assistance to those who have kidney problems and do not have the wherewithal to seek medical attention. tankerfoundation@tankerfoundation.com http://www.tankerfoundation.com/

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Working less while accomplishing more isn’t easy. It requires creative thinking creatively and a willingness to open yourself to the possibility that your methods aren’t as efficient as they could be. Once you do that, though, there are some ways that you can do it, including: The 80/20 Rule Only 20 percent of your work contributes to a large output. Be ruthless in cutting time in the less important 80 percent. Parkinson’s Law Parkinson’s Law states that “work will fill the time available for its completion.” Give yourself strict deadlines and cultivate a desire to finish projects. Energy Management Think of results as a function of energy, not time invested. Working intensely for a short period of time can accomplish more than working for days, tired and distracted. Only Use Sharp Tools Skill saves time. Don’t waste your time doing things you don’t intend to be excellent at. Delegate them to someone else. Rule With Numbers Assumptions are the biggest waste of your time. When your intu...

Does that slow drip in the sink keep you awake at night? Do you ever find yourself hearing a sound outside of your home and while getting used to it, staying up anticipating the next moment you will hear it again? Would you like to filter out annoying and disturbing sounds and get a good sound rest? The Sound Screen by Marpac aims to mute out undesired noises and give you a calm tone, so you can rest and sleep as you deserve. You filter out the amount of “white noise” by simply rotating the top cap of the device and relax while focusing on the silence. Can you think of someone this gadget is good for? Anyone you know that would love some external tech product to give them some peace and quiet? Whether you work late, crazy shifts, have a hard time getting used to all the noise at different times of the day, or simply looking for an easy remedy to help you sleep…Marpac aims to grant that Thanks

The US Dollar Collapse is Imminent and there will be global economic catastrohpe when it is rejected as the currency for trade, former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad said on Tuesday. The US dollar was retaining some value because of fears of a global economic catastrophe if it was rejected, he told a conference of some 650 chief executives from 30 countries at a conference in Kota Kinabalu on Borneo."But the catastrophe will come one day because even the most powerful country in the world cannot repay loans amounting to seven trillion dollars," Mahathir said.He said, Central banks worldwide were reducing their US dollar reserves and he suspected that Malaysia was also switching to other currencies.The huge deficit meant that the US dollar had no backing but it continued to be used internationally because some people still accepted payments in US dollars, he said."But there will come a time when we will switch away from the US dollar and we have suggested the ...