Hitachi Introduces 320 GB Mobile SATA HDDs

Hitachi has announced volume shipment of new 5,400 RPM notebook hard drives with a maximum available capacity of 320GB. These drives are designed to support the multi-tasking needs of consumers and commercial users balancing mobile computing and movies, music and other digital media.

The new drives feature optional Bulk Data Encryption (BDE) for users requiring increased data security. Apart from these drives’ Serial ATA (SATA) interface provides a fast 3 GB/s data transfer rate, allowing the drive to be used in a wide variety of applications including mainstream computing, portable external storage devices and other computing uses. Seeking to be power-efficient, the drives only consume 1.8W of power when reading and writing and their .55W low power idle means longer battery life for more "unplugged" notebook time and a longer drive life expectancy.

"The Travelstar 5K320 addresses a growing demand for high capacity hard drives, which are at the heart of today’s notebook PCs, external storage devices, gaming consoles and other mobile computing applications," said Larry Swezey, director, Consumer and Commercial HDD, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies. "And when coupled with our optional Bulk Data Encryption technology, the Travelstar 5K320 offers even greater value to notebook users by helping to guard against data theft."

The Travelstar 5K320 is now shipping worldwide. The enhanced-availability version of the drive is expected to ship in the second quarter of 2008. Pricing for these products is unknown as of now.

Hitachi Introduces 320 GB Mobile SATA HDDs

Hitachi has announced volume shipment of new 5,400 RPM notebook hard drives with a maximum available capacity of 320GB. These drives are designed to support the multi-tasking needs of consumers and commercial users balancing mobile computing and movies, music and other digital media.

The new drives feature optional Bulk Data Encryption (BDE) for users requiring increased data security. Apart from these drives’ Serial ATA (SATA) interface provides a fast 3 GB/s data transfer rate, allowing the drive to be used in a wide variety of applications including mainstream computing, portable external storage devices and other computing uses. Seeking to be power-efficient, the drives only consume 1.8W of power when reading and writing and their .55W low power idle means longer battery life for more "unplugged" notebook time and a longer drive life expectancy.

"The Travelstar 5K320 addresses a growing demand for high capacity hard drives, which are at the heart of today’s notebook PCs, external storage devices, gaming consoles and other mobile computing applications," said Larry Swezey, director, Consumer and Commercial HDD, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies. "And when coupled with our optional Bulk Data Encryption technology, the Travelstar 5K320 offers even greater value to notebook users by helping to guard against data theft."

The Travelstar 5K320 is now shipping worldwide. The enhanced-availability version of the drive is expected to ship in the second quarter of 2008. Pricing for these products is unknown as of now.

Top Bengal Maoist leader in police net

A top Maoist leader of West Bengal has been arrested by sleuths of the state's Criminal Investigation Department (CID) from a railway station near here, police said Sunday.

Somen, whose real name is Himadri Sen Roy, is the state secretary of Communist Party of India-Maoist, police claimed. He was held Saturday evening and his associate Deba was also arrested simultaneously, said Rajiv Kumar, CID deputy inspector general (operations).

Somen was arrested from Hridaypur railway station in North 24 Parganas district, about 25 km from here. The Maoist leader had tried to break free but was finally captured with the help of local people and tea stall owners.

Police recognised him from his stammering, a speech disorder about which they had prior knowledge.

He would later be produced in Barasat special court, while Deba would be produced in Chandannagore court in Hooghly district.

Somen has been charged with waging war against the state and plotting the killings of several Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) leaders and police officers of West Bengal.

A Maoist since the 1970s, the 52-year-old had been on the run for years but has never been arrested before, police said.

'This is a breakthrough in our war against the Maoists,' said Kumar, who led the team that caught Somen.

CID officers said Somen had masterminded the killing of CPI-M leaders Rabi Kar and Mahendra Mahato in Purulia, Barikul officer-in-charge Prabal Sengupta in Bankura and Bandwan Officer-incharge Nilmadhab Das in Purulia.

Reports said he had ordered the murder of CPI-M leader and school headmaster Karamchand Singh in West Midnapore's Belpahari on Feb 22.

Officers said they had received a tip-off that Somen would meet an associate on platform No.2 of Hridaypur railway station.

The Maoist leader arrived at Hridaypur station at around 5 p.m. and began talking to the associate. Immediately, two disguised CID officers approached him and struck up a conversation.

'We wanted to verify his identity. We knew Somen stammered,' an officer said. 'As soon as he began speaking, we knew we had our man.'

The two officers grabbed Somen. His associate Dilip Mandi alias Deba was chased and caught.

According to a report, in a recent article in CPI-Maoist organ Biplabi Yug, which Somen edits, the rebel leader had said his outfit had formed the front line in the Nandigram land war.

'We were in Nandigram right from the beginning,' he wrote. 'We led the movement at every step.... We were in Nandigram, we are in Nandigram and we will continue to remain in Nandigram.'

Somen, who is from Suryanagar in Khardah, North 24-Parganas, joined the Maoist Communist Centre in the '70s and later the People's War Group.

Since the CPI-Maoist was formed a few years ago, Somen has been overseeing its West Bengal operations.

Report: Nissan, Renault to build $1 billion auto plant in India

Nissan Motor Co. and its affiliate Renault SA will build a $1.1 billion plant in India, Bloomberg News reported today.

The companies have reached an agreement with the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu on the project, they said today in a joint release in Chennai, the state's capital. The plant will have a capacity of 400,000 cars a year.

The factory will also help the companies, which will have equal stakes in the project, to ship cars to overseas markets. "We see India as another export base," Nissan's Executive Vice President Carlos Tavares said in the release.

The automakers are looking for sales growth in emerging markets to make up for stagnating demand in their home countries, and the dollar's decline against the yen, which undermines the value of Nissan's North American earnings.

The India car plant will make its first car by 2010 and will manufacture four models, Nissan spokeswoman Pauline Kee said in an interview in Chennai today.

Man and Wife Argue Over Who's Too Drunk to Drive; Argument Gets Settled the Hard Way

I believe the fact that the husband ran over his wife shows which on was too drunk, or rather, in this case, drunker.

Thursday, in Merritt Island, Florida, Richard Zubowicz, 45, thought his wife Becky, 44, was too drunk to drive. Never mind himself. So they pulled into a grocery store parking lot to argue. He allegedly pushed his wife to the ground, jumped in the SUV and circled the parking lot.

As his wife was still lying down, he ran over her when he returned to the spot of the argument.

Police later found Becky Zubowicz still pinned beneath the SUV. She remains in critical condition.

Richard Zubowicz remains jailed on charges of drunken driving and and domestic violence.

Stand by your ham, croon pig farmers

London, February 21: In what they say is a last-ditch attempt to save Britain's pork industry, dozens of pig farmers gathered in London on Thursday aiming for an Internet hit with their song "Stand by your Ham".

The song -- which reworks Tammy Wynette's "Stand by Your Man" with a porcine theme -- is intended to alert the public to a sector that farmers say is being pushed to extinction by greedy supermarket chains and rising feed prices.

"Stand by your ham," runs the chorus. "Sausages, pork and bacon/Help us stay in business/Because our pigs are worth it/Stand by your ham."

With little singing experience but fuelled by enthusiasm and bacon sandwiches, the 20 to 30 farmers hope to rely on affection for traditional British pork products from pies to sausages.

It will be available for download from the weekend from the website www.pigsareworthit.com

"It's a lighthearted way of drawing attention to a very serious issue," Yorkshire pig farmer Richard Longthorp told Reuters by telephone from the recording session.

"If this doesn't stop, then as sure as eggs is eggs, the industry is going to disappear."

The farmers say they lose more than 20 pounds ($39.09) a pig after unprecedented rises in feed prices fuelled by soaring global cereal prices due to higher fuel costs, competition from biofuels, increased demand from Asia and drought in Australia.

The National Pig Association says surveys show consumers are willing to pay more to keep a high-quality British pig farming -- which farmers say puts animal welfare first -- in business. They want politicians to put pressure on retailers.

"Hopefully we will have a couple of stars," said National Pig Association chairman Barney Kay, who penned the alternate words. "I don't think we'll be at the Brits next year but you never know."

Humans married to pups, to ward off evil

KULUPDANGA: Three boys and two girls were married to puppies in the superstition that it would ward off evil at this remote tribal-dominated village in Jharkhand's Saraikela-Kharswan district on Monday.

Salu Banra, the mother of one of the girls, 15-year-old Puspa, a student of class seven in a government school said, “this is a custom. We set the puppy free after the marriage.”

The upper tooth appearing in either a girl or a boy is considered inauspicious by the Ho tribe which lives in this village. “Marriage to puppies of the opposite gender gets rid of the evil,” said some of the other villagers.

They said that six marriages between puppies and boys and girls had taken place on Sunday.

The pup-human marriage takes place on only two days in a year - the second and third of the month of Maghe. Today was the third of Maghe.

Full grown dogs are not used in the marriages but puppies which are called 'pida panda' (one who drives away evil).

All rituals and customs of a tribal marriage takes place with a priest officiating and guests invited, entertained by songs and dances, the villagers told a PTI correspondent.

Dowry in cash is sought and given. The bride is also given new clothes to wear. Only in case of smearing of sindur (vermillion), it is applied not to the puppies or humans but to a tree known locally as 'renge banam'.

When contacted, SDO Dinesh Prasad said, “this is a tradition. As long as they don't disturb others, we don't interfere.”

An elderly woman belonging to the Ho community, Laxmi Kalundia, said such marriages also demonstrated the fondness for pets and nature.

“Only pet dogs are preferable in such marriages,” she said. The marriage to pups also did not hinder the real marriage in future, she said as husbands and wives accepted this as a part of tribal custom.

The 15-year-old bride said she was happy and hoped to lead a peaceful life free from evil.

Men, please note: 'Smoking, drinking can affect your progeny'

London (PTI): Science has long been clear that smoking or heavy alcohol consumption causes cancer. But, a new study has found that babies could inherit genetic damage from a father who puffs or drinks too much.

A team of international researchers has found that smoking or drinking alcohol can cause chemical changes in the semen in men and the alterations could be potentially inherited by their progenies and their future generations.

The researchers came to the conclusion after they analysed the effects of smoking and heavy drinking -- both toxic in nature -- on a group of rodents. They gave pregnant female mice daily injections of pesticide vinclozolin during the period when the sex of embryos is determined.

Male offspring had abnormalities, including prostate and sperm development problems, and genetic changes that the researchers found were passed on through four generations when the males were mated with healthy females. The researchers have also identified specific genes involved in the production of sperm that were permanently altered by the exposure to the pesticide.

"In addition to the spermatogenic and prostate abnormalities, trans-generational effects on numerous disease states were observed including tumour development and kidney disease," 'The Daily Telegraph' quoted Dr Matthew Anway of the University of Idaho as saying.

Sharks facing extinction risk: study

Washington, February 18: Sharks might soon be seen in the official list of animals at global risk of extinction, for a new esearch has shown that they are disappearing from the world's ceans.

The study has shown that many large shark species have declined by more than 50 percent due to increased demand for shark fins and meat, recreational shark fisheries, as well as tuna and wordfish fisheries, where millions of sharks are taken as catch each year.

The World Conservation Union (IUCN) assessed the global status of the sharks.

"As a result of high and mostly unrestricted fishing pressure, any sharks are now considered to be at risk of extinction," said Julia Baum, an NSERC Postdoctoral Fellow at Scripps Institution of Oceanography and a member of the IUCN's shark specialist group.

"Of particular concern is the scalloped hammerhead shark, an iconic coastal species, which will be listed on the 2008 IUCN Red list as globally 'endangered' due to overfishing and high demand or its valuable fins in the shark fin trade," Baum added.

She further said that fishing for sharks in international waters is unrestricted, and she supports a recently adopted UN esolution calling for immediate shark catch limits as well as a meaningful ban on shark finning.The research conducted by Baum and the late Ransom Myers over the past five years, demonstrated the magnitude of shark declines in the northwest Atlantic Ocean.

All species the researchers looked at had declined by over 50 per cent since the early 1970s.

For many large coastal shark species, the declines were much greater: tiger, scalloped hammerhead, bull and dusky shark opulations have all plummeted by more than 95 per cent.

Baum will speak at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Annual Conference in Boston, which runs from Feb 14 to 18.

She will highlight management measures required to conserve harks at an afternoon press conference on February 17.

Scientists Find 'Devil Toad' Fossil

WASHINGTON (AP) - A frog the size of a bowling ball, with heavy armor and teeth, lived among dinosaurs millions of years ago - intimidating enough that scientists who unearthed its fossils dubbed the beast Beelzebufo, or Devil Toad.

But its size - 10 pounds and 16 inches long - isn't the only curiosity. Researchers discovered the creature's bones in Madagascar. Yet it seems to be a close relative of normal-sized frogs who today live half a world away in South America, challenging assumptions about ancient geography.

The discovery, led by paleontologist David Krause at New York's Stony Brook University, was published Monday by the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

``This frog, if it has the same habits as its living relatives in South America, was quite voracious,'' Krause said. ``It's even conceivable that it could have taken down some hatchling dinosaurs.''

Krause began finding fragments of abnormally large frog bones in Madagascar, off the coast of Africa, in 1993. They dated back to the late Cretaceous period, roughly 70 million years ago, in an area where Krause also was finding dinosaur and crocodile fossils. But only recently did Krause's team assemble enough frog bones to piece together what the creature would have looked like, and weighed.

The largest living frog, the Goliath frog of West Africa, can reach 7 pounds. But Krause teamed with fossil frog experts from University College London to determine that Beelzebufo isn't related to other African frogs.

It seems to be a relative of South American horned frogs, known scientifically as Ceratophrys. Popular as pets, they're sometimes called pacman frogs for their huge mouths.

Like those modern frogs, Beelzebufo had a wide mouth and powerful jaws, plus teeth. Skull bones were extremely thick, with ridges and grooves characteristic of some type of armor or protective shield.

The name comes from the Greek word for devil, Beelzebub, and Latin for toad, bufo (pronounced boo-foe).

The family link raises a paleontology puzzle: Standard theory for how the continents drifted apart show what is now Madagascar would have been long separated by ocean from South America during Beelzebufo's time. And frogs can't survive long in salt water, Krause noted.

He contends the giant frog provides evidence for competing theories that some bridge still connected the land masses that late in time, perhaps via an Antarctica that was much warmer than today.

How deep is your love? Korean passion phones know

Seoul, February 14 : Valentines Day in South Korea means chocolates, romantic dinners and a high-tech mobile phone device that can secretly check the passion in the voice of a lover.

The 'Love Detector' service from mobile operator KTF uses technology that is supposed to analyse voice patterns to see if a lover is speaking honestly and with affection.

"We created this service because we thought people would want to know what others were feeling about them," said Ahn Hee-jung, a KTF official.

Users who speak by pointing their mobile phones at themselves for video conferences can see a 'love meter' bar on the screen of their handset during a conversation.

They later receive an analysis of the conversation delivered through text message that breaks down the amount of affection, surprise, concentration and honesty of the other speaker.

The service costs subscribers a flat fee of 1,500 won ($1.59) a month for unlimited use or can be accessed at 300 won for each call, KTF said.

"The caller is paying the money, so the information is provided only to him or her," said Ahn.

China likes its music on mobile handsets

Barcelona, February 11: More than a third of mobile phone owners in China, the world's largest mobile market, use their handsets to listen to music, more than in Britain or the United States, a study showed.

Some 34.8 per cent reported they listened to mobile music every month compared with 20 per cent in Spain, 18.9 per cent in Britain and 5.7 per cent in the United States, according to M:Metrics, a research firm that monitors mobile media usage.

M:Metrics, which was founded in 2004, collects data from France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States.

The December benchmark study on Chinese usage was the first of its kind, the company said.

It surveyed 5,163 Chinese mobile subscribers aged 13-54 via telephone in seven major cities: Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenyang, Chengdu, Wuhan and Xi'an.

Compared with users in the United States and Europe, Chinese consumers use their phones much less to check on their email or to send photos and videos.

Over 30 per cent in Italy, Spain and Britain use their phones to send or receive photos and videos, and only half as many do so in China.

Users in the United States lead the poll in email usage with 11.6 per cent compared with nine percent in Spain and Britain, but only 2.5 percent in China.

The firm also found that while some 30 percent of those polled owned Nokia handsets, giving the company a substantial lead in the Chinese market, owners of Sony Ericsson handsets were a driving force in using mobile media.

M:Metrics said global handset brands such as Motorola, Nokia and Samsung significantly surpassed native brands such as China Mobile in terms of being used to get mobile content.

"These companies are well positioned in a market where operators are seeking to grow mobile content in preparation for the rollout of 3G networks," the company said.

China is expected to issue 3G licences before the Olympics this year, but some predict licences will not be handed out until 2009, as kinks in its homegrown 3G standard, TD-SCDMA, are smoothed out.

Just like in the European and U.S. markets, 18-34 year-olds are the biggest consumers of mobile content in China, accounting for 64.6 per cent of those who accessed news and information via their mobile browser, M:Metrics said.

Now, charge your mobiles just by walking

Washington, February 8: University of Michigan scientists have found that a new energy-capturing knee brace has the potential to generate enough electricity from walking to operate a portable GPS locator or to charge a cell phone.

Arthur Kuo, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at the university, has revealed that the wearable mechanism works much like regenerative braking charges a battery in some hybrid vehicles.

While regenerative brakes collect the kinetic energy that would otherwise be dissipated as heat when a car slows down, the knee brace harvests the energy lost when a human brakes the knee after swinging the leg forward to take a step.

"There is power to be harvested from various places in the body, and you can use that to generate electricity. The knee is probably the best place. During walking, you dissipate energy in various places, when your foot hits the ground, for example. You have to make up for this by performing work with your muscles," said Kuo, who called the device "a cocktail-napkin idea".

"The body is clever. In a lot of places where it could be dissipating energy, it may actually be storing it and getting it back elastically. Your tendons act like springs. In many places, we're not sure whether the energy is really being dissipated or you're just storing it temporarily. We believe that when you're slowing down the knee at the end of swinging the leg, most of that energy normally is just wasted," Kuo added.

During a study, reported in the journal Science, the scientists tested the knee brace on six men walking leisurely on a treadmill at 2.2 miles per hour. They measured the subjects' respiration to determine how hard they were working.

A control group wore the brace with the generator disengaged to measure how the weight of the 3.5-pound brace affected the wearer.

The study report reveals that in the mode in which the brace is only activated while the knee is braking, the subjects required less than one watt of extra metabolic power for each watt of electricity they generated.

By contrast, says the report, a typical hand-crank generator takes an average of 6.4 watts of metabolic power to generate one watt of electricity because of inefficiencies of muscles and generators.

"We've demonstrated proof of concept. The prototype device is bulky and heavy, and it does affect the wearer just to carry. But the energy generation part itself has very little effect on the wearer, whether it is turned on or not. We hope to improve the device so that it is easier to carry, and to retain the energy-harvesting capabilities," Kuo said.

The authors believe that a lighter version of the knee brace would be helpful to hikers or soldiers who do not have easy access to electricity. They also envision its application in implantable devices such as pacemakers or neurotransmitters, which today require a battery and periodic surgery to replace that battery.

"A future energy harvester might be implanted along with such a device and generate its own power from walking," Kuo said.

Georgia Police Officers Shoot Each Other

Two off-duty officers from different police departments wounded each other in a gun fight in the middle of a road in an Atlanta suburb, authorities said.

Both officers suffered non-life-threatening wounds, police said. Their conditions were not immediately known on Saturday.

Officer Jay Daily, a five-year veteran of the Duluth Police Department, exchanged multiple gunshots with Fulton County officer Paul Phillips on Friday afternoon, police said.

Daily was in custody Saturday, charged with aggravated assault, Cpl. Illana Spellman of the Gwinnett County police said.

"It's been confirmed that the Duluth police officer was the aggressor in this case," Spellman said.

Phillips, 37, required surgery at Gwinnett Medical Center. A hospital spokesman said Saturday he could not release information about the two officers. He referred questions to Spellman, who did not immediately have an update on their injuries.

"It's been baffling to us why this situation even occurred," said Duluth Police Chief Randy Belcher. "It's an embarrassment to this agency."

Phillips, who was wearing his uniform and in a marked police car, was driving to his home in Gwinnett County, police said. He was flagged down by someone who had seen Daily involved in a physical altercation with a woman in a sport-utility vehicle.

Daily, who lives in the area, was off duty and in civilian clothing but was wearing a bulletproof vest, police said.

Police did not know what relationship Daily had with the woman or what started the confrontation. The woman, who was not identified, later was hospitalized for minor injuries she suffered before the shooting started, police said.

Belcher described Daily as "an outstanding officer" and said he was suspended while the investigation is under way.

Rat nibbles on face of 10-day-old baby

Dr Suresh Shah, a pediatrician, attends to the baby. He said in such cases there are chances of infection reaching the brain. So he had to take great care of the baby to ensure the infection does not spread



The rodent badly mutilates the infant’s face; eats away nose and parts of the cheek; now, doctors plan to reconstruct the nose

Twenty-three year old Sunita Chavan (name changed) was in for a shock when she saw a rat nibbling at the face of her 10-day-old child on Thursday.

By the time Chavan, who was asleep next to her daughter woke up hearing her scream, the rat had eaten away the nose and parts of her daughter’s cheeks. “I got up and saw a big rat on the face of my child. I raised an alarm. By the time my mother came, the baby was bleeding profusely.” said Chavan.

The child is the first for Chavan, after her marriage a year back. Chavan had come to her parent’s home in a chawl in Matunga, for the delivery. She delivered on January 22 at a private nursing home nearby. As the baby weighed 1.6 kilogrammes at the time of birth, she was kept in the nursing home for three days. According to Chavan, she had finished her afternoon chores when she fell asleep along with the baby. She was in deep sleep when the baby woke up screaming. Chavan and her mother shooed the rat away, and rushed the baby to a hospital in King’s Circle. But doctors there refused to treat the child as the baby’s face was completely covered with blood. “We could not figure out which parts of the face the rat had eaten as the entire face was covered in blood. We kept running from one hospital to another, until she was finally taken care of at Shah Nursing home and Child health centre.” said Sunita’s mother, who did not want to disclose her name.
Doctor Suresh Shah, the pediatrician attending to the baby said, “The child was admitted to the hospital on January 31 at 5.30 pm. I was present in the hospital when she was brought in bleeding profusely. In such cases there are chances of infection reaching the brain, so we had to take great care to ensure the infection does not spread.”

A team of three doctors attended to the baby. Pediatric surgeon Bhalchandra Jaykar and Plastic surgeon Shankar Shriniwas were called in from other hospitals. Dr Shah and they are constantly monitoring the child’s progress. The doctor’s plan to reconstruct the baby’s nose through plastic surgery.

“The child is out of danger, but we had to pay particular attention to the nutrition aspect, as the upper lip is swollen. We also took care of the respiration, since the nose was eaten up.” said Dr Shah.