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Cyclone Phyan threatens India's west coast

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Mumbai, Nov 11 (IANS) The cyclone over the Arabian Sea Wednesday was 'likely to intensify further' and cross the Indian coast between north Maharashtra and south Gujarat in the early hours of Thursday, says the India Meteorological Department (IMD). Now named Phyan, the cyclone was about 250 km directly west of Goa at 2.30 a.m. Thursday, the IMD said on its website, even as it it issued an 'orange' alert. That is one step below the red alert put out for a really severe cyclone. At that hour, Phyan was 420 km south-southwest of Mumbai and 670 km south-southwest of Surat in south Gujarat. 'The system is likely to intensify further and move north-northeastwards and cross south Gujarat and north Maharashtra coast between Mahuva and Dahanu by early hours of Nov 12,' the website reported. Fishermen have already been asked not to go out to sea, and oil rigs in Bombay High were battening down, according to local media reports. The IMD expects that maximum sustain...

10 failed doomsday prophecies

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Washington, November 9 (ANI): Scientists have listed ten failed doomsday prophecies, which undermines the seriousness of the 2012 end of the world prediction by the ancient Mayans. According to National geographic News, the first failed domsday prophecy was when some ancient Romans saw the A.D. 79 eruption of Mount Vesuvius as a sign of a coming apocalypse, which never came. Then, there is the case of many Christian Europeans entering the year 1666 with trepidation, as the Bible describes 666 as the ominous Number of the Beast. A prolonged plague that had wiped out much of London's populace in 1665 didn't help assuage fears, and when the Great Fire of London occurred, many believed their time had come. The appearance of Halley's comet in 1910 stirred apocalyptic hysteria among Europeans and Americans, many of whom believed that the comet's tail contained a gas "that would impregnate the atmosphere and possibly snuff out all life on the planet," according...

Acer goes 3-D

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3D Laptop Close on the heels of the first Android laptop, Acer has announced a full-size laptop that displays 3-D content. Just put on a pair of those strange wraparound glasses, a pair of which is packed with the computer. It is a novelty, and one that we expect will run out of gas sooner or later. But innovation is the name of the game here, and the $780 Acer 5738DG hits that mark with its TriDef 3D package, which includes the specially coated 15-inch screen and software. The TriDef app also enables 2-D to 3-D conversion in games and applications supporting DirectX 9 and above. And, yes, it comes with Windows 7. The thinnest one Sony claims its latest VAIO X is the world's lightest and thinnest laptop. At 655 gm and just about a half-inch thin, it is anyway setting a new benchmark in notebook technology. Despite its slender looks, the durable carbon fiber body ensures the X Series absorbs the bumps and knocks of daily use and travel. For reinforced durability, the X featur...

What happens to your email account after you die?

Melbourne, Nov 4 (ANI): Saving that parting e-mail from your first love in your inbox? Well, chances are, after you pass away, your spouse and the entire family will know about the long held secret. This is because web email services like Hotmail and Gmail do not let users specify what should happen to their messages when they die. In fact, email services owned by Internet giants like Google and Microsoft have a policy of keeping your data after you die and letting your next of kin or the executor of your estate access it. These services can hold tens of thousands of messages. Accounts with Google's Gmail can hold up to 7GB - or roughly 70,000 emails with a small to medium picture attached to each and they archive the messages you've written as well as received. When it comes to deleting the data, Microsoft's Hotmail will remove an account if it is inactive for 270 days, while Gmail leaves the responsibility to the next of kin. Of the top three providers, only Yahoo! r...

It was one of my best knocks: Tendulkar

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Mat Inns NO Runs HS Ave BF SR 100 50 4s 6s Ct St Tests 159 261 27 12773 248* 54.58 42 53 51 102 0 ODIs 435 424 39 17168 186* 44.59 20005 85.81 45 91 1870 181 132 0 Hyderabad, Nov 5 (IANS) Batting maestro  Sachin Tendulkar  rated his 175 against Australia here Thursday as one of the best knocks of his career. Tendulkar scored 175 off 141 ball, enroute to his record 17,168 runs, but couldn't prevent India from losing the fifth ODI to Australia by three runs. 'I thought we started off really well then lost wickets. Suresh (Raina) and I had a good partnership but in the end, it was disappointing. The pressure to keep scoring runs was there and we took it very close. But I feel it was one of my best knocks,' said Tendulkar, who was adjudged as the Man of the Match. The batting maestro praised Raina for playing a strokefilled run-a-ball that got India close while chasing 351 to win. On his personal milestone of crossing 17,000 ...

The new size zero - Sony's ultra slim 'Vaio X' notebook

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Your laptop has got even lighter and slimmer - precisely 655 gms in weight and half an inch in thickness. Sony has launched its latest series of ultra slim laptops (11.2 inches in size) called the 'Vaio X'. With this release, the company has surged ahead in the race to the world's lightest notebook, ahead of Apple's MacBook Air and Dell Adamo. Check out what Sony's new Vaio X notebook has to offer - The model comes in two styles - one with a smooth glossy finish and the other being a matt metal look It supports different battery variants (if not the standard one, the weight could increase to 755 gms) The battery is said to last 'a working day' or 16 hours 11.1 inch LCD display having a resolution of 1366x768 pixels and is LED backlit Despite its smaller size, the keys in the keyboard are quite well-spaced Integrated with mobile broadband (UMTS) - no external broadband cable required Besides two USB ports, it also has a VGA port, Ethernet...

Cloud Computing: The power of one

In their quest to find answers, experts have demonstrated that the future of medical discoveries, environmental challenges, energy deficit, all lie in collaborating through Cloud Computing. With Cloud Computing, users have been able to access data, share expertise and high-end infrastructure from around the world, and vice-versa. The resources are shared through a public platform like the internet. Several companies like Amazon, IBM, Microsoft, etc have invested heavily as they reach out to users. Cloud Computing companies have customers of three kinds - Infrastructure-as-a-service: Option of renting and utilizing computing power and storage capacity of vendor's quality. Software-as-a-Service (SaaS): Vendors license particular services to subscribers on-demand and once the contract expires, the services are disabled. Platform-as-a-Service: Here a developer is given the opportunity to utilize various web-tools to build and host applications. The Cloud (other computers in the ...