On September 21, 2009, Biscuits broke, people danced in the streets and boxes of candy was passed around – it was time to party in Agartala on Monday as residents cheered the tennis sensation and local hero Somdev Devvarman victory in South Africa, which took India to the world group Davis Cup for the first time in 11 years.Sports fans across age, welcomed Somdev sensational victory over South African Rik De Voest in singles play-off in Johannesburg on Sunday. Somdev Devvarman Pravanjan father, a former Commissioner of Income Tax, said: “We are very proud of him. He took a very…

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Sunday we saw robots playing pool and an augmented reality pool game. Today we’ll complete the pool trifecta: virtual pool using a real cue stick and ball in another vintage video from Hack a Day’s secret underground vault. The video is noteworthy for a couple of reasons:
First is the year it was made: 1990. There’s been much buzz lately over real-world gaming interfaces like the Nintendo Wii motion controller or Microsoft’s Project Natal. Here we’re seeing a much simpler but very effective physical interface nearly twenty years prior.
Second: the middle section of the video reveals the trick behind it all, and it turns out…

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SINGAPORE — Asian stock markets were broadly lower on Monday with exporter shares dragged down in Tokyo by a stronger yen. Overall sentiment was cautious with base metals and crude oil prices dropping and investors buying the safe-haven U.S. dollar. “Market timing is essential for investors still concerned about a correction in growth trends, which would lead to an adjustment in pricing of risk,” said analysts at UBS. Japan’s Nikkei 225 was down 2.5%, Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 down 1.2% and South Korea’s Kospi Composite was off 0.8%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index was down 0.9% while China’s Shanghai Composite index…

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LONDON — The British government is moving toward lifting a longstanding ban on product placements in TV shows on commercial networks, in a move that would aid the country’s struggling commercial broadcasters, a person familiar with the matter said Sunday. Ben Bradshaw, secretary of state for culture, media and sport, is expected to explain why he thinks the ban should be lifted in a speech to the Royal Television Society this week. The British Broadcasting Corp., whose TV networks in the U.K. don’t air advertisements, will continue to ban product placements, or deals in which companies pay for a product…

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A key group of U.S. senators was “very close” to agreement on healthcare reform, one of its members said on Sunday, suggesting Congress was nearer to meeting President Barack Obama’s goal of passing a reform bill this year. “We think we are very close to an agreement,” said Senator Kent Conrad, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee and part of the “Gang of Six” bipartisan group that is trying to forge consensus, on “Fox News Sunday.” Lawmakers have struggled to find common ground in the debate over healthcare reform, hampering Obama’s efforts to push through his…

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Reliance Natural Resources (RNRL (RNRL.NS : 88.3 -0.05)) on Sunday echoed its attack against Reliance Industries (RELIANCE.NS : 2153.15 +12.3) (RIL) and alleged that RIL was charging illegal and unauthorised margin on the sale of K-G D6 gas. RNRL, in a conference call with reporters, accused that RIL was charging marketing margin without the approval of empowered group of ministers (eGoM). The company claimed that power and fertilizer units, which have already signed gas sale purchase agreements, are expected to bear an additional burden of over Rs 10,000 crore due to the marketing margin charged by RIL. RNRL seeks the…

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Well it’s been an interesting week for me.  I took a little down time to camp with the kids.  I spent a few days over on Whidbey Island at a camp site on the beach.  It was pretty relaxing but in the back of my mind I knew I had this CIPT1 test coming up.  At any rate, I am not quite thru the Cisco Press book by Dennis Hartmann, I’m actually about 80 pages shy.  I also have the Quick Reference Sheets that I will scan thru tomorrow night before the test on Saturday morning.  Provided I pass with…

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This evening I’ve been playing around with Facebook’s new iPhone application and it’s definitely a significant upgrade from before. As mentioned on a number of instances, the new application includes events, Facebook page management, full access to the news feed, the ability to create and edit notes, video upload, and more. This iteration is a significant upgrade and given that the application has over 4 million daily active users and 12 million monthly users, this will be a much welcomed upgrade.

As I wrote on Sunday, Facebook’s new application has been submitted to the app store and is awaiting approval.…

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