IPL....

Day in Pics: March 7MUMBAI: The much-awaited Sunday announcements of the winning bids for two new franchisees of the Indian Premier League (IPL) sprung an unexpected surprise after the League decided to cancel the entire tender process and pushed the date back by two weeks.

IPL, evaluated by private financial agencies to be more than $2.4 billion after the first two editions, had kept the floor price to bid for a franchise at $225 million.

Further, there were stringent rules in place for potential bidders with IPL demanding the overall net worth of the bidder to be $1 billion, asking for a bid performance guarantee of $100 million (Rs 460 cr) and an eventual bank guarantee of up to or equivalent of the bidding amount.

A few companies, which had earlier shown interest in bidding, and especially one particular corporate firm that has been hugely involved with the business of cricket in the country, wrote to the cricket board (BCCI) complaining about the rules which "did not make sense". "Why is it necessary for the bidder to have an overall net worth of $1 billion?" it wrote to the Board.

One corporate firm wrote to BCCI complaining why it was necessary for a bidder to have an overall net worth of $1 billion, while another letter complained that it was unfair to demand such a high amount as bank guarantee whereas franchisees who bought teams in 2008 were paying only 10% of the total bidding amount.

This was reported in TOI on February 27 quoting certain clauses in the tender document which had become the bone of contention.

BCCI took note of these letters and thus the whole tender process, which had only two potential bidders vying in the end, was cancelled on the eve of March 7. Board president Shashank Manohar was personally present on Saturday and Sunday to sort out the issue and it is learnt that there were serious questions raised.

Meanwhile, only two bids were in place on Sunday morning when the governing council members of IPL met in Mumbai. As reported by TOI, the Adani-group, led by its chairman Gautam Adani (who did not turn up for the bidding), had bid for Ahmedabad and Venugopal Dhoot, owner of Videocon, along with film stars Saif Ali Khan, Kareena Kapoor and Atul Chordia from Pune's Panchshil Group of Industries, had bid together for Pune.

"It is unfortunate. But there is a clause in the tender document which gives IPL the rights to re-tender and we have to abide. We had submitted the bid performance guarantee (of Rs 460 cr) and the bank guarantee (of approx Rs 5,000 cr). We will now bid again," Dhoot said.

QnA: Is IPL the biggest threat to cricket?

Smart Phone

Compared to the other smartphones in its league, Sony Ericsson has not been able to make a mark so far in the touch screen market. The Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 touch screen phone weighs a heavy 158 grams, which makes it about 50% heavier than similar smart phones. It features a 3.2 megapixel camera, which can click digital stills and videos. A flash is also available. The Xperia X1 touch screen phone runs Windows Mobile operating system, with the Internet Explorer browser and the Windows Media Player. For good measure, the Xperia X1 also has the free Internet browser Opera Mini loaded. It has Bluetooth, GPS and GPRS EDGE connectivity, and comes with FM radio. The touch screen has predictive text input options. The navigation options include the optical joystick navigation and a navigation key. Google Maps is also loaded to complement the GPS system. The Xperia X1’s large size means it houses a powerful battery too – The Sony Experia touchscreen phone claims a talk time of 10 hours and a standby time up to 640 hours.

3G

The iPhone 3G is the most high-profile touchscreen phone yet in India. Priced at around Rs 35000, the iPhone is capable of working in 3G wireless environment. The 3G touchscreen phone has support for GPS tracking, and supports Microsoft Exchange and the new App Store. And unlike any other touchscreen phone in India, it combines the features of an iPod, a mobile touch screen phone and an internet device.

The iPhone’s touchscreen is remarkably intuitive compared to any of its competitors. The phone address book appears as a list, and you can scroll through the entries by flicking your finger over it. The iPhone 3G maps, loaded separately, can be zoomed in and zoomed out by a pinching motion of your fingers. This too is a feature unique to the iPhone touchscreen phone. The iPhone has a 3.5-inch widescreen display touch screen. Phone calls can be instantly made by tapping any contact on the phone list.

The iPhone touchscreen phone has a ‘virtual’ keypad, with predictive text. Like the BlackBerrys, the iPhone keypad too has a QWERTY format. However, many users have complained that the SMS functions in an Apple iPhone 3G touchphone are seriously handicapped. Update: New story on Nokia touchscreen mobile phones in India

The iPhone has a full-functional iPod beneath its skin. The iPhone 3G touchscreen phone is available in 8 G and 16 GB formats. Take your pick. The music videos and TV shows are easier to watch on the iPhone, thanks to the wide screen. The video controls come alive by just a flick of the finger. It’s a breeze to scroll through the iPhone playlists, albums and iTunes controls.

To me, the most advanced feature of the iPhone is its Safari browser. The internet can be accessed through GPRS EDGE, 3G or even faster WiFi. It’s easy to zoom in and out with a pinching finger motion. The iPhone touchscreen phone also has Google and Yahoo search built into it. However, it has to be remembered in India, still, 3G is in its infancy and WiFi is hard to find, besides being expensive.

The iPhone email works just like email on a PC. It has support for email servers and providers — including MobileMe, Microsoft Exchange, Yahoo! Mail, Google Gmail and AOL — and most industry-standard IMAP or POP mail systems. However, the email is not as user-friendly as the BlackBerry, which is practically a dedicated email device. However HTML-rich email appears as it is meant to be, not separated into text and images as in most other browsers, including the BlackBerry. Push mail for enterprise functions is also built into the iPhone 3G touchscreen phone. The iPhone also has GPS functionality built in, though map usage features still leave much to be desired. However, GPS maps too are picking up in India, and once more map data providers start offering their services cheaper, this should not be a hassle.

A major disadvantage of the iPhone is that the touchscreen phone is still available only as a locked model. This means that the iPhone you bought from an Airtel dealer cannot be used with Vodafone, Idea or MTNL. The same is true of iPhone bought from Vodafone. Currently Apple sells iPhones in India only through Airtel and Vodafone-Essar outlets.

End of Earth

Humanity may end in many different ways. We might kill ourselves through nuclear war, or die from a global disease epidemic. Like all the species on Earth, we'll eventually be gone. But life will survive and continue to evolve into new and interesting forms. But even the Earth won't last forever. Eventually, our planet too will end.

So, how will the Earth end? It all depends on how the Sun ends.

The Sun is a happy main sequence star right now, but as it nears the end of its life in about 7.5 billion years, it will begin to swell up as a red giant star. Its size will get so large that it will encompass the orbits of the inner planets. Mercury and Venus will be consumed within the Sun.

As the Sun grows, it will let off ferocious solar winds that dwarf its current winds. These winds will cause the Sun to lose a tremendous amount of mass, and this mass loss will cause the orbit of the planets to start spiraling outward. Scientists used to think that this spiraling outward might actually save Earth. Instead of being consumed by the Sun, it would keep spiraling, always keeping one step away from the expanding Sun.

The current thinking is that it's not going to be fast enough. Although Earth's orbit will be spiraling outward, it won't be fast enough to keep pace with the expansion of the Sun as it becomes a red giant. At some point, roughly 7.5 billion years from now, Earth will end; it'll be gobbled up just like Mercury and Venus before it.

By that time, let's hope that future humans have relocated to the outer Solar System. By that time, the habitability zone around the Sun will have expanded to the point that water can be a liquid around Kuiper belt objects, like the dwarf planet Pluto. Can you imagine sitting on a beach on Pluto?

IT industry in Gurgaon

IT Industry in Gurgaon
The development of Information technology and its extensive use for modern management practices is a part of new Industrial Policy. Transactions automation and Information data bank are being created to bring transparency, accountability and efficiency in administration. Gurgaon has now embarked on a road to become an important destination in Information Technology and related fields