Founder of Sikhism's Shrine to be rebuild by Iraqi Govt

Irag to rebuild Guru Nanak's shrine

(KG Vasuki, Dec 2008, Topnews/religion)

Baghdad. In a significant development, the Government of Iraq has decided to rebuild the 15th century Sikh Guru Guru Nanak Dev's shrine which was destroyed in the 2003 war in Baghdad.

Talking to media here at his palace, Iraqi Vice President and senior politician Adil Abd-al-Mahdi has said that the government would rebuild the destroyed Guru Nanak Dev''s shrine in Baghdad.

He also thanked the Indian Spiritual Guru Sri Sri Ravishankar for taking up this issue with the Iraqi Government.

I hope my sikh friends will really enjoy this little article. Here attached are a couple of video's relating to Guru Nanak in Baghdad:

Another very recent video relating to Guru Nanak in Baghdad by Zee News

The Iraqi Vice President and Sri Sri Ravishankar, who is on a peace mission to Iraq met here and held discussion about rebuilding of over 500-year-old Sikh shrine.

Talking to media, Sri Sri Ravishankar said, "It was a part of my mission and the Iraqi government had agreed to rebuild the historical shrine."

The Gurudwara was founded Mohamad Pasha Amoot, follower of Pir Bakol at the time of Guru Nanak's visit to Baghdad in the year 927 AH (1520-1A.D).

Baghdad was visited by Guru Nanak Dev on his way back from Mecca and Madina. He stayed outside the city of the west of Dajala (Tigris) River, about two kilometers north of Baghdad West railway station.

He held discourses with Sajjadanashins (caretaker of mausoleum) of the mausoleums of Abdul Qadir gilani and Bahlol the Wise, who were greatly impressed by his views on God and religion.

After the Guru's departure, they raised a memorial in the form of a platform where the Guru had sat and discoursed. After some time when a room was constructed over the platform, a stone slab with the following inscription in Turki was installed in it. The shrine was completely rubbled during the 2003 war.

Genetic tests for breast, ovarian, prostate cancers for all

Genetic tests for all - the new approach to preventive medicine

By Mark Henderson and Sam Lister(10 January, 2009, TON Health)

Genetic tests that can detect a raised risk of breast, ovarian and prostate cancer are being offered for the first time to people without family histories of the diseases, The Times has learnt.

The programme, run by University College London (UCL), paves the way for a new approach to preventive medicine involving widespread screening. It will also prompt greater demand for screening of embryos by parents who carry a defective gene and want to avoid passing it to their children.

News of the programme came as Paul Serhal, medical director at University College Hospital’s Assisted Conception Unit, announced the birth of one of the world’s first babies selected to be free of a genetic risk of breast cancer. The girl was born after embryos were screened to exclude the faulty BRCA1 gene. All the father’s female relatives had developed breast cancer caused by BRCA1. The gene gives a woman an 80 per cent chance of developing breast cancer in her lifetime and raises the risk of ovarian and prostate cancer.

The two developments show the speed with which advances in genetic screening are having an impact on patient care. Genetic tests can now identify people with heightened risks of chronic conditions such as heart disease and diabetes and even high cholesterol.

Embryo screening, which is licensed for certain serious conditions, such as Huntington’s disease and cystic fibrosis, continues to attract controversy, with claims that it is paving the way for the creation of “designer babies”. However, doctors’ leaders argue that a technique that can prevent a child from developing a life-threatening illness should not be restricted.

The UCL screening programme is focusing on the London community of Ashkenazi Jews, who have a high risk of inheriting BRCA1 and BRCA2. The NHS offers BRCA testing, but only for women whose relatives have had cancer because of the mutations. Up to 50 per cent of people with the faulty genes do not have a family history of the diseases, largely because the gene can be carried by men. (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article5485233.ece)

Memory Card based music player-new for 2009

SanDisk unveils memory card-based music player

LAS VEGAS: SanDisk Corp unveiled a portable digital music system based on memory cards preloaded with songs, signalling a shift in its strategy to compete against the iPod. (8 Jan, 2009) SanDisk announced the Sansa slotRadio player and companion line of slotRadio music cards at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Wednesday, along with other products including tiny, high-capacity memory cards for mobile phones. The music system is designed for the casual music consumer and consists of a modest-looking player -- square and about as think as deck of card -- that comes bundled with a fingernail-sized memory card. The card holds 1,000 mostly classic tunes picked from Billboard magazine charts and arranged into playlists according to genre. The player and card will sell for about $100; additional cards, which may be introduced around specific genres, themes or artists, will sell for about $40. SanDisk, the No. 1 supplier of flash memory-based data storage cards, for years has been a distant No. 2 to Apple Inc in the portable music player market. A company spokesman called SanDisk a "strong No. 2," adding that its market share is bigger than Nos. 3, 4 and 5 combined. But the spokesman confirmed a shift in focus at SanDisk away from devices mimicking Apple's iPod and toward memory-based units. SanDisk has yet to live up to Chief Executive Eli Harari's hopes of transforming itself into a "consumer electronics powerhouse," a suggestion he made two years ago at CES. Like Sony Corp, Hewlett-Packard Co and others, SanDisk has failed to make a significant dent in the iPod's total market share. In the meantime, it has had to deal with overproduction and excess supply in the flash memory industry. Falling demand for consumer gadgets that use portable flash memory, in the wake of the economic downturn, is further hurting the industry. (for more details: http://infotech.indiatimes.com/Personal_Tech/GadgeTech/SanDisk_unveils_memory_card-based_music_player/articleshow/3950333.cms

Sony's pocket size Vaio personal computer

Sony unveils pocket-sized Vaio

LAS VEGAS: Japanese electronics giant Sony debuted a powerful, fashionable notebook computer small enough to fit in a purse or suit jacket. (8 Jan, 2009)

The Vaio P Series “lifestyle” personal computer is the size of a standard business envelope for mail and weighs a mere 1.4 pounds.

"It easily fits in a purse and I know for a fact it fits in a jacket pocket," Stan Glasgow, head of Sony's operations in the United States, said as he unveiled a garnet-coloured P Series Vaio in Las Vegas on the eve of the Consumer Electronics Show. "Aside from its design, it is a serious piece of technology."

The mini-notebook has built-in Bluetooth and wireless Internet connection hardware along with global positioning satellite (GPS) technology.

"You can be connected where ever there is a cell phone signal," Glasgow said.

The stylishly small Vaio has a high-resolution 8-inch LCD screen. It is priced at $900 and will be available in stores late this month, according to Sony.

http://infotech.indiatimes.com/Personal_Tech/Sony_unveils_pocket-sized_Vaio/articleshow/3950739.cms

A New Smartphone by Palm

Palm unveils smartphone, OS

LAS VEGAS: Palm Inc unveiled a new touchscreen smartphone and operating system, marking its latest attempt to catch up with competition from Research In Motion Ltd's BlackBerry and Apple Inc's iPhone.

At the International Consumer Electronics Show, Palm executives touted their Pre, which looks similar to the iPhone, with a face dominated mostly by a 3.1-inch touchscreen and single button. The body of the Pre is black and slightly curved, with a full QWERTY keyboard that slides out from the bottom.

In an effort to capture both business and consumer users, the Pre will come loaded with features including Wi-Fi, stereo Bluetooth and GPS, as well as 8GB of storage space, a 3 megapixel camera and music and video playback. The Pre also has a variety of sensors, such as an accelerometer so images on the screen will rotate when a user turns the device on its side.

Many of these features are already available on rival phones, including the iPhone, the latest BlackBerry models and HTC Corp's G1 that was released in the fall by T-Mobile and Google Inc.

Palm has been overshadowed in the last several years by the success of these products -- especially by the growth of BlackBerry smartphones among business customers and, since its June 2007 release, of iPhones among consumer users.

According to data from comScore Inc, as of October, Palm devices accounted for about 15.6 per cent of the US smartphone market. Some of Palm's smartphones run on its own operating system, while others use Microsoft Corp's Windows Mobile operating system.

Palm, a pioneer in the market for handheld digital assistants, now hopes its latest offering can stand out.

"We think it's the one phone you can use for your entire life and you'll really enjoy using it," Palm Chief Executive Ed Colligan said at a news conference.

The Pre will be available in the second half of the year, exclusively on Sprint Nextel Corp's wireless network. Palm did not disclose the price.

The device comes with Palm's new operating system, Palm webOS, which the company also debuted. It is meant to connect various applications -- for example, it will automatically synchronise contacts stored in Facebook, Gmail and Outlook, strip out duplicates and present the information in a master list.

Applications developed for Palm's older operating system will not work on the new platform, Colligan said in an interview.

Palm has been working on the new phone and operating system for "more than a couple years," Colligan said, and they represent "a complete reinvigoration of the company." "We're really re-launching Palm to some extent," he said.

In addition to the Pre and the new operating system, Palm showed off a unique accessory -- a wireless charger for the Pre called the Touchstone. When a Pre is placed on top of it, the gadget powers the phone through induction.

http://infotech.indiatimes.com/Personal_Tech/Palm_unveils_smartphone_OS/articleshow/3955213.cms

Microsoft's new operating system-WINDOWS 7

High demand for WINDOWS 7, a new operating system crashes Microsoft's servers

The big question is whether Windows 7 will replace Vista. Well, will it?

By Matt Warman 09 Jan 2009 (Telegraph.co.uk)

Windows 7 downloaders have crashed Microsoft's servers

Interest in Microsoft’s new operating system, Windows 7, is apparently significantly greater than the software giant had anticipated – the company’s servers ground to a halt almost immediately they opened for business from developer subscribers earlier today. Now, with the number of global downloads for the general public limited to just 2.5million, it’s likely that the free beta stocks will run out almost instantly.

This is despite the company’s official recommendation that typical consumers consider the beta as simply an experiment that’s primarily only suitable for the technically very literate and those pride themselves on being “early-adopters”.

In fact, however, the high-level of demand has been building for months. Windows 7 has proved itself to be unusually popular with developers, who have praised the operating system for being stable, efficient and more intuitive than its predecessor Vista was at an equivalent stage in development.

An official, final release date for the programme has not yet been confirmed by Microsoft, but the public beta will expire in August. Since the company says that it already contains all the features that are planned, that makes a release in time for Christmas seem plausible. Officially, the deadline for the product has been announced as early 2010. Previous deadline for Vista were allowed to slip, but Windows 7 has consistently been on schedule so far.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/technology/microsoft/4209917/Windows-7-downloaders-crash-Microsofts-servers.html