ప్రపంచం తీరూ తెన్నూ

Collaborative customer interfaces and social TV are among the innovations which are on the rise in 2013 hype cycle for social software, research firm Gartner said today. The hype cycle gives a view of how a technology or application will evolve over the time. "Collaborative customer interfaces, social co-browsing, mobile virtual worlds and social TV are just a few of the innovations on the rise on the cycle," Gartner said. "IT leaders must keep abreast of this evolving sector in order to take advantage of social capabilities and understand the implications that social software developments have for related technologies," said Jeffrey Mann, research vice president at Gartner. A collaborative customer interface enables a customer service agent and a customer to share, simultaneously, the live version of the same business application. Social co-browsing is the collaborative sharing of the same Web space with one or more parties from a social netw...

Revellers dance as they parade through the streets during the Notting Hill Carnival in London, Monday, Aug. 26, 2013. The Notting Hill Carnival is the largest annual street festival celebration of its kind in Europe which started in 1966 

Switzerland's first sex drive-in will open in Zurich today, aimed at creating a safer space for sex workers and taking prostitution off the city's streets. The drive-in, in a former industrial zone in the west of the city, has a track where the sex workers can show off their assets and negotiate a price, and nine so-called "sex boxes" where they and their clients can park and conclude the transaction. When it opens at 7:00 PM (1700 GMT) today, the downtown street of Sihlquai, where barely-dressed street-walkers have long openly and sometimes aggressively plied their trade to the dismay of residents and businesses, will become off-limits to prostitution. The drive-in is designed to be safer, with security guards on hand to ensure there is only one man in each car that enters as well alarm buttons in each "sex box" and on-site doctors and social workers. However, some prostitutes have voiced concern that the strictly controlled environment...

Indore based Green Earth Innovations (GEI), today staked claim that its Indian patented technology for extraction of fuel from plastic waste, is ready for commercialisation. "We have reversed the chemistry to extract fuel from plastics. Plastic is by-product of hydrocarbon, our innovation has reversed the process-thermal de-polymerisation-to manufacture oil from plastic using a catalyst," claimed Manoj Sharma, promoter of the company. "The Indian Institute of Petroleum, Dehradun has certified our technology, and we have been granted an Indian patent for it," he claimed. "Using this low cost technology all grades of plastic can be used to extract fuel, barring PVC and pet bottles," Sharma said adding that conversion cost by the plant works out to be Rs 7 per one kg of plastic waste. "The fuel extracted from plastic waste using our technology can be used to run Bharat stage-II vehicles and also for industrial purposes like running DG...

Penguin populations in Antarctica surged during the Little Ice Age - a cold period between 1500 and 1800 AD, a new study suggests. Past studies have suggested penguins actually thrive when the climate is relatively warm, since cold climates increase sea-ice extent, which makes it difficult for the birds to access their beach colonies and food-rich waters. Researchers Liguang Sun and Zhouqing Xie, from the University of Science and Technology of China, analysed how the populations of Adelie penguins changed over the past 700 years in the Ross Sea, a region in Antarctica that is at a higher latitude than previous study sites. They analysed sediment samples from multiple depths for cholesterol and cholestanol, which are bio-markers indicating soil contamination by animal feces, 'LiveScience' reported. On the basis of variation in the markers, researchers divided up the timeline into four time periods. The bio-markers suggested penguin populations boomed during ...

Men are more likely to choose an attractive partner while women prefer a male with a higher social status, a new study has found. Researchers in previous studies have claimed that although men and women say they want something different in romantic partners, the two sexes really want the same thing. The new study, including researchers from Arizona State University, suggests the claim needs revisiting. The study found that men and women really mean what they say - guys care a lot more about attractiveness and women care a lot more about social status. The findings, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, are the first to demonstrate experimentally that the sexes differ in the way they choose mates in real-life contexts. The study's findings contradict recently popularised speed-dating studies that have found that, while men and women show these differences when considering hypothetical ideal partners, their preferences do not match up with ...

The Supreme Court today termed as "premature" a petition filed against the proposed creation of the new state of Telangana by bifurcating Andhra Pradesh, which is yet to get Parliament's nod. "The central government will take the matter to Parliament. Parliament will accept or reject the proposal," a bench comprising justices H L Dattu and S J Mukhopadhaya said. "A few more required steps have not been taken as yet. Your petition is premature," the bench further said while declining to entertain the PIL filed by advocate P V Krishnaiah who then withdrew it. The PIL had said the proposal for the creation of Telangana was political as in the past the demand for it has been rejected twice. Further, the advocate said the decision has also resulted in a hostile environment in the state. The petitioner said there has been a demand for bifurcating other states but the Centre has not accepted it because of political consideration.