Bangalore: Focusing more on the mainstream, Acer has introduced its new entry-level Aspire notebooks. The notebooks include Aspire AS5745 and AS7745, which support up to Core i7 CPUs, discrete graphics and multi-touch displays.
The AS5745, with a 15.6-inch screen, is available with Core i3, Core i5 or Core i7 chips as well as NVIDIA's GeForce GT 330M for graphics. On the other hand, the 17.3-inch AS7745 comes only with a Core i7. It's also equipped with ATI's Mobility Radeon HD 5650, a Blu-ray drive and a second hard drive bay. It has storage capacity up to 1TB and supports as much as 16GB of system RAM.
The AS5745PG, a sub-variant, has a multi-touch display, with a 2.4GHz Core i5 and the GT 330M graphics chipset and it costs $900. Though the AS5745G doesn't have the touchscreen, it gains a 2.8GHz dual Core i7 CPU. It costs $1,050.
The AS7745G comes with the same chip. It supports 8GB of RAM and has the Mobility Radeon HD 5650 and a Blu-ray drive for $1,400. The price of a base Aspire AS5745 system starts from $600.
Among other features, HDMI outputs, Wi-Fi ports, 1.3-megapixel cameras and up to 4GB of DDR3 RAM are the key ones. Hard drives have 250 to 500GB capacity of storage. The price of the entry-level notebooks will range from $430 to $900.
New DelhiI: Pitney Bowes, a U.S. based mail and document management company came out with a new product in the Indian market which would facilitate in destroying data before disposing the computers. The product 'Degaussers', confirms that the data is totally erased and the hard drive becomes unusable.
Before discarding a PC, the data removal software is generally run and the drive is formatted to erase the information stored in the computer. But this effaced data can be recovered at any given point of time.
The company's major targets include the banking, financial, insurance services and telecom sectors. It also plans to aim the government for orders of the product.
Pitney Bowes India Managing Director KM Nanaiah said, "These sectors have a lot of confidential data, which also needs to be destructed at various points in time. We will start discussions with various companies and ministries (like Defence) for procuring orders,"
The product created by Martin Yale would range from Rs 7 lakh and Rs 20 lakh.
Bangalore: Outsourcing services providers may come under increased pressure from their clients, with chief Information Officers (CIOs) at firms globally planning to squeeze more value out of their outsourcing arrangements, a study by global consultancy KPMG International said.
According to KPMG's latest report -- "From Cost to Value" -- CIOs surveyed worldwide have accorded top priority to getting more value out of their outsourcing contracts.
Over two-thirds of the 450 CIOs surveyed globally indicated that they want to get more out of their outsourcing contracts in terms of the price to quality ratio.
An even higher number of respondents expect to bring increased pressure to bear on their outsourcing partners, the survey noted.
"Understandably, CIOs are pursuing value by reviewing outsourcing arrangements and retaining a firm focus on cost optimisation, for example," KPMG's UK advisory partner, Bryan Cruickshank, said.
This also demonstrates the CIOs intent to enhance their role as executives focusing on in-house operations to involve making decisions on external activities, he said.
"These days, CIOs also expect IT to contribute directly to realising the business strategy and to have a central role in management," Cruickshank added.
The survey revealed that 81 per cent of the respondents felt that getting value from IT must be their top priority. Cost optimisation was second on the priority list of the CIOs (58 per cent of respondents), ahead of portfolio management (51 per cent), although it could be argued that both of these can be seen as sub-sets of the overall theme of extracting value from IT investments, the survey added.
Hyderabad: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is in the process of investigating major corruption scandals. Scams in recruitment for government jobs and institutionalized bribery in regulatory agencies are some of the areas that CBI is eyeing at.
The CBI has recently exposed a series of scams in AICTE (All-India Council of Technical Education), the Medical Council of India and most recently, the Railway Recruitment Board examinations. The state government insisting on state-level recruitment, cheating in professional examinations, and corruption in regulatory agencies are the main causes behind most of the major scandals. The Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) is also in the process of unearthing corruption.
A person who gets a job by paying a bribe obviously becomes a corrupt official. Hence, stopping corruption at the recruitment stage can contribute a lot in the fight against corruption, according to a former director-general of the ACB. He added that the CBI is comparatively more independent than the ACB.
The ACB of the state needs to focus much more on state-level recruitment scams and the irregularities in regulatory agencies. But all too often its hands are tied by none other than the state government. By refusing to give permission for prosecution of top corrupt government employees, the state government itself plays a major role in tacitly supporting corruption. Therefore, ACB is now mostly restricted to investigating disproportionate assets cases and making surprise checks.
Five cases against public servants of AICTE have been registered by the CBI (Hyderabad Zone) for allowing the institutions to operate even when they don't have the mandatory infrastructure. In the investigation of the Medical Council of India, the CBI found that several medical colleges in the state indulged in irregularities in connivance with MCI chief Mr. Ketan Desai.
The latest case of corruption emanates from the Railway Recruitment Board (RRB). The CBI DIG, Mr V.V. Lakshminarayana, says that the modus operandi designed by the ADRM, A.K. Jagannadham, with the help of his agents and officials prevented meritorious and deserving aspirants from getting recruited. Most of the scams take place in single-level examination for any recruitment in a government job or admission into a professional educational institution.
According to the CBI DIG, Mr V.V. Lakshminarayana, the only criterion for selection in a written examination is the written exam and the scam lies in leaking question papers or manipulating results. The possibility of irregularities would be decreased if there are multi-level selection criteria like a written exam, interview etc.
Even the Army is not free from corruption. A recent scam was exposed in Army recruitment in Warangal district where non-locals tried to pass themselves off as locals in order to qualify in the exam. These scams not only signify the root of corruption in our society, but also show how poor the quality of government services are.
Prajarajyam party has declared support for united andhra pradesh and ever since became target of TRS activists.
They were threatening to stop all movies related to Chiranjeevi’s family members and next on list in Pawan’s Komaram Puli.
Though the shooting is complete and post-production work is also done, producer is planning to postpone this movie and release after by elections in telangana.
If he releases in july, he may have to face the wrath of TRS activists and they may cause obstacles to movie screening in Nizam area, which collects more revenue than any other area.
After by elections, conditions in telangana are expected to be calm and we will get to see Komaram Puli then.
