119 arrested for violation of traffic rules

By A Staff Reporter

Kathmandu, Jan. 30: The Traffic Police arrested 119 drivers for violating traffic rules in the valley on January 27. The police also arrested 27 drivers for consumption of alcohol.

According to a press release, the violators were fined with an amount totaling Rs. 9,200. On the same day, there were 4 vehicular accidents in which 2 people were slightly injured, the release said.

Cooperation from all ‘must’ to end terrorist activities: CDO

By Our Correspondent

Syangja, Jan. 30: The Syangja district working committee of the Nepali Congress (NC) organised a programme here Tuesday to mark the Martyrs’ Day. Participants at the function stressed that cooperation from all sectors is needed to end the Maoist terrorist activities in the country.

Addressing the programme, Ramesh Shrestha, Chief District Officer (CDO) requested the locals to inform the security forces if they knew about the terrorists and their activities taking place in the areas.

Mahendranath Byathit of CPN-UML, Lok Raj Sharma of CPN-ML and other speakers also expressed their views on the occasion.

Khagendra Raj Regmi, the president of NC Syangja district committee presided over the function.

Similarly, ANNFSU Syangja organised a speech contest to mark the Martyrs’ Day.

Meanwhile, Nawalparasi Literacy Council (NLC) also organised blood donation and poetry competition programmes to mark the Martyrs’ Day. The Council also distributed fruits to the patients of the local hospital.

Still no phone in six villages of Chitwan

By Our Correspondent

Narayangadh, Jan. 30: Although the number of telephone users in Chitwan has increased from 150 to 8000 in 22 years, six villages here have still to hear phone ringing in their homes. Villagers of Siddhi, Kaulae, Lothar, Korak, Chandivanjyang and Dahakhani have not been connected with telephone lines yet.

According to Dinesh Thapaliya, Local Development Officer at the Chitwan District Development Committee (DDC), Kaule, Lothar, Korak and Siddhi Village Development Committees (VDC) have enough budget to install V.H.F telephone systems and if sets are made available to the VDCs like they have recommended, all villages will enjoy the facility. "If the money is inadequate, the DDC is ready to fund extra amount needed for that purpose," Thapaliya said.

Chief of the Telecommunication Office Ramanandalal Karna said, "The government has decided to provide the telephone facility to every VDCs of the entire nation by the fiscal year 2059/60 but that is not likely to materialise in the absence of necessary budget at the moment."

According to the Office, 43 V.H.F telephone sets have been distributed to these VDCs. "Villages where V.H.F telephone system could not reach should use V-SAT and for that task the Telecommunication Office has given necessary training to its staff but this technology has not been started." said Chiranjivi Ghimire, assistant-engineer at the Telecommunication Office.

Butwal fair from March 8

By Our Correspondent

Butwal, Jan.30: The Butwal Fair, earlier slated for February 15-19, has been put off until three weeks later.

According to Mayor Bhojraj Pokhrel, the Butwal Municipality has postponed the fair in view of the forthcoming Parliamentary Session and to ensure the fair is managed better to attract more people. The fair will be held from March 8.

The organisers expect the proposed Butwal fair will help to promote Butwal as a historical city and preserve its cultures.

In the fair, Nepalese arts reflecting the Nepalese identity and skills will be displayed, said Deputy Mayor Bimal Bahadur Shakya. Butwal had hosted a similar fair three years ago.

ICT Special

Indian software sets up office in Shanghai

Indian software giant Satyam has opened an office in Shanghai, firing local hopes that cooperation with India will allow China to give its more advanced neighbour a run for its money on the global software market.

The official launch in mainland China late Tuesday comes in the wake of Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji’s visit to India two weeks ago, where he stated the countries should become economic partners and not rivals, especially in IT.

The decision by Satyam Computer Services, India’s fourth largest software exporter, to set up an office in Shanghai, has begun what many in China hope will be a new wave of Sino-Indian software links.

While India has powered ahead to become a world centre for outsourcing software development and produces some of the globe’s best software engineers, economic giant China has lagged behind in the technology stakes.

But both Satyam executives and the head of the Shanghai Pudong Software Park (SPSP), where the Satyam office will be located, said they expected that to change, with the Indian firm also hoping its early arrival will give it a head start.

However according to some reports officials in India are worried close software cooperation with its giant neighbour could see Chinese firms learn the secret of the Indian firms’ success, and eventually undercut and usurp them.

Satyam chairman Ramalinga Raju dismissed the concerns, saying his company "would not be where we are today", if developed countries had thought like that when Satyam began life 10 years ago.

The company has operations in 35 countries, 300 corporate clients and employs 8,500 highly-skilled workers in development centres around the globe.

For Indian executives, China offers cheap talented labour, as the country’s universities churn out hundreds of engineering and mathematics graduates, while offering a low cost base for research and development.

"We realize China is not only a huge market, but also a place where we can find talented engineers to develop software for domestic and regional markets," said Raju.

India’s strengths in the software industry, namely outsourcing software development for major manufacturers, training software engineers, and business management, were China’s weaknesses, said Hu Hongliang, head of the SPSP.

Hu said China had built up expertise in integrated chip manufacturing, anti-virus programs and developing encryption software, the latter something the government had made a priority because of national security concerns.

Shanghai’s development of its software industry was moving so fast that comparisons with Bangalore, India’s IT hub, would be realistic by the end of the year, he added.

"I would ask you to look at how fast we have moved by the end of 2002 and make comparisons with India then," Hu said.

Indian software titan Infosys is also expected to set up operations in China after Premier Zhu gave the firm the green light during his visit to India.

Though China and India started their software industry around the same time in the 1980s, India is currently among the world’s top software exporters, with an annual revenue of 6.2 billion dollars last year.

Meanwhile, China’s exports are a fraction, with Shanghai’s software exports reaching just 100 million dollars in 2001.

Meanwhile, India’s IT hardware industry is capable of growing 12 times its current size to attain a turnover of 62 billion dollars by 2010, according to a study released Wednesday by consulting firm Ernst and Young.

The study, commissioned by the Manufacturers Association of Information Technology (MAIT), said the breakdown of the estimated revenues were 37 billion dollars in the domestic market and 25 billion dollars from exports.

India could generate revenues of 11 billion dollars from contract manufacturing alone, the report said.

"The size of the global contract manufacturing industry is expected to be over 500 billion dollars by 2010 from 103 billion dollars in 2000," it added. (AFP)

What’s a Web? Experts want to know

By Matt Berger

At a conference dedicated to the topic of Web services, the ability of experts to define the emerging technology and how it can be implemented in a business would seem to be a given.

Coming to a consensus about what the term means, however, proved to be a challenge at InfoWorld’s Next-Generation Web Services Conference here, as developers, investors and business managers gathered to understand how new technologies based on XML (Extensible Markup Language) and other industry standards will aid the evolution of the Internet.

Broadly defined, a Web service is a method of making various applications communicate with each other automatically over the Internet. The goal is to streamline business processes by allowing software applications to be delivered over the Internet and run across all kinds of computers, from large servers to handheld devices.

But explaining just how that fits into a corporate IT department’s development plans, or how consumers will ultimately end up using Web services, can be difficult, judging from remarks made by show attendees and speakers. Many companies being approached by software vendors and consulting firms to buy into the idea are still trying to understand the concept, said Lee Morgan, senior vice president of Plural Inc., a New York-based business consulting firm, who attended the conference here.

"It’s hard to tell whether customers just don’t have the money to invest in Web services or whether they don’t know how they would implement it," Morgan said.

The confusion around Web services gets stickier due to the fact that many industry experts have different opinions on the subject. An informal poll conducted by conference organizers of nearly 500 industry executives and Web services developers during the opening presentation at InfoWorld’s Web Services Conference revealed that many people had varying definitions of the term.

About two-thirds of the group thought Web services were "next-generation, service-oriented Internet applications," a term that offers little in the way of specific information for companies who might end up implementing the technology. Other popular definitions included "component-based software architecture," and "a concept of a programmable Internet."

In the big picture, what people call Web services is really "just one piece of the puzzle," within the general context of software systems and networked computing, said James Gosling, vice president and fellow at Sun Microsystems Inc. Gosling, who is the father of the Java programming language, gave the opening keynote Wednesday here.

"I think everybody has a different answer for what Web services are," Gosling said in his speech.

Peter Fenton, a principal investor with Accel Partners in Palo Alto, California, was one attendee at the show looking to define the budding market. Looking for trends and possible investment opportunities, Fenton said he is approaching the subject with both caution and interest.

"I think we are, like most people in the venture capital community, incredibly curious about what new technologies and companies will emerge around Web services," Fenton said of his venture capital firm. (IDG)

Clearly, many of the major software vendors are latching on to the technologies that make up the basis of Web services. Microsoft Corp. has based its entire product line going forward on its .Net initiative, according to company executives. Every software application and developer tool is in the process of becoming ".Net-enabled," which means adding support for XML and other programming standards.

Other vendors such as Sun Microsystems Inc. and IBM Corp., as well as startup companies, are also putting XML support into nearly everything they build. Competing software vendors have all started to agree on standard technologies and methods for building and deploying Web services, which is a signal of its potential success, Fenton said.

Still, "there’s a lot of hype, but not a lot of substance so far," he said.

A diverse set of software and consultants are all touting various tools and applications here that are intended to allow corporations to transform their existing applications as Web services. While some early adopters have begin putting the tools to use, many attendees are still only beginning to discover the budding technology behind all the hype.

For example, RioLabs Inc., a software maker based in Denver, Colorado, was showing off its development environment for turning existing applications into Web services. The company offers tools to take a feature in an Oracle Corp. database — order inventory management, for instance — and publish it on the Internet as a Web service, so that other companies have access to it.

Sun’s Gosling described this process as just an evolution of how the Internet currently works. Web services, he explained, are crucial to the way companies will build and consume applications. But this is something, he said, that entails more than adding services to the Internet.

"The Internet has always been service oriented. But they are services presented to humans," he said, citing such examples as eBay Inc.’s auction service or ticket buying services on travel Web sites. "The real switch in thinking is ‘gee maybe we can make these services available to silicon-based life forms."

In other words, the next step in the evolution of the Internet is to have computers (Gosling’s "silicon-based life forms") automatically feed information to each other, without the need for human intervention. One example is Microsoft’s Passport authentication service, which lets Web surfers log on to different sites and Internet-based applications without having to re-key personal information.

That’s where the Web services technology such as SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol), WSDL (Web Services Description Language) and XML come into play.

"SOAP and XML have often been characterized as HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) for silicon-based life forms. An HTML that is readable by software," Gosling said. HTML, one of the first Web standards, is the coding used to create Web pages and lay out text, while XML is a specification for, among other things, formatting data in a way that can be communicated automatically from one application or computer to another. (IDG)

Internet allows students to join science trek

Armed with a sophisticated ice borer, professor Daniel Shain went hunting on Byron Glacier for a scientific treasure — the tiny, fragile ice worm.

"We know there are millions of worms on Byron Glacier in the summertime and unless they migrate to Florida or something, there aren’t too many other places they could be," the Rutgers University professor said Sunday, as he prepared to tackle the glacier about 50 miles southeast of Anchorage.

"The prediction is that they dive straight down into the glacier to stay warm," he said.

Students worldwide may find out if Shain is right by logging onto the Internet and joining the scientist in the JASON Project’s "Frozen Worlds" expedition.

The star of the show, of course, is the cold-loving ice worm.

The worms, which are found only in a coastal region extending from Washington to Alaska, spend their entire lives on ice. Their health depends on it. They die if the temperature drops below 20 degrees or above 40 degrees. At room temperature, they disintegrate in 15 minutes.

That’s exactly why Shain is interested in them.

"If scientists can unravel the ice worm’s secret, we could potentially learn how to keep human organs alive on ice longer than a few hours to help organ transplant patients," he said.

The ice worm, at just 2 to 3 centimeters, also could hold a clue about life on Jupiter’s moon Europa, Shain said.

"If there is life elsewhere in the solar system, it’s probably on Europa. Conditions on Europa are similar to life here on an Alaska glacier," he said.

The worms might even hold a clue about how to keep a person in a state of suspended animation for space travel to Europa, Shain said.

"If we’re ever going to travel through space into other galaxies, our life span isn’t long enough," he said. "By the time we get there, we’d be dead. But if we understood the ice worm’s physiological tricks, we could super-cool ourselves."

‘Born scientists’

If Shain finds ice worms — and he’s convinced he will because Byron hosts eight colonies — they will be placed in a plastic tray filled with ice and brought to the Begich Boggs Visitor Center in Portage, where students from schools around the world can interact with the expedition team via the Internet. A second interactive classroom was set up at the Alaska Sealife Center in Seward. (AP)

The project, which is being led by National Geographic explorer in residence Robert Ballard, will pair 33 students and teachers from around the globe with a team of scientists.

"All kids are born scientists," Ballard said.

The expedition team will be working with students daily on what makes ice worms different from other worms. The young researchers will compare ice worms with a close cousin, a tiny white worm found in gardens and common earthworms. They will measure how well the ice worms respond to light, heat, gravity and chemicals.

"I am hoping to plant a seed in these young researchers’ minds, and in the future with this information available, they can take the next step," Shain said.

The $3 million JASON Foundation for Education project, funded by private corporations, will run from Monday to Saturday, and then from February 2-8. It also will air on the National Geographic Channel.

Copyright 2002 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. (AP)

Cameras with pixel power

The Nikon Coolpix 5000 and the Olympus Camedia E-20N, both 5-megapixel cameras, provide an array of features.

By Grace Aquino

The latest digital cameras from Nikon and Olympus boast a 5-megapixel maximum resolution, and they deliver beautiful snapshots. But these cameras are expensive: At $1999, the Olympus Camedia E-20N is a significant investment for even serious sharpshooters. The Nikon Coolpix 5000 is comparatively less pricey at $1100—not chump change, but for its class, the camera is a good value. You get plenty from both cameras. With a resolution of nearly 5 million pixels, each can deliver crisp, colorful prints even when the images are blown up to 11 by 14 inches. Such large images require a lot of storage, so each camera comes with a 32MB memory card—sufficient room for roughly two dozen or so pictures taken in an 8:1 JPEG compressed mode, or two taken in the highest-quality, uncompressed mode. The memory slots of both cameras can also accept IBM’s 1GB Microdrive, if you require additional storage.

Cool comfort

The Coolpix 5000 is a great camera for those who want versatility and lovely pictures. It’s also a bit easier to use than the E-20N. It sports a point-and-shoot design with a comfortable right-hand grip, and offers a 3X optical zoom. You can attach optional Nikon lenses (such as a wide-angle or fish-eye) to it as well.

The Coolpix’s multilevel menu system takes some getting used to, but the camera also provides a good range of manual settings for adjusting exposure and ISO speed. With so many controls to tweak, you can get pictures with very accurate color, lighting, and detail, tailored to your tastes.

Both cameras have an LCD that you can tilt at an angle so taking, say, a close-up nature shot is easy to do. The Coolpix’s LCD flips out to a 180-degree angle and rotates. With this odd yet handy feature, you can view yourself on screen when taking self-portraits.

Bulky but packed

With so many buttons and dials, the bulky Olympus E-20N looks quite intimidating and difficult to use—especially for novices. Mastering these controls does take time, but once you do, you’ll find they offer shortcuts for a host of functions—such as adjusting the shutter speed for over- or underexposing your pictures.

The E-20N is a digital SLR (single-lens reflex) camera, which means what you see in the viewfinder is nearly identical to the image you’ll get. The SLR design also provides manual focus and a zoom ring for clarity and sharpness. The unit’s optical zoom is 4X.

The E-20N’s LCD pops out to about a 90-degree angle. It delivers a sharp image, but I found that it refreshes slowly: If you pan the camera around, the on-screen image will appear a tad blurry. Unlike the Coolpix, which has only a CompactFlash slot, the E-20N has two memory slots for extra storage—one for SmartMedia (the type of card supplied with my shipping unit) and the other for CompactFlash. The E-20N lets you toggle between the two memory modes.

Both cameras are promising, thanks to their good-quality photos and wide range of controls. But given their prices, unless you’re a pro or a serious amateur with deep pockets, you’ll be better off with a
3- or 4-megapixel model. (PC World)

The price of free e-mail rises

Will you pay to hang on to your Web e-mail address? Hotmail, Yahoo, and others apparently aim to find out.

An Internet Age update to the truism "there is no such thing as a free lunch" might be that there is no (longer) such a thing as a free e-mail account.

The cost of a free e-mail account is on the rise. Two of the Internet’s largest free Web e-mail providers, Yahoo and Microsoft’s Hotmail, have quietly added fee services to their e-mail offerings. At the same time, both companies have also cut back the number of free Web e-mail perks. They are not alone.

Mail.com, recently bought by Net2Phone, is pushing a number of "premium services" to its 3 million users. For example, you can get POP3 access to your e-mail from a software client such as Outlook for $3.95 monthly, and e-mail forwarding for $2.95 per month. Net2Phone won’t say whether its free services are losing money. Last August, free Web mail provider USA.net simply gave its 7 million free e-mail customers an ultimatum: Pay $50 a year or kiss your account goodbye.

Free Web e-mail isn’t likely to disappear entirely, but increasingly services are charging for popular features such as e-mail forwarding and extra storage. The problem, says David Ferris, president of Ferris Research, is that "these services simply aren’t paying for themselves." The challenge for Hotmail, Yahoo, and many others is to wean customers off free services and turn them into paying customers, Ferris says.

Potentially affected are Internet users who depend on some 150 million free Web-based e-mail accounts, as estimated by market researchers at IDC.

Online survivor

It’s another example of the new Net economy, as dot coms seek new sources of revenue. Online advertising and targeted junk e-mail don’t cover the monthly server and administrative costs. Each free Web e-mail account costs about $1 per month, says a representative of one service provider, who asked not to be identified.

"The trick is to make your e-mail product barely functional enough to use and then pile on a bunch of low-cost premium services to get [the user] to upgrade," Ferris says.

Microsoft appears to be the most aggressive marketer of premium services. If you’re a Hotmail user who hasn’t checked your Hotmail e-mail in the past month, you’ve likely lost your account. If more than 2MB of e-mail is languishing in your in-box, your account is "temporarily disabled" until you delete some messages. And until you clean house, Hotmail bounces messages sent to your address with the reply: "Requested mail action aborted: exceeded storage allocation."

Of course, Microsoft offers an option: Pay $19.95 a year for MSN Extra Storage, which includes 10MB of storage for e-mail and 27MB of Web space on MSN Communities sites, and your Hotmail address and account won’t expire after 30 days of inactivity.

Give and take

Yahoo recently rolled back its e-mail storage limit from 6MB down to 4MB. Then it began offering upgrades to its e-mail service starting at $9.99 a year for 10MB of storage. Last fall, Yahoo introduced a business e-mail service, with extras like storage and multiple accounts for a $9.95 monthly fee and a $25 start-up charge. It has also launched a $4.95-per-month service called Yahoo by Phone, which lets you access your e-mail over the phone. When introduced in late 2000, Yahoo by Phone was free; the charge kicked in last summer.

Yahoo still offers a host of free features, including virus checking, e-mail forwarding, and spam filters. To use services like forwarding, you must allow Yahoo to e-mail your advertisements at least once a week.

But you’d better check your mail at least once every three months; after three months of inactivity, you’ll have to reenter your registration information to reactivate your account.

Fees are still the exception, not the rule, among Web e-mail proprietors. Free Web e-mail accounts are far from scarce. But vendors and analysts see continuing trends of more consolidation among services, and imposition of fees for customers using anything more than a bare-bones e-mail account.

"A lot of companies are watching us closely," says Danette Lopez, a USA.net spokesperson. She won’t say how many of USA.net’s former free Web mail customers now pay $50 yearly. But she claims 200 people sign up each month for its for-pay e-mail service.

Many Internet companies instituted Web e-mail as a loss leader, to draw customers to the site. Companies offered free e-mail as a way to grow a base of loyal customers, and planned to make money by selling banner ads and sending customers targeted e-mail messages. But meaningful revenues from banner ads and spam have yet to materialize. Companies are being forced to cut freebies and start charging.

Fee for Consistency

For cheapskates, paying for e-mail may never be an acceptable option. The good news is that free basic e-mail services are still available at no charge from the likes of AOL subsidiary Netscape and IWon’s Excite.com.

Excite.com even offers free features like e-mail auto-reply and forwarding (for which Mail.com charges). The downside is that you may have little recourse if something goes wrong with the forwarding, or if your provider goes out of business.

For example, Excite.com’s free e-mail service still seems to be suffering problems related to the ownership transition from Excite@Home to IWon’s network. Some users complain that they cannot access their Excite.com e-mail. Worse, a test e-mail we sent to a theoretically valid Excite.com e-mail account was returned "user unknown."

Paying a small fee for a reliable e-mail service might be worthwhile if you’re tired of sending your friends and colleagues a change of e-mail addresses every time you switch jobs or your ISP changes.

Consider the number of recent ISP flameouts and mergers. Millions of Excite@Home users faced an e-mail address change after their provider faltered and then was acquired by AT&T. Qwest’s broadband customers in the Pacific Northwest, some of which switched earlier from a uswest.com address, are now being switched to MSN service through a deal between the companies. And in this climate of layoffs and dot-com bombs, your work e-mail may not be longstanding, either. Consider the piles of personal e-mail that Enron employees are no longer receiving at their workplace.

"No one ever wants to switch their e-mail address," says Tim Dolan, spokesperson for ReturnPath, a service that helps streamline change of e-mail addresses for businesses and consumers. But every year 32 percent of e-mail users change their e-mail address, according to a NFO Research Group study commissioned by ReturnPath. The top three reasons? A change of ISP, a new job, or a desperate attempt to reduce spam.

On that note, the good news is that e-mail spam filters at Yahoo and Hotmail are still free—for now.

Cheap LCDs: Going,

going, gone

Hey, buddy, want to buy a cheap LCD? As we went to press, you could easily purchase a 15-inch model from an established vendor for less than $400, or as little as $300 for a lesser-known brand—as opposed to $2600 just three years ago. If you think those prices sound tempting, then you should buy soon, because prices for 15-inch LCDs may be creeping upward. Growing demand is erasing the surplus of raw LCD panels that was spawned in 2001 by sluggish notebook sales and improved manufacturing techniques.

Prices going up

The lower-tier vendors that were selling 15-inch LCD monitors for as little as $300 already are beginning to raise prices to cover increased costs, says Rhoda Alexander, director of monitor research at Stanford Resources-ISuppli. Top-tier vendors selling displays in the $400 range should be able to absorb the extra costs for the short term, she says. NEC/Mitsubishi, for example, hopes to continue to offer a sub-$400 model. In fact, it optimistically introduced the thin-frame 15-inch LCD1550X in November 2001 at $399. But Chris Connery, director of product line management for the company, admits that price may not last.

Farewell, rebates

Instead of raising prices outright, Samsung will likely cut its rebates first, says Rey Roque, vice president of marketing. For example, the SyncMaster 570vTFT should stay at $399, but the $50 rebate Samsung offered on the unit in October was slated to drop to $20 or less by January.

Prices for many 17-inch LCD monitors may increase as well, although not as much as prices for the cost-sensitive 15-inch models, according to Ross Young, president of the research firm DisplaySearch. The average price of a 17-inch model dropped from $1562 in November 2000 to $804 in November 2001, he says. Look for prices to move upward from $800 early in the year.

Even at a slightly higher price, a 15-inch LCD remains a solid option for anyone seeking a better computing experience without buying a new PC, says Alexander. An LCD also allows you to reclaim desk space and offers some power savings over a CRT, she says.

Says Herb Berkwits, ViewSonic senior product manager, "When it comes to the end of the day, what is it you’re staring at? It’s not your PC." (PC World)

Computers still a luxury in Russia

An overwhelming majority of Russians never use computers and only 6 per cent of the population has a computer at home, according to a poll released Tuesday.

The All-Russian Public Opinion Research Center questioned 2,046 adults across the country and found that 84 percent had never used a computer. In the capital Moscow, home to 8.7 million people, about 69 per cent had never used a computer, according to the poll.

No margin of error was given.

Only 9 percent of those questioned said they used a computer daily, while 4 per cent used a computer at least once a week, and 1 per cent at least once a month.

Home computers and Internet access are still relative luxuries in Russia, available largely to the well-off and familiar primarily to the young. But computer access has increased significantly in recent years, and Internet cafes can be found in most large cities. (AP)

Would-be bride woos suitors with Web auction

Kay Hammond says she is too busy to find a date. So
the 24-year-old Englishwoman offered her hand for sale on the Internet.

Hammond, the managing director of an Internet design company, placed an ad with online auctioneer QXL reading "Kay Hammond, Internet entrepreneur, looking for a husband."

On Monday she said she had found her mate — or possibly two.

Two men have agreed to pay her £250,000 ($350,000) reserve price. Hammond says she will meet with them both, after background checks to determine whether they have a criminal record, and will marry the higher bidder.

She currently knows the men only by their Internet sign-on names, Ben Webb and Andrew 1901.

A spokeswoman said Hammond was "absolutely determined to go through with" the marriage — but even if she backs out, she has gained reams of publicity.

She has sold her story to a tabloid newspaper and has attracted interest from television producers. She refers all press inquiries to a team of publicists.

Hammond, from Birmingham in central England, said in her ad that part of her goal was to "prove that the Internet is not full of cyber-geeks, there are normal people out there."

Her path to true love did not run smooth, however. The first auctioneer she approached, Ebay, rejected the ad as unethical.

And she was forced to withdraw her ad in December to tighten security after receiving a bid — presumably bogus — of £1 billion ($1.41 billion). (AP)

Nintendo mulls making GameCube video

Japan’s video game giant Nintendo Co. Ltd. said Wednesday it may start making its GameCube video consoles in China to cut costs as it prepares to export the popular device to Europe.

"We are considering the shift but nothing concrete has been decided yet such as how much production we would do there and when we want to start," said Nintendo spokesman Hiroshi Imanishi.

"We are considering the move because of costs," he said, adding that it was much cheaper to produce in China than Japan.

Nintendo already makes 70 to 80 per cent of its GameBoy Advance terminals in China, with total annual production of between 24 million and 36 million units, but all four million GameCubes produced annually are made in Japan.

"At the moment we sell GameCubes in Japan and the United States, but we are preparing to start shipping them to Europe from this May," said Imanishi.

The Nihon Keizai Shimbun newspaper said earlier that Nintendo had already decided to start manufacturing half of the consoles in China, starting this summer.

"Whether it would be in the summer or not, I can’t say," said Imanishi. (AFP)

States asked to examine Microsoft’s Passport

A privacy group Tuesday asked state law enforcement authorities to examine software giant Microsoft Corp.’s Passport online identity service, saying it exposes consumers to fraud, junk e-mail and identity theft.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center sent a letter to all 50 state attorneys general, asking them to protect consumers against what it called Microsoft’s unfair and deceptive trade practices because the federal government has failed to act.

Launched in 1999, Passport aims to simplify Internet transactions by allowing consumers to store passwords, credit-card numbers and other personal information in one location.

Microsoft claims it has created more than 200 million Passport accounts, mostly through Hotmail, its free e-mail service.

The service has drawn the ire of the Electronic Privacy Information Center and other privacy groups, who say it allows Microsoft to track and profile Internet users, encourages junk e-mail, and exposes consumers to identity theft by inadequately protecting their credit-card numbers.

Microsoft temporarily disabled some Passport functions last fall after a security expert demonstrated that he could hijack a Passport account by getting its owner to open a Hotmail message.

FTC involved?

Privacy groups want Microsoft to back off on claims that Passport is secure and protects consumer privacy, and erase the consumer accounts it has set up so far.

A Microsoft spokesperson was not immediately available for comment.

In its letter, EPIC said it was appealing to the states because the Federal Trade Commission has not taken action since EPIC and other groups asked it to investigate Passport last summer.

(Reuters)

An FTC spokesman would not confirm or deny whether the agency was investigating Passport, but added that the agency was aware of the controversy and was following developments in the press.

Chris Hoofnagle, EPIC legislative counsel, said he anticipated that many states would look into the matter, as they have often taken a more aggressive approach to privacy matters.

"The states have been on the forefront of privacy protection and consumer protection generally," Hoofnagle said. (Reuters)

Your Day Today

31 January, 2002

Aries (21 Mar-20 April): Family environment will give tension. Enemies are weak. Confidence and mental sharpness will help you. Money will be spent on religious work.

Taurus (21 Apr-20 May): There are many opportunities today. Good day for career and business. Family environment will be fine. Progress in intellectual work.

Gemini (21 May-20 June): Family environment will not be good. Possibility of acquiring new land or others property. Appreciable help from friends. Good income from trade.

Cancer (21 Jun-20 July): Family life will be fine. Popularity will go up. Progress in your, mental sphere. Interest in religious work. Health will be good.

Leo (21 July-22 Aug): May lose wealth suddenly. Daily life will be interesting. Appreciable help from friends. Health will be fine. Watch where you step.

Virgo (23 Aug-22 Sept): Health will be fine. Confidence and mental sharpness will help you. Appreciable help from the opposite sex. Good income from business.

Libra (23 Sept-22 Oct): Control your expenses. Political help can be expected. Your business position is not good. Enemies are weak.

Scorpio (23 Oct-21 Nov): Financial position will be good. Interest in religious work. Today is a lucky day for you. Mental sharpness will help you.

Sagittarius (22 Nov-20 Dec): Family life will suffer. Your business and political position will be good. Health will be fine. Patience is necessary.

Capricorn (21 Dec-20 Jan): This is a fine day for you. Interest in religious work. Good income from business. Family help can be expected.

Aquarius (21 Jan-19 Feb): Family environment will give tension. Health may suffer. Mental tension will rise. You may go on a long tour.

Pisces (20 Feb-20 Mar): Family environment is fine. Today is a good day for business. There will be much help from children.

By Acharya Shree Dhruv