India added 7.3 mln wireless users in June

"Indian wireless telecom operators added a record 7.34 million subscribers in June, lifting the user base to 185.13 million, the country's telecoms regulator said on Wednesday.

Wireless phone subscribers in June were 65 percent higher than a year earlier, according to TRAI report. India is the world's fastest growing market for mobile services.
Analysts forecast the wireless user base will top 500 million in 5 years, as less than 20 percent of India's 1.1 billion population own a telephone. Including fixed-line phones, total telephone subscribers grew 47 percent from a year earlier to 225.21 million, the regulator said.

During the April-June quarter, 20.02 million wireless users signed up, but fixed-line connections witnessed a decline of 0.66 million, it said. Bharti Airtel, which had a subscriber base of 42.7 million at the end of June, is India's top mobile services firm, followed by Reliance, Hutchison Essar and state-run BSNL." Report: Reuters

Nokia N-Gage gets developer support

Nokia is the most targeted platform around the world, according to a survey of mobile developers. The research, from Evans Data, a specialist in analysis of developer trends, says the situation is slightly different in the US where the focus is on Motorola.

The dominance of Nokia in Europe is no surprise, but the company's platform is now the most popular in Asia too - in fact, everywhere except the US.

The research also shows that 64 per cent of development companies are working on some form of open source application, and half of them plan to introduce location-based information into their apps - except in Latin America, for some reason.

In other Nokia news, premier mobile games developer Digital Chocolate has signed up to create content for the new N-Gage platform. ®

World map of social networks

Here is a world map of social networks. Social network was first pioneer by friendster but now it appears that they’re fighting a lost cause, retreating to south east asia only.

Next version of Ms OS Windows "7" will release within 3 years

Microsoft's Windows 7, the next client version of the operating system, will be among the steps taken by Microsoft to establish a more predictable release schedule, according to sources.

Like Vista, Windows 7 will ship in consumer and business versions, and in 32-bit and 64-bit versions. The company also confirmed that it is considering a subscription model to complement Windows, but did not provide specifics or a time frame.

Next up on Microsoft's agenda is Service Pack 1 for Windows Vista, which is expected before year's end. Windows 7 was previously known by the code name Vienna. A Microsoft representative confirmed that Windows 7 is the internal code name for the next client release of Windows.

Origin Of Perennial Water-ice At South Pole Of Mars

Combined with models of the Martian climate, scientists can now suggest how the orbit of Mars around the Sun affects the deposition of water ice at the Martian South Pole.

The OMEGA instrument on board ESA's Mars Express has characterised the types of ice deposits present in the South polar cap of Mars as the arrows, superimposed on an image taken by the HRSC instrument, indicate. (Credit: ESA - DLR - FU Berlin (G. Neukum)) Early during the mission, the OMEGA instrument (Visible and Infrared Mineralogical Mapping Spectrometer) on board Mars Express had already found previously undetected perennial deposits of water-ice.

They are sitting on top of million-year old layered terrains and provide strong evidence for a recent glacial activity. However, only now a realistic explanation for the age of the deposits and the mechanism of their formation could finally be suggested. This was achieved thanks to the OMEGA mapping and characterisation of these ice deposits, combined with the computer-generated Martian Global Climate Models (GCMs).

The mapping and spectral analysis by OMEGA has shown that the perennial deposits on the Martian South Pole are of essentially three types: water-ice mixed with carbon dioxide (CO2) ice, tens-of-kilometres-wide patches of water-ice, and deposits covered by a thin layer of CO2 ice.

The discovery of the ice deposits of the first type confirms the long-standing hypothesis that CO2 acts as a cold-trap for water-ice. But how were the other two types of deposits, not ‘trapped’ by CO2, accumulated and preserved over time? Franck Montmessin, from the Service d'Aéronomie du CNRS/IPSL (France) and lead author of the findings, explains how the deposits of water ice at the Martian's poles 'behave'. "We believe that the deposits of water-ice are juggled between Mars’ North and South Poles over a cycle that spans 51,000 years, corresponding to the time span in which the planet's precession is inverted."

Precession is the phenomenon by which the rotation axis of a planet wobbles. Montmessin and colleagues came to the conclusion by turning back time in their Mars climate computer model. This was done by changing the precession together with other orbital information. The scientists set the clock 21,000 years back, when the closest vicinity of the planet to the Sun corresponded to the northern summer – a situation opposite to that of today. The model has shown that water at the North Pole was in an unstable condition and was easily transported to the South Pole in the form of water vapour, to then re-condense and freeze on the surface.

Up to 1 millimetre of water ice was deposited at the South Pole every year. After Mars has spent more than 10,000 years in that climatic configuration, this accumulation led to a layer up to 6-metre thick. About 10,000 years ago the precession cycle was inverted, and started to return to its current configuration. Water-ice at the South Pole became unstable, and was forced to progressively return back to the North.

About 1000 years ago, by a not-yet-well explained trigger mechanism, the erosion of the water-ice deposits at the South pole was blocked as soon as layers of CO2 ice were deposited on the water-ice and trapped it, as OMEGA has observed them. Mars is currently experiencing 'Southern summer' – that is, water ice is more likely to accumulate at the North Pole.

The findings appear in the paper 'On the origin of perennial water ice at the South Pole of Mars: a precession-controlled mechanism?', by F. Montmessin, R. M. Haberle, F. Forget, Y. Langevin, R. T. Clancy and J.-P. Bibring, accepted for publication in the JGR Planets journal, and presented at the 7th International Conference on Mars, Pasadena, California (9-13 July 2007).

Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by European Space Agency.

Lioness freed from Gaza

Sabrina, Lioness stolen 2 years from Gaza Zoo, was kidnapped by

Hasaneen family, a powerful mafia gang. They removed her claws and teeth and used her as a main attraction in a studio Gaza city.