internet.quillem.com

Apple on Sunday unveiled five new software packages for broadcasters and digital video editors, including new visual effects and editing tools for high definition video. These include new versions of Final Cut Pro, Shake, DVD Studio Pro, Logic Pro and a new software named Motion. Motion is being unveiled to especially target rival Adobe's After Effects.

The full article is available here.

The Economic Times is carrying an interesting article on the latest foraging ground for Indian IT companies - Software Testing.

Independent software testers — ThinkSoft and RelQ to name just two — have for long been seeing the software testing pie becoming bigger. More recently, even leading software development firms, such as Infosys and Wipro, have entered the scene, launching their own verification and validation divisions.

The size of the Indian market is estimated to be Rs 150 crore to Rs 200 crore, and is said to be growing at a faster rate than the global average. Already, Citibank, Europe , gets a chunk of its software tested in India . So does Standard Chartered Bank, Deutsche Bank, Morgan Stanley and GE Capital.

Attention: more mindless monkeys needed.. :S

ZDNet is carry a report on Microsoft's latest open-source initiative; this time opening up the XML schema for it's charting application - Visio. This follows similar initiatives carried out a few months ago, when the schema for Excel, Word and Infopath were opened up.

Meanwhile, Internet News is carrying another report on Microsoft's problems with the American Department of Justice..

News.com has a nice story on life for an American 'techie' working in India.

So what awaits U.S. workers in less-developed nations? First, a pay cut could be in order. Some workers in India get complete expatriate packages, in which they get their normal U.S. salary, plus a large stipend for expenses. Other transplants, however, receive salaries closer to the local wage--around $25,000 to $30,000, according to sources. That's more than Indian programmers get, with their salaries of maybe $18,000--but it's less than what the expats probably earned in the United States.

Still, in relative terms, they can live well. "The cost of living--an apartment, a car with driver, a couple of domestics to help with laundry and cooking, plus utilities--can be as low as $15,000, with $25,000 to $30,000 being the mid- to-upper range," Niedas said.

I'd like to know where he pulled those figures from.. :S The article also has an interesting link to a site dedicated to Indian English ;)

Wired is carrying another article that seems to stem directly out of a sci-fi novel. Cyberkinetics, a firm specialising in the field of brain-computer interfaces, has received the FDA go-ahead to begin a clinical trial in which four-square-millimeter chips will be placed beneath the skulls of paralyzed patients, allowing them to think commands to a computer.

Cyberkinetics founder Dr. John Donoghue, a Brown University neuroscientist, attracted attention with research on monkeys that was published in 2002 in the journal Nature.

Three rhesus monkeys were given implants, which were first used to record signals from their motor cortex -- an area of the brain that controls movement -- as they manipulated a joystick with their hands. Those signals were then used to develop a program that enabled one of the monkeys to continue moving a computer cursor with its brain.

Wired is carrying an article on plans by the U.S military to develop the next generation of the Packbot (which is already in use in Iraq).

The robots, called small unmanned ground vehicles, or SUGVs, will detect the presence of chemical and biological weapons, identify targets for artillery and infantrymen, and ferret out snipers hiding inside urban buildings. Today, humans mainly perform these tasks, often becoming the first casualties of battle while looking for snipers or explosives.

The SUGV (pronounced "sug-vee") will be a smaller and lighter version of the PackBot, a 42-pound robot with tanklike rubber treads designed by iRobot, a company based in Burlington, Massachusetts.

More information on the SUGV and America's 'Future Combat Systems' can be found here. Quite unnerving how rapidly fiction is being transformed into reality..

USA Today is carrying a story on a new technology designed by Verichip, which allows a gun to be fired only by a person implanted with a corresponding 'ID' chip.

The tiny chip would be implanted in a police officer's hand and would match up with a scanning device inside a handgun. If the officer and gun match, a digital signal unlocks the trigger so it can be fired. But if a child or criminal would get hold of the gun, it would be useless.

The technology is the latest attempt to create a so-called "smart gun" and could be marketed to law enforcement agencies within a year, according to Verichip Corp., which has created the microchip.

Verichip, a subsidiary of Applied Digital Solutions, made the news last year with a similar chip implant for security and medical applications.

I foresee a truckload of movie-climaxes hinging on something like this :S

A new chemical, commercially named Sapphire concocted by scientists at the Tyco's Fire and Security Division looks and acts just like water except for one thing... it doesn't get things wet.

The SAPPHIRE Suppression System uses 3M® NOVEC™ 1230 Fire Protection Fluid. It looks exactly like water, but does not cause the type of damage associated with water when putting out a fire. It can be used to protect rare exhibits, electronic equipment and other delicate items without causing any harm. In fact, items can even be immersed in the agent. The fire protection fluid will quickly evaporate, safeguarding these items - and leaving them unaffected.

The company that manufactures Sapphire - Tyco Fire & security has released a press release which can be found here. An article on Sapphire along with a slideshow can be seen here.

The article mentions that a similar chemical has already been in use for a while, but is known to be ozone-unfriendly. A link explaining the history of such chemicals can be seen here.

The Economic Times has an interesting article on the friction created in traditional Indian families due to marked vagaries in salary levels. A decent read..

Karthik Ramani and his team of engineers at Purdue University are developing a system that will enable people to search huge industry databases by sketching a part from memory, penciling in modifications to an existing part or selecting a part that has a similar shape.

"We take a 3-D model of a part and convert it into a bunch of small cubes called voxels, which stands for volume elements," Ramani said.

People can select an inventoried part that resembles the desired part and ask the system to find a "cluster" of like parts. Users also can sketch the desired part entirely from memory, or they can choose a part that looks similar from the company's catalog and then sketch modifications to that part. The system then assists in finding the desired part.

Sounds like an offshoot of face recognition technology... The Purdue University press release can be seen here.