Rupee joins elite club

India has finally got a symbol for the Rupee and joined a select club of countries whose currencies have an unique identity.

The Union Cabinet on Thursday approved the design, which includes both the Devnagiri 'Ra' and the Roman capital 'R' and has two parallel lines running at the top. The parallel lines symbolise the equal to sign.

"With this India will join an elite group of countries which have a distinct currency symbol. It denotes the robustness of Indian economy. I will now hold up the design that was finally selected. This was sent in by Udaya Kumar," said Minister for Information and Broadcasting Ambika Soni in New Delhi.

She said that the Rupee symbol was a nice blend of modernity and Indian culture. The symbol selected has been designed by an Indian Institute of Technology postgraduate D Udaya Kumar and was selected from among five short listed symbols. Kumar, who is with the Department of Design at IIT Guwahati, explained thatthe design is based on the Indian Tricolour.

"My design is based on the Tricolour with two lines at the top and white space in between. I wanted the symbol for the Rupee to represent the Indian flag. It is a perfect blend of Indian and Roman letters: a capital 'R', and Devnagari 'Ra', which represent rupiya, to appeal to international and Indian audiences. After working onthe design for few months, I shortlisted eight to 10 designs and then refined them further till I got this one," said Kumar.

Planck telescope reveals universe image

The first image of the entire universe taken from Europe's Planck telescope has been published.

The first full-sky image from Europe's Planck telescope which was sent into space last year to survey the oldest light in the cosmos Photo: ESA

The satellite, costing 600m euros, was launched last year by the European Space Agency.

It was sent nearly a million miles into space to record the origins of the universe. The Planck observatory's job was to look at the age, contents and evolution of the cosmos by studying the heat left behind by the Big Bang.

In September it began to reveal its first images showing strips of ancient light across the sky. Now it has revealed a full picture of the sky.

The image shows what is visible beyond the Earth to instruments that are sensitive to light at very long wavelengths.

Dominating the picture are large parts of our Milky Way Galaxy. The bright horizontal line running across the middle of the image is the galaxy's main disc and where the Sun and Earth are.

Also seen are huge bursts of cold dust that reach thousands of light-years above and below the galactic plane.

Scientists will spend years analyzing the image to better understand how the Universe came to look the way it does.

"What you see is the structure of our galaxy in gas and dust, which tells us an awful lot about what is going on in the neighborhood of the Sun; and it tells us a lot about the way galaxies form when we compare this to other galaxies," Professor Andrew Jaffe, a Planck team member from Imperial College London, told BBC News.

planck satellite

Here is a really nice DJ Gadget. The DJ Mouse is a combination of a Mouse and a mix controller. It is a laser mouse just for you to bring out your inner DJ, and features a multi-function jog wheel with blue ring, a Scratch knob, and of course right and left click buttons. This gadget is optimized for the Deckadance DJ software for Mac and PC and has a aluminum feel to it. The DJ Mouse comes with a DJ Kit which includes the Deckadance and a DJ scratch mat that has a turntable design. The DJ-Tech DJ Mouse is available approx Rs. 5000/-. It’s Features are:-

Left Click Functions

• Drag and Drop songs from the play list
• Play 4 different CUE points
• Access to the Effects
• Play Samples
• Play Loops
• Play the 3 Reloopers
• Activate Effect
• Preview song
• SYNC and downbeat

Vertical wheel:

• Rewind and fast forward effect
• All faders and knobs control
• Scroll Playlist

Right click:

• Memorize 4 CUE points
• Toggle Loops
• Toggle 3 Reloopers
• Reset Effect
• Lock the SYNC : get a perfect and permanent beat match

Jog wheel:

• Control faders and knobs
• Control Crossfader
• Scratch or rewind Effect

Scratch Knob:

• Activate the digital Scratch mode with any position of the DJM
• Lock the control of the X,Y parameters for the effects
• Lock control of Fader/knobs without clicking

Now Use Google Voice Without a New Number

The sticky point with the highly convenient Google Voice service has been that you had to choose a new number to use with Google Voice service. If you had an existing number that everyone already knew and wanted to switch over, you were pretty much out of luck.

But luckily that changes today, with Google announcement that you can now use Google Voice with an existing phone number. Also, you can now add Google voicemail service to any of the mobile numbers linked to your account. Think of it a bit like Gmail for voicemail.

Now when you first sign up for Google Voice you can choose between using your own number or choosing a new Google number. You still get many of Google Voice’s features when using your own number, including the Google voicemail feature you can now add to linked phones.