News Galaxy

The circuitary up sounds and music within your PC is technically called a sound adapter, but most people and computer stores simply call it a sound card. That term comes straight from your PC’s history. Early PCs merely blurted out a single beep on startup, meant to reassure nervous owners that everything was working correctly.

The only way to improve a PC’s sound back then was to spend $300 or more on a drop-in sound card, most gamers gladly paid the premium. Today, all new PCs include stereo sound, but the circuitry lives in any of three different places — on the motherboard, on a separate sound card, or inside a box that plugs into a USB port.

Windows XP’s free movie editor, the imaginatively named “Windows Movie Maker,” does an adequate job of stringing together movie clips. The latest version, “Windows Movie Maker 2,” includes a wide variety of editing tricks to spice up your footage. Some effects go overboard, but most audiences prefer even a corny edited video over a boring, unedited video.

Windows Movie Maker 2 leads you through editing video in three seperate phases:

• Capture Video: Movie Maker scoops video from your camcorder or other video files on your PC. This step also let you import sound files for background music, as well as digital photos, which come in handy as backdrops for opening and closing credits.
• Edit Movie: The most labor-intensive part, here’s where you drag and drop your best clips onto a “storyboard” – a long strip representing your finished movie — rearranging the clips to create your actual movie.
• Finish Movie: The easiest part — this one’s all up to Movie Maker itself. The program reads in your edited clips, creates smooth transitions between them, adds your soundtrack or sound effects, and saves it all into a movie.

Mammooty Malayalam film industry’s superstar Mammooty is all set to make his debut with a Kannada film. The actor has already acted in various Hindi and Tamil films winning more laurels.

This film will be simultaneously shot in Kannada and Malayalam with Abay Singh wielding megaphone. Earlier, titled as ‘Shikari’ (meaning ‘Hunter’), the project was supposed to take-off 6 months earlier, but got shelved due to some unavoidable constraints.

Now, filmmaker Abay Singh has made official confirmation that the film will start rolling from the next week in Bangalore and the new title would be finalized shortly.

The 55th National Awards ceremony was held yesterday at New Delhi. Actor Prakash Raj, Priyadarshan were honoured by Smt. Pratibha Devisingh Patil, President of India.

Prakash Raj was honoured as ‘Best Actor’ for his awe-inspiring performance in offbeat film ‘Kanchivaram’ while Priyadarshan was awarded as ‘Best Filmmaker’ for the same film. Music director Shankar Mahadevan bagged ‘Best Male playback singer’ for his enchanting song ‘Maa’ of ‘Taare Zameen Par’.

The Union Minister of Information and Broadcasting, Smt. Ambika Soni, the Ministers of State for Information and Broadcasting, Shri Mohan Jatua and Dr. S. Jagathrakshakan and the Director, Directorate of Film Festivals, Shri S. M. Khan were also present for the occasion.

Software major Microsoft launched the latest version of the Windows operating system — Windows 7 — which the software major hopes will help reverse the losses incurred on account of the glitches in Windows Vista, launched earlier.

Windows 7 is designed to be more reliable and responsive, delivering a simplified PC experience for consumers, which Microsoft claims is a result of the largest beta testing programme in the history of the industry, with eight million testers worldwide.

“It enhances the user experience by its sheer simplicity and caters to their connected lives across work and play. We are delighted by the initial reviews from partners and the technology community,” saidMicrosoft India chairman Ravi Venkatesan.

“Over 90 percent of testers from around the world have rated it as ‘good’ or ‘extremely good’ and consider Windows 7 to be responsive, simple to use and stable,” added Venkatesan.

Windows 7 boasts of features such as Aero Shake, Peek, Snap, Jump Lists and a redesigned Windows Taskbar and claims to give greater freedom while editing photos, music or videos.

What would you do if you saw Rs 95 crore in your bank account?

Especially if you are a 20-year-old living in a chawl, picking your way past overflowing gutters everyday to work and getting off work at 3 am?

Vaibhav Pawar, a call center employee, got off work at his routine ti me at 3 am and was withdrawing money from an HDFC Automatic Teller Machine (ATM) in Mazgaon when his account balance clocked in a whopping Rs 95,70,00,000.

“I thought it was my account number,” he said, showing a crumpled receipt from that day. Pawar’s monthly salary is Rs 10,000 and he started working nine months ago. Still not believing his eyes, he withdrew Rs 600 and checked his balance.

It now showed a balance of Rs 75 crore. Reasoning that something was wrong with the ATM machine, Pawar tried other ATMs nearby. They all showed the same amount.

Phnom Penh – Cambodian authorities released final figures Thursday showing that 43 people died in the kingdom when Typhoon Ketsana swept through the country in late September.

The National Committee for Disaster Management said the typhoon injured 67 people and affected more than 66,000 families. Around 10,000 homes were damaged.

“More people died during the floods that followed the storm,” said the committee’s deputy director for information, Keo Vy, explaining the agency’s increased figures.

Keo Vy added that the typhoon had seriously affected agriculture and infrastructure in 13 provinces across the country, damaging 54,500 hectares of rice fields just weeks before the rice harvest. Dozens of bridges were damaged as were 320 kilometres of mainly rural roads.

The final figures for Cambodia showed that Ketsana also flooded more than 1,100 schools.

Before hitting Cambodia, Ketsana tore through the Philippines, where it killed 464 people, and central Vietnam, where at least 159 people died.

Sun Microsystems is to axe 3,000 workers, claiming the firings were caused by a delay in its purchase by Oracle due to a review by EU anti-monopoly regulators.

The layoffs were outlined in a filing by the company to the Securities and Exchange Commission and represent some 10 per cent of the company’s 29,000 workers. Sun said the cut would be across all its geographic regions and would be completed over the next 12 years.

Sun agreed to be purchased in July for 7.4 billion dollars by business software maker Oracle. EU regulators have held up the deal citing competition concerns on the database software market, where German-based SAP is one of Oracle’s major competitors. The European Commission is expected to issue a decision on the deal by November 19.

President Pratibha Patil will give away the 55th National Film Awards for 2007 here today. The eminent music personality Manna Dey will also be conferred the Dada Saheb Phalke Award for the year 2007.

The National Film Awards aim at encouraging the production of films of aesthetic and technical excellence and social relevance contributing to the understanding and appreciation of cultures of different regions of the country in cinematic form, thereby also promoting integration and unity of the nation.

In the feature film section, the awards are given in 31 categories, which include Award for Best Feature Film, Indira Gandhi Award for Best First Film of a director, Award For Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment, Award For Best Direction,

Actor, Actress, Editing, Lyrics and Choreography. In the non-feature film section, awards are given in 22 categories like Best Non-Feature Film, Best Biographical/Historical Reconstruction/Compilation Film, Special Jury Award and Best Audiography.

National Award for Best Writing on cinema and Best Film Critic are also given. The awards aim at encouraging study and appreciation of cinema as an art form and dissemination of information and critical appreciation of this art-form through publication of books, articles and reviews.

All schools and colleges across Pakistan have been shut down following the deadly terror attack on the International Islamic University (IIUI) in Islamabad (IIUI) in which six people, including three female students, were killed and 29 others injured.

The Sindh Education Department has closed all government and private schools in the province till October 25. The North West Frontier Privince (NWFP) and Balochistan governments have also asked the concerned authorities to shut down educational institutions, The Daily Times reports.

Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah said all education institutions in the province would remain closed and would reopen only when the situation improves.

Educational institutions in Islamabad have already been shutdown after the twin suicide bombings inside the IIUI campus.

The first blast targeted the cafeteria adjacent to a girls’ hostel, while the second one rocked the Sharia and Law Department building.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack so far.

The blast comes as the Pakistani Army continues its offensive against militants in South Waziristan.