Monday, July 2, 2001		Newsscape

A Dubai court validated the divorce of a husband who sent his wife her marching orders by text message on his mobile phone, Reuters quoted The Khaleej Times as reporting. It was the first case of divorce by mobile phone registered in the Gulf Emirate. However, the man changed his mind soon afterwards and the couple, who had been married for two years and have a baby daughter, were reported to be still together. Abdel Salam Mohammad Darwish, adviser at the Family Reconciliation section of the courts, told the Khaleej Times the divorce was confirmed as valid, but the husband changed his mind after a couple of hours.

Venture capitalists (VCs) are leaving the IT arena and moving over to Bollywood to fund movies, The Economic Times reported. VC funding is popular in the West and this move is being seen as direct fallout of Sushma Swaraj’s visit to the USA. These VCs would shell out a certain part of the cost of the movie for a certain share in the profit. Right now, according to the report, VCs are more interested to finance normal Hindi masala movie and English movie made in India with Indian cast and director.

Pune has outset Bangalore in the home PC penetration, The Indian Express reported. The PC penetration in Pune homes is 26 per cent while it is 22.8 per cent in Bangalore, the report stated. Mumbai and Delhi follow at third and fourth slots, with their PC penetration limited at 21.6 per cent and 15.4 per cent, respectively. The news was based on IDC report wherein a survey was conducted in towns having a population of more than 10 lakh. The report says that the installed base of PCs in the home segment as on December 2000 stood at 11,28,312 units and has predicted a growth of 72 per cent by the end of year 2001.

Almost one in five young Web surfers has been sexually solicited online, according to a study published which underlines the potential for risky sexual contact over the Internet, AFP reported. In a survey of 1,500 young Web users, 19 per cent said they had received at least one unwelcome sexual approach in the last year through channels such as chat rooms or instant messages, researchers reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). Only a tiny percentage of those contacts (3 per cent) ever spilled over from the Web into more direct forms of communication such as phone calls or letters. The older teenagers, those aged 14 to 17 (the age group most likely to receive these sexual advances) were also the most able to deal with them, the report said.

A report in The New York Times said that Compaq Computers planned to phase out the Alpha microprocessors that were at the heart of most of the high-performance computers. Compaq, in a joint announcement with Intel, said by 2004, all of its business computers would be designed around Intel’s new processor family, known as Itanium. Compaq engineers, who work on Alpha development, will move over to Intel, the report stated.

Singapore is fast emerging as a hub for the Indian software companies desirous of expanding their operations in the Asia-Pacific region, according to The Hindustan Times. The news-item stated that companies like Satyam, NIIT and TCS had already set up shops in Singapore and are now making it their centre to expand their penetrations in the East. The report said that this move also has the blessings of the Singapore government as it is making a concentrated effort to position Singapore as the gateway to Asia-Pacific region.