Monday, September 17, 2001		Lens on IT

Professors (L-R) Vijay Chandru, Vishwanathan Vinay and Swami Manohar hold Simputers, a cheap hand-held computing device they helped design, in Bangalore. The Simputer is aimed at delivering the Internet to rural masses in India. The professors have now formed a company, PicoPeta Simputers Pvt Ltd, which will make software tools to enable content and education using the Simputer. 

The Hewlett-Packard Company announced. the shipment of two new colour personal digital assistants -- the first PDAs to feature the robust Microsoft Pocket PC 2002 Premium Edition software. One of the new Jornada's introduced, the HP Jornada 565 PDA is shown in this undated publicity photograph.

 Jeffrey Bezos, CEO of Amazon.com Inc., speaks to an auidience after receiving a gift in the NASDAQ stock market studio headquarters in New York. Online retailer Amazon.com Inc., facing slow revenue growth as it struggles to reach profitablility, said it was "optimistic" about the upcoming Christmas season sales.

Union Communication and Information Technology Minister Pramod Mahajan, shakes hands with Japanese State Minister in charge of Economic and Fiscal Policy Heizo Takenaka during the IT Eminent Persons Meeting attended by Japanese and Indian information technology business leaders at the Foreign Ministry in Tokyo .

— Reuters photos