Monday, September 24, 2001		Lens on IT

A Chinese boy rests on a counter featuring U.S. dollar notes at an exhibition on electronic banking in Beijing. China will intensify reforms this year to make its struggling Big Four state banks globally competitive, overhauling management and eventually allowing foreign and domestic shareholders and then listings.

Japanese computer giant Toshiba Corp. will release the world's first laptop with built-in antennas for both long- and short-range wireless networking this week, the company said. Toshiba's Tecra 9000 is pictured in this undated publicity photograph. The laptops will have antennas in their lids for connecting to short-range Bluetooth networks and to longer-range and higher-speed "Wi-Fi," networks, the company said.

French Surgeon Jacques Marescaux controls robotic arms on Wednesday as surgeons in New York used a robot to remove the gall bladder of a woman in France in the World's first trans-oceanic operation which experts said would change medical practice. A team of French surgeons in New York used video technology and telecommunications to manipulate scalpel-wielding robotic arms in a hospital in Strasbourg, eastern France.

Surgeons in New York used a robot to remove the gall bladder of a woman in France in the World's first trans-oceanic operation which experts said would change medical practice. A patient is seen partly covered during an operation in a Strasbourg hospital.

A Sony employee poses with a new multi-entertainment product called the bitPlay DMT-PR1 at its unveiling in Tokyo. The bitPlay DMT-PR1 plays CDs, MDs, DVDs, television broadcasts and surfs the Internet. Musical CDs equivalent to 300 record albums can also be compressed for storage for use as a jukebox. BitPlay will be available on the Japanese market on December 1, 2001.

— Reuters photos