Monday, April 29, 2002		Lens on IT

Aishwairya Rai launches Radio Mirchi, the first private radio channel in a metro city.

A Chinese girl tries on a virtual reality helmet to experience a computer simulation during a Beijing science exhibition. China, whose vast and cheap labour force has long made it a manufacturing hub for global tech firms, is moving slowly up the industry value chain. From semiconductors to cell phones and software, foreign companies are increasingly shifting value-added functions such as research and development to China, which is eager to graduate beyond its role as the world's factory floor

Microsoft's Aubrey Edwards displays a Phillips manufactured Mira-enabled prototype device at WinHEC 2002 in Seattle, Washington. Mira-enabled devices are a new and under development generation of portable smart display computer devices based on Windows technology. WinHEC, which stands for Windows Hardware Engineering Conference, is designed to help engineers, driver developers and product designers prepare for the coming changes in the computer hardware industry and for understanding future directions for hardware running Microsoft Windows operating systems. 

A visitor uses North Korean software during an International Computer Trade Fair in Beijing. North Korea is better known for its tightly closed, communist political system and famines in the late 1990's, than for its high technology industries.

Hewlett-Packard Chairman and CEO Carleton (Carly) Florina enters the courthouse with a police escort in Wilmington Delaware, USA. She is battling with Walter Hewlett, a son of founder William Hewlett, who is trying to block the HP-Compaq merger. 

— Reuters photos