TECHNOLOGY

Analog devices rolls out new voice chips  
ANALOG Devices Inc unveiled a new generation of high-performance voice processing chips that promise to offer speeds 10 times faster than the company's existing products.  The company will introduce the second generation of its SHARC 32-bit digital signal processor (DSPs) design and three new customers of the chip, including Hewlett-Packard Co. 

Motorola, Packard to make 'bio-chips'  
Motorola Inc., Packard Instrument Co, and the UD government's Argonne National 
Laboratory say they have teamed up to mass produce 'bio-chip'- devices akin to computer chips, with widespread implications in medicine and agriculture. Like computer chips, which perform millions of mathematical operations a second, bio-chips can perform thousands of biological reactions, such as decoding genes, in seconds. 

Global mobile satellite operations get nod 
Inmarsat plans $2.5 -bn project :  In A r bid to stay ahead in the global mobile communications race commercing in the new millennium, International Mobile Satellite Organisation (Inmarsat) has planned fresh investments of $ 2.5 billions in a project code named Horizon.  The project involves launching of four more geo-stationary satellites enabling Inmarsat to offer speed 144 kilo bytes per second(KBPS) bandwidth by 2001. All the 84 members countries including India are expected to participate in the new project. 
 

Silicon graphics unveils new super computer  
Palo Alto (California): Computer workstation maker Silicon Graphics has unveiled a     new super computer it said its current models. The new Cray SV1 series has a peak performance of four billion calculations a seconds. It is the first in a series of products Silicon Graphics plans to introduce under its strategy to reclaim business its has lost 
to competitors.  The new computer is due to be available in the United States in August at 
a list price of $500,000. Mr.Minto said Silicon Graphics already has a backlog of $20 
million in order for the new machine. 

Two more drugs to rival Viagra. 
EVEN AS the wonderful drug 'Viagra' an oral drug therapy for importance's being herald as a miracle medicine, and is turning out to be the hottest and controversial product in the global market, there are atleast two other drugs in the pipeline that could give Viagra a run for its money. The two oral medicines that have the potential to treat importance are 'Phentolamine Mesylate'-a vasodilator acting by blocking alpha - adrenergic receptor blocker, which has been approved by USFDA since 1952 as an anti-hypertensive drug.  The other drug 'Spontane 'which is in the pipeline is derived from the momorphine. Both these drugs are being developed by the two US-based pharmaceutical companies, the two products are likely to hit the global markets next year. 

A Pesticide by any other name is neem !  
Neem Compounds and neem derivatives have emerged as a commercially viable potent antifeedants and cheap bio-pesticides, Dr K K Prasada Rao of the Coimbatore-based Sugarcane Breeding Institute and All India Co-ordinator of Project Sugar Cane  has said. Over 400 entomologists from 30 countries at an international symposium held at Bangalore a few year ago have called for the effective utilization of neem as a substitute for synthetic agrochemicals. 

Cloned calves born in japan 2 years after dolly 
TWO FEMALE cloned calves have been born in Japan, using the same technique that produced Britian's Dolly the sheep-the world's first adult-animal clone.  The female twin calves were born on sunday in ishikawa prefecture, central Japan, exactly two years after the birth of Dolly. 

Zeneca pits Verminator against Terminator 
Monsanto's Terminator has a competitor now.  This one is a biotechnology, nicknamed Verminator, from Zeneca Bioscience.  Zeneca has bioengineered a gene taken from a rat into a plant seed, making it transgenic and behave the same way as the Terminator- turn second generation seeds sterile. 
      BIO-THREAT 
* Zeneca bio-engineers rat gene into a plant seed, making it transgenic 
* The transgenic can be 'switched on ' to kill its second generation seeds. 
* Genetically engineered seeds would not germinate unless exposed to Zeneca's private 
    chemcial trigger. 
* Zeneca to apply for patents in 58 countries for its invention. 

Mobilink launches kannada paging 
Bangalore: Mobilink has announced the launch of its Kannada paging service. It is already offering paging services in Hindi, Gujarathi, Tamil and Marathi.  Mobilink paging service is provided by DSS Mobile communications Ltd, a joint venture of the Sanjay Dalmia group, S.K Telecom and Samsung Electronics Ltd. 

Haryana Basmati exporter sets up R & D centre at Mysore 
Harayana-Based United Riceland Limited has set up a 'Rice Research and Development Centre'(RRDC) for Basmati rice in Mysore. The company exports Basmati rice under the brand name 'Tilda' mainly to Europe and the USA.  Research on various aspects of Basmati rice, including reducing the percentage of breakage, adjustment of moisture, problems involved during transportation, and improved packaging will give a tremendous boost to promote the quality  of Basmati rice produced.