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Toshiba has announced the TDP-SC35U DLP projector, a conference room projector with a detachable document camera which lets users display transparencies, photos, 2D and 3D objects, or live demonstrations onto a projector screen, television, or monitor during a presentation or trade show. The projector weighs 8.6 pounds and has an estimated street price of $899.

The TDP-SC35U projector has a stated brightness of 2,000 ANSI lumens (which Toshiba says will let it perform well in a room of virtually any size), a 2000:1 contrast ratio (full on/full off), native SVGA (800-by-600) resolution, and uses DLP (Digital Light Processing) technology. It has digital keystone correction and comes with a remote control.

With Linux growing by leaps and bounds, two of the top organizations that guide its growth are finally joining forces. The Open Source Development Labs (OSDL) and the Free Standards Group (FSG) are forming one mega-organization, known as the "Linux Foundation." Spread the word:

Scanning difficult-to-read documents will become easier and more affordable for many consumers, thanks to a joint venture between Scanner manufacturer Visioneer Inc. and information-capture specialist Kofax. The two companies have introduced OneTouch with VRS Technology, software that integrates Visioneer's OneTouch scanner-control software with Kofax's VRS (Virtual ReScan) technology, the premier software for improving image quality on hard-to-capture documents.

Previously, users of Visioneer and Xerox DocuMate scanners could either scan with OneTouch or with VRS; OneTouch with VRS Technology integrates these two technologies so that VRS becomes a function in the OneTouch scanning process. This alliance will bring the high-end VRS technology to a range of Visioneer and Xerox DocuMate scanners, including consumer models costing as little as $200. (The lowest-priced scanner that we've reviewed that came with VRS was the $799 HP Scanjet 7800).

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - IBM's Lotus unit will introduce on Monday a set of social networking services that functions like a MySpace for office workers and which analysts say marks a renewed challenge to Microsoft Corp.

Lotus is going back to its roots as a pioneer of business collaboration software with a service called Connections that features the latest ways for users to share information via the Web, while giving businesses controls over who sees what data.

CANBERRA (Reuters)—Having already stormed world fashion, Apple's hip iPod music player is finally making its presence felt in global currency markets.

One of Australia's biggest banks, the Commonwealth Bank, has used the latest version of Apple's music player—the slimline Nano—to compare global currencies and purchasing power in 26 countries.

Along the lines of the Big Mac index launched 20 years ago by The Economist magazine, the survey prices the 2GB Nano in U.S. dollars and found Brazilians pay the most for an iPod, shelling out $327.71, well above second-placed India at $222.27.

When we're talking strategy in Blackjack, you need to know about six basic components of the game. This section, Part 2, deals with: Soft Hands, Insurance, and Surrender.

Soft hands

We initially mentioned soft hands in Part 1, so now let's delve into the details. Soft hands can be tricky for the Blackjack layman because they have their own special rules when it comes to hitting, standing and doubling down. As a quick reminder, Soft hands are any hand with an Ace, where the player can choose between 2 totals, ie A and 5 could be 6 or 16.

When we're talking strategy in Blackjack, you need to know about six basic components of the game. This section, Part 1, deals with the first three: Hitting and Standing, Doubling Down and Splitting.

Hitting and Standing

The most basic place to start is hitting and standing. The most fundamental thing to remember is, because the dealer always has to take a hit on any hand 16 or lower, you won't win as much money when you're holding less than 17, unless the dealer busts. So, how should that statement affect your play? Here's a quick rundown.

Blackjack or 21 (twenty-one), is by far the most popular casino table game. It is quick to learn the basics and playing blackjack is fun.

The objective of Blackjack is for a Player to come as close to 21 without going over, while still having a higher total than the Dealer. Prior to receiving any cards, the Player must place a wager. Once the wager is made, the Player is dealt two cards face up. The Dealer is also dealt two cards. If the total value of the Player's cards is closer to 21 than the Dealer, the Player wins as much as was wagered. The Player also wins if the Dealer goes over 21 and the Player has not busted.

Microsoft Corp. will make its new Windows Vista operating system available for sale and download online, marking a new step for the software company, which has previously sold Windows only on packaged discs or pre-loaded on computers.A relatively low number of computer users are likely to get Vista by downloading it from the Internet. But the mere availability indicates that Microsoft is fiddling with distribution methods for the extremely profitable franchise at the core of its business.

IT plays a crucial role within insurance companies, as the amount of information processed is so vast and IT is a key enabler of various business undertakings at insurers.Service OverviewInfosys can help insurers optimize their overall IT operations by taking a holistic view of their key IT functions. With business process analysis and optimization initiatives, IT efforts become streamlined and less costly. Similarly, optimizing the organization helps eliminate waste and results in a top-down, business-driven model that ultimately addresses the prioritized needs of the business and a successful IT function. Eliminating waste within an application portfolio requires exploring many possibilities for optimizing costs and improving application effectiveness.

Companies are increasingly required to meet new and expanding compliance regulations, including those set forth in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. A key prerequisite to Sarbanes-Oxley compliance is the presence of an extensive audit trail, complete with drill-down and drill-around functionality. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act has raised the bar for public companies, and failure to comply can result in harsh penalties. Therefore, it is imperative for key documents, organizational policies, and vital pieces of information to be available for fast retrieval in the new environment.Service OverviewInfosys' Financial Management and Compliance solutions allow companies to effectively and economically identify, assess and manage Sarbanes-Oxley compliance risks. Infosys can help insurance companies effectively manage risks and successfully conform to regulations of the USA PATRIOT ACT and Sarbanes-Oxley Act. In addition, Infosys helps define and implement agile processes and systems for accounting, financial reporting and management reporting that can improve your competitiveness. What can Infosys do to help make sure your company meets current and future regulations?

Companies are increasingly required to meet new and expanding compliance regulations, including those set forth in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. A key prerequisite to Sarbanes-Oxley compliance is the presence of an extensive audit trail, complete with drill-down and drill-around functionality. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act has raised the bar for public companies, and failure to comply can result in harsh penalties. Therefore, it is imperative for key documents, organizational policies, and vital pieces of information to be available for fast retrieval in the new environment.Service OverviewInfosys' Financial Management and Compliance solutions allow companies to effectively and economically identify, assess and manage Sarbanes-Oxley compliance risks. Infosys can help insurance companies effectively manage risks and successfully conform to regulations of the USA PATRIOT ACT and Sarbanes-Oxley Act. In addition, Infosys helps define and implement agile processes and systems for accounting, financial reporting and management reporting that can improve your competitiveness. What can Infosys do to help make sure your company meets current and future regulations?

Customer expectations, demands from the distribution channels and regulatory changes are driving product actuaries to explore new opportunities and develop products to meet these changing needs. Most insurance companies wish to reduce the time needed to introduce new plans and products with customized features.Though many companies have improved their new product introduction processes and workflows, they have been unable to address the number one impediment to rapid product introduction – inflexible legacy systems. Legacy systems with their hard coded product features and business rules are ill-suited for a rapid product introduction environment. As a result, carriers are unable to capitalize on new growth opportunities.

Improving the effectiveness and efficiency of underwriting and related new business processes is critical to profitable growth. New Business Excellence (NBX) is the Infosys approach for P&C commercial lines carriers, enabling them to revamp new business processes and leverage technology. NBX enables carriers to improve their operational efficiency and makes underwriting more effective by making it data driven, thus creating a robust platform for sustained profitable growth.Is it time to transition your new business processing? Since commercial lines carriers have traditionally not invested in automating processes and workflows, their new business processes continue to be manual and paper-intensive. Their legacy IT systems compound the problem, preventing efficient integration of information across the enterprise. As a result, carriers are forced to spend time and money on underwriting even routine flow type risks.In short, NBX can enable:

• P&C carriers to completely automate the underwriting process of “flow” business, e.g. commoditized products like Business Owners Package
• In addition, NBX endeavors to systemically process some of the “transaction” business e.g. complex risks like Commercial liability by simulating underwriter decision through rules engines

As a result, it achieves the implementation of a data driven low- or no-touch underwriting risk selection process where only the highly complicated risk selection scenarios are routed as “exceptions” for manual underwriting. The NBX solution addresses the critical questions faced by business and IT executives in commercial lines today.Read more The Infosys approach Unlike other solution approaches that are limited in their scope, Infosys’ NBX solution creates an integrated framework which transforms the whole new business submission process for commercial lines carriers. The NBX solution is based on four core concepts, which allow integration of new business applications and enable straight-through processing.

1. Capturing and converting content to electronic form
2. Use of rules engines for analysis and predictive modeling
3. Integrated workflow management
4. Integrated data exchange with common user interface

Contact us for more information.

Liquidity and global dollar movement hold the key

 

Yield on the 10-year benchmark paper may rule in the 7.78-7.90 per cent range

The spot rupee is likely to rule in a wide range of 44.40-44.80 against the dollar

 LIQUIDITYEyes on equity market
 Liquidity is likely to remain under strain, if not exaggerated further.
 Dealers feel that the government may not continue with its expenditure since salary payments and interest payments on the special deposit scheme are over.

 However, a section of the market feels that the equity market is buoyant and portfolio investors who have been lying low since Christmas may become active.
 Portfolio investment will be augmented by inflows towards direct investment. However, the market is not sure whether these foreign inflows are going to make way into India this week or the week after.
 The rush for setting aside funds for the reporting fortnight may cease since this is the second week.
 Further, the passing of the ordinance to remove the 25 per cent floor on statutory liquidity requirement (SLR) may put on hold banks’ plans to arrange surplus liquidity. Earlier, banks were scurrying for liquidity so as to provide for excess SLR over rising deposits.
 Moreover, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will continue with its intervention measures both in the foreign exchange and domestic money market in case the situation deteriorates.
 In the foreign exchange market, while banks are selling dollars to raise rupee resources, the RBI is buying dollars from the market to infuse rupee liquidity.
 In the domestic rupee market, the RBI will continue with the injection of liquidity under the repo window. Repo is the liquidity adjustment facility for supplying the liquidity to the system for the collateral of government securities pledged by the banks.
 CALL RATE8-9% range seen
 The interbank call money rates will continue to rule in a tighter zone.
 The government’s expenditure, including interest payments towards the special deposit scheme, for the month is almost over. While calls are not likely to witness highs of 18-20 per cent, it will albeit rule in the 8-9 per cent band.
 Liquidity will further get a boost with the intervention of the RBI both in the domestic and foreign exchange markets. In the domestic market, it will continue infusing liquidity using the repo mechanism.
 Repo is the liquidity adjustment facility under which banks take cash by pledging government securities. In the foreign exchange market, the RBI will continue infusing the rupee by buying dollars.
 For the week ended January 5, foreign exchange reserves of the country by $666 million. While inflows have been subdued, custodian banks are also buying dollars for their FII clients since the equity market witnessed some correction.
 This was further complemented by dollar buying by oil companies since the rupee has been appreciating.
 This is a good time to pay for the oil bill as the appreciating rupee does not add to the inflationary pressure, said a banker.

 TREASURY BILLSLiquidity grip on cut-off yields seen
 The RBI will auction 91-day and 364-day t-bills to raise a total of Rs 4,000 crore. According to market dealers, the tightness in the short-term liquidity might reflect in their cut-off yields.
 Foreign bankers may be seen trading in t-bills in a big way, as foreign institutional investors (FIIs) are likely to start their allocation into the Indian markets, both equity and debt, with the holiday season coming to an end.
 These banks have been investing in t-bills as part of investments as well for providing securities for entering into repo transactions with the RBI to avail of liquidity.
 The t-bills are favoured since they do not require to be marked to market for valuation purpose. Mark-to-market is the exercise where investments are valued on the basis of daily price movements.
 Recap: The annual rate of inflation for the week ended December 30 rose beyond the RBI’s target of 5.5 per cent to 5.58 per cent. The rise in inflation rate is attributed to rising food prices and fuel products.
 GOVERNMENT SECURITIESBearish outlook to continue
 The government securities market is expected to remain bearish. Lack of buying demand and continued tightness in liquidity are the major factors for the lacklustre trading interest.
 Most of the trading banks and primary dealers had piled up stock expecting the demand to grow with rising deposits. This is because banks have to maintain reserve requirement for raising additional deposits.
 With the passing of the ordinance on the Banking Regulation Act, the market is of the view that the demand may not surface. Even as the RBI will take time to bring down the SLR, most of the banks have put on hold their plans to raise additional securities till the time they get some clarity.
 However, a section of the market dealers feels the entry of Life Insurance Corporation may change the picture. LIC and other insurance companies are expected to enter the market for value buying since prices have dropped.

 The demand may especially come for the new security auctioned last week - 8.33 per cent 2036. Dealers stated that the pattern of bidding in the auction suggest that it was picked up by numerous players in the market and non- life insurance companies in particular.
 The state governments will be auctioning ten-year paper for a notified amount of Rs 1,245 crore. In this backdrop, yield for the ten-year benchmark paper is expected to rule in the range of 7.78-7.90 per cent.
 Recap: Trading in government securities remained rangebound and lacklustre apprehending the announcement of the scheduled auction last week. Trading was mostly restricted to the benchmark securities in the medium- and long-term paper.
 CORPORATE BONDSDemand from mid-size firms
 The corporate debt market may witness demand from public and private sector companies for raising funds. This is because the rising forward premia have made the cost of swapping foreign funds into the rupee expensive, which incidentally was the hallmark for borrowing overseas funds.
 Dealers added that the triple-A corporates may continue to tap the foreign market for funding, but the medium-size companies are likely to tap the domestic market.
 Public sector companies will follow suit soon, they added. What is holding back the plans is the uncertainty over the interest rates. Since the yields of the government securities market serve as the benchmark for corporate bonds, these corporates are in a wait-and-watch mode.
 This is because after the CRR hike by the RBI and the government’s move to provide flexibility to the central bank on SLR, prices of government securities crashed.
 Consequently, the yields have gone up, anticipating a lack of demand from banks for government securities.
 Banks, in the meantime, have resorted to various measures for tapping funds from the market. They raised short-term deposits of 7-15 days from mutual funds at 15 to 20 per cent interest rates. Public and private sector banks also raised one-year certificate deposits at 9.25-9.5 per cent interest rates.
 Meanwhile, the government is also thinking of according tax exemption status to deposits up to three years and to infrastructure bonds to be floated by banks.
 Recap: The corporate debt market continues to remain illiquid. The spread between the triple-A paper and the underlying government securities for 10- year maturity, however, narrowed down to 90 basis points as against a high of 120-150 basis points last week.

 This is because of rising yields of the gilts. However, provident funds continued to remain investors for the bond papers floated by banks and oil companies.
 RUPEEMay remain weak
 The spot rupee is expected to rule with a bias towards depreciation and the pressure will be primarily on account of a strong dollar, said Mr R V S Sridhar, head, markets, UTI Bank.
 Following robust data from the US economy, the world over, the dollar is expected to rally. In fact, there is growing perception in the international markets that the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee may not opt for a cut in Fed rates for the next 6 to 9 months.
 A hike in interest rate by the Bank of England (BOE) was seen more as a surprise move and did not impact the market much. To counter the inflationary pressure, the bank may opt for another hike, some dealers feel. However, this has already been factored into the asset prices.
 The yen, on the other hand, has started depreciating, as the market is settling with the expectation that there may not be any further hike in the Japanese interest rates. The positive triggers for the spot rupee movement will be the dropping of crude oil prices and an expected rally in the equity market.
 According to bankers, low crude oil prices may dissuade banks from buying dollars and, in turn, take away the pressure. This week may witness inflows from the portfolio investors into the equity market. It will be further complemented by inflows of foreign direct investment.
 The forward premia are likely to ease a bit, as the market is set to witness some relaxation in the liquidity conditions. The effect is expected to be more in the near term than in the long term.
 Since it is the second week of the reporting fortnight, banks will not rush for additional cover. Inflows on account of portfolio investments may also augment liquidity.
 The cost of rupee funds affects premia, as booking forward dollars requires banks to pay a premium in rupees, which have become expensive following a tight liquidity in the money market. In this backdrop, the spot rupee is expected to rule in a wide range of 44.40-44.80 to a dollar.
 Recap: Even as the dollar appreciated against major currencies globally, the spot rupee remained volatile.
 In the beginning of the week, dollar demand from importers pulled down the rupee. However, towards the end of the week, the dollar inflows into the equity market and proceeds of corporates helped the rupee appreciate.
 The rupee premia for booking forward dollars continued to be high due to tightness in the rupee liquidity.