I’m single & enjoying it: Sushmita

BOMBAY—Sushmita Sen is back on the dating scene once again. Her personal life often grabs more attention than her work, and actress Sushmita Sen has gone ahead and announced in her signature candid style that contrary to rumours, she is “completely single”. The 34-year-old actress denied reports that she has got back with ex-boyfriend Manav Menon after splitting from Dulha Mil Gaya director Mudassar Aziz.
“I am completely single at the moment and enjoying it. I am not the kind of person to hide a relationship, so when I am in love, I let everybody know,” said Sushmita. When asked whether she was ready to mingle, the actress pointed to the crowd surrounding her and said, “I am mingling, ain’t I?” Sushmita who is mother to two adopted daughters, Renee,7 and six-month-old Alisha is enjoying life to the fullest and is back to her svelte self after piling on the pounds in the past. She is now all excited about being the showstopper for Ritu Beri at the Wills India Fashion Week.

“I love fashion and I find it a very personal statement of one’s identity and walking the ramp is a great experience because there is so much energy and you do not have to wait to see the audience’s reaction,” said the actress. Sushmita, who at the age of 18 became the first Indian woman to win the Miss Universe crown has put her film career on the back burner for her pet project ‘I Am She’.
Her production House Tantra Entertainment Private Limited (TEPL) was awarded the India franchise by the Miss Universe Organisation, which conducts the pageant across 95 countries of the world. “I have just one film No Problem coming up this year. It is a full-on masala entertainer. ‘I Am She’ is an opportunity for me to give back all the love I have received and bring forth confident, beautiful young Indian women for the entire world to see,” said Sushmita.
Tattoo talkTHE FORMER MISS Universe is the latest Bollywood celebrity to be bitten by the tattoo bug and has got four inkings in the past year. The actress’ latest tattoo is a bold etching of the words ‘I Am’ on her right wrist, which she says is a proud declaration of her own identity.
“I love tattoos. I have three on the arms but the fourth one I cannot show you. They are all permanent and I think I will add more to them,” Sushmita said. The one on her right arm reads ‘Temptation’ and she also sports a tattoo on the left wrist which says ‘Soli deo glory’, meaning ‘Glory to God alone’ in Latin.
“I love my Temptation tattoo, with the T shaped like a dagger. To me it means that temptation is a beautiful feeling, but it is equally dangerous,” said the actress who is currently busy selecting contestants for the ‘I Am She’ pageant. This brand will serve as a platform to select the next Miss Universe India who will represent the country at the global Miss Universe competition. Other celebs with tattoos *Deepika Padukone has Ranbir’s initials RK on the nape of her neck.

A film shoot in Kashmir rekindles old memories

Srinagar, Picturesque Kashmir, India is reliving an old forgotten bond with Bollywood as director Vishal Bharadwaj shoots “Saat Khoon Maaf” here with his team. Not only there is palpable excitement among the local people but it has also revived memories of the time when the valley was much sought after by Hindi filmmakers.

For the last fortnight, the film unit has been shooting in the Mughal Gardens, the old city heritage house and in the campus of the University Of Kashmir.

“The film unit is also making some sequences inside the Tulip Garden in the city which is now in full bloom,” said an official of the local tourism department here.

Curious locals are thronging the location of Bharadwaj’s film and to keep them in control the state administration has provided security to the unit.

The fresh flower blooms of spring provide a beautiful backdrop for Bharadwaj’s film based on Ruskin Bond’s story “Susanna’s Seven Husbands” about a femme fatale who bumps off her seven spouses.

While Priyanka Chopra is in the lead in “Saat Khoon Maaf”, Naseeruddin Shah, John Abraham, Neil Nitin Mukesh, Irrfan Khan, Anu Kapoor and Vivaan Shah will be seen as her husbands.

Compared to the 1970s and early 80s, very few movies are shot here nowadays. In the last two years, Santosh Sivan’s 2008 movie “Tahaan” was shot in the valley and Rahul Dholakia too came here with actress Bipasha Basu to shoot “Lamhaa”.

Before separatist violence plagued the valley, dozens of film units would come here every year.

Some of the best known Bollywood blockbusters shot here include “Andaz”, “Mere Sanam”, “Junglee”, “Phir Wohi Dil Laya Hoon”, “Do Badan”, “Arzoo”, “Kashmir Ki Kali”, “Kal Aaj Aur Kal”, “Silsila” and “Roti”. Even the well-known Hollywood film “A Passage to India”, based on E.M. Forster’s novel, was shot in the old areas of the city.

“That was not only the golden period of the Bollywood film industry but also the golden period for the film fans of Kashmir. We could see our beloved film stars and take their autographs,” said Shabir Ahmad Bhat, 55, a resident of the Wazir Bagh area here.

“I still have the autographs of Amitabh Bachchan, Shammi Kapoor, Pran, Asha Parekh and some other heartthrobs of the 1970s,” he added.

The names of legendary matinee idols like Dilip Kumar, Raj Kapoor and Ashok Kumar still rekindle fond memories among elderly Kashmiris.

“Police had to intervene when fans literally mobbed the unit of Randhir Kapoor’s ‘Kal Aaj Aur Kal’ for a glimpse of Babita at the local Emporium Garden here,” said Farooq Ahmad Khan, a local engineer here.

“I remember the shooting had to be cancelled for the day and re-started the next day after the authorities provided additional security to the film unit,” he added.

Remembering the good old days, Gulam Nabi, a 65-year-old retired headmaster, said: “I stood outside a cinema hall in the city for the whole night to get a ticket for ‘Mughal-e-Azam’. The impact that K. Asif’s magnum opus had on me is still fresh and vivid.

“Dilip Kumar’s rebellious love for Anarkali, Prithviraj Kapoor’s steaming anger to ensure the heir to the Mughal empire doesn’t marry a courtesan and Madhubala’s lovelorn guts to speak in front of the emperor – all of them were so majestically and powerfully portrayed that the film is rightly remembered as a creation of art.”

Abdul Majid Wani, 70, a retired newspaper agent, narrated an interesting friendship between one of Bollywood’s most favourite villains, Ajit, and a teashop owner here.

“I would wait outside a shop ‘Sultanjoo and Sons’ in city centre Lal Chowk where Ajit would come for a cup of traditional Kashmiri salt tea. The white turbaned Sultanjoo would serve him steaming hot tea from a samovar with a touch of Kashmiri hospitality,” said Wani.

“Over the years, Ajit and Sultanjoo became close friends and Ajit would step into his shop every time he would come here. Those were the days I can never forget, my friend.”

World's Biggest Cat

Jungle Island in Miami is home to a liger (a hybrid cross between a male lion and a female tiger) named Hercules, the largest non-obese liger. The liger is recognized by the Guiness Book of World Records as the largest cat on Earth, weighing in at 900 lbs.

World's Tallest Dog

Hercules might be the biggest dog in the world, but the tallest according to the Guinness World Records is Gibson, a Harlequin Great Dane, who is 42.2 inches. The 170-pound Dane is more than 7 feet tall, taller than most NBA basketball players.

World's Biggest Pig

The Liaoning Provincial Agricultural Museum is appealing to the Guinness Book of Records to recognise a 900 kg (1984 pounds) pig which died on February 5 as the biggest pig ever. When the pig died it was 2.5 metres long, had a waistline of 2.23 metres and a tusk of 14.4 centimetres long. According to XU Changjin, a farmer of Wafangdian city, the pig was only 5 years old. He kept his pig in a good built sty and gave it quality food all its life.

The First Computer Virus

"What began as a ninth-grade prank, a way to trick already-suspicious friends who had fallen for his earlier practical jokes, has earned Rich Skrenta notoriety as the first person to let loose a personal-computer virus.

Although Skrenta over the next 25 years started the online news business Topix, helped launch a collaborative Web directory now owned by Time Warner Incorporated’s Netscape and wrote countless other computer programs, he is still remembered most for unleashing the ‘Elk Cloner’ virus on the world.

‘It was some dumb little practical joke,’ said Skrenta, 40. ‘I guess if you had to pick between being known for this and not being known for anything, I’d rather be known for this. But it’s an add place holder for (all that) I’ve done.’

Elk Cloner - self-replicating, as are all other viruses - bears little resemblance to the malicious programs of today. Yet in retrospect, it was a harbinger of all the security headaches that would only grow as more people got computers - and connected them with one another over the Internet.

Skrenta’s friends were already distrusting him because, in swapping computer games and other software, as part of piracy circles common at the time, Skrenta often altered the floppy disks he gave out to launch taunting on-screen message. Many friends started refusing disks from him.

So, during a winter break from Mount Lebanon Senior High School near Pittsburgh, Skrenta hacked away and figured out how to get the code to launch the messages onto disks automatically.

He used his Apple II, the dominant personal computer of the day, to develop what is now known as a ‘boot sector’ virus. When it boots, or starts, an infected disk puts a copy of the virus in the computer’s memory. Whenever someone inserts a clean disk into the machine and types the command ‘catalog’ for a list of files, a copy is written onto that disk as well. The newly infected disk is passed on to other people, other machines and other locations.

The prank, though annoying, is relatively harmless compared with the viruses of today. Every 50th time someone booted an infected disk, a poem Skrenta wrote would appear, saying in part, ‘It will get on all your disks; it will infiltrate your chips.’

Skrenta started circulating the virus in early 1982 among friends at his school and at a local computer club. Years later, he would continue to hear stories of other victims, including a sailor during the Gulf War nearly a decade later. (Why that sailor was still using an Apple II, Skrenta can’t say.)
These days, there are hundreds of thousands of viruses - perhaps more than a million depending on how slight variations are counted.

The first virus to hit computers running Microsoft’s operating system came in 1986, when two brothers in Pakistan wrote a boot sector program now dubbed ‘Brain’ - purportedly to punish people who spread pirated software. Although the virus didn’t cause serious damage, it displayed the phone number of the brothers’ computer repair shop.

With the growth of the Internet came a new way to spread viruses: e-mail.

‘Melissa’ (1999), ‘Love Bug’ (2000) and ‘SoBig’ (2003) were among a slew of fast-moving threats that snarled millions of computers worldwide by tricking people into clicking on the e-mail attachments and launching programs that automatically sent copies to other victims.

Although some of the earlier viruses overwhelmed networks, later ones corrupted documents or had other destructive properties.

Later viruses spread through instant-messaging and file-sharing software, while others circulated faster than ever by exploiting flaws in Windows networking functions.

Suddenly, though, viruses weren’t spreading as quickly. Virus writers now motivated by profit rather than by notoriety are trying to stay low-key, lest their creations get detected and removed, along with their mechanism for income.

Even as corporations and Internet service providers step up their defenses, virus writers look to emerging platforms, including mobile devices and Web-based services such as social-networking sites.

That’s not to say Skrenta should get the blame anytime someone gets spam sent through a virus-enabled relay or finds a computer slow to boot because of a lingering pest. After all, there's no evidence that virus writers who followed even knew of Skrenta or his craft.

Fred Cohen, a security expert who wrote his doctorate dissertation in 1986 about computer viruses, said that the conditions were right, and that, with more homes getting computers, ‘it was all a matter of time before this happened.’

So, back then, where was Skrenta’s restraint?

‘I was in the ninth grade,’ he said.”

25 Years of Viruses
Elk Cloner, 1982	Regarded as the first
Morris, 1988	Written by a Cornell graduate student whose father was a top government computer-security expert. It infected an estimated 6,000 university and military computers.
Melissa, 1999	One of the first to spread via e-mail.
Love Bug, 2000	Also spread via e-mail. It tricked recipients into opening it by looking like a love letter.
Code Red, 2001	Exploiting a flaw in Microsoft software, it was among the first ‘network worms’ to spread rapidly because it required only a network connection, not a human opening an attachment.
Sasser, 2004	Exploited a Microsoft flaw. Bad programming prompted some computers to continually crash and reboot

Which was the World's First Microprocessor ?

In November, 1971, a company called Intel publicly introduced the world's first single chip microprocessor, the Intel 4004 (U.S. Patent #3,821,715), invented by Intel engineers Federico Faggin, Ted Hoff, and Stan Mazor. After the invention of integrated circuits revolutionizedcomputer design, the only place to go was down -- in size that is. The Intel
4004 chip took the integrated circuit down one step further by placing all the parts that made acomputer think (i.e. central processing unit, memory, input and output controls) on one small chip. Programming intelligence into inanimate objects had now become possible.

World's First Magazine (1731): The Gentleman's Magazine World's First Magazine

The Gentleman's Magazine, first published in 1731, in London, is considered to have been the first magazine. Edward Cave, who edited The Gentleman's Magazine under the pen name "Sylvanus Urban", was the first to use the term "magazine", on the analogy of a military storehouse of varied materiel, originally derived from the Arabic makazin "storehouses". It ceased publication in September, 1907.

World's First Photograph (1826): "View from the Window at Le Gras"

Centuries of advances in chemistry and optics, including the invention of the camera obscura, set the stage for the world’s first photograph. In 1826, French scientist Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, took that photograph, titled View from the Window at Le Gras at his family’s country home. Niépce produced his photo—a view of a courtyard and outbuildings seen from the house’s upstairs window—by exposing a bitumen-coated plate in a camera obscura for several hours on his windowsill.

World's First MP3 Player (1998): MPMan 32MB World's First MP3 Player

Released in 1998, the Eiger Labs MPMan was the world's first MP3 player, boasting 32MB of internal memory -- expandable to 64MB. Available in F10 or F20 models, the latter boasting SmartMedia compatibility, this player set you back a mere $69 + shipping. It measures a slim 91 x 70 x 16.5 mm.

World's First Crossword (1913): Arthur Wynne's Invention

In 1913, Arthur Wynne had the job of devising the weekly puzzle page for Fun, the eight-page comic section of the New York World, a major newspaper of the time. When he devised what he called a Word-cross for the Christmas edition, published on 21 December, he could have no idea that he would be starting a worldwide craze.

World's First Skyscraper (1885): Home Insurance Building in Chicago

Considered to be the first skyscraper in the world due to the building's unique architecture and unique weight bearing frame, the Home Insurance Building was built in 1885 in Chicago, Illinois and demolished in 1931 to make way for the Field Building (now the LaSalle National Bank Building). It was the first building to use structural steel in its frame, but the majority of its structure was composed of cast and wrought iron. It was the first tall building to be supported, both inside and outside, by a fireproof metal frame. It had 10 stories and rose to a height of 138 feet (42 m) high.

World's First Concept Car (1938): Buick Y-Job

Designed in 1938 by the famous General Motors designer Harley Earl, the Buick Y-Job is considered by most to be the first concept car. The car had power-operated hidden headlamps, "gunsight" hood ornament, wraparound bumpers, flush door handles, and prefigured styling cues used by Buick until the 1950s.

World's First X-Ray (1895): Röntgen's wife hand World's First X-Ray

In 1895 Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, professor of physics the University of Wurburg in Germany, was doing experiments with electrical discharges in evacuated glass tubes. Late in 1895 Wilhelm Röntgen was alone at night doing his experiments, this time in the dark and noticed a glow was produced on the wall, which he knew was not caused by fluorescence or visible light. He named these new, unidentified rays 'X' or if you prefer; X-rays. After several months of playing with his discovery he noticed that objects place in the path of the rays cast shadows and created images on the wall. Soon after he used a photgraphic plate and had his wife, Frau Röntgen, place her hand in the path of the X-rays, creating the world's first X-ray picture. In 1901 Wilhelm Röntgen was awarded the very first Nobel Prize in Physics for this discovery.

World's First Computer Mouse (1964): by Douglas Engelbart

The world's first computer mouse was made by Douglas Engelbart in 1964, it consisted of two gear-wheels positioned perpendicular to each other -- allowing movement on one axis. Ergonomic shape, great button placement -- and it's made of wood.

World's First Motorcycle (1885): Daimler's "riding car" World's First Motorcycle

The First Motorcycle was designed and built by the German inventors Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach in Bad Cannstatt (Stuttgart) in 1885. It was essentially a motorised bicycle, although the inventors called their invention the Reitwagen ("riding car"). It was also the first petroleum-powered vehicle.

World's First Novel (1007): Tale of Genji World's First Novel

More than a thousend years ago, on 1007, a Japanese court lady put the finishing touches on what is considered the world's first novel. Spanning 75 years, more than 350 characters, and brimming with romantic poems, the "Tale of Genji" tells the story of an emperor's son, his quest for love, and the many women he meets along the way. It is attributed to the Japanese noblewoman Murasaki Shikibu.

World's First Web Server and Web Site (1990): a NeXT computer at CERN World's First Web Server and Web Site

Info.cern.ch was the address of the world's first-ever web site and web server, running on a NeXT computer at CERN.

The first web page address :

The first web page address was http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html, made by Tim Berners-Lee.

1990 was a momentous year in world events. In February, Nelson Mandela was freed after 27 years in prison. In April, the space shuttle Discovery carried the Hubble Space Telescope into orbit. And in October, Germany was reunified.
Then at the end of 1990, a revolution took place that changed the way we live today.

Tim Berners-Lee followed his dream of a better, easier way to communicate via computers on a global scale, which led him to create the World Wide Web.

CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, is where it all began in March 1989. A physicist, Tim Berners-Lee, wrote a proposal for information management showing how information could be transferred easily over the Internet by using hypertext, the now familiar point-and-click system of navigating through information. The following year, Robert Cailliau, a systems engineer, joined in and soon became its number one advocate.
The idea was to connect hypertext with the Internet and personal computers, thereby having a single information network to help CERN physicists share all the computer-stored information at the laboratory. Hypertext would enable users to browse easily between texts on web pages using links. The first examples were developed on NeXT computers.
Berners-Lee created a browser-editor with the goal of developing a tool to make the Web a creative space to share and edit information and build a common hypertext. What should they call this new browser: The Mine of Information? The Information Mesh? When they settled on a name in May 1990, it was the WorldWideWeb.

Robert Cailliau, collaborator on the World Wide Web project and first Web surfer.

Info.cern.ch was the address of the world's first-ever web site and web server, running on a NeXT computer at CERN. The first web page address was http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html, which centred on information regarding the WWW project. Visitors could learn more about hypertext, technical details for creating their own webpage, and even an explanation on how to search the Web for information. There are no screenshots of this original page and, in any case, changes were made daily to the information available on the page as the WWW project developed. You may find a later copy (1992) on the World Wide Web Consortium website.
However, a website is like a telephone; if there's just one it's not much use. Berners-Lee's team needed to send out server and browser software. The NeXT systems however were far advanced over the computers people generally had at their disposal: a far less sophisticated piece of software was needed for distribution.
By spring of 1991, testing was underway on a universal line mode browser, which would be able to run on any computer or terminal. It was designed to work simply by typing commands. There was no mouse, no graphics, just plain text, but it allowed anyone with an Internet connection access to the information on the Web.

The historic NeXT computer used by Tim Berners-Lee in 1990, on display in the Microcosm exhibition at CERN. It was the first web server, hypermedia browser and web editor.

During 1991 servers appeared in other institutions in Europe and in December 1991, the first server outside the continent was installed in the US at SLAC (Stanford Linear Accelerator Center). By November 1992, there were 26 servers in the world, and by October 1993 the figure had increased to over 200 known web servers. In February 1993, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign released the first version of Mosaic, which was to make the Web available to people using PCs and Apple Macintoshes.
... and the rest is Web history.
Although the Web's conception began as a tool to aid physicists answer tough questions about the Universe, today its usage applies to various aspects of the global community and affects our daily lives.
Today there are upwards of 80 million websites, with many more computers connected to the Internet, and hundreds of millions of users. If households nowadays want a computer, it is not to compute, but to go on the Web.

World's First Album Cover (1938)

Smash Song Hits by Rodgers and Hart

Before Alex Steinweiss, then a 23-year-old designer, invented album covers in 1938 for Columbia Records, albums were sold in plain brown wrappers. The album "Smash Song Hits by Rodgers and Hart" was the very first album cover in the world.

World's First Motel (1925): Motel Inn

Motel Inn in San Luis Obispo, California, is the world’s first motel. It was built in 1925 by LA architect Arthur Heineman, who coined the term motel meaning "motor hotel." Motel Inn was originally called the Milestone Mo-Tel. Back then, one night stay was $1.25. Heineman couldn’t afford the trademark registration fee, so his competitors were able to use the word "motel." The motel is still in operation today.

World’s First Digital Camera (1975)

Created by Kodak's engineer Steve Sasson

In December 1975, Kodak engineer Steve Sasson invented something that would, decades later, revolutionize photography: the world’s first digital camera. It was the size of a toaster, and captured black and white images at a resolution of 100×100 - or 0.01 megapixels in today’s marketing terminology. The images were stored on cassette tape, taking 23 seconds to write. The camera uses an ADC from Motorola, a bog-standard (for the 1970s) lens from a Kodak movie camera, and a CCD chip from Fairchild Semiconductor - the same technology that digital cameras still use today. To playback the images, a special computer and tape reader setup (pictured below) was built, outputting the grainy images on a standard TV. It took a further 23 seconds to read each image from tape.