MPs can now use iPads with Lok Sabha going Wi-Fi

Lok Sabha members would soon be able to use iPads in the house with a parliamentary panel clearing Wi-Fi connectivity in the lower house of parliament. The facility is already available in the Rajya Sabha. 

According to Lok Sabha Secretary General T.K. Vishwanathan, the National Informatics Centre(NIC) has been asked to extend Wi-Fi facility to the lower house before the monsoon session, scheduled to begin in July. "We plan to install Wi-Fi at the earliest...we have asked the NIC to do the needful," Vishwanathan told IANS. 

The move will help the Lok Sabha secretariat pursue its paperless office plan, which aims to reduce paper use in printing a large number of reports and documents and instead make them available on the website. 

The Lok Sabha secretariat had approached the joint parliamentary committee (JPC) on security last year after the Intelligence Bureau raised some objections to extending the facility to the lower house. 

Incidentally, no such permission from the IB was required when the facility was made available to the upper house, said officials. 

Informed sources said the JPC on security, which had been pursuing the matter for about a year, resolved it with the IB last month. 

The Wi-Fi facility is expected to help over 300 of the 543 Lok Sabha MPs who have purchased iPads under a scheme in accessing routine information like notices, bulletins, list of business, questions and answers and other reports during the session. 

Under the scheme, MPs are provided Rs 50,000 to buy an Apple iPad or Android-based Samsung Galaxy Tab. 

The paper used for such communication can be saved if the MPs start checking out this information in a digital format using iPads, officials said. 

Congress MP Deepa Dasmunsi told IANS: "It is a good thing...Wi-Fi facility will help me get information quickly...we had asked for it in the lobby and the Central Hall area." 

In order to persuade parliamentarians to use the iPads to access various documents supplied to them in hard copy, the Lok Sabha secretariat held a familiarization workshop last year.

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Apple Macbook Pro with Santa Rosa Processor

Apple Mac products have always enjoyed a special place in the hearts of connoisseurs. For eons, the Mac PCs have ruled the roost and Apple has always ensured that its technology never turns obsolete by adapting to changing scenarios and adhering to the norms of technological evolution. The Macbook Pro has carried on the legacy of its legendary ancestors and to further it, Apple has released the new Macbook Pro, with all new features and additions.

The new Macbook Pro boasts of enhanced processing speeds and the much anticipated increase in battery life, which is now around 6 hours tops. In addition to this, the stunning device has LED backlighting for the halo effect. However, this feature will be available only in the 15.4 inch model. If you thought 1 GB RAM was fast, your jaws would drop if I told you that this notebook is lightning fast with 2 GB. With the NVidia 8600M GT video card, you couldn’t have asked for a better gaming experience.
Additional features of the notebook include Fire Wire 400 and 800, a whopping 200 GB hard disk, an illuminated keyboard and Bluetooth 2.0+EDR. The new Macbook Pro also features the Magsafe Power Adapter. This is not the end. Both the 15 inch and 17 inch models feature integrated charge indicator LEDs to let you know when the notebook needs a power thrust.

If you are already drooling over its features and looks, the pricing will make you go zany. Natural logic suggests a proportional increase of price with added features. Not quite. The notebook costs the same $1999. It certainly is a must-buy.

Specs on the new Macbook Pro:
* 15.4-inch display
* 2.2GHz or 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
* 5.4 pounds
* 8x double-layer-burning SuperDrive
* One FireWire 400
* One FireWire 800
* Two USB
* ExpressCard/34
* Up to 200GB hard drive
* Gigabit Ethernet
* NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT
* Built-in AirPort Extreme 802.11n
* Bluetooth 2.0+EDR
* Illuminated keyboard
* Scrolling trackpad
* MagSafe Power Adapter

Source:- http://www.finalsense.com/news/it/notebook_pocketpc/apple_macbook_pro_santarosa.htm

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Apple MacBook Air, the world's thinnest laptop

Apple has unveiled the MacBook Air ultraportable, the world’s thinnest notebook, at the MacWorld Expo in San Francisco.

“The MacBook Air measures an unprecedented 0.16-inches at its thinnest point, while its maximum height of 0.76-inches is less than the thinnest point on competing notebooks,” the company’s press release says.

Along with a “spacious trackpad with multi-touch gesture support so users can pinch, rotate and swipe”, the Apple’s ultraportable has a 13.3-inch (1280×800) LED-backlit widescreen glossy display, a full-size backlit keyboard, an aluminum enclosure, and a built-in iSight video camera for video conferencing. The MacBook Air is powered by a 1.6 GHz or 1.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 4MB L2 cache, and includes as standard features 2GB of memory, an 80GB 1.8-inch hard drive or an optional 64GB solid state drive, 802.11n wireless network support, Bluetooth 2.1 technology, the Intel GMA X3100 integrated graphics, a micro-DVI port, and a single USB port. Ethernet LAN port and modem connection are provided via external USB adapters.

The MacBook Air, which weighs 3 pounds, has no built-in optical drive. Instead, users can buy an external DVD burner, called the MacBook Air SuperDrive, for $99. The SuperDrive is powered by MacBook Air’s USB port, eliminating the need to carry a separate power adapter.

According to product specifications, the notebook’s battery provides up to 5 hours of run time.

The new MacBook comes with Mac OS X Leopard operating system and will be shipping in two weeks through the Apple Store, Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers for a suggested retail price of $1,799.

The MacBook Air $1,799 configuration includes:

- 13.3-inch LED-backlit glossy widescreen display with 1280×800 resolution;
- 1.6 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 4MB L2 cache;
- 800 MHz front-side bus;
- 2GB of 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM;
- 80GB hard disk drive with Sudden Motion Sensor;
- Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100;
- Micro-DVI port (includes Micro-DVI to VGA and Micro-DVI to DVI Adapters);
- built-in iSight video camera;
- built-in AirPort Extreme 802.11n wireless networking and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR;
- one USB 2.0 port;
- one headphone port;
- multi-touch TrackPad with support for advanced multi-touch gestures including tap, scroll, pinch, rotate and swipe; and
- 45 Watt MagSafe Power Adapter.

Build-to-order options and accessories include the ability to upgrade to a 1.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor; 64GB solid state drive, MacBook Air SuperDrive, Apple USB Ethernet Adapter, Apple USB Modem, Apple MagSafe Airline Adapter, Apple Remote and the AppleCare Protection Plan. Additional build-to-order options also include pre-installed copies of iWork ‘08, Logic Express 8, Final Cut Express 4 and Aperture 1.5.

Source:- - http://www.finalsense.com/news/it/notebook_pocketpc/apple_macbook_air.htm

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