Microsoft announced on Monday that it is expanding the range of business software it makes available as a service on the internet. The move comes as people increasingly use writing, accounting, email and other programs online instead of buying packaged software and installing it on their own machines.
United States actress Drew Barrymore donated -million of her own money on Monday to the World Food Programme (WFP) that the United Nations agency said would be used to feed thousands of schoolchildren in Kenya. Barrymore (33) a WFP ambassador against hunger, announced her pledge on the Oprah Winfrey Show.
Google, already the world’s most popular spot for finding websites, is aiming to become the go-to place for creating websites too. It is taking its first step toward that goal with the debut of a free service designed for high-tech neophytes looking for a simple way to share information with other people working in the same company.
Microsoft has announced steep price cuts in its Vista operating system in a bid to spur sales of its year-old operating system. The move, announced late last week, came as the company is facing a troubling class-action lawsuit that alleges it colluded with Intel to market computers as being ”Vista-capable”.
The United States military targeted suspected ”terrorists” in a strike launched early on Monday in Dobley, Somalia, a senior US military official said. The official, who declined to be named, said: ”We launched a deliberate strike against a suspected bed-down of known terrorists.”
The United Nations Security Council is expected to adopt a third round of sanctions against Iran for its nuclear programme on Monday, but diplomats said this might be the first round that is not approved unanimously. Tehran denies Western charges it seeks nuclear weapons and has ignored three previous Security Council resolutions.
Parents should consider having repeated discussions with their children about many aspects of sex instead of one ”big talk” on impersonal topics linked to sexuality such as puberty, researchers said on Monday. The more parents talked with their children, the closer their relationships, wrote the researchers.
Defects in working memory — the brain’s temporary storage bin — may explain why one child cannot read her history book and another gets lost in algebra, new research suggests. As many as 10% of school age children may suffer from poor working memory, British researchers said in a report last week.
Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are deadlocked in Texas and Ohio heading into potentially decisive presidential showdowns, according to a Reuters/C-Span/Houston Chronicle poll released on Saturday. Clinton is fighting to save her White House candidacy in the two primaries on Tuesday.
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/ 28 February 2008
Microsoft is to stop making HD DVD players for its Xbox 360 video game system after Toshiba ceded the high-definition video-format battle to Sony’s Blu-ray. Microsoft said on Saturday it will continue to provide standard warranty support for its HD DVD players.
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/ 28 February 2008
Buying a digital camera, photo printer and camera accessories can leave a hole in your wallet. So why should you have to splurge yet more on software? While the big-name commercial software packages promise to make your life with digital images easier, there are plenty of programs available for free that do almost as much — and sometimes more.
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/ 28 February 2008
Google will begin storing the medical records of a few thousand people as it tests a long-awaited health service that is likely to raise more concerns about the volume of sensitive information entrusted to the internet search leader. The pilot project will involve 1 500 to 10 000 patients at the Cleveland Clinic in the United States.
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/ 28 February 2008
Microsoft launched a new version of its server operating system with great fanfare on Wednesday, but analysts said Windows Server 2008 is an incremental update rather than a giant leap forward. It also unveiled a new edition of Visual Studio 2008, used by computer programmers to create desktop and web applications.
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/ 27 February 2008
Eat an orange. Wear a face mask. Train elsewhere and fly in at the last possible moment to compete. These are some of the strategies suggested for Olympic athletes planning to compete in Beijing, where a thick cloud of smog often blankets one of the world’s most polluted cities.
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/ 27 February 2008
By the end of the year half of the world’s population will be living in cities for the first time in history, the United Nations said in a report released on Tuesday. According to the report, by the year 2050 there will be 6,4-billion people living in cities, up from 3,3-billion now.
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/ 27 February 2008
Almost any proud traveller has said it upon returning home: Hey, want to see the pictures from my trip? Sure, President George Bush. Fire up the slideshow. In a rare presidential show-and-tell, Bush spent almost 30 minutes on Tuesday narrating images from his five-country journey across Africa.
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/ 27 February 2008
Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton clashed sharply in a high-stakes one-on-one debate on Tuesday, accusing each other of falsely portraying their stances on healthcare, trade and other issues. Clinton, who needs to win next week in Ohio and Texas, went on the attack early in the debate at the Cleveland State University.
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/ 27 February 2008
Chad’s foreign minister said the government is holding secret discussions with rebel groups who support peace and national reconciliation following a coup attempt earlier this month. But Foreign Minister Ahmad Allam-Mi said on Tuesday that the government is not negotiating with any of the rebel leaders who attacked and destroyed much of the capital Ndjamena.
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/ 27 February 2008
Landscapes are the images that come to mind in the work of artist Richard Mayhew. The New York-born expressionist credits that to his part African-American, part Native-American roots. ”It’s a dual commitment to nature,” he says. ”The land is very important to both cultures in terms of stimulation and spiritual sensitivity, and it’s very important to me.”
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/ 26 February 2008
New polls on Monday suggested Hillary Clinton’s national support was collapsing, as her aides battled angrily with surging Barack Obama’s camp before a key debate in her last-stand state, Ohio. Clinton, once the runaway Democratic frontrunner, issued a fierce attack on Obama’s foreign policy credentials.
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/ 25 February 2008
Hillary Clinton is switching to an aggressive new strategy against Barack Obama to revive her campaign in advance of next week’s Texas and Ohio primaries and to restore the morale of her flagging election team. The new approach resolves weeks of internal debate inside her camp about the best way of stopping Obama.
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/ 25 February 2008
No Country for Old Men was living up to its front-runner status at Sunday’s Academy Awards, winning best adapted screenplay for the Coen brothers and best supporting actor for Javier Bardem. La Vie En Rose star Marion Cotillard was a surprise winner in the best-actress category.
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/ 25 February 2008
No Country For Old Men won the Oscar for best film and its makers, brothers Joel and Ethan Coen, were named best directors on Sunday, giving the bleak crime drama four of the world’s top movie awards. Members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences honoured a wide range of movies, actors and actresses from several countries.
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/ 24 February 2008
The presidential forays of Ralph Nader have turned him into one of the most divisive figures in US politics. Already on Sunday reaction was swift among Democrats to the news that Nader had thrown his hat into the ring to stand in the November election in his fifth tilt at the White House.
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/ 24 February 2008
A year after his Academy Awards dream went up in smoke, Eddie Murphy has not just one consolation prize, but three: Razzie Awards as worst actor, supporting actor and supporting actress for the comedy Norbit. The fourth acting ”dis-honour” went to Lindsay Lohan.
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/ 24 February 2008
Hollywood stars will parade across the red carpet for Sunday’s Academy Awards after weeks of debate over whether a writers’ strike that had derailed other award shows would be settled in time for the Oscars. However, the Oscars competition itself appears to hold little suspense, with clear favourites generally expected to win.
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/ 24 February 2008
Even though Mike Huckabee is still battling for the Republican presidential nomination despite long odds, he said he won’t ”overstay his welcome”. Then he did precisely that on Saturday night, lingering on the set in a scripted gag on the comedy skit show Saturday Night Live despite repeated cues to leave the stage.
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/ 24 February 2008
International Boxing Federation heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko seized the World Boxing Organisation belt on Saturday with a unanimous decision over previously unbeaten Sultan Ibragimov. Ukraine’s Klitschko (31) improved to 50-3-3 with 44 knockouts as he jabbed his way to a clear, if unspectacular, victory.
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/ 23 February 2008
Hillary Clinton on Friday denied she was contemplating defeat for her White House bid, after her wistful tribute to Barack Obama in a debate was seen by some observers as an admission of looming failure. Clinton is reeling from her Democratic rival’s 11 straight wins in nominating contests.
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/ 23 February 2008
A federal judge has said consumers may go ahead with a class-action lawsuit against Microsoft over the way it advertised computers loaded with Windows XP as capable of running the Vista operating system. The lawsuit said Microsoft’s labelling of some PCs as ”Windows Vista Capable” was misleading.
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/ 22 February 2008
Wladimir Klitschko and Sultan Ibragimov bid to bring some clarity to the muddled heavyweight division on Saturday when they put their world titles on the line at Madison Square Garden. Trainer Emanuel Steward believes the fight could be Ukrainian Klitschko’s first step toward dominating the division.
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/ 21 February 2008
John McCain denied a romantic relationship with a female American telecommunications lobbyist on Thursday and said a report by the New York Times suggesting favouritism for her clients is ”not true”. The likely Republican presidential nominee described the woman in question, lobbyist Vicki Iseman, as a friend.