Market crash: Investors lose Rs 11 lakh cr since Diwali in INDIA

Investors have lost a whopping amount of nearly Rs 11,00,000 crore in the stock market in less than three months since Diwali last year, with over Rs 3 lakh crore  being wiped out in the past three days alone.

The stock market today plunged to its lowest level in nearly five months after three consecutive days of fall -- a period during which the benchmark Sensex plummetted by about 755 points, including a 288-point dip witnessed today.

Total investor wealth, measured in terms of cumulative market value of all listed stocks, today itself fell by over Rs 1,32,000 crore -- taking the loss for past three days to over Rs 3,00,000 crore amid macro-economic concerns emanating from inflationary and governance deficit related factors.

Experts said that downward pressures in the market extended well beyond the past three days and heavy selling pressure has continued for over two months now, primarily due to heavy outflows by overseas and domestic investors keeping away in the absence of any positive triggers.
In the process, the total investor wealth has fallen to near Rs 66,00,900 crore -- a huge dip of close to Rs 11,00,000 crore since last Diwali on November 5, 2010, the day when the Sensex scaled its record closing level of 21,004.96 points.
The Sensex has now fallen to 18,395.97 points -- marking a plunge of over 2,600 points since Diwali.
So far in 2011, the investor wealth has fallen by nearly Rs 9,00,000 crore, while nearly Rs 2,00,000 crore was lost during the last two months of 2010.
Experts said that a huge dip in investor confidence is also corroborated by a considerable plunge in the trading turnover at the bourses.
The average daily cash market turnover at the bourses have fallen to nearly Rs 15,000 crore, marking a decline of over one-third from approximately Rs 23,000 crore in October-November 2010.
The current level of turnover is not even one-third of the record level of business volume witnessed in mid-2009, when the daily average turnover was close to Rs 50,000 crore.
The intensity of current downward rally on the bourses can be gauged from the fact that only four stocks out of the 50 top blue-chips that make the Nifty index have given a positive return in the past one month. Even the gains of these four stocks -- namely HCL Tech, TCS, Sesa Goa and PowerGrid -- are only nominal between 0.6-7.3 per cent.
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Hubble telescope spots most ancient galaxy ever seen

Astronomers have discovered what they believe is the most distant and ancient galaxy thought to be more than 13 billion years old. The ageing Hubble Space Telescope has detected light from the dim object, which the researchers think would have formed when the universe was just 480 million years old.

This was a period when galaxy formation in the early Universe was going into "overdrive", said a NASA team involved in the discovery.
Galaxies are the vast archipelagoes of stars filling space, such as our own spiral-shaped Milky Way galaxy. But the new galaxy, called UDFj-39546284, is the most distant and ancient one yet spotted by astronomers.
According to Professor Richard Bouwens of Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands: "We're seeing these galaxies -- 'star cities'-- that are building themselves up over cosmic time."
The team, comprising US and European astronomers, observed rapid growth over a relatively short period of time. Their data showed there was just one galaxy in existence about 500 million years after the Big Bang.
But this rises to 10 galaxies some 150 million years later. The tally has doubled about 100 million years later.
"You start out with these little seeds in the very early Universe which would eventually have formed stars, then star clusters, baby galaxies then eventually these large majestic galaxies that we know today," according to Professor Bouwens.
"It's very exciting to see this complicated physical process actually take place somewhere that no man has seen before," Professor Bouwens told BBC News.
Dr Olivia Johnson of the Royal Greenwich Observatory at the National Maritime Museum said that quantifying the rapid evolution of the Universe will reveal a greater detail about what was happening in the early cosmos -- such as when the first stars and galaxies formed.
"These are big, open questions in astronomy and the fact that we are finally able to look into the primordial universe for the first time is quite exciting," she said.
According to the researchers, the new image from Hubble will enable astronomers to test their current theories of the evolution of the Universe.
Professor Bouwens stressed that the observation had yet to be confirmed but that he and his colleagues were "pretty confident" that they had discovered the oldest galaxy caught on camera to date.
"There are many different sorts of objects that can masquerade or look very much like these distant objects. We've done lots of checks and lots of tests and we think that this candidate is OK," he said.
The researchers detailed their finding in the journal Nature.
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Latest update OF CHROME, PDF loads in CHROME

Chrome has added  a built in PDF Viewer in the latest update and is been made default, To use it like before ,  go to about plugins in the address bar and disable Chrome PDF Viewer and there enable the Adobe reader !

One more point is you can also check whether the print option comes after right clicking the page which displays the PDF in the built in viewer , Occasionally if you get the display in frame open the frame contents by the same process that is right click , it would take you to a new tab and you can get the options there  !

Or you may also use these shortcuts ctrl + p (print) or ctrl + s (save) for printing and saving respectively in the provided Built in PDF reader !
For more help visit a  and  b.

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More PSP2 pics leak ahead of launch - rumours

Is that the Sony PSP2 reportedly set to be unveiled in two days? The hardware certainly looks like images we've seen in the past, and the inclusion of the stylus backs up those recent rumors we've heard about a touchscreen on the device--though, frankly, I think we'd all be surprised is the thing didn't rock the old touchscreen. The console image also squares with rumors that the PSP2 will support dual analog nubs.

The inclusion of the SD card and PSP2-branded memory stick are in-line with the likely rumors that such a device would abandon the proprietary UMD format that nobody outside of Sony ever really seemed to like.

As Kotaku (who first got ahold of the image) points out, the shot is pretty low-res, meaning that, if it did indeed come from Sony, it's likely not "official art," so much as something pulled off an internal memo.
Adds Kotaku,
The buttons and the d-pad look to be at a slightly different resolution. The copyright in the bottom left, which appears on official Sony images, is cut off, too. Likewise, odd. However, as mentioned above, this purported PSP2 image could be photo taken of official Sony art or of an official Sony handout, hence these resolution inconsistencies.
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Rockstar's "L.A. Noire" gets May 23 release date

Rockstar Games' latest video-game epic, "L.A. Noire," is set to be released on May 23, according to a trailer that was released on Monday.
The new "Serial Killer" trailer, embedded below, reveals that the player will be after a serial killer - or perhaps a copycat - that murders women and then displays messages on their bodies. Not exactly family friendly, but then Rockstar's games rarely are.

The game uses the MotionScan technology, which applies realistic motion capture and facial expressions to the game.

MotionScan is different from traditional motion capture technology in that it utilizes 32 high-definition cameras that capture an actor's expressions in full 3D at 30 frames per second. "L.A. Noire" will be the first video game to utilize this technology by Depth Analysis, which created MotionScan.
"L.A. Noire" is currently slated for release for Xbox 360 and PS3 for $59.99.
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New Device May Revolutionize Computer Memory field effect transistors ( F.E.T)

Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed a new device that represents a significant advance for computer memory, making large-scale “server farms” more energy efficient and allowing computers to start more quickly.

Traditionally, there are two types of computer memory devices. Slow memory devices are used in persistent data storage technologies such as flash drives. They allow us to save information for extended periods of time, and are therefore called nonvolatile devices. Fast memory devices allow our computers to operate quickly, but aren’t able to save data when the computers are turned off. The necessity for a constant source of power makes them volatile devices.
But now a research team from NC State has developed a single “unified” device that can perform both volatile and nonvolatile memory operation and may be used in the main memory.

Researchers have developed a single “unified” device that can perform both volatile and nonvolatile memory operation, with applications that could affect computer start times and energy efficiency for internet servers.

“We’ve invented a new device that may revolutionize computer memory,” says Dr. Paul Franzon, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at NC State and co-author of a paper describing the research. “Our device is called a double floating-gate field effect transistor (FET). Existing nonvolatile memory used in data storage devices utilizes a single floating gate, which stores charge in the floating gate to signify a 1 or 0 in the device – or one ‘bit’ of information. By using two floating gates, the device can store a bit in a nonvolatile mode, and/or it can store a bit in a fast, volatile mode – like the normal main memory on your computer.”
The double floating-gate FET could have a significant impact on a number of computer problems. For example, it would allow computers to start immediately, because the computer wouldn’t have to retrieve start-up data from its hard drive – the data could be stored in its main memory.
The new device would also allow “power proportional computing.” For example, Web server farms, such as those used by Google, consume an enormous amount of power – even when there are low levels of user activity – in part because the server farms can’t turn off the power without affecting their main memory.
“The double floating-gate FET would help solve this problem,” Franzon says, “because data could be stored quickly in nonvolatile memory – and retrieved just as quickly. This would allow portions of the server memory to be turned off during periods of low use without affecting performance.”
Franzon also notes that the research team has investigated questions about this technology’s reliability, and that they think the device “can have a very long lifetime, when it comes to storing data in the volatile mode.”
The paper, “Computing with Novel Floating-Gate Devices,” will be published Feb. 10 in IEEE’s Computer. The paper was authored by Franzon; former NC State Ph.D. student Daniel Schinke; former NC State master’s student Mihir Shiveshwarkar; and Dr. Neil Di Spigna, a research assistant professor at NC State. The research was funded by the National Science Foundation.

NC State’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering is part of the university’s College of Engineering.                        SUBSCRIBE TO OUR BLOG