Srinivas Padma: Personal Musings on Life, Growth, and Connections

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Yahoo Inc said on Sunday it was giving its e-mail users more ways to reach friends and online contacts by allowing them to trade messages with mobile phone users. The new e-mail-to-phone connection is one of the features the Internet media giant plans to add as it makes available to the more than 250 million Yahoo Mail users a new version of the world's most popular e-mail program in coming weeks. The Yahoo Mail overhaul is part of a drive to transform its e-mail franchise into more of a social activity that blends the convenience of instant communication with the implicit network of relationships found in one's online address book. Already this year Yahoo has been testing another feature that lets its e-mail users communicate using conventional e-mail or via instant messages using either Yahoo Messenger or Microsoft Live Messenger . "Our goal is to make (Yahoo) Mail a more social experience," John Kremer, vice president of Yahoo Mail, said i

Salman Khan was on Saturday lodged in the same jail and barrack where he had spent two days and three nights in 2006. He was arrested and jailed soon after landing in Jodhpur from Mumbai to surrender in the black buck poaching case, after the Jodhpur district and sessions court on Friday rejected his appeal against a five-year prison term awarded by a lower court. He was picked up from the airport here by a police team headed by additional superintendent of police Sawai Singh Godhara when he arrived with his brother Sohail and lawyer Dipesh Mehta. Salman was produced before the chief judicial magistrate who had issued the non-bailable warrant, since he was not present in the sessions court when his appeal was rejected. Hours later, a revision petition was filed on his behalf by his lawyer Hastimal Saraswatin at the Rajasthan high court challenging the five-year jail term. Katrina Kaif visits Salman Khan in jail The star, who is being held in barrack number 1, had a sleepless nig

LONDON (Reuters) - Popular mapping service Google Earth will launch a new feature called Sky, a "virtual telescope" that the search engine hopes will turn millions of Internet users into stargazers. Google, which created Google Earth to give Internet users an astronaut's view that can zoom to street level, said the service would be a playground for learning about space. "Never before has a roadmap of the entire sky been made so readily available," said Dr. Carol Christian of the Space Telescope Science Institute, who co-led the institute's Sky team. " Sky in Google Earth will foster and initiate new understanding of the universe by bringing it to everyone's home computer." Like Google Earth, Sky will enable users to float and zoom in on over 100 million individual stars and 200 million galaxies. Users will view the sky as seen from earth. It has created different layers which will show the life of a star, co

SEATTLE (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp. (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile , Research) said on Tuesday it plans to introduce a computer mouse designed for PC gaming, in an effort to capture a growing segment of the computer peripheral equipment market. Microsoft's new SideWinder mouse , which will target hard-core computer video game fans, allows nearly 5,000 different adjustable settings, including weight, materials and touch . The new mouse comes with a small liquid crystal display between the thumb and index finger to keep track of game functions and settings . Executives at Microsoft said computer gaming is growing rapidly and sales of mice catered to video game use has increased at a double-digit pace. Rivals Logitech and Razer Group also manufacture computer mice for video games. The SideWinder mouse will sell for $79.95 when it becomes available in October. Microsoft's Sidewinder mouse in an undated handout photo. Microsoft Corp. said on Tuesday it plans to introduce a computer mous

They did not bother to talk to me before announcing this. I think they felt it's below their dignity to talk to me. They (BCCI) have been doing this for the last 70 years and I'm afraid, they would continue like this. As expected, the 1983 World Cup winning captain Kapil Dev was sacked as the National Cricket Academy's chief by the Indian cricket board for his association with the breakaway Indian Cricket League. The board, at its special general board meeting at the BCCI centre on Tuesday said that anyone including the players aligned with any private association not approved by the parent body, would lose all the benefits they were entitled to. The decision did not come as surprise as the board had earlier made it clear that anyone who would join the rebel league will be banned from the BCCI. The Haryana Hurricane was appointed chairman of the ICL's executive committee by the Subhash Chandra-owned Essel Group. The man to replace Kapil Dev will be Maharashtra Cricket A

Washington: US immigration authorities have received about 300,000 applications for employment visas from foreign professional workers in a deluge unleashed by a bit of "Gandhigiri" by unhappy Indian green card seekers. The Indians sent thousands of flowers to US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) director Emilio Gonzalez in the second week of July to protest a last minute reversal of a June announcement offering expedited processing for H1-B visa holders. USCIS said it was swamped by applications for permanent residence visas, known as green cards - numbering more than double the annual limit of 140,000 - after it gave an additional period ended August 17 to immigrants with professional skills to file such petitions. The applications came pouring in after the federal agency first said it would not accept any applications for such visas during July and then reversed course following a unique protest by Indian applicants for per manent residency. "The public rea

Two-time Indian Idol judge has nothing against talent hunt shows. In fact, he is happy that young budding talent which otherwise would have gone unnoticed is being discovered and given a platform through television. But what he doesn't like is the fact that in these shows marketing overshadows talent. "Ideally there should be fair mix of singing and marketing. But it is the latter that gets more importance and the participants get such huge exposure that they become celebrities overnight. But real good singing is all about everyday riyaaz and not hype," says the well-known singer who came on Indian Idol as celebrity judge on Friday. Sonu says he could not do the third season of the popular talent hunt show because of his commitment to concert tours in America and Europe. "But I had heard a lot about the show and the contestants and also watched a few episodes in bits and pieces. That is why I decided to come as a celebrity judge and was pretty impressed with the t