Oil prices touch new highs
New York: World oil prices rose to new all-time highs today on the back of an announcement by the Russian government to withdraw a promised financial lifeline for oil giant Yukos.

New York's benchmark contract, light sweet crude for delivery in September, was up $1.67 to $44.50 dollars a barrel mid-afternoon. Its previous high was $44.34 a barrel. Brent North Sea crude moved up by $1.60 to touch a record $41.30 a barrel.

Russia's justice ministry said it had "recalled" an earlier decision allowing Yukos to access its current accounts to keep its operations running while paying a massive tax bill.
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Sony and BMG formalise music business tie up
Los Angeles: Sony Music Entertainment and BMG, the music unit of the German media conglomerate Bertelsmann AG, said they have formally combined their music businesses. The new company announced yesterday, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, will rival Vivendi's Universal Music Group for market share.

Sony Corp. and Bertelsmann will each own half of the new combined company. The deal did not include the parent companies' music publishing, manufacturing or physical distribution businesses. Sony Corp.'s recorded music business in Japan, SMEJ, was also not part of the new joint venture. Sony BMG, which will be headquartered in New York, instantly becomes home to a stable of hit-makers, including Britney Spears, OutKast, Aerosmith and Travis Tritt. The company also now controls a catalog of works by music veterans like Elvis Presley, Miles Davis, Johnny Cash and Stevie Ray Vaughan.
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'Mesh' technology to extend reach of wireless LAN
Taiwan: The National Taiwan University (NTU), one of Taiwan's most prestigious institutions of higher education, is collaborating with eASPNet Taiwan Inc. and Nortel Networks to commence trials of a new Nortel Networks Wireless Mesh architecture designed to extend the reach of wireless local area network (LAN) technology. This new architecture enables wireless broadband connectivity for enterprises and end-users with indoor and outdoor access. Nortel Networks Wireless Mesh Network solution uses wireless links to connect the access points, allowing enterprises or service providers to install wireless LANs with a minimal amount of Ethernet cabling or other backhaul facilities in areas where network limitations make it cost-prohibitive to use traditional wired access points. This innovative approach can drastically reduce the complexity and cost of deploying a traditional wireless LAN network.

The NTU network deployment supports a wide range of multimedia applications and features, including Web browsing, audio and video streaming and e-mail access across Wi-Fi enabled personal digital assistants (PDAs), laptop computers and other Wi-Fi devices. Nortel Networks and NTU have already demonstrated advanced services over the Wireless Mesh Network solution, including video streaming, Wi-Fi voice over IP (Internet Protocol) and seamless hand-over while driving at speeds of 50 kilometers per hour. The joint program with NTU will continue to innovate, develop, test and enhance advanced services on the Wireless Mesh Network Solution.

This architecture is designed to extend network access with high levels of security and end-user mobility. This solution incorporates 'auto discovery' and 'self healing' algorithms to simplify deployment by enabling installation in any location where power is available and reduces services outages by optimizing radio link communications and minimizing interference. In addition, the self-organizing nature of this architecture minimizes the need for Radio Frequency engineering and commissioning, which can significantly increase wireless LAN coverage. Nortel Networks supplys its service provider and enterprise customers with communications technology and infrastructure to enable value-added IP data, voice and multimedia services spanning Wireless Networks, Wireline Networks, Enterprise Networks, and Optical Networks.
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New HIV medication combines two antiretrovirals
USA: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have cleared Epzicom, a new product combining two HIV medicines into one tablet, dosed once a day (QD) with no food or fluid requirements, for prescription use. Epzicom combines two widely-used nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTIs), Epivir (lamivudine, 3TC) and Ziagen (abacavir sulfate, ABC) for use in combination with other antiretroviral drugs. The brand name, Epzicom, is an acronym for Epivir and Ziagen in Combination.
Epzicom Tablets are recommended for use in combination with antiretroviral drugs from different pharmacological classes and not with other nucleoside/nucleotide reverse transcriptase inhibitors.
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NACT CIMS enables full control over wireless offerings
Atlanta, USA: Verso Technologies, Inc. an integrated communications solutions company, has announced general global availability of Verso's NACT Cellular Inventory Management System (CIMS), a significant enhancement to the NACT Prepaid Solution, that enables service providers to create and manage high margin customized and prepaid cellular services. CIMS is the first prepaid cellular solution that enables service providers to fully control their own offerings; it delivers comprehensive management capabilities while also supporting connectivity to any cellular network and call termination by the service provider's own cost-effective switching infrastructure.

According to the company, until now, service providers have been restricted to reselling products offered by cellular network operators. But with NACT CIMS, service providers create tailored high-margin offerings that meet their own specific market requirements because it enables them to connect to the cellular network of their choice, terminate their own calls, establish their own pricing structures, and easily manage cell phone inventory, phone numbers, and resell PINS. In addition to delivering service providers this unprecedented degree of control over their prepaid cellular offerings, NACT CIMS also benefits wireless carriers because they do not have to incur the high management and billing costs previously associated with their prepaid cellular offerings. With CIMS, the service provider handles all these functions, so all the network operator does is provide the wireless bandwidth required. Verso is a leading provider of next generation communication solutions for carriers and enterprises that want to lower their communication infrastructure costs and enhance service capabilities without sacrificing reliability, scalability and quality of service.
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Fujifilm expands into Enterprise Tape Storage
Valhalla, USA: Fuji Photo Film U.S.A., Inc., has announced the availability of a Fujifilm 3592 tape cartridge for the enterprise tape segment. Fujifilm's high performance enterprise storage media is based on the company's proprietary Nanocubic technology and was developed for use with the IBM TotalStorage Enterprise Tape Drive 3592. Fujifilm's Nanocubic technology uses an ultra-thin layer coating to produce higher resolution for recording digital data, ultra-low noise and high signal-to-noise ratios that are ideal for magneto-resistive (MR) heads. Engineered for superior archival and reliability performance, a critical requirement for enterprise system users, Nanocubic combines a new binder to provide more stable chemical performance and a super-fine magnetic particle that provides stable physical performance.

Fujifilm's Enterprise Tape Cartridges provide backup for archival libraries, disaster recovery solutions, and regulatory compliance systems for data-intensive and archiving-sensitive industries.
The Fujifilm 3592 cartridge has a native capacity of up to 300GB, a native data transfer rate of up to 40MB per second and is designed to provide a data life of more than 30 years. A second format will offer a 60GB short-length, economy cartridge for the 3592 tape drive for applications requiring fast retrieval response times for individual data sets. These tape media advancements are augmented by a robust cartridge design. Fujifilm has employed a curved door design to prevent dust from entering the cartridge. In addition, strategically placed screws to provide increased impact protection fasten the shell halves.

NANOCUBIC technology will allow enterprises working with mission-critical data to back up faster than ever when using the IBM TotalStorage Enterprise Tape Drive 3592. This means that should the network go down, key information is protected and can quickly be retrieved. Fujifilm was the first Japanese domestic producer of computer tape in 1965, and has nearly 40 years of experience in manufacturing enterprise class back-up tape for the computer industry. Its ATOMM technology, introduced in 1992, resulted in such breakthrough products as Zip(R) disks, DLTtape(TM) IV, Super DLTtape(TM) and LTO tape. With its higher recording density and superior performance and reliability, Fujifilm NANOCUBIC technology is expected to enable a host of next-generation products for consumer, mid-range and enterprise applications. For example, NANOCUBIC technology will deliver data cartridges and digital videotapes that can store one-terabyte native (uncompressed) - the equivalent of 16 days of continuously running DVD movies, or 8,000 times more data than a human brain retains in a lifetime.

Fuji Photo Film U.S.A., Inc. is a subsidiary of Fuji Photo Film Co., Ltd. and delivers technology solutions to meet the imaging and information needs of retailers, consumers, professionals and business customers. As a global leader in digital imaging, Fujifilm pioneered the development of digital medical systems, and today is the leader in digital minilab systems. The company was ranked in the top ten for U.S. patents granted during the last decade, employs 73,100 people worldwide and in the year ending March 31, 2004, had global revenues of more than $24 billion.
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