Crude oil at a record $48 level
New York: Crude oil futures jumped to a record $48.70 a barrel in New York on Thursday on concerns that Iraqi exports may drop further because of clashes in southern Iraq.

Fears of sabotage were amplified late in the day after Shiite militants broke in to the headquarters of Iraq's South Oil and set the company's warehouses and offices on fire.

The price of crude is 59 per cent higher than a year ago and has spiked by almost 31 per cent since the end of June.
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India waives off $12 million debt of Africa nations
Durban: India has waived off debt worth nearly $12 million from five African countries, according to a document presented at the Non-Aligned Movement ministers conference.

The document, titled 'India-Africa Cooperation,' said that India had cancelled the Rs.90 million debt of Mozambique, Rs.174 million owed by Tanzania, Rs.140 million by Uganda, Rs.100 million by Zambia and Rs.50 million by Ghana.

In addition to cancelling the debt in 2003, India has also embarked on other cooperation measures, which include the grant of $200 million for lines of credit for projects under the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD); and civil and military training for African nationals.
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Google soars 18 percent on debut
New York: Shares of Google surged 18 per cent on its first day of trading, marking a dramatic comeback from the humiliation of its cut-price initial public offering.

More than 22 million shares changed hands on its first day of trading, making Google one of the most actively traded stocks on the NASDAQ. The stock stayed in a fairly tight range throughout the day, hitting a low of $95 and a high of $104.06.

Google's shares - whose offer price had been set at $85 - ended higher by $15.33 at $100.33. By offering 19.6 million shares to the public, the California-based company and its original stakeholders raised about $1.66 billion.
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Crossbow's MICAz Mote an instant hit
San Jose, USA: Demand for wireless sensor networking in the industrial sector has increased by more than 30 percent this year, largely due to the increased reliability and scalability of mesh networking, according to a recent report issued by research firm On World, Inc. With thousands of nodes per network to be commonplace within five years, On World forecasts 168 million nodes to be deployed by 2010.

Crossbow Technology, Inc, has announced that its innovative, new MICAz mote, unveiled in June, is selling right off the shelf. The MICAz is a 2.4 GHz, IEEE 802.15.4 compliant, Mote module used for enabling low-power, wireless, sensor networks. It enables higher bandwidth wireless sensor networking applications and is optimized for even harsh indoor environments that require high data rate transmissions.

Crossbow's open standard wireless sensor mesh networking platform is the latest in a rapidly expanding family of Crossbow motes tailored to support specific application requirements. MICAz is plug and play, with all of Crossbow's sensor and data acquisition boards, gateways and software.

MICAz is a breakthrough solution for home and building automation, automotive and indoor security applications, in which reliably securing, gathering and sending audio and video data utilizing a wireless sensor network was previously impossible. There is an ever-expanding market potential for short-range, low data rate wireless applications, according to ON World. The sheer volume of the low data rate wireless devices are predicted to be three times the size of Wi-Fi (802.11) in the next five years, mostly due to the ZigBee (IEEE 802.15.4) standard. ZigBee complements wireless technologies such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and Ultra wideband, and is promoted by established companies such as Motorola, Honeywell, Invensys, Mitsubishi, Philips and Samsung, as well as a growing number of innovative start-ups such as Crossbow. ZigBee is targeted at applications where being wired is impossible and where ultra low power and low cost is a requirement.

Crossbow is a member of the ZigBee Alliance, a rapidly growing, non-profit association of companies working together to enable reliable, cost-effective, low-power, wirelessly networked, monitoring and control products based on an open global standard. ZigBee is the only standards-based technology designed to address the unique needs of low-cost, low-power, wireless sensor networks for remote monitoring, home control, and building automation network applications in the industrial and consumer markets.

ZigBee Alliance members are defining a global specification for reliable, cost-effective, low power wireless applications based on the IEEE 802.15.4 standard. The alliance consists of leading semiconductor manufacturers, technology providers, OEMs and end-users worldwide.

Founded in 1995, Crossbow Technology, Inc is the leading full solutions supplier in the wireless sensor networking arena and the only manufacturer of Smart Dust wireless sensors. Crossbow has for years been at the forefront of creating and deploying smaller, smarter, wireless sensing devices and mesh networking platforms for large-scale defense, environmental, agricultural, industrial monitoring and control, building automation, security and asset tracking applications. Crossbow's open architecture, TinyOS-based platform enables highly intelligent multi-sensing devices to dynamically and reliably self-organize to efficiently capture and send detailed physical data anywhere, anytime.

Named one of the Top 25 Companies to Watch in 2003 by Semiconductor Innovation Letter, the company's strategic partners include Intel Corporation. Crossbow boasts a long list of technology firsts and patents, and has the largest installed base of commercial customers running large-scale wireless sensor networks in the industry.
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