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India to go for oil fields in Iran, Angola and Norway
New Delhi: Petroleum Minister, Mani Shankar Aiyar has said India will seek oil fields in Iran, Angola and Norway. The Minister intends to meet his Iranian and Angolan counterparts on the sidelines of the OPEC meeting in Vienna later this month.

The Centre will seek to clear ONGC Videsh's bid to buy Shell's 50 per cent stake in offshore oil block 18, for $623 million, which has been blocked by the Angolan state oil company Sonangol.

Besides, India will also seek to persuade Tehran to give the giant Yadavaran oil field in exchange for New Delhi buying 5 million tonnes of LNG from Iran.
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Hacker University: Best practices to combat piracy
London, UK: Macrovision, leading developers in digital media management and copy protection, will provide the interactive entertainment industry with the latest research into the depth and extent of the industry's piracy problem in two special presentations of its 'Hacker University' at September's games trade shows.

The 'Hacker University' initiative offers attendees a hacker's perspective on the piracy situation, using the latest research statistics to explain how pirates obtain code, the techniques used to strip copy protection from software and the financial benefits of thwarting the hackers and extending the period of protection.

One session will provide an in-depth look at some of the technical solutions possible using Macrovision's latest software hack protection technology. Using a case study, Macrovision will discuss the techniques, which resulted in over three weeks of "crack free" protection during the worldwide release of a 'triple-A' title. According to Macrovision's research, 33 per cent of the pirate game users admitted that they would have purchased legitimate copies if they were not able to obtain working cracks or hacks of a desired game within the first two weeks of the title's release. This represents a significant amount of potential revenues at retail to the game publishers.

Another session will examine the scale of the problem and focus on "best practices" solutions which can provide longer protection for interactive entertainment titles. Research on consumer attitudes towards software piracy demonstrates the serious revenue threats to the industry when game cracks are easily obtained online.

Macrovision develops and markets digital product value management solutions for content publishers, software publishers, and enterprise IT departments. Macrovision's content protection technologies are embedded in over 8.5 billion DVD, VHS, and CD units representing over $115 billion of protected entertainment content. In addition, over 280 million DVD devices and 130 million digital set-top boxes contain Macrovision's technology.
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Future of CRM - Personalized, simple, affordable, and powerful
Singapore: Entellium, the leader in providing second generation hosted CRM has announced the immediate availability of its latest product showcasing the future of CRM — easy to use, personalized, customizable user interface options and great value that gives SME's the power of big business at a small business price.

In a series of industry firsts the new release includes a number of features aimed at changing — and importantly improving — the user experience in CRM:

(1) For the first time ever, Entellium is providing a hosted business application product that gives users the freedom of choice to configure all aspects of the user interface including inserting your own brand, choosing color schemes, fonts, icons and more at both a company and individual user level.

(2) A powerful new navigation menu called "What do you want to do?" that puts customers only one click away from their key customer data and tasks and gets rid of the 'tab fatigue' that characterizes competitor products.

(3) Access to a personal portal-cum business intelligence center called My Entellium, that provides subscribers complete access to key customer data without the need to purchase a full price subscription. This need typically applies to executive management who would not be full system users, but still want the reports and analytics and a 360 degree view of the customer and activities of sales and customer service staff.

Other unique features in this release include:

  • unlimited field customization, so your user interface suits your business
  • user definable report filters - report on what you want to see
  • unlimited customizable web forms that send leads direct from your website to the leads page within the application
  • pre-packaged email marketing within the sales automation tool
  • updated entelliCOM web services for integration of third party products

Entellium users pay only for the modules they subscribe to on a monthly basis, with fees ranging from US$9.95-for My Entellium to US$45 (per user per month) for Entellium eSalesForce.
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Asbestos related diseases out of control
Redondo Beach, USA: The Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO), an organization dedicated to serving as the voice of asbestos victims, has announced that Jordan Zevon has agreed to be the organization's national spokesperson. ADAO, founded by asbestos victims and their families, works to unite asbestos victims, and ensure their rights are fairly represented. Jordan Zevon, who lost his father, music legend Warren Zevon to mesothelioma in September, 2003, will help ADAO take its message to a new level.

The occurrence of asbestos-related diseases, including mesothelioma, lung cancer and asbestosis, is growing out of control. Studies estimate that during the next decade, 100,000 victims in the United States will die of an asbestos related disease - equaling 30 deaths per day.

Asbestos victims and their families founded the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO).
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domain-B : Indian business : News Review : 02 September 2004 : international business