:) RVCE's Information Science Department conducts a fest called Infinity (www.infinityfest.com) - 25th and 26th April 2005. We (Jagadish and Me) qualify for both the OSP and Hacking Finals. Due to some anomalities in conduction (and possibly negligence on our part), we manage to get only joint third place in the OSP (Rs. 500/-), but this is made up by us getting 1st place in Hacking where we get a cool prize of Rs. 10,000/- sponsored by Cisco. RVCE's new block (the auditorium) seems to be designed like the PES block where there are about 5 staircases out of one floor, and its a confusing path from one room to the next. That apart, it looks real cool from outside, and also there are 2 big classroom blocks. There's also one more almost new building at RVCE. For all those who didn't come, RV had 4 fests on during those days - By the InfoSc, Instru. (Plexus), Civil (Sthapna) and Chemical (React). So there was a big stream of people on both the days at RV. I wonder how the other departments managed to conduct classes on those days ;)

.) The special effects for the oscar-winning Lord Of The Rings 3 were given by Mumbai based Applause Entertainment. - Digit

.) Half-life 2 source-code stolen around Sep 11 2003, maps and sounds not stolen. Valve designers appeal to the game community to help nab the thieves - Digit

.) Beggars in China now log-on to the net and mail people to put cash into their bank accounts, and some people have really done so. - The Week

.) Showcase 2004, the Annual Fest conducted by the Computer Science and Automation Department of The Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore was held on Feb 21st and 22nd. Visit Showcase for more details at: http://showcase.csa.iisc.ernet.in
My Experience : I went there with friends on both days and took part in most of the events. Showcase had online events that were conducted before the in-campus events. Most of the winners in these competitions were technicians from outside India, and almost none of them came to claim their prizes. The in-campus events included a Software Demonstration, tech trivia based quiz, debugging, an e-collage competition, lots of research oriented speeches and few more events. We reached the finals of Splash, the e-collage competition. In the preliminary round, we were asked to answer some questions on image formats and create our own emoticons. The final round involved creating a poster for a company of our choice, that included its vision, etc. on Linux-based imaging software like Gimp. We came second in the competition with our poster about a paint company called Tarang. The prize included a cheque for Rs. 3000.
The campus : I found the campus very quiet and huge. Lots of roads run inside the campus, real roads on which vehicles can be driven. Students are never seen loitering about. In the CSA department, i found the students conducted the fest in its entirity, and the faculty members were hardly bothered with any issues - The students did everything, right from running the department website to issuing cheques. IISc seemed to make everybody gentle. Corporate sponsorships are very common in IISc and companies like Google, Novell, Microsoft and HP sponsor most of the events happening, just like this one. Quite expected when many students are picked from here to join them.

.) After 12 years, Pixar's Steve Jobs and Disney's Michael Eisner break the partnership that made movies like Finding Nemo, Mosnters Inc. and Toystory I & II. It is still not clear as to who holds the rights for production of sequels. - Newsweek

.) Yahoo may drop Google as its search partner and switch back to Inktomi. - Digit

.) Intel ties up with Indian Railways to provide Net access on Shatabdis. This would use Reliance's network till a Satellite is put up. This service would soon be extended to Rajdhani and other elite trains. - Outlook

.) M$ will continue supporting Windows 98 and Win98SE till June 30,2006. - Digit

.) India ranks 2nd in availablity of scientists and engineers. China is 64th. - Outlook

.) Planet Digit was held on 7th and 8th Feb at Koramangala Indoor Stadium
- I went there with 3 friends on the 8th late in the morning. The event had a scale of around 1/6th of what existed for Bangaloreit.com though the number of participants was much lesser. The main attractions were the Samsung TFT LCD's and their other gigantic screens, the Apple iMac's and Powerbooks, Xboxes hooked upto 60' Screens, and AMD gaming drome having about 8 PC's where you could play UT03 and NFS:UG on the latest Athlon64's.
The sound effects demonstration by Altec Lansing for 5.1 surround could'nt be of much use since the overall sound generated by all the speakers around engulfed the stadium.Of course, for those wanting to subscribe to Digit or renew their subscriptions, this is the time they could have done it most economically.