C-DAC conference on advanced computing: The future of parallel processing and advanced computing will be discussed at the national conference on advanced computing to be held in Pune from December 14 to 15. The conference has been organised by Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) in association with the Advanced Computing Society of India and IEEE Computer Society, USA. Around 200 delegates from US, USA, Singapore, Australia, Korea, Malaysia and Brazil will beattending the conference. Deepak Advani, development manager, RS/6000 division, IBM,USA will deliver the keynote address on `clustering trends and directions'.

Shreeji's master guide to indirect taxes: Shreeji Publishers have released the fourth edition of `Master Guide to Indirect Taxes', an updated compilation of relevant information on central excise, customs and central sales tax.Priced at Rs 200, the book is authored by Rajendra Popat, a chartered accountant. It contains syllabus of indirect taxes prescribed for CA/CWA & CS.

WGC organises gold festival in Delhi: Inspired by the gold festivals in Dubai, a similar month-long promotion, promising gold bonanzas, has begun in Delhi. The Delhi Gold Festival is being organised along the lines of the one in Dubai which has become very popular over the years," Gangadharan Sukumaran Pillai, head of the north Indian chapter of the World Gold Council (WGC), said.

Spice Telecom extends cell network: Spice Telecom has announced theextension of cellular services to Davangere and Harihar, followed shortly by Bhadravathi. In Davangere, Spice has opened an exclusive retail show room.

Web-enabled Tata IBM database: Tata IBM has launched Version 5.2 of DB2 UDB. The new version of DB2 and UDB is a relational database that is fully web enabled, scalable from a single processor to symmetric multiprocessors and to massively parallel clusters. It also features multimedia capabilities with image, audio, video, text and other advanced object relational support.

3Com programme: 3Com Corporation has announced a program designed to help medium- and small-sized businesses around the world avert one of the largest potential threats to smooth entry into the year 2000, the Y2K. 3Com has rolled out a world-wide, multi-pronged programme that will help raise appreciation of the Y2K crisis and give practical advice on how companies can avert data disaster.

Imation unveils disk drive: Imation India has announced the commercialavailability of the new Imation superDisk USB drive and Imation Mac-formatted SuperDisk diskettes in India.