The telecommunications ministry has cleared a scheme to set up a telecom training centre at Sonapur near Guwahati in the next fiscal, minister of state for telecommunications Kabindra Purakayastha said on Sunday. The Rs 3-crore project would be the first of its kind in the north-east, Purakayastha told PTI. Apart from training new recruits, the institute would also help the employees to update their knowledge about the technological innovations in telecommunications, Purakayastha said.

Cellphones aid in nabbing criminals

Cellular phones have proved to be a trap of their own creation for hardcore criminals in Uttar Pradesh. Many dreaded criminals in Uttar Pradesh use mobile phones not knowing that they were leaving traces which could be an effective tool for the police to nab them. The police nabbed many gangsters depending on the traces left by them while using their mobile phones, a report published in the `DQ Week', an informationtechnology journal said. "Mobile phones have a major drawback...It is possible to get a list of phone calls made by a specific SIM card, its duration and the person to whom the call was made. Nabbing criminals becomes a cakewalk once the police are able to lay their hands on such information," the report said.

Merant Reduces Y2K risk with SmartFind Plus

Merant Solution, formerly Micro Focus, has announced SmartFind Plus TM, the next generation of its market-leading year 2000 tool. In addition to finding and at the user's option, automating Y2K fixes, SmartFind will verify application code that has already been remediated. It's customised modes of operation and clean user interface make it the easiest-to-use tool available for the specific task at hand - remediation or verification.

CA launches free 30-day trial offer for neugents

Computer Associates International Inc (CA) has announced that it is offering its clients a 30-day free trial license for Unicenter TNG Performance Neugents forWindows NT, the industry's first application of adaptive pattern recognition and neural network technology for enterprise management. Neugents enable an entirely new generation of business applications that can not only analyse conditions in business markets and technical environments, but can also predict changes in those conditions and suggest courses of action to proactively capitalize on opportunities and/or avoid potential problems.

HP package

Hewlett-Packard has announced a complete hardware, software, services and financing package to make systems more manageable and scaleable in the challenging world of e-commerce. Aimed at government departments, financial institutions, banks, retail supply chains and telecom companies, HP's new systems consolidation strategy would include financial solutions, consultancy skills, services and support needs.