Monday, December 1, 2003		Newsscape

Spam rage

Call it spam rage. A Silicon Valley computer programmer has been arrested for threatening to torture and kill employees of the company he blames for bombarding his computer with Web ads promising to enlarge his penis. In one of the first prosecutions of its kind in the state that made "road rage" famous, Charles Booker, 44, was arrested and released on $ 75,000 bond for making repeated threats to staff of an unnamed Canadian company between May and July, the US Attorney’s office for Northern California said. Booker threatened to send a "package full of Anthrax spores" to the company, to "disable" an employee with a bullet and torture him with a power drill and ice pick; and to hunt down and castrate the employees unless they removed him from their e-mail list, prosecutors said.

IT in Pak schools

Pakistan has chalked out a plan to introduce IT education in 2,000 government-run schools, reports Xinhua. Minister of Information Technology Awais Ahmad Leghari said his ministry was also planning to establish modern IT labs and hire teachers in the subject, the Associated Press of Pakistan reported. The minister said Pakistan was strongly committed to the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), adding that Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali would lead a delegation to the first phase of the WSIS to be held in Geneva in December. The WSIS will be organised by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and held under the patronage of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.

Less price, more penetration

A 10 per cent drop in current PC prices would increase the demand by 30 per cent, analyst firm Skoch said and asked the government to facilitate lowering of PC prices by reducing excise duty to eight per cent from the current 16 per cent. A drop in prices of PCs would require help from government which can reduce excise duty from the current 16 per cent to eight per cent and enhance depreciation to 100 per cent from the current 60 per cent, Sameer Kochhar, CEO, Skoch told newspersons here. Skoch has also sought removal of the four per cent special additional duty. Stating that India has the highest tax rate on PCs in Asia-Pacific at 35 per cent against 0-17 per cent in other countries of the region, he said this has led to a flourishing grey market at 61 per cent.

Shifting report baseless

Dell India dismissed reports that it was shifting its technical support service for its business customers from Bangalore to the USA. "No, we are not shifting the work. Dell is committed to India and is growing," a spokesperson for the Bangalore-headquartered Dell India operations told PTI. She said Dell had over 2,000 persons working at its customer support centres in Bangalore and Hyderabad. The spokesperson declined comment on reported complaints by its business customers in understanding Indian executives because of differing accents. Dell, the world’s largest PC maker, opened its Bangalore centre in April 2001 and rapidly expanded its workforce to over 3,000 employees.