Cast: Rajnikant, Aishwarya Rai, Danny Denzongpa

Director: Shankar

In a climatic sequence in "Robot", thousands of Rajnikants link themselves together to form a huge drill, then a jumbo ball raining bullets, a massive python, and finally a towering giant who bursts from the underground. It's moments like these when you lean back in your seat and salute director Shankar's remarkable vision.

Unlike so many bloated sci-fi adventures we've seen, particularly in Bollywood, "Robot" has a clear plot to hook the viewer in place rather than impress with empty special effects. When Vaseegaran, the brilliant scientist played by Rajni, creates an android resembling himself, he intends for it to become a weapon in the Indian army to avoid human lives being risked on the battlefield.

Christened Chitti, the super robot soon has Vaseegaran's family and his beautiful girlfriend Sana (played by Aishwarya Rai) eating out of his hand. But not everyone is taken in by the robot. Vaseegaran's mentor Dr Bora (played by Danny Denzongpa) burns with envy, as he is secretly working on his own army of terrorist robots. He desperately needs the chip that propels Chitti, so he does his best to sabotage the relationship between Vaseegaran and Chitti. Yet he doesn't have to try too hard - that age-old problem strikes. The girl comes between man and machine, when Chitti develops feelings for Sana.

 A robot with feelings, you ask? Well, Shankar executes the idea interestingly. Chitti is taught emotions like happiness and sorrow by his creator, and he scans books describing feelings within nano-seconds. So when Chitti actually starts depicting jealousy pangs or signs of possessiveness, you're engrossed.

 In the first half, it's difficult to fault Robot with the fun it packs in. Shankar justifies the ambition of the idea, turning Chitti into a kind of superhero robot run on electrical charge, but powered with phenomenal strength. The robot can also cook up a mouth-watering buffet in seconds, dance like Prabhudeva, and karate chop ruffians into submission just like Bruce Lee. ((pause)) In the midst of this, there is also a dash of humor thrown in to lighten the mood. As Chitti races sideways on a moving train to protect Sana from a band of rapists, he still has a moment to stamp the face of a man ready to unload a mouthful of paan spit.

 "Robot" lags when it sidetracks into the romance between Vaseegaran and Sana. It's jarring, as is the film's never-ending second-half, which mostly involves the scientist trying to rescue Sana from Chitti's lair.

 In the end, it's the fantastic special effects and an inspired performance from Rajnikant that keeps the film fresh. The effort that Shankar has poured into this dream project is evident from the scale of "Robot". Most local sci-fi films tend to ape Hollywood, but "Robot" never falls into that trap. Shankar stays with the sensibilities of his audiences here, and that's what sets the special effects apart. Even though you feel a little fatigued by the extended action sequences, every once in a while you catch yourself smiling at how Chitti swivels his head 360 degrees when he's racing a car, or the comic-book style with which he fires an armful of ammunition.

 Rajnikant's aura is usually bigger than the movies he's in, yet with "Robot", he tailors himself to the double role. It's hard to imagine another actor in these super-robot shoes. Chitti is absolutely lovable and when he's led astray, Rajni invests his evil with flair.

Aishwarya looks gorgeous, but her damsel-in-distress act is too wide-eyed and shrill. AR Rahman's soundtrack is music to the ears, and in the director's trademark style, the visualization of the songs stand out for their originality - especially the breathtaking "Kilimanjaro" song shot at the heights of Machu Picchu.

 Ultimately, if there's anything that eats into the fun you have watching this movie, it's the length. Almost three hours long, "Robot" gets rusty with too many songs and a handful of unnecessary sequences that play spoilsport. Still, I'm going with three out of five for Shankar's "Robot". If you enjoy spectacle in your cinema, "Robot" is an adventure waiting for you at the cinemas.

LONDON: Facebook is now worth a whopping 33.7 billion dollars, after investors paid up to 76 dollars for a share in the company ahead of its much-hyped flotation on the stock market, according to a report.

The Financial Times has said that the implied valuation means that Facebook is now has a higher valuation than technology giants such as eBay and Yahoo!, which have capped market values of 30.1 billion dollars and 18.3 billion dollars respectively.

"Common stock in Facebook is trading as high as $76 a share as investors scramble to get a piece of the company before it files for an initial public offering, which analysts say could be the biggest technology IPO since Google's $1.67bn flotation in 2004," the Telegraph quoted David Gelles, a reporter for The Financial Times as saying.

"While Facebook and other successful Silicon Valley companies, such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Zynga, are delaying their IPOs because of perceived weak appetite on the public markets, some investors are not content to wait. They are acquiring stakes in technology companies while they are still private, hoping that their eventual IPOs will send share prices even higher," he wrote.

Facebook, which registered its 500 millionth member last month, is currently financed through a mixture of investment firms and venture capital companies.

It is not yet know when the company will float, although there have been hints it will not be until 2011.

Source:

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/infotech/internet/Facebook-is-now-a-33-billion-entity/articleshow/6438039.cms

NEW DELHI: Slowdown be damned! Donations by listed companies grew 8% during the fiscal ended March 2009, a period when India Inc was faced with

subdued demand and lower profits, as per a study by ET.

The study of disclosures made by companies showed that 760 companies donated Rs 786 crore in FY09, up from Rs 726 crore in the year-ago period. This was despite their combined net profit falling 10%. In the previous fiscal, listed companies had opened up their heart with a sharp 38% jump in donations much higher than 22% growth in their earnings.

Many firms donated more despite deterioration in standalone profits, including Ambuja Cements, Gujarat Alkalies, Videocon Industries, UltraTech and Hindustan Zinc. As many as 108 companies donated over Rs 1 crore, up 20% over the previous year. Although Reliance Industries’ donations declined by a quarter to Rs 82.6 crore, it led the list of top donors that included Jindal Steel & Power, JP Associates, Hindalco, Bharti Airtel, Ambuja Cements, Infosys, Mundra Port, Grasim and Torrent Power.

Companies donate to NGOs, national calamity relief funds besides their own foundations. For instance, Infosys, that has been among the top donors for the last few years, formed Infosys Foundation in 1996 that supports the underprivileged section of the society in four key areas, social rehabilitation and social upliftment, learning and education, healthcare and arts and culture. Infosys has made grants of Rs 19-20 crore each to the foundation over the last three years.

Among other large donors, Jindal Steel & Power, led by Navin Jindal, who is also a member of parliament, representing Kurukshetra for Congress party, saw donations rise over four-fold to Rs 53 crore. Suzlon gave Rs 14.9 crore, more than double the sum it donated in the previous year even as the firm reported losses last year.

According to Seemantinee Khot, head, corporate social responsibility (CSR), Suzlon: “We do not link our CSR investments to profitability of the company, but rather associate it with revenues because we believe that we can’t stop investing in CSR initiatives and the communities just because times are challenging. It is critical to preserve momentum in such endeavours, or we run the risk of losing the good work done. Moreover, whatever we, or anyone else for that matter, invest in CSR, it’s a small contribution compared to what needs to be done; so we have to work to make sure that each rupee spent delivers the most social profit.” .....

source: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/5287260.cms

As the Oct. 22 launch of Windows 7 nears, the Microsoft (MSFT) marketing machine is running at a frenzied pace. No, Windows won't make your kids cuter or transport you to a magic land where unicorns romp, as in the TV ads. But as software goes, Win 7 is a big deal. If you're running Vista, you should plan to spend $120 or so for an upgrade. And if you have an older PC running Windows XP, then maybe this launch is a good excuse to think about a replacement.

The innards of Win 7 are little altered from Vista, other than offering a welcome boost in performance. It's nice to see an operating system from Microsoft that's less demanding of hardware resources than its predecessor. More important, Win 7 solves a large number of quirks that made Vista annoying and adds some very polished features that make the program easier to use.

I've been running the final version of Win 7 on my main PC since Microsoft finished the software at the end of July. My positive first impression has grown stronger as I've used it. There are few compatibility problems—Microsoft has delivered on the promise that if an app runs on Vista, it will run on 7—and it boots up significantly faster and performs more snappily than Vista.

I'll bet it's been a while since you heard anyone wax poetic about a task bar, right? Well, Microsoft redesigned this little strip at the bottom of the screen that serves as your control center, and it's one of the most engaging elements in this upgrade. Unlike its predecessor, the new version shows icons only for programs currently running and any others you, not Microsoft or other software publishers, choose to keep there permanently. Each running program is represented by a single icon. Hold the mouse over that icon and you'll see thumbnail images of each window the program has open. Move the pointer to one of the thumbnails, and a full-size version appears. Click, and it becomes the active window.

If you right-click on a task-bar icon instead, you get a "jump list," a menu of choices specific to that program. For example, right-click an Internet Explorer or Google (GOOG) Chrome icon, and you get a list of frequently visited pages. Other menu choices let you reopen a recently closed window or create a blank window.
Something Borrowed

Of course, few good ideas are entirely new. In the grand tradition of computer innovations, this task bar is an improved version of the Mac (AAPL) OS X Dock, which itself borrowed heavily from an earlier version of the Windows task bar. I found that this and other design features took a bit of getting used to, but they soon felt both natural and more efficient.

Windows 7 also fixes the "system tray," that jumble of icons at the far right corner of the task bar that harasses you by announcing events such as routine updates that you didn't need to know about. The new "notification area" lets you control which icons appear and what they notify you about.

Source: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/5146247.cms