Vamos Rafa!!!!!!!!

The wait is over. 160 weeks after he became the no 2, the man from Mallorca(Majorca), the undisputed king of clay Rafael Nadal is the new world no 1. Emulating the great Bjorn Borg by winning 4 consecutive French Open titles and his first Wimbledon title this july, he is only the third person after Rod Laver and Bjorn Borg to win both the French Open and Wimbledon in the same year.

Nadal turned pro in 2001 and surged his way past other players finishing 200th by the end of 2002 and 49th by the end of 2003. His 2004 season was marred by stress fracture in his left ankle and he missed the clay court season including the French Open. It was in the same year when he met the then world no 1 Roger Federer at the Miami Masters for the first time and defeated him in straight sets. In 2005 the world began to see Nadal as a legend in the making. He won 24 consecutive matches on clay which includes the Masters series held at Monte Carlo, Rome, Montreal and Madrid and also his first French Open title becoming the only player since Mats Wilander to win the French Open in his debut appearance. On July 25 2005 he became the world no 2 which he held till august 18 this year, for a record 160 weeks, before becoming world no 1.

first French Open title

In 2006 he broke Guillermo Vilas's record by winning 53 consecutive matches on clay. Also he won the French Open for the second time defeating Roger Federer in 4 sets and became the only player at that time to defeat Federer in a grand slam final. However he lost to Federer in the Wimbledon finals. In the following year Nadal stretched his consecutive clay court victories to 81 and finally lost to Federer at the Hamburg Masters but defeated Federer again at Roland Garros to win his third straight French Open title. The duo met again in the Wimbledon finals which Federer won in 5 sets. This was the first time since 2001 Federer was forced to play 5 sets at Wimbledon. The duo also played in an exhibition match called "Battle of Surfaces" in a court which was half grass and half clay. Nadal defeated Federer again. Finally in 2008, Nadal beat Federer at Wimbledon ending Federer's 65 matches unbeaten run on grass and for the first time since 2003 Wimbledon saw a new champion.

wimbledon 2008
Nadal also won gold medal at the Beijing Olympics, the only player ranked inside top 5 to win gold in Olympics.

beijing Olympics

Besides winning so many tournaments, Nadal has been participating in the Chennai Open every year since 2004 except in 2006 which he missed because of a foot injury. Though he hasn't won singles title yet, he won the doubles title with Tommy Robredo in 2004. This is what Nadal said about the Chennai Open "I like the crowd and their enthusiasm and support and they always push you to give your best".

with tommy robredo after the Chennai Open finals
Nadal hails from a family of sports persons. He was good in both football and tennis but chose to go with tennis. He is a big fan of Real Madrid and his hometown club Real Mallorca.



Rafa playing with Real Madrid and Spain goalkeeper Iker Casillas at the Santiago Bernabeu, Real Madrid's home

Iphone India - Airtel announces its launch date

Bharti Airtel has issued an official statement on the launch of the iPhone 3G.

The iPhone 3G will be launched in India on August 22, by Airtel. The price though still seems to be a mystery as they are still tight lipped about it .

"iPhone has been the iconic technology revelation of this year, "said Sanjay Kapoor, president of Mobile Services at Bharti Airtel. "Airtel has been at the forefront of innovation and customer delight in the Indian telecom sector. Introducing iPhone 3G to India further underscores our commitment to enrich the communication experience of all Airtel users."

Customers will be able to purchase the iPhone 3G at Airtel Relationship Centers.

Airtel customers can get more information on the iPhone 3G here

Del.icio.us is now Delicious.com

Yahoo has just upgraded its popular social bookmarking service Del.icio.us and now removed the dots from in between Delicious words.

It has more than three million users and 100 million bookmarked URLs.

Delicious uses a non-hierarchical keyword categorization system in which users can tag each of their bookmarks with a number of freely chosen keywords. A combined view of everyone's bookmarks with a given tag is available.

The new Delicious.com seems rejuvenated with many new features such as New Tag Bar to navigate bookmarks by tags and tag combinations ,new UI that gives better usability. You can now organize the site in Bookmarks, People and Tags categories.

Iphone Update - pricing in India

Offices , blogs , magazines , journals all have been abuzz with discussions on what Apple’s much-awaited product will be priced at. They are taking lots of guesses .

Many of us may think it will be just over Rs 8,000 — the rupee equivalent of the price in the US, which is $199. Now, that’s a fantastic price for the 8GB product, and will certainly have every competitor worried.

Nokia’s 8GB N95 , for instance, is priced at well over Rs 25,000, and its new N96 is expected to come at over Rs 36,000.

But there are speculations that it will be priced substantially higher than Rs 8,000.

The sourceat economic times says ,

"The $199 price is a hugely subsidised one, subsidised by the US operator AT&T. Market researcher iSuppli has just estimated that mobile phone service providers are subsidising each handset to the extent of $300.

Some other analysts think the subsidy is higher at $350 per unit. In other words, the actual price that AT&T pays to Apple for each iPhone unit is $499, going by the iSuppli estimate.

Vodafone and Airtel are unwilling to talk about the price they will offer the iPhone at, but Bharti Airtel CEO Manoj Kohli told TOI there is no question of subsidising the handset in India. “US operators are able to subsidise handsets because they can make up for that with their call charges. They charge rates like 25 cents a minute. In India, the charge is 1.5 to 2 cents a minute,” Kohli said.

In the absence of a subsidy then, the handset could be priced at $499 or a little over Rs 21,000 (governmental levies on mobile phones in India are marginal).

Unless Apple chooses to offer the iPhone at lower margins to countries like India. iSuppli estimates it costs Apple just $173 to produce the latest version (excluding the cost of software development, shipping, distribution, packaging and accessories included with each iPhone). So it enjoys a huge margin on the product. "

But , whatever the price may be the iphone ll be the hottest gadget when it s released .

Original Source/Thanks : Economic Times

Anil Ambani to buy NewCastle United ??

According to the News of the World, NewCastle United football club owner Mike Ashley is in talks with two companies who are willing to pay £260 million to buy out the club. The companies in question are Reliance Communications and the Profitable Group.

Reliance Communications is headed by Anil Ambani, one of the richest men in the world with a personal fortune the News of the World suggests is around £21 billion.

However, the company have issued an official statement that firmly refutes the rumours.

“The news report is completely false and baseless. There are no such plans," read the statement.

Iphone in India

Airtel and Vodafone are Pre-registering iPhone in India.Both Vodafone & Airtel are tight lipped about launch date & price. But it seems to be in the near future. With the recent announcement from the govt for 3G spectrum allocation and request for tenders , the Iphone launch has obviously gathered momentum and can be expected as a mega event as in U.S or Europe .

The following are link pages for pre-registering iphone with Airtel n Vodafone..

Iphone Vodafone

Iphone Airtel

Solar eclipse August 1 2008 video

INDIA witnessed a partial solar eclipse on Friday (August 1) and large swathes in the Eastern part of the country were able to see a large fraction of the solar disc eclipsed by the moon.

The partial eclispe was visible in Northeast India from 4pm, but the last and final phase was seen in most parts of the country. Only few countries in the world were able to witness the total eclipse, which included Canada, Central Russia, Mongolia and China.

In Delhi, the eclipse began at 4:03pm and ended at 5:56pm and the maximum impact was visible at 5:02pm. In Mumbai, the timing was 4:27pm to 6:03pm, while Chennai it was at 4.40pm, Kolkata was between 4:18pm and 6:02pm.

A recorded video is avaible in the below link

Solar Eclipse video

Google launches Knol as rival to Wikipedia

Google has launched an online encyclopedia to take on Wikipedia.

Knol, which stands for unit of knowledge, allows internet users to write articles on their own areas of expertise.

The world's largest search engine is hoping that "knols" will be written on every conceivable topic ranging from gardening and pottery to Byzantine art and neo-classical literature. The free service will inevitably draw comparisons with Wikipedia but Google says it differs from it in many ways.

Unlike Wikipedia, which allows visitors to edit its pages, people will not be able to make changes or contribute to a person's knol without their permission.

Knols written on the same subject will also remain separate and compete for the attention of visitors, who will be able to give online feedback. Pictures of authors will also be displayed on their knol web pages.

Udi Manber, Google's vice president of engineering, said: "We believe that knowing who wrote what will significantly help users make better use of web content.

"Books have authors' names right on the cover, news articles have bylines, scientific articles always have authors; but somehow the web evolved without a strong standard to keep authors names highlighted."

Contributors will be able to make money from the service by allowing adverts which relate to their articles to appear on their pages.

Juergen Galler, Google's director of product management said: "The internet is huge, but still a lot of expert knowledge remains untapped."

"Knol provides a way for people to share their expertise with others - and get credit for their contribution."

The service is part of a growing drive by Google to expand beyond simple search and into other areas such as desk top publishing and mobile phones.

But taking on Wikipedia is no mean feat. With 116 million global users a month - a third of the internet population - it consistently ranks among the most visited websites in the world.

Anyone wanting to write a knol should go to knol.google.com,

(from praveen's post at wetheforsaken)


Source:THINKDIGIT