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Top 50 Engineering and Technology Universities 2011-2012

Top 50 Engineering and Technology Universities 2011-2012

Subject Rank	Institution	Country / Region	Engineering and TechnologyOverall score
1	California Institute of Technology	United States	92.7
1	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	United States	92.7
3	Princeton University	United States	92.4
4	University of California, Berkeley	United States	91.7
5	Stanford University	United States	91.4
6	University of Cambridge	United Kingdom	90.6
7	University of Oxford	United Kingdom	87.4
8	University of California, Los Angeles	United States	87.3
9	ETH Zürich - Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zürich	Switzerland	87.1
10	Imperial College London	United Kingdom	85.7
11	Georgia Institute of Technology	United States	85.4
12	Carnegie Mellon University	United States	83.2
13	University of Texas at Austin	United States	81
14	University of Michigan	United States	80.8
15	Cornell University	United States	79.8
16	University of California, Santa Barbara	United States	78.1
16	University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign	United States	78.1
18	University of Toronto	Canada	78
19	National University of Singapore	Singapore	77.5
20	École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne	Switzerland	77.1
21	University of Tokyo	Japan	69.8
22	Delft University of Technology	Netherlands	69.1
22	University of Wisconsin-Madison	United States	69.1
24	University of California, San Diego	United States	67.8
25	University of Melbourne	Australia	67.4
26	University of Manchester	United Kingdom	67.1
27	University College London	United Kingdom	66.6
28	The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology	Hong Kong	66.1
29	École Polytechnique	France	65.9
29	University of Minnesota	United States	65.9
31	Tsinghua University	China	65.6
32	University of California, Davis	United States	65.2
33	University of British Columbia	Canada	64.5
34	Pohang University of Science and Technology	Korea, Republic Of	63.8
35	The University of Sydney	Australia	63.4
36	Pennsylvania State University	United States	62.4
37	The University of Hong Kong	Hong Kong	62
38	Katholieke Universiteit Leuven	Belgium	61.5
39	Purdue University	United States	60.7
40	Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology	Korea, Republic Of	60.2
40	Rice University	United States	60.2
42	The Ohio State University	United States	59.5
43	Technische Universität München	Germany	58.7
44	Peking University	China	58.5
45	Brown University	United States	58.3
45	The University of Queensland Australia	Australia	58.3
47	McGill University	Canada	57.9
48	Kyoto University	Japan	56.6
48	University of Waterloo	Canada	56.6
50	Nanyang Technological University	Singapore	55.3

China successfully launches "Heavenly Palace" space craft

The Tiangong 1, or "Heavenly Palace," blasted off from a remote site in the Gobi Desert at 9:16 pm (1316 GMT), adding a high-tech sheen to China's National Day celebrations on October 1.
Premier Wen Jiabao watched as the small, unmanned "space lab" and the Long March rocket that heaved it skyward from a pad at Jiuquan in northwest Gansu province, lifted off under clear skies, in images shown live on state television.
It is the latest show of China's growing prowess in space, and comes while budget restraints and shifting priorities have held back U.S. manned space launches.
"Its name ... speaks for a dream home the Chinese have long envisioned in the sky. In Chinese folklore, a heavenly palace often refers to the place in outer space where deities reside," the official Xinhua news agency said.
The big test comes weeks after its launch, when the eight tonne craft attempts to join up with an unmanned Shenzhou 8 spacecraft that China plans to launch.
Space docking tests conducted with the Tiangong 1 will provide experience for the building of a permanent manned space station around 2020, mission spokeswoman Wu Ping said.
China's government will hope to set a successful Tiangong mission alongside other trophies of its growing technological prowess, including the launch of a trial aircraft carrier.
And the launch, just before China's National Day holiday, was accompanied by an outpouring of proud support for the country's technological achievements.
"I feel great pride in being Chinese today. This is another great step forward for China in space," wrote Shi Zhongshan on the popular Twitter-like microblogging site Sina Weibo.
However, some wondered why all the fuss considering recent problems on another engineering feat China had lauded, the rapid development of its rail system.
In July, 40 people died in a collision on a high-speed rail line in eastern China, and this week more than 200 people were injured when two subway trains ran into each other in Shanghai.
"I'd prefer more attention be paid to the high-speed train and Shanghai subway crashes than to Tiangong 1. The later is related to face, but the former is to do with our lives," wrote "Weixiao Xiaoran," also on Weibo.
Engineers had been watching launch preparations nervously, after another Long March rocket malfunctioned and failed to send an experimental satellite into orbit last month.
Beijing is still far from catching up with space superpowers. The Tiangong launch is a trial step in Beijing's plans to eventually establish its own space station.
Russia, the United States and other countries jointly operate the International Space Station, to which China does not belong.
But the United States will not test a new rocket to take people into space until 2017, and Russia has said manned missions are no longer a priority for its space program, which has struggled with delays and glitches.
Earlier this month, NASA unveiled plans for a deep-space rocket to carry astronauts to the moon and Mars. President Barack Obama has called for a human expedition to an asteroid by 2025 and a journey to Mars in the 2030s.
China launched its second moon orbiter last year after it became only the third country to send its astronauts walking in space outside their orbiting craft in 2008.
It plans an unmanned moon landing and deployment of a moon rover in 2012, and the retrieval of lunar soil and stone samples around 2017. Scientists have talked about the possibility of sending a man to the moon after 2020.
China is also jostling with neighbors Japan and India for a bigger presence in space, but its plans have faced international wariness. Beijing says its aims are peaceful, and military involvement natural given the enormity of the undertaking.
"The military enjoys unique advantages in organizing and coordinating such large-scale activities, and its involvement in aerospace missions is an international practice," Defense Ministry spokesman Geng Yansheng said this week.

NASA backed space taxi to fly in test next summer

Sierra Nevada Corp's "Dream Chaser" space plane, which resembles a miniature space shuttle, is one of four space taxis being developed by private industry with backing from the U.S. government.
For the unmanned test flight, it will be carried into the skies by WhiteKnightTwo, the carrier aircraft for the commercial suborbital passenger ship SpaceShipTwo, backed by Virgin Galactic, a U.S. company owned by Richard Branson's London-based Virgin Group.
The test flight was added after privately held Sierra Nevada got a $25.6-million boost to its existing $80 million contract with NASA.
The test flight will take place from either Edwards Air Force Base in California's Mojave Desert, or from the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, Ed Mango, manager of NASA's Commercial Crew Program, said at a community briefing at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
With the retirement of the space shuttles this summer, NASA is now dependent on Russia to fly astronauts to the space station, at a cost of more than $50 million per person.
The agency hopes to turn over crew transportation services to one or more commercial firms before the end of 2016, Mango said.
In addition to Sierra Nevada, NASA is funding spaceship development work at Boeing Co, Space Exploration Technologies, and Blue Origin, a start-up firm owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
"Having only one way to get crew to the station is a limitation," NASA astronaut Mike Fossum, who is currently living aboard the outpost, said during an in-flight interview last week.
The station, a $100 billion project of 16 nations, was finished this year after more than a decade of construction 225 miles above the planet. The outpost, which is about the size of a five-bedroom house, supports a variety of scientific research and technology demonstrations.
Along with helping to develop commercial space taxis, NASA is working on a heavy-lift rocket and capsule to fly astronauts and cargo to asteroids, the moon, Mars and other destinations beyond the space station's orbit.
Drawing heavily on equipment originally built for predecessor programs, including the space shuttle and the canceled Constellation moon exploration initiative, the new rocket, called the Space Launch System or SLS, is scheduled to debut in 2017.
That unmanned test flight would be followed in 2021 by a trial run with astronauts, said Kennedy Space Center director Bob Cabana.

Indian company list

World Rank	Company	Industry	Revenue (billion $)	Profits (billion $)	Assets (billion $)	Market Value (billion $)
98	Indian Oil	India Oil & Gas Operations	68.83	0.51	28.45	16.74
134	Reliance Industries	India Oil & Gas Operations	58.90	2.91	48.50	69.36
272	Bharat Petroleum	India Oil & Gas Operations	34.10	0.12	10.66	4.41
292	State Bank of India	India Banking	32.40	2.13	256.79	27.21
336	Hindustan Petroleum	India Oil & Gas Operations	28.50	0.15	9.73	2.55
359	Tata Motors	India Consumer Durables	27.50	-0.49	14.29	7.93
361	Oil and Natural Gas Corporation	India Oil & Gas Operations	26.90	3.86	35.66	51.82
370	Tata Steel	India Materials	26.05	0.96	23.95	11.04
506	ICICI Bank	India Banking	12.58	0.70	94.64	21.07
541	National Thermal Power Corporation	India Utilities	8.62	1.58	22.59	36.30
571	Bharti Airtel	India Telecommunications Services	7.27	1.53	12.88	23.00
602	Steel Authority of India	India Materials	8.39	1.22	10.98	19.57
648	Larsen & Toubro	Construction	7.87	0.74	11.12	19.90
672	HDFC Bank	India Banking	3.85	0.44	35.98	16.83
695	Punjab National Bank	India Banking	4.42	0.62	49.93	6.16
699	Bharat Heavy Electricals	India Capital Goods	5.16	0.61	8.96	25.24
741	Tata Consultancy Services	India Software & Services	5.41	1.02	4.45	32.31
742	Reliance Communications	India Telecommunications Services	4.04	1.18	20.15	7.04
783	Housing Development Finance Corporation	India Diversified Financials	2.28	0.45	22.84	15.50
807	Infosys Technologies	India Software & Services	4.22	1.17	4.34	32.20
826	Wipro	India Software & Services	5.00	0.76	5.49	21.53
858	Axis Bank	India Banking	2.68	0.35	29.02	9.85
892	Bank of Baroda	India Banking	3.58	0.46	45.78	4.61
902	Bank of India	India Banking	3.79	0.60	44.62	3.80
923	DLF Limited	Diversified Financials	1.95	0.87	9.64	10.94
946	National Mineral Development Corporation	India Materials	1.47	0.85	3.32	37.12
985	GAIL	India Utilities	4.80	0.55	5.79	10.98
1005	Hindalco Industries	India Materials	12.73	0.07	12.71	6.69
1008	Canara Bank	India Banking	3.82	0.40	43.39	3.49
1023	ITC	India Food, Drink & Tobacco	3.18	0.65	3.97	19.00
1093	Power Grid Corporation of India	India Utilities	1.28	0.33	10.71	9.78
1123	Power Finance Corporation	India Business Services & Supplies	1.28	0.39	13.45	6.22
1131	Jindal Steel and Power	India Materials	2.11	0.59	3.81	12.79
1278	Union Bank of India	India Banking	2.60	0.34	31.72	2.81
1308	Mahindra & Mahindra	India Consumer Durables	5.13	0.27	6.13	5.96
1385	NHPC	India Utilities	0.67	0.24	8.11	7.75
1423	Indian Overseas Bank	India Banking	2.20	0.26	23.86	1.04
1425	Grasim Industries	India Construction	3.58	0.43	4.79	5.36
1466	Oil India	India Oil & Gas Operations	1.41	0.43	3.32	6.04
1470	Sun Pharmaceutical	India Drugs & Biotechnology	0.81	0.35	1.59	6.92
1492	Rural Electrification	India Diversified Financials	0.95	0.25	11.03	4.54
1539	Tata Power	India Utilities	3.42	0.25	6.28	6.24
1568	Indian Bank	India Banking	1.53	0.24	16.58	1.53
1571	Hero MotoCorp	India Consumer Durables	2.40	0.25	1.20	7.68
1611	Syndicate Bank	India Banking	2.04	0.18	25.67	0.95
1642	IDBI Bank	India Banking	2.61	0.15	34.31	1.87
1670	Oriental Bank of Commerce	India Banking	1.93	0.18	22.19	1.49
1702	Reliance Infrastructure	India Utilities	2.45	0.26	6.81	4.91
1746	HCL Technologies	India Software & Services	2.13	0.27	2.50	5.37
1775	Central Bank of India	India Banking	2.25	0.12	29.15	1.31
1802	Corporation Bank	India Banking	1.38	0.18	17.13	1.37
1813	National Aluminium Company	India Materials	0.99	0.25	2.43	5.38
1852	Allahabad Bank	India Banking	1.66	0.15	19.28	1.29
1865	Adani Enterprises Limited	India Trading Companies	5.06	0.10	3.97	5.23
1910	UCO Bank	India Banking	1.78	0.11	22.01	0.68
1952	ACC	India Construction	1.76	0.32	1.74	3.76

IBM's 3rd quarter growth lighter than expected

IBM increased both its income and revenue for the third quarter, but the revenue growth came in slightly lower than analysts had predicted, leading to fears that the sluggish economy is hampering IBM's growth.
IBM's net income for the quarter was US$3.8 billion, up 7 percent form the same quarter a year earlier. Revenue was $26.16 billion, an increase of 8 percent, or 3 percent adjusting for currency fluctuations. The figure was below analyst expectations of $26.26 billion, according to a survey by Thomson Reuters. Earnings per share was $3.19 on a GAAP basis, an increase of 13 percent.
IBM CFO Mark Loughridge stressed the importance of emerging markets for the future of the company's growth. "We are leveraging our growth plays while expanding margin," he said in a conference call to discuss the results.
Revenue from growth markets such as China and Brazil was up 19 percent, or 13 percent at constant currency rates, and provided 23 percent of IBM's total revenue.
"Consistent with our model, growth markets, along with our other key growth initiatives, are driving our revenue performance," Loughridge said. During the call, analysts repeatedly asked about sluggish sales growth in the public sector and financial services market, as well as in the major markets overall.
Loughridge urged investors to look at the strong performance in individual units, such as software and service. "I wouldn't look at the overall financial services sector through a major-market lens. Some of the issues we were all reading about, we don't see that in the growth markets," he said.
By sector, IBM's software revenue totalled $5.8 billion, up 13 percent. Total services revenue was $15.1 billion, up by 8 percent. The Systems and Technology group raked in $4.5 billion, or about 4 percent growth. One particularly bright spot was growth in IBM's Power Systems sales, which were up 15 percent.
Other IBM initiatives seem to be bearing fruit. Business analytics revenue is up by 19 percent. Smarter Planet initiatives are up by 50 percent, and cloud revenue year to date is now double what IBM made in that arena for all of fiscal 2010.
Because of this growth, IBM has raised its earnings expectation for fiscal 2011, to at least $13.35 per share from $13.25.

Top 10 BlackBerry PlayBook business apps

RIM, which has carved its niche as a reliable business partner, has stepped into a new era of mobile computing, with the release of its PlayBook tablet. BlackBerry claims that the PlayBook delivers high-fidelity web browsing including support for Adobe Flash, as well as spectacular High-Definition multimedia, advanced security features and out-of-the-box enterprise support.
Let’s explore the 10 best business apps, both incoming and available, for the PlayBook.
Documents To Go
This is an essential application for any professional user as it allows you to edit and create Word, Excel and PowerPoint files on your PlayBook. You can work while on the move and without having to carry a laptop too.
The new Premium Edition for PlayBook includes support for PDF file viewing, password protection, desktop synchronisation and advanced character, font and paragraph formatting. In short, it’s the power of Microsoft’s Office suite on your PlayBook.
IdeaPad
IdeaPad takes full advantage of the PlayBook’s touch screen interface by allowing you to scribble notes down quickly and effectively. When an idea strikes you can make a note of it, save it and come back to develop it further at a later point.
IdeaPad comes with six templates – Plain Paper, Tic Tac Toe, Notes, Tablet Device, Smartphone Portrait and Smartphone Landscape – installed, so you’ll be able to perform a variety of tasks from the off, like constructing flow charts, designing new mobile interfaces or simply doodling some minutes from a meeting.
Finished files are saved in PNG format and can be shared via Facebook and Twitter as well as being viewable on your smartphone and PC.
SAP Business Intelligence Apps
SAP has confirmed that it will be releasing a whole host of business intelligence apps in the coming months aimed squarely at enterprise tablet users including the BlackBerry PlayBook.
The releases will to be delivered via its recently acquired enterprise mobility technology, which, according to SAP, allows it to deliver business intelligence solutions to users on any platform.
There are no specific details regarding any of these applications just yet, but SAP has confirmed that it is committed to making its business intelligence software available on all platforms.
Adobe Connect Mobile
Adobe Connect Mobile is one of quite a few Adobe Air applications that’ll be hitting the BlackBerry PlayBook in the coming weeks and months. Connect Mobile, also available on the iPad and Android, enables users to participate in mobile conferencing from the comfort of their PlayBook.
Features of note include two-way video conferencing with the ability to add your own upstream video broadcast. There’s also support for both the PlayBook’s cameras so you can switch to using the higher-resolution rear-facing camera when addressing colleagues.
The UI is slick, it’s simple to use and will be an extremely solid addition to the PlayBook’s growing arsenal of enterprise grade applications.
OANDA Currency Converter
This free application gives you on-the-spot conversion amounts for over 180 currencies and, in case you’re in commodities, four metal groups as well.
This is one of many official applications produced by trusted authorities for the PlayBook and is an indispensable tool for anyone that travels abroad a lot.
Not only does OANDA Currency Converter figure out the exchange rates for hundreds of currencies using the same daily filtered rates used by corporations, tax authorities, auditing firms, and financial institutions, but it also shows you interbank rates for money transactions and will even calculate how much you’ll be charged for using your credit card abroad.
Best of all, it does this for free. OANDA Currency Converter is an essential tool for professionals that do a lot of travelling and are constantly contending with fluctuating currency values and bizarre credit card charges.
Evernote
Many people praise DropBox like it’s the best thing to happen to mobile devices since wireless technology. Evernote is a far superior piece of kit and once you’ve used it, you’ll know exactly what we mean.
The app offers a word processor, the ability to record audio, save web pages and import pictures. You can also create different notebooks if you fancy having one for work, one for ideas, one for interesting websites and so on.
All in all, Evernote makes pretty much everything else look mediocre. And, yes, that includes Google Docs. We love this application and use it every day, so make sure you get it as soon as your PlayBook is booted up.
TimeZones
Frequent travel is commonplace in many professional roles. But operating across a variety of times can be both confusing and disorientating. This shouldn’t be a problem with TimeZones, as the app allows you view up to eight world clocks at once.
Each clock can be custom labelled, so you can assign different ones to different businesses and people so you’ll never be caught out making a 5am phone call again.
Granted, it’s not a cure for jet-lag but it’s certainly a handy tool to have at your disposal to ensure meetings, deadlines and phone calls are made at the correct times when you’re operating in a different time zone.
iSpeech Translator
iSpeech Translator is an app that converts words or phrases into a multitude of different languages. So, if you get an email in German you can simply convert it to English, and vice-versa.
The application also recognises voice input too, so you can say a phrase or read out an email, for example, and iSpeech will convert it into one of its 18 supported languages.
Once you typed or said the phrase, the results will always appear in text format. If you have a client, business partner or colleague based abroad and want to impress them by communicating with them in their native language, you can now do so via iSpeech Translator.
TaskMemo
Using your calendar to organise your day-to-day business is all well and good, but sometimes it’s better to have a bespoke option at hand. This is where TaskMemo comes into play, giving you the ability to store thousands of tasks, dates, meetings, notes and reminders in one easy to access place.
The application will also keep you posted on deadlines, meetings and up-and-coming events.
There are 22 standard categories, ranging from meeting dates to deadlines, and you can also implement your own if it’s not catered for within the presets. This app is designed to be used by serious professionals that plan their work lives out well into the coming weeks and months.
As you complete tasks you get a percentage completion notification telling you how far through your agenda you are, which is always handy – especially if you work on large projects with specific deadlines.
Overall, TaskMemo is a cost effective solution that’ll help you to organise and keep track of your business commitments. It also looks extremely professional and has a multitude of themes to choose from, meaning you can personalise the way the app looks too.
Poynt
Poynt is the perfect application for anyone that does a lot of business travelling. The application uses your GPS position to relay information about surrounding businesses, restaurants, museums, take-aways, galleries, pubs and so on.
If you travel for work a lot and often find yourself in an unfamiliar city, Poynt is a great app to have at your disposal. Not only will it tell you what the best authentic paella eatery is based on your current location, but it also does so in a very intuitive way.