Hamburg - Germany inaugurated Friday what it said was the world's first fuel cell-powered passenger boat in commercial use.

The FCS Alsterwasser is powered by twin fuel-cell motors similar to those already in use in the Germany Navy's most modern submarines and will take up to 100 passengers on lake cruises in the city of Hamburg. The cells burn hydrogen and emit no carbon dioxide.

Berlin  - Tens of thousands of Germans swarmed into Europe's top electrical-goods fair, IFA, on its opening day Friday in Berlin.

For the first time, the consumer-electronics expo included home appliances such as washing machines and vacuum cleaners.

While advertising for the appliances usually shows happy housewives, the audience admiring the white goods, caressing the surfaces and trying out all the buttons at IFA on Friday was predominantly male.

New Delhi, Aug 29 : Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology awarded the fifth “Computer Literacy Excellence Awards for Schools” for the year
2007 to Amity International School, Gurgaon.

Minister of State for Communications and Information Technology Jyotiraditya M Scindia was also present on the occasion.

The award includes a cash prize of Rs. 1.5 lakh along with a trophy and a certificate of excellence presented at a function to school principal Neetii C Kaoshik at Vigyan Bhavan on August 28.

Washington, August 29 : An Indian-origin scientist in the U. S. has devised a way to create six-dimensional images that respond to changes in light and the viewer''s direction, by adapting the basic technology used in cheap 3-D postcards and novelty items for the purpose.

"We are the first ones to build a display that changes with lighting. We''ve finally found a way to build the most realistic display," Discovery News quoted Ramesh Raskar, a scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), as saying.

Washington, August 29 : A study on a newly discovered living species of giant clam called Tridacna costata suggests that modern humans’ dispersal out of Africa into the Red Sea and adjacent regions 110,000 to 90,000 years ago might have been driven largely by competition for marine resources.

Fossil evidence reveals that the new species called Tridacna costata once accounted for more than 80 percent of giant clams in the Red Sea, while it presently represents less than one percent of giant clams living there.

Claudio Richter of the Alfred-Wegener-Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Germany says that new species appears to live only in the shallowest waters, making it particularly vulnerable to over-fishing.

New Delhi, Aug 29 : External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee today said that New Delhi is working with the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) countries to secure a clean waiver on the India-US civilian nuclear deal.