Wellington - Internet users staged a protest outside the New Zealand Parliament Thursday to draw attention to an amendment to the country's copyright laws due to come into effect next week.

The change instructs internet-service providers to block online access to anyone accused of repeatedly flouting copyright regulations by illegally downloading films and music whether they have been convicted or not.

At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona today, HTC and Vodafone announced the second major Google Android phone and the audience even were able to receive a demo of the HTC Magic.

The new phone dubbed as Magic has a 3.2-inch, 320-by-480 screen, and is all-touch-screen device with a track ball similar to the one on the T-Mobile G1, the first Android phone. The phone also features a 3.2-megapixel camera, a built-in compass and GPS.

If adhered to HTC, "The Magic runs on a 528-MHz Qualcomm processor, has 3G and Wi-Fi, and its 3G radio absolutely, and positively does not work at all in North America."

The domestic abuse advocates are getting really angry about the latest technology, which eliminates anonymous callers by exposing their phone numbers and sometimes even their addresses, as they are of the viewpoint that the product may put victims at risk.

The basic aim of TrapCall, which was launched Tuesday, was to unblock and reveal callers' identities and numbers even after individuals have tried to block the information.

Washington, Feb 18 : Scientists undertook a study on a 5-day space mission on the shuttle Columbia, which showed sweet potato can regenerate its roots in microgravity.

The study was undertaken by Desmond G. Mortley and colleagues from the Center for Food and Environmental Systems for Human Exploration of Space, G. W. Carver Agricultural Experiment Station, and the Kennedy Space Center.

Seeds of several crops have been grown in microgravity, but this was the first test for plants grown from cuttings.

Cuttings grow roots faster than do seeds, and sweetpotato cuttings regenerate very easily.

Washington, Feb 18 : NASA's Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS), which will seek water ice on Moon, is enroute from Northrop Grumman's facility in Redondo Beach, California, to the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida in preparation for a spring launch.

The satellite's primary mission is to search for water ice on the moon in a permanently shadowed crater near one of the lunar poles.

LCROSS is a low-cost, accelerated-development, companion mission to NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO.

Bangalore, Feb 17 : IT major Infosys Technologies on Tuesday announced that it has set up a fund `Infosys Science Foundation', for awarding outstanding achievements in various fields.

This foundation would be funded by a corpus of 210.5 million rupees, contributed by the firm''s board members and an annual grant from Infosys Technologies Limited.

The trust would honour an annual award of five million rupees to the countrymen for their exceptional contribution in the arena of physical and mathematical sciences, engineering, life science and social sciences and economics.