As a part of groundwork move for the final launch of Microsoft's next version of the Office suite in the first half of next year, the company Tuesday announced having begun extensive testing of the product. Code-named Office 14, the product will be expectedly dubbed Office 2010, with all its allied gears to also come with the 2010 mark.      While some of the earliest testing of Office 14 was undertaken by the company in 2008 called for a technology preview, with a beta to follow this year; the details of the recent not-so-pushy schedule have not been divulged.

Chandipur, Apr 15 : India on Wednesday successfully test fired the indigenous surface-to-surface ballistic missile, ''Prithvi-II'', from the Integrated Test Range (ITR) here, 15 km from Balasore.

Prithvi-II, a version of nuclear-capable, has a range of 350 km.

The missile was launched from a mobile launcher at around 10:20 a. m. as part of a user trial by the army, defence sources said.

The entire trajectory of the trial was tracked down by a battery of sophisticated radars and electro-optic telemetry stations positioned in different locations for post-launch analysis, they said.

London, April 14: Amazon. com has apologised for an error due to which the sales ranking were removed from tens of thousands of books, and it became difficult to search for tomes.

Making a statement on Sunday, the online retailer said that a "glitch" had caused the problem, and promised that the numbers would be restored.

However, sales numbers were still missing until Monday afternoon.

Hit by the error were recent works like Chelsea Handler''s My Horizontal Life, as well as classics like Gore Vidal''s The City And The Pillar and James Baldwin''s Giovanni''s Room.

Melbourne, Apr 14 : IBM worldwide has begun cost cuts in order to battle the effects of the global financial crisis and will scrap office amenities such as tea and coffee, and even company-funded home internet access.

From May 1, IBM will cease to reimburse Internet access for staff working from home. Direct pay corporate managed and contracted home Internet services will also be scrapped.

"IBM will cease the reimbursement of home internet access for employees," The Australian quoted the company, as saying in an email to staff.

Melbourne, Apr 14 : IBM worldwide has begun cost cuts in order to battle the effects of the global financial crisis and will scrap office amenities such as tea and coffee, and even company-funded home internet access.

From May 1, IBM will cease to reimburse Internet access for staff working from home. Direct pay corporate managed and contracted home Internet services will also be scrapped.

"IBM will cease the reimbursement of home internet access for employees," The Australian quoted the company, as saying in an email to staff.

Washington, April 14 : Scientists at the Burnham Institute for Medical Research (Burnham) have come up with a way to convert human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) into neural progenitor cells, which may be ideal for transplantation.

Lead researcher Dr. Alexei Terskikh says that the new method to create these committed neural precursor cells (C-NPCs) does not produce mutations in the cells, and may be useful for clinical applications.

When the C-NPCs created using the Terskikh protocol were transplanted into mice during an experiment, they became active neurons and integrated into the cortex and olfactory bulb.