Alaska Airlines today began daily nonstop service between Houston and Seattle. Alaska is offering introductory one-way fares of $99 between the two cities for tickets purchased by Sept. 30, 2009.

"We're pleased to bring Alaska's award-winning service and low prices to our customers in Houston and Seattle," said Steve Jarvis, vice president of marketing, sales and customer experience. "This new daily service provides oil and energy business travelers with convenient connections between Houston, Alaska, and Calgary, Alberta."

The Stockholm Congestion Charging System, created by IBM (NYSE: IBM) has significantly improved access to the Swedish capital by halving queuing times on access roads to the city in the mornings. City traffic is down by 18% and CO2 emissions in the inner city have been cut by between 14 and 18 percent. These are the results of the latest study on the system by the Stockholm City Traffic authorities.

During an industry address yesterday at the Embedded Systems Conference (ESC) Boston, Microsoft Corp. launched the embeddedSPARK 2010 Challenge, a new competition designed to foster creativity and innovation among the embedded hobbyist and academic communities globally.

The NCAA and CBS Sports today announced that LG Electronics USA has signed on to become an Official NCAA Corporate Partner. Through this multi-year partnership, LG Electronics will have exclusive category marketing and promotional rights related to all 88 NCAA championship events across 23 different sports, including the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Championship and NCAA Football Championships.

Wipro Technologies, the global IT services business of Wipro Limited (NYSE: WIT), today announced that it has entered into a three year agreement to provide SAP enterprise applications management services for the Aquarion Water Company (AWC), the largest investor-owned water utility in New England and among the seven largest water utilities in United States.

Introducing Vocational Training between Class 8 and 12 could be an important way to deal with the country's skill shortage, said Mr. Kapil Sibal, Union Minister for Human Resource Development, Government of India at the 3rd CII Global Summit on Skills Development in Delhi. Only 1 out of 8 students study further than Class 12 therefore there was an urgent need for converting the natural skills of students into employable, vocational skills. A large number of students wanted to acquire ordinary skills that would enable them to lead ordinary lives.

In a public meeting as a side event of the 12th Session of the UN Human Rights Council being held from 14th September to 2 October, 2009 in Geneva, Switzerland, participants said that state terrorism is responsible for human rights violations in Balochistan province of Pakistan and the Gilgit-Baltistan region administered by Pakistan. The meeting was organized by Commission to Study the Organization of Peace an NGO having UN Consultative Status with ECOSOC on the topic of Human Rights and Terrorism: International Responsibilities.

Narus, Inc., the global leader in real-time traffic intelligence for the protection and management of large IP networks, today announced a major new release of NarusInsight, its flagship real-time traffic intelligence system. The latest version of NarusInsight introduces highly customizable and extensible monitoring capabilities, powerful analytics and increased system performance. With the new extended functionality, service providers and government organizations now have an even more robust solution available to protect and manage their large IP networks in real time.

Rediff MoneyWiz, the personal finance service from Rediff.com, recently introduced its improved Watchlist feature. The Watchlist helps users monitor a personalised list of stocks and mutual funds with real-time quotes. Users can set alerts to receive email notification when a stock or fund crosses high or low price levels set by them.

Salient features of the new Watchlist:

-- Live stock prices
-- Email alerts
-- Enhanced interface
-- Day’s H/L and Volumes in real time
-- Best- and worst-performing stocks highlighted

-- Dell, UTVi and Endeavor India Name 10 of India’s Most Innovative Small Businesses as Part of 2009 Dell Small Business Excellence Award

-- Finalists Compete to Win $50,000 in Dell Technology, Consulting Time with Michael Dell

The News:

Dell, UTVi and Endeavor India today announced the 10 India finalists for the first ever Indian leg of the annual Dell Small Business Excellence Award¹.

Astroyogi.com announced its partnership with UTV Motion Pictures and Ashutosh Gowariker Productions to promote the upcoming Ashutosh Gowarikar entertainer ‘What’s your Raashee’ releasing on the 25th of September. This partnership represents Astroyogi’s foray into film promotions via its portal, and its mobile shortcode 57677, where Astroyogi is running contests for ‘What’s your Raashee’ with mobile partners. The Astroyogi – UTV and Ashutosh Gowariker Productions partnership represents the synergy between the theme of the movie and services provided by Astroyogi.com.

Comviva, the leading provider of integrated value added services for operators in emerging markets today announced that it has engaged Nuance Communications, Inc, (NASDAQ: NUAN), the leading provider of speech and imaging solutions, to build a speech-based song search application for telecom service providers in India. The application, due for release in October 2009 and named ‘Song Search’, will significantly enhance the usability of music search applications on mobile phones, allowing users to access music content with the power of their voice.

The Timken Company (NYSE: TKR) today announced the appointment of Mr. Ajay Das as its new managing director for its business in India, headquartered in Bangalore.

In this new role, Mr. Das will oversee the continued growth of the company’s business in India, including the Timken Engineering Research Institute, the global R&D and engineering facility at Bangalore, operations at Jamshedpur and Chennai, as well as sales, marketing and all supporting functions.

Max New York Life, one of India’s most admired life insurance companies, today announced the brand positioning for Max Vijay, its unique offering for the underserved masses. After extensive research, the company has finalized a brand positioning – ‘Aukaat Par Vijay’ – a proposition that all people from the underserved segment can relate to, irrespective of their age, location or gender.

Max Vijay is a business model that breaks away from the paradigms of traditional life insurance on all facets – product design, distribution, marketing and service.

Max New York Life, one of India’s most admired life insurance companies, today announced the brand positioning for Max Vijay, its unique offering for the underserved masses. After extensive research, the company has finalized a brand positioning – ‘Aukaat Par Vijay’ – a proposition that all people from the underserved segment can relate to, irrespective of their age, location or gender.

Max Vijay is a business model that breaks away from the paradigms of traditional life insurance on all facets – product design, distribution, marketing and service.