Google releases Picasa for Linux!

I got Picasa  today, a photo organizing and editing tool from Google that does most of what u want  to do with ur digital pictures. Now Picasa, previously a Windows-only program, has binaries available for most popular GNU/Linux distributions. The Linux version of Picasa is still a beta release, but it's ready to handle photo storage, organizing, and light photo editing on your Linux computer.

Even if you don't want to use Picasa, Google's creation of the Linux version may help make your Linux computer more versatile. The Picasa Linux port is being made with Wine, and in the process more than 100 patches are being contributed back to the community.

Here, Google has hired CodeWeavers to do much of the work needed to get Picasa to run on Linux with Wine.

Rightnow Picasa Linux beta release lacks these features:

• CD Burning
• TiVo Export
• Support for languages other than English
• Hello™ instant picture chat

Also, Picasa does not  work with SELinux due to problems with camera recognition caused by SELinux's security features.

It's available here for these GNU/Linux distributions:

• Debian Sid and Etch
• Fedora Core 4 and 5
• Mandriva 2005 and 2006
• Red Hat (current versions)
• Linspire 5.0
• SUSE 9.3 and 10
• Ubuntu 5.x

ISRO, NASA to sign MoU

Space Saga…

News: Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and NASA are to sign a MoU today.

Details: NASA Administrator Michael Griffin will sign the agreement with ISRO Chairman G Madhavan Nair at the ISRO Satellite Centre in Bangalore.

The MoU will facilitate two US payloads to be flown on India's proposed Chandrayan 1 mission to the moon in 2008.

The first payload will look for polar ice on the moon and the other will study the moon's surface mineral composition.

Unmanned mission

The Chandrayan 1 mission will carry out a physical and chemical mapping of the moon and will be unmanned.

The Indian mission, Chandrayan 1, would also carry five Indian instruments and three developed by the European Space Agency and one from Bulgaria.

The non-Indian instruments were selected from 16 firm proposals received by ISRO.

The ISRO-NASA deal reflects improved Indo-US ties and the visit of the NASA chief will be first of its kind to India.