'World's shortest man' seeks recognition

A man who is only 22 inches tall left his home country of Nepal yesterday in a quest to be recognised as the world's shortest man

Khagendra Thapa Magar, centre, is only 22 inches tall Photo: REUTERS

 

Khagendra Thapa Magar is travelling to Europe to campaign for the Guinness World Record title. He applied for a place in the record book in October, soon after turning 18, but said he has not received any response.
Magar's family initially filed a claim when he was 14, but it was rejected because he was not an adult and there was a chance he might grow.

They say doctors in Nepal have not been able to explain why Magar is so small.
"We are going to Italy to try to record his name in the Guinness Book of World Records," his father, Rup

Bahadur Thapa Magar, told reporters in Kathmandu. They plan to appear on an Italian television show to talk about his bid for the title.

Once in Italy, Magar, his father and a supporter will decide on their next destination.
His supporters saw him off from the Nepalese capital on Sunday, offering flower bouquets and garlands.
The current record is held by He Pingping of China, who is 29 inches tall.

A change of art

Hundreds of millions of dollars from the West Kowloon cultural district's multibillion-dollar budget is set to be redirected to enhancing "software" as the government undergoes a dramatic change of heart. The government hopes to switch some funds from the HK$21.6 billion approved by the Legislative Council last July and use them for improving cultural software - that is, the people, programs and events - by training performers and educating audiences, a source said.
Local groups, which are expected to benefit most from the revised approach, welcomed the idea.
The source said the funding will be used for three purposes: to enhance arts education in schools and non-traditional training centers; to subsidize art groups and sponsor performers to go overseas; and provide free art classes and tickets to performances.
Chief Secretary Henry Tang Ying- yen, who is also West Kowloon Cultural District Authority chairman, will have to formally ask Legco to change the use of part of the approved funding.
The first phase of the arts hub is set to open in 2014 or 2015.
Chung Ying Theatre Company art director Ko Tin-lung said he had suggested that the Arts Development Council spend HK$500 million to improve the software for the cultural hub, which will contain up to 15 performing arts venues and a museum.
"The government should not wait for construction of the venues to start training talent," Ko said.
He suggested that HK$50 million be used in a trial scheme and, to ensure the most effective use of the money, existing arts groups should be sponsored. On education, Ko said drama, for example, could be added to liberal studies in school.
"The students can understand the topic first then do a play on it," he said. "Students can then learn both drama and social issues."
Ko said many talented set decorators and lighting crew had left Hong Kong for Macau when the new casinos offered more attractive packages.
"The government should now estimate how many people they need when the art venues and museum are open."
However, Mathias Woo Yan-wai, creative and program director of arts group Zuni Icosahedron, said the government might not need the money from the cultural hub's budget as it could strengthen existing funding from the Home Affairs Bureau.
He said what Hong Kong lacks most is art teachers.
"Not all art experts can teach. Not all actors can be teachers," he said.
"To set a policy to train the teachers is a very important way to provide more 'software' too."

Microsoft about to offer Windows users a browser choice screen

Some European Windows users could soon see the "browser ballot" screen that makes it easier for them to choose an alternative browser, as a result of an agreement that helped settle an anti-trust case brought by the European Commission

Microsoft's web browser choice screen

Microsoft is about to start offering Windows users a "Web browser choice screen" as required by a settlement agreed with the European Commission's competition department last year. As part of the testing process, some users in the UK, Belgium and France will see it next week. It will be rolled out in 30 European countries next month, but not worldwide.
The browser choice screen was preferred over Microsoft's earlier decision to ship boxed copies of Windows 7 without a browser at all.
In a bog post, Dave Heiner, Microsoft's Deputy General Counsel, said: "Internal testing of the choice screen is underway now. We'll begin a limited roll-out externally next week, and expect that a full scale roll-out will begin around March 1, a couple of weeks ahead of schedule."
Under the scheme, Microsoft's automated Windows Update service will present users with a screen showing a range of browsers, with the top five presented in random order. Users will be able to click a button to install whichever browser they like, or ask for more information from the browser's provider.
The selection may change if there are changes in market share.
The EU case was kicked off by complaints from Opera, which is based in Norway. Opera has been markedly less successful than Firefox at getting users to adopt its desktop browser. According to usage-based statistics from Statcounter, Microsoft's IE has a 45.4% market share in Europe, followed by Mozilla Firefox (39.3%), Google Chrome (6.4%), Opera (4.3%), and Apple's Safari (3.7%).
It's not clear how much difference the browser choice screen will make. A large proportion of Microsoft's browser users -- especially in large companies and government organisations -- are still on IE6, the out-of-date version that shipped with Windows XP in 2001. They have already declined to upgrade to IE7 and the current version, IE8, which is far more secure and also more in line with Internet standards.
Many large organisations have applications that may use IE6 features not provided in other browsers, and they would have to test them to make sure they continue to work even if they upgraded to IE7 or IE8. The cost of testing and perhaps rewriting apps means they are not prime candidates for a non-Microsoft browser.
If IE6 users are removed from Statcounter's statistics, then Firefox is already level with Internet Explorer (within 0.1%) in Europe, and the figures show that IE is in long-term decline. In fact, ordinary Windows users have always been able to download alternative browsers, and they have demonstrably been adopting Firefox for the past several years, with no help from the EU.
Although Opera may gain market share from being included in Microsoft's "browser ballot", it is still not competing on a completely level playing field. For example, Apple does not offer Opera to Mac users (it bundles Safari with its proprietary Mac OS X), and Google -- which has a monopoly market share in web search -- does not promote Opera alongside its own Chrome browse