3 news Items on 08-Jul-2008

Three news items that caught my attention today are:

(1) ICICI bank introduces online savings account
Now you dont need a bank to have your savings account. ICICI bank introduces an online savings account which you maintain online. You will do all transactions from this account online. You can use this account to pay your bills online. It also plans to introduce virtual credit cards !!! (probably you will be given just the card number and pin and you use it for online purchases)

(2) Toyota Prius will have solar powered AC system from next year
Toyota's much talked about hybrid car prius will have one more addition next year. Its Air-conditioning system will run on Solar power. Toyota plans to put solar cells on the roof of the car (I am not sure how it would look though !).
I think its a good idea. We all know that solar power alone cannot run a car. But probably some components of the car can be made to run on solar power, the way Toyota has thought about.

(3) Indian Railways is testing 20% biodiesel (made from jathropa) fuel
I did some googling and found out that this is news is a very old news. Indian railways and IOC had signed an agreement way back in 2003 to start cultivating jathropa plants to extract biodiesel. you can go through the following article:

http://pib.nic.in/archieve/lreleng/ lyr2003/rfeb2003/12022003/r120220033.html

Probably the new gained some footage because of the rising fuel costs.