Canada Post is planning to cancel home delivery to nearly half of its customers along some rural routes in Quebec’s Eastern Townships because of road safety concerns.

The postal agency is evaluating the safety of mail routes across Canada, after three carriers died and 37 were injured while making deliveries since 2005.

Nearly 40 per cent of the routes examined in the Eastern Townships have failed the safety evaluation, because they present a hazard to carriers forced to stop on winding roads with high speed limits.

“Sometimes, because the shoulder is very narrow, [the carrier] has to stop on the road,” and that’s risky, said Canada Post spokeswoman Line Brien.

Community postboxes will replace individual deliveries on routes that failed to make the grade, Brien said.

The decision has angered many residents in the area.

“I don’t think it’s necessary,” said Alcide Hartly, who lives in Stanstead. “What with the taxes that we pay now, I think your mail should be left in front of your house, like it always have been, instead of you having to drive to town or way off somewhere to get your mail. You should cut the taxes down but they never will.”

Canada Post estimates it will cost about $500 million over the next three years to inspect all rural mailboxes in Canada.

About843,000 Canadian residential addresses are served by rural mailboxes, Canada Post says on its website. Of the 14 million places where Canada Post delivers across the country, ruralmailboxes representabout six per cent.

NEW YORK: Even elite U.S. universities do not provide the technical training needed for the kind of computing Google is famous for, computer scientists say.

So Google and International Business Machines are announcing Monday a major research initiative to address that shortcoming. The two companies are investing to build large data centers that students can tap into over the Internet to program and research remotely, which is called “cloud computing.”

Both companies have a deep business interest in this new model in which computing chores increasingly move off individual desktops and out of corporate computer centers to be delivered as services over the Internet.

Google, the Internet search giant, is the leader in this technology. But companies like Yahoo, Amazon, eBay and Microsoft have built Internet consumer services like search, social networking, Web e-mail and online commerce that use cloud computing. In the corporate market, IBM and others have built Internet services to predict market trends, tailor pricing and optimize procurement and manufacturing.

Behind these services are data centers that typically use thousands of processors, store libraries of data and engage specialized software to tackle what scientists call Internet-scale computing challenges. This new kind of data-intensive supercomputing often involves scouring the Web and other data sources in seconds or minutes for patterns and insights. This round of innovation has been led by corporations, but industry executives and computer scientists say a shortage of skills and talent could limit future growth.

“We in academia and the government labs have not kept up with the times,” said Randal Bryant, dean of the computer science school at Carnegie Mellon University. “Universities really need to get on board.”

Six universities will be involved in the initiative. They are Carnegie Mellon, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Maryland and the University of Washington. Google is building a data center, at an undisclosed location, that will contain more than 1,600 processors by the end of the year. IBM is also dedicating data center resources to the project.

The data centers being built have a small fraction of the computing firepower behind Googles Internet search service. But they will be big enough, scientists say, to do ambitious Internet research. Setting up and running such centers, including providing the electricity and technical staff, is difficult and expensive. The two companies, a person who was told of their plans said, have committed a total of $30 million over two years for the project.

“This is a huge contribution because it allows for a type of education and research that we cant do today,” said Edward Lazowska, a computer science professor at the University of Washington.

The companies and academics long-term goal is to expand the data-center clusters so students from many schools can participate and to enlist the support of other companies and the U.S. government. The collaboration began after a meeting in December between Eric Schmidt, chief executive of Google, and Samuel Palmisano, chief executive of IBM, at Googles headquarters in Mountain View, California.

Vocus, Inc., a leading provider of on-demand software for public relations management, announced today that it will provide a live web cast of its analyst day meeting on Tuesday, December 4, 2007, from approximately 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. ET from its headquarters in Lanham, Maryland.

Lanham, MD («www.vocus.com» ) November 30, 2007 — Vocus, Inc., (NASDAQ: VOCS) a leading provider of on-demand software for public relations management, announced today that it will provide a live web cast of its analyst day meeting on Tuesday, December 4, 2007, from approximately 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. ET from its headquarters in Lanham, Maryland.

This invitation-only event will include presentations from select Vocus customers and company executives including Rick Rudman, president and chief executive officer, and Steve Vintz, chief financial officer.

Investors may listen to a live web cast of the event on the Companys investor relations website at «onlinepressroom.net» A replay of the web cast will be available approximately two hours after the conclusion of the event and will remain available for 30 calendar days following the conference call.

About Vocus, Inc.:
Vocus, Inc. (NASDAQ: VOCS) is a leading provider of on-demand software for public relations management. Our web-based software suite helps organizations of all sizes to fundamentally change the way they communicate with both the media and the public, optimizing their public relations and increasing their ability to measure its impact. Our on-demand software addresses the critical functions of public relations including media relations, news distribution and news monitoring. We deliver our solutions over the Internet using a secure, scalable application and system architecture, which allows our customers to eliminate expensive up-front hardware and software costs and to quickly deploy and adopt our on-demand software. Vocus is used by more than 2,200 organizations worldwide and is available in five languages. Vocus is based in Lanham, MD with offices in North America, Europe, and Asia. For more information please visit «www.vocus.com» or call 800.345.5572.

This release contains “forward-looking” statements that are made pursuant to the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Statements that are predictive in nature, that depend upon or refer to future events or conditions, or that include words such as “may,” “will,” “expects,” “projects,” “anticipates,” “estimates,” “believes,” “intends,” “plans,” “should,” “seeks,” and similar expressions. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that may cause actual future results to differ materially from those projected or contemplated in the forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements may be significantly impacted by certain risks and uncertainties described in Vocus filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

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For the past year, global networking sites have been growing in popularity among young Indians. According to JuxtConsult, a New Delhi-based online research and advisory company, 44% of Indian online traffic uses the Internet just for social networking. Google’s («www.businessweek.com») Orkut is the most popular social networking site in India, with a 64% market share. «investing.businessweek.com» is also winning many Indian fans, especially students.

But in the last six months, a plethora of local sites has emerged to compete with the Americans. Today, there are more than a dozen India-based and focused social networking sites with colorful Hindi names that are synonyms for community (bigadda.com) and friends (yaari.com). “I guess it’s a cool thing to do,” says Praveen Gandhi, managing partner of Seed Fund India, an early stage Mumbai venture capital fund. He claims in the last year he’s had fund requests from over 50 entrepreneurs wanting to set up social networking sites locally.

India is as hooked on social networking as any other country. Part of the reason is easier broadband connectivity. A 2007 report by the software industry association group Nasscom estimates broadband subscribers—currently 1 million—will hit 20 million in three years. By 2010, the total number of Internet users in India will grow to 100 million, from 40 million now. This will surely enhance virtual hangout plays like the social networking sites.

Another big reason for the rise of social networking sites is simply the size of India’s younger generation—54% of India is under the age of 20. That’s nearly 540 million, the largest such community in the world, according to the National Council for Applied Economic Research, India. And they all want to connect to each other. Big Players Enter the Ring

Some of the new Indian networking sites that have cropped up in the last nine months include Desimartini.com, Minglebox.com, Indyarocks.com, and Bigadda.com. Their promoters vary from first-time entrepreneurs to large corporations. Some are self-funded, while others have professional venture capital investment. Minglebox connects students and others in schools, universities, and the workplace while Bigadda is a product of Anil Ambani’s Reliance Entertainment, a subsidiary of «investing.businessweek.com». As for their appeal, most of the sites are quite similar—offering music, video, photos, blogs, and chats. Says Seed Fund’s Gandhi: “The Indian sites have nothing unique which will take people away from Orkut or Facebook.”

But what has Indian entrepreneurs enthusiastic is the recent entry of big players. Last year, when Vivek Pahwa, 26, a graduate of the prestigious Indian Business School in Hyderabad, decided to “do something” in the Internet consumer space, he borrowed $76,000 from his dad to set up Desimartini.com (Indian Martini), with the idea of making it like Orkut. Ten months later, when he missed his target of 1 million registered subscribers, he sold it.

On Nov. 20, one of India’s largest publishing houses—«investing.businessweek.com»—purchased Desimartini for an estimated $10 million, even though Desimartini has just 2.5 million monthly hits and 250,000 subscribers. Now Hindustan Times plans to use it to enter the growing online gaming business and sell classified ads for jobs, real estate, personals, and auto sales, an area currently dominated by newspapers and magazines. Minglebox on Campus

Pahwa, meanwhile, is investing his jackpot in other sites. In June, he set up Secondshaadi.com (second marriage), a matrimonial site for second marriages because, he says, “divorce rates are increasing in India.” He’s also funding a soon-to-be-launched India-focused search engine, Antya.com (the end).

The Canadian dollar briefly slipped below par with the U.S. dollar Friday for the second timein three days asGDP growth slowed and oil prices fell.

The loonie traded as low as 99.88 cents US in morning trading, downtwo-fifths of a cent from Thursday’s close.

The looniehad also slipped below parity with the U.S. greenback on Tuesday before regaining strength.

GDP figures for Canada showed growth in the third quarter slowed to 2.9 per cent from 3.8 per cent in Q2. But that was still better than analysts had expected.

Analysts said lower oil prices were also behind some of Friday’s drop. Crude oil futures fell below $90 US a barrel for the first time in a month on fears that the U.S. economy would slow.

Oil was quoted at $88.90 US a barrel in morning trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, down $2.11 US.

The loonie is still up almost 17 per cent this year against the U.S. dollar. It peaked at just over $1.10 US on Nov. 7 before beginning a steady slide as market sentiment toward the Canadian dollar became morenegative.