No extra cash' for UK economy, Bank of England chief warns

Gordon Brown has little or no scope to pour extra cash into the stricken economy, the Bank of England Governor has said in an unusual intervention on the state of the public finances.

Mervyn King used an appearance at the Treasury Select Committee to warn the Government of the dangers of borrowing any more to bring the recession to an end. In comments which will increase the speculation that the Chancellor will not embark on an American-style economic bail-out at the Budget next month, Mr King said Alistair Darling must keep spending under control.

"I'm sure the government will want to be cautious in this respect," he said. "There is no doubt we are facing very large fiscal deficits over the next two to three years.

"Given how big those deficits are, I think it would be sensible to be cautious about going further in using discretionary measures to expand the size of those deficits.

"The level of the fiscal position in the UK is not one that would say: 'Well, why don't we just engage in another significant round of fiscal expansion?'"

The warning amounts to the Governor's most forceful language yet on the dangers facing the public finances. It comes only days after the International Monetary Fund warned that Britain is facing the biggest government deficit in the western world, even before it has pledged any extra cash to be spent on the recession.

The Fund warned that even before it has committed to extra "fiscal stimulus" such as tax cuts or spending increases, the Government is facing an unprecedented budget shortfall because the recession is eating into its tax revenues and increasing the amount it has to spend on unemployment benefits for laid-off workers. The cost of these so-called automatic stabilisers is likely to be even greater than the £20bn spent by Alistair Darling at the pre-Budget report in November on cutting VAT for a year.

Business lobby group the CBI warned this week that Mr Darling should not spend extra cash at the Budget.

However, the Prime Minister is thought to be investigating plans to use the Budget next month to borrow even more and boost the economy with a set of measures including tax cuts and spending increases. Some suspect his plan is to use the Budget to help boost his popularity ahead of the anticipated 2010 general election. With the G20 meeting of world leaders likely next week to recommend that governments do everything in their power to boost their growth, many claim the temptation to do so will be difficult for Mr Brown to resist.

Shadow Chancellor, George Osborne, said: "This is hugely significant, as it completely vindicates the big decision taken by David Cameron and myself on the economy, and it leaves Gordon Brown's political plans for the G20 and the Budget in tatters. It is the Prime Minister who is now isolated at home and abroad."

After the hearing at the House of Commons, Mr King visited Buckingham Palace, at the Queen's invitation, for a private audience. It was the first such audience with a Bank of England Governor in her reign.

Free Utilities to Speed Up and Tweak Your PC

You have a good system, but you can always improve a PC's performance.

We've come up with six free utilities that will fix your Registry, power up your Windows Clipboard, record any action taken on your screen and turn it into video, and manage and defrag your hard drive.

BEST BET Advanced SystemCare Free: This download can speed up your system by fixing your Registry, removing spyware and junk files, killing unnecessary programs that run on startup, and more. It even offers a one-click option that automatically finds all problems and fixes them. (This program also installs the Yahoo Toolbar by default, so if you don't want that, uncheck the appropriate box during the installation process.)

Clipboard Help and Spell: Windows' Clipboard is anemic, nearly useless, and brain-dead. Power it up with Clipboard Help and Spell, which keeps a list of the text items you copy to it so that you can retrieve them later. This download also checks spelling, and lets you organize your clips in folders.

Defraggler: Not happy with the defragmentation utility that came with Windows? Neither are we. Defraggler is better than Windows' own defragment utility in several ways. First off, this download scans your disk faster, which anyone with a large hard disk will certainly welcome. In addition, it can defragment individual files instead of your entire hard disk, and it's more entertaining to watch than the built-in utility.

Drive Manager: If you have multiple drives on your PC, including removable USB thumbdrives, various media card readers, CD and DVD drives, and network drives, life is complicated. This simple download cleans things up. It quickly identifies all of your drives, and shows you the type of each. You can also see at a glance the capacity of each, how much of each is used, and other vital information. If you have any SMART-enabled drives, you can peer deeply into them, seeing their temperature, model and serial number, and other details.

Recuva: Have you accidentally deleted a file, removed it from the Recycle Bin, and then realized you actually wanted to keep it? Despair not--this download will do its best to help you recover the file. The app scans your system for files that have been deleted, lists whatever it finds, and shows you the likelihood that you can recover it. Simply select the files you want to recover, and the software does the rest. (Recuva installs the Yahoo Toolbar by default, so if you don't want that, uncheck the appropriate box during the installation process.)

ScreenToaster: If you need to record what happens on your screen for any reason--to show how an application works, for example--try this simple-to-use Web service. Head to the site and press Alt-S, and it records every action you take. Press Alt-S again, and it stops. You can edit what you record, including adding titles and audio. You can then upload your video to the ScreenToaster site or to YouTube, or download it to your PC.

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NASA, Microsoft To Make Planetary Images Available Online!

Exciting new images of the moon and Mars from NASA’s orbiting observatories will enable users to explore the universe through the Microsoft Worldwide Telescope.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009: NASA and Microsoft have revealed plans to make planetary images and data available via the Internet under a Space Act Agreement. Through this project, NASA and Microsoft will jointly develop the technology and infrastructure necessary to make the most interesting NASA content — including high-resolution scientific images and data from Mars and the moon — explorable on Worldwide Telescope, Microsoft’s online virtual telescope for exploring the universe.
Under the joint agreement, NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, will process and host more than 100 terabytes, or 20,000 DVDs of data. WorldWide Telescope will incorporate the data later in 2009 and feature imagery from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

Launched in August 2005, MRO has been examining Mars with a high-resolution camera and five other instruments since 2006 and has returned more data than all other Mars missions combined.

“Making NASA’s scientific and astronomical data more accessible to the public is a high priority for NASA, especially given the new administration’s recent emphasis on open government and transparency,” said Ed Weiler, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

“This collaboration between Microsoft and NASA will enable people around the world to explore new images of the moon and Mars in a rich, interactive environment through the WorldWide Telescope,” said Tony Hey, corporate vice president, Microsoft External Research. “WorldWide Telescope serves as a powerful tool for computer science researchers, educators and students to explore space and experience the excitement of computer science.”

Also available will be images from a camera aboard NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). Scheduled to launch this May, LRO will spend at least a year in a low, polar orbit approximately 30 miles above the lunar surface collecting detailed information about the lunar environment.

“NASA is excited to collaborate with Microsoft to share its portfolio of planetary images with students and lifelong learners,” said S. Pete Worden, director, Ames. “This is a compelling astronomical resource and will help inspire our next generation of astronomers.”

This agreement builds on a prior collaboration with Microsoft that enabled NASA to develop 3-D interactive Microsoft Photosynth collections of the space shuttle launch pad and other facilities at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center last year. The images featured on Microsoft’s WorldWide Telescope will supplement existing imagery and data available on NASA’s website, the Planetary Data System and other sources.

To further integrate the planetary data into WorldWide Telescope, Ames is developing a suite of planetary data processing tools. These software tools convert historic and current space imagery data into a variety of formats and images of the moon, Mars and other planetary bodies readily available for easy browsing and use by the general public, enabling the creation of enhanced educational tools for students and teachers.

“NASA has a wealth of images and data, from the Apollo and Lunar Orbiter missions to Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and the Mercury Messenger flybys,” said Chris C. Kemp, chief information officer, NASA Ames. “This collaboration makes it possible for NASA to leverage exciting new Microsoft technologies to make NASA’s data — and America’s space programme — more accessible to the public.”