IranMap

Officials from Iran National Museum are in talks with their counterparts from the British Museum to borrow the famous Charter of the Cyrus the Great for a few months to put it on public display at home. Deputy chairman of Iran Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization Hamid Baqaee, told IRNA in London that Tehran was to transfer the baked-clay cylinder to Iran after finalizing the ongoing talks with the British Museum where is the house of the charter which is considered as the first human rights declaration.

The charter of Cyrus the Great, the Persian King of 539 B.C. is a baked-clay Aryan language (Old Persian) cuneiform cylinder that was discovered in 1878 in an excavation operation in the site of Babylon. The Persian King described in the charter his humane treatment of the inhabitants of Babylonia after its conquest by the Iranians.

The document has been hailed as the first charter of human rights, and in 1971 the United Nations published a translation of it in all the UN official languages. The cylinder is currently housed in the British Museum and a replica of it is being kept at the United Nations headquarters in New York City.

In parts of the declaration, Cyrus had said, “Until I am alive, I prevent unpaid, forced labor. To day, I announce that everyone is free to choose a religion. People are free to live in all regions and take up a job provided that they never violate others rights.”

“Cultural ties would help promote social relations among nations,” Baqaee said, adding that growing cultural relations would influence nations political and economic ties as well “although cultural issues are different from political affairs.” Baqaee is in London for the inauguration of an exhibition on Iran’s arts and culture during the Safavid era (1501-1732). The exhibition was inaugurated a couple of days ago at the British Museum and would continue for four months.

Scores of artworks including paintings, calligraphy, China dishes, textiles and handwritten Qurans from the Safavid era were collected from 30 museums worldwide and put on display at the exhibition.

Garmin has introduced a navigation device; the Garmin Nuvi 750 GPS System that includes many entertainment and travel tools.

Garmin Nuvi 750 In-Car GPS System comes with a dimension of 12.2 x 7.6 x 2.0 cm and a weight of 176 grams. The device comes with a touch screen display with a size of 4.3-inches and a screen resolution of 480×272 pixels. The screen provides both day and night views. A rechargeable lithium ion battery powers this device. The battery life is around 5 hours. This sat nav has an internal antenna that is integrated with a high sensitivity GPS receiver. Although it has an internal solid state memory; SD cards can be used to increase the memory capacity.

Garmin Nuvi 750 GPS System comes with a preloaded basemap. It provides the ability to add personal additional maps. The device has an internal speaker that provides you with timely voice prompts. It can even speak out the street names loud and clear. It automatically sorts out the route and provides you with the most efficient and direct path leading towards the destination. In case you get diverted away from the scheduled route, this sat nav immediately gets you back on the same route. You can be provided with real time traffic updates owing to FM traffic compatibility. It also alerts you in case you exceed the specified speed limit of that region. This prevents you from getting pulled over for speed related issues. Garmin has inculcated the “Where Am I” function in the Garmin Nuvi 750 Portable GPS System; which can provides information regarding the closest hospital, gas station, hotels etc. Although the device has various points of interest preloaded, it does provide an option to add extra user preferred POIs.

The Garmin Nuvi 750 GPS System comes with an in-built MP3 and audio book player along with a picture viewer and FM transmitter. It includes Garmin’s anti-theft technology, that can track your sat nav in case it is stolen. This device brings along a preloaded City Navigator software for Europe, a vehicle suction cup mount, a vehicle power cable, a USB cable, a dashboard disc and an instruction manual.

Microsoft Corp. yesterday filed a patent infringement action against TomTom NV and Tom Tom, Inc. (the U.S. subsidiary of the Dutch company), in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington and in the International Trade Commission (ITC). Microsoft is seeking damage relief for eight patents, five are specifically about portable navigation devices, while the remaining three cover file management techniques.

Microsoft issued the following statement from Horacio Gutierrez, corporate vice president and deputy general counsel of Intellectual Property and Licensing: “Microsoft has filed an action today in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington and in the International Trade Commission (ITC), against TomTom NV and TomTom Inc. for infringement of Microsoft patents. We have taken this action after attempting for more than a year to engage in licensing discussions with TomTom. “

“We have an established intellectual property licensing program, and the patents involved in this case, relating to innovations in car navigation technology and other computing functionality, have been licensed by many others. In situations such as this, when a reasonable business agreement cannot be reached, we have no choice but to pursue legal action to protect our innovations and our partners who license them. Other companies that utilize Microsoft patents have licensed and we are asking TomTom to do the same.

“TomTom is a highly respected and important company. We remain open to quickly resolving this situation with them through an IP licensing agreement.”