Gartner has revised its outlook for worldwide IT spending this year, predicting the industry as a whole will see 4.6 percent growth to $3.4 trillion, up from its previous prediction of 3.3 percent growth, according to its latest figures released Thursday.

That figure contrasts with 2009, when spending fell 4.6 percent. Gartner revised its forecast upward to account for an expected weakening of the U.S. dollar.

Spending is also expected to increase due to the increasing confidence of CEOs and CFOs as economic conditions gradually improve, said Richard Gordon, a research vice president with Gartner, in avideo.

Emerging markets will see the strongest gains. Gartner predicts that spending will increase 9.3 percent in Latin America, 7.7 percent in the Middle East and Africa and 7 percent in the Asia-Pacific region.

Due to the recession, the U.S. is expected to post only 2.5 percent growth, with Japan just 1.8 percent. In a bright spot outside of emerging markets, Gartner expects Western Europe to come in at 5.2 percent growth.

On the consumer side, confidence appears to be more fragile, Gordon said. “We think consumers are a bit nervous about job prospects,” Gordon said.

The recovery from the recession will take between 12 to 18 months. The availability of credit should increase, which will help increase spending, and companies may look to make more hardware investments during the second half of this year, Gordon said.

The IT budgets will essentially be flat this year across the globe compared to last year when it declined by 8.1 per cent, says an industry survey.

According to a Gartner-EXP Worldwide Survey of global chief information officers (CIOs), the IT budgets are expected to witness a marginal increase in global average of 1.3 per cent compared to 2009, which saw the IT budgets declining by 8.1 per cent.

“The year 2009 was the most challenging for CIOs in the corporate and public sectors as they faced multiple budget cuts, delayed spending and increased demand for services with reduced resources,” Gartner EXP group vice-president and research head Mark McDonald said today, releasing the report.

This is set to change in 2010, as the economies recover from recession and enterprises transition their strategies from cost-cutting efficiency to value-creating productivity, he added.

The survey includes responses from 1,586 CIOs representing over USD 126 billion in corporate and public sector IT spends across 41 countries and 27 industries.

McDonald said while technologies are transitioning from ‘heavy’ owner-operated solutions to a ‘lighter-weight’ services model, the CIOs are, in turn, transitioning IT beyond merely managing resources to taking responsibility for managing results.

“The CIOs see 2010 as an opportunity to accelerate the transition of IT from a support function to strategic contributor focused on innovation and competitive advantage,” Gartner group vice-president McDonald said.

According to the survey, business process improvement and reducing enterprise costs are top two business priorities for the CIOs, while virtualisation and cloud-computing emerged as the top two technology priorities.

“These technologies, implemented properly, create the opportunity for IT to change its role and the operational performance of the enterprise,” McDonald said.

The data were collected in the fourth quarter of 2009 and provides a snapshot of the CIO plans, priorities and budgets for 2010 as they stood at the end of the fourth quarter of 2009, Gartner said.

Trying to make Yahoo Mail more interactive, give users a social experience and stay with the people they care about most, Yahoo plans to integrate with Facebook and Twitter by 2010 end.

Silicon India on Monday, quoted the Senior Vice President, Consumer Products, Yahoo, Bryan Lamkin, as saying that, “With the integration of Yahoo and Facebook, we can enable users to share meaningful content with their friends.”

Yahoo’s Facebook Connect integration will give consumers richer experiences on Yahoo!, including in Yahoo! Mail and on properties like Yahoo News, Yahoo Sports, and Yahoo Finance.

It would allow them to connect with Facebook friends on Yahoo, view a feed of their friends’ related activity on Yahoo, and share content – such as photos from Flickr or comments on news stories, with all of their friends on Facebook, Yahoo said, adding that the content that consumers share with Facebook friends would then create a loop that drives visitors back to Yahoo.

It is being speculated that the partnership will not only help Yahoo users, but would also allow Facebook users to access their stream and update their status from the Yahoo homepage, provides ‘Share on Facebook’ options across the Yahoo network, and allow Facebook to access Yahoo Contacts.

People who use Yahoo and Facebook, according to Yahoo, would soon be able to share updates across both networks, creating a richer and more relevant social experience by connecting the broad range of Yahoo content and services with their friends on Facebook.

Yahoo is also trying to make mail more secure, safe and personal by blocking 300 billion spam messages every month.

Besides Friday’s solar eclipse, three more eclipses will occur during 2010.

According to A B G Siddharth, Director, Birla Science Centre here, there will be partial eclipse of the moon on June 26 followed by a total solar eclipse on July 11, this year. The solar eclipse, however, will not be visible in India.

The last eclipse during the year will be on December 21, a total lunar eclipse, which will also be visible from India.

In any given year there are a minimum of two eclipses.

This year, there are in all four eclipses.

Friday’s eclipse will begin at 11.30 am and cover 77 per cent of the sun at 1.32 pm. It will be over by 3.15 pm.

Inclement weather is likely to play spoilsport.

While in Hyderabad, the eclipse will be partial as it covers 77 per cent of the sun, it will be annular at the extreme tip of south near Kanyakumari where one can see the peripheral ring with the sun being covered 92 per cent and a ring like formation will appear.

Siddharth cautioned the people that the eclipse should not be seen with X-ray films or through smoked glasses or photographic films but should be seen only through certified solar eclipse special goggles or certified solar filters.

Once in a blue moon is not a mere idiom in the English language. It holds celestial significance too. This New Year’s eve the sky will have a blue moon. Though, not literally. Astro-expert with the Indira Gandhi Planetarium, Anil Yadav, terms it’s a celestial phenomenon. “This should not prompt one to look for a blue coloured ball in the sky. A blue moon is a thing of folk lore,” he said. Instead, blue moon refers to when there are two full moons in a calendar month, informed Yadav.

Notably, most calendar months see just one full moon. The 29.5 day cadence of the lunar cycle matches up almost perfectly with the 28 to 31 day length of calendar months. Sometimes, however, the one-to-one correspondence breaks resulting in two full moon days in a month. December month of the current year is such a month. The first full moon in December appeared on 2nd while the second will appear in the sky on Thursday.

But this blue moon is rare because it will have an eclipse, an event that has not occurred in the last 5-6 decades. Yadav informed that a lunar eclipse occurs whenever the moon passes through some portion of the earth’s shadow. This can occur only when the sun, earth and moon are aligned exactly or very closely aligned with earth in the middle. Lunar eclipse occurs only on a full moon day. The shadow of the earth can be divided into umbra and penumbra. Within umbra there is no direct solar radiation. However, as a result of the sun’s large angular size, solar illumination is only partially blocked in the outer portion of the earth’s shadow, which is given the name penumbra. There are several types of lunar eclipses.

Now, what makes this eclipse special is that this blue moon will rise on the New Year’s eve. Interestingly, the lunar eclipse will begin when the New Year festivity will be at its peak and continue till 2010 sets in, giving astronomers a unique opportunity to study the phenomenon. Data reveals that such a phenomenon did not occur in the 20th and not witnessed so far in the 21st century as well. This celestial rarity will be witnessed on the New Year’ eve again only in 2028 and 2066.

“The eclipse is partial and will begin at 10.45pm on Thursday and continue till 2.59am on Friday, the first day of 2010. Another interesting fact is that the eclipse is occurring on a full moon day. The eclipse would be visible from naked eye and India is one of the best places to see it,” said Yadav.