BlackBerry's PlayBook to take on Apple's iPad

Toronto/San Francisco: Can-adian wireless giant Research in Motion (RIM), the maker of the BlackBerry, on Monday unveiled its tablet computer called PlayBook to take on Apple's iPad. Targeted mostly at business people (like its BlackBerry smartphone), the PlayBook is half the size of the iPad. Weighing the same as the iPad, it is 9.77 mm thick.

Google defames French user by linking his name to rape searches

A French computer user has accused Google of defaming him after the Internet technology giant linked his name to the word 'rapist' in web searches. Court documents said the function, which suggests options and phrases as a user types, linked the man's identity to words including "rapist", 'satanist', 'rape,' and 'prison'. In a turning-point decision, the superior court of Paris found Google guilty of the "public slandering of a private individual".

Facebook vs Google is about a showdown of paradigm

Corporate rivalries often revolve on little differences. Take Coca Cola and Pepsi's decades-long battle — whose product is really the real thing? That's what makes the rivalry between Facebook and Google at times seem a strange one, because the two companies are so, well, different. But the internet is a crowded place and, stripping away the interfaces, there is one, principle product the two companies are hawking — information — with its inevitable sidekick, advertising. Once thought to be Google's domain, through its rapid growth Facebook has, by accident or design, infiltrated the field. The boom of Facebook's Like function, reported in The Financial Times on Wednesday, is a clear example of just how this is happening.

Second worm attack on Twitter web site in a week

New York: Micro-blogging site Twitter suffered a second worm attack in a week. But it put a stop to the worm that posted obscene messages to victims' tweets. Users whose accounts got infected with the worm would see a message posted that read in part "WTF:" followed by a URL. If someone clicked on the link, his or her profile would also be hijacked. The same link would be reposted, increasing the chance that one of the user's followers would click on it and spread the worm.

Bye-bye pen & paper, hello online tests

Thane school introduces web-based exams, happy with results

The pen and paper format in class tests may soon be passé. Providing a glimpse into the future to its students, a school in Thane discarded temporarily the old way of writing papers and conducted unit tests for the standard XII science papers online. The move seems apt at a time when competitive examinations for professional courses like the Common Admission Test (CAT) are shifting to the online mode. Smt Sulochanadevi Singhania School wanted its students to have a feel of the system. Though the number of questions was the same, their order was re-jigged to stop students from peeping into each other's computers. The software for the test, developed in-house, was programmed to deliver the scores immediately. "The software pointed out their mistakes to the students and provided the correct answer with an explanation. The papers carried multiple-choice questions, which is the format of the papers set in entrance exams," said Revathi Srinivasan, the principal of the school. The school plans to extend online tests to other senior classes as well. "We have initially started it only for science subjects; we are going to develop the software in phases to accommodate language papers as well. We also plan to introduce subjective questions in the later stages," added Srinivasan.

US to make wiretapping web easier

Seeks Sweeping Regulations To Help Track Criminal Suspects On Internet

Washington: Federal law enforcement and national security officials are preparing to seek sweeping new regulations for the internet, arguing that their ability to wiretap criminal and terrorism suspects is “going dark” as people increasingly communicate online instead of by telephone. 

Facebook’s appi fizz

If you thought that Facebook was just a network for keeping in touch with your friends, think again. The social networking service also boasts a number of applications, ranging from the mundane to the highly useful

 Mention Facebook applications to most people, and there is a fair chance that they will think that you are talking about popular games such as Farmville or Mafia Wars. However, lurking beneath the surface of one of the world’s most popular social networking sites is a whole host of applications that will not only let you have fun, but will also allow you to perform a number of useful tasks…

Chinese hack UPSC website

Bangalore: After an attempt to enter a defence proc u re m e n t website, Chinese hackers have now targeted the Union Public Service Commission site. While the hacker gave a link to a tractor-manufacturing company in China, other links appear to be downright dangerous. 

Google puts $10 mn into ideas that can change the world

San Francisco: Google on Friday named five groups that will be sharing $10 million that the Internet powerhouse is investing in ideas that promise to change the world. More than 150,000 ideas from 170 countries were submitted to 'Project 10-to-the-one-hundredth' launched two years ago, Google vice-president (marketing) Lorraine Twohill said in a blog post announcing the results. Google whittled the selection down to 16 'big ideas' and the public got to vote online to determine the five that would be backed by the Mountain View, California-based firm. The non-profit Khan Academy will get $2 mn to bolster its free online library of educational videos and translate core works into the world's most widely spoken languages. The African Institute for Mathematical Sciences in Cape Town will get $2 mn to open more centres to promote graduate-level math and science study on that continent.

Virtual world is a real threat to children

If your young child or teenage kid is showing signs of being a loner,your broadband Internet connection may have something to do with it.

Excessive use of the Internet maybe exposing children in between eight and 18 years to risks such as social isolation, insomnia and obesity, says a survey by industry chamber Assoc ham.

New media: As important as the A minor chord

For indie artists, being online is no longer about having just a MySpace profile page. It's about connecting with fans which helps them score gigs as well as sell their music online. R Krishna reports

Singer Shibani Kashyap's video from her debut album, Ho Gayi Hai Mohabbat, was a hit on music channels and would be aired several times a day. This was 1998; for Kashyap and other non-Bollywood singers, music videos were the best way to get word about your album out, which in turn would drive album sales. Today, reality shows have edged out music in terms of air time. And Bollywood gets priority over every other kind of music (according to experts any non-Bollywood music is considered 'indie' in India). In a move that symbolised the change, MTV dropped the words 'Music Television' from the baseline of its logo late last year.

The Welsh team are so happy with their accommodation that they have even posted pictures of it on Facebook.

While the first athletes only arrive on Saturday, up to eight members of the scouting party have been in Delhi for over a week making sure the accommodation was in a fit condition for the arriving sports persons.

Facebook back up after worst glitch in 4 years

Berlin: Facebook was back up and running Friday after being offline for about two and a half hours late on Thursday and early Friday, the "worst outage we've had in over four years", a company programmer reported on his blog. The company said the shutdown of the popular social networking site, where users can share their thoughts and pictures and play games with other member, was due to an error in an automated system. It cut off service in the US, Europe and South America.

'Planned attack on Tata Indicom website'

Hackers wanted access to user database of Tata Indicom, which is also an internet service provider

The official website of telecom giant Tata Indicom was hacked on Thursday evening. Immediately thereafter, www.tataindicom.com became inaccessible and it was brought down for repair. The hackers, who identified themselves as 'Anarchy cr3w — Kurdish hackers' had put a disfigured Tricolour with a golden star in its centre on the homepage. They also uploaded some text in a foreign language.

CONNECTING PEOPLE

NAVI MUMBAIKARS MAKE A MARK ON THE INTERNET The online social networking bug has caught on the citizens here in a big way. Hordes of people are joining social networking websites to make new friends and keep in touch with old ones. Not only that, they are also joining or creating communities that are related to Navi Mumbai and its different nodes, in some or other way, on these sites. These sites offer interesting information about the communities related to the satellite city. There are hundreds of such communities flooding the sites as also thousands of patrons. “There are communities and groups for dating singles, schools, college campuses, cars, bikes, religious and linguistic communities, sport enthusiasts, residential neighbourhoods, gays and lesbians etc. Members discuss topics and share their views on the forums of all these communities. Opinion polls can be conducted in these communities, besides networking with like-minded people for business and hobbies,” shares Devina Sharma, an engineering student from a city college.

YouTube not liable for uploaded videos: Court

YouTube can’t be held responsible for screening images uploaded on its site, a Spanish court said on Thursday, throwing out a case brought by a local TV channel over alleged copyright infringement.

Google, which owns the video-sharing phenomenon YouTube, immediately hailed the decision as a “clear victory for the internet”. Spanish private television channel Telecinco had accused YouTube of violating its intellectual property rights by broadcasting images that belonged to it. An initial ruling in 2008 backed Telecinco but Google challenged that decision and the Madrid court has now reversed the judgment on

appeal. 

Noise pollution levels to be monitored

After air pollution, you will be able to find out the noise pollution level of your residential area in seven cities across India from November.

Pollution watchdog the Central Pollution Control Board is putting up online stations to monitor noise levels round the clock in these cities. “The information will be available to people through our website on real time basis,”said board’s chairman S.P. Gautam.

Search engines to shield netizens from cyber sins

Washington: Seek and ye shall find. A number of new internet search engines created by Christian, Jewish or Muslim entities aim to filter out queries from web users in a way that is more relevant to those users and keeps them from temptation, alcohol and pornography. 

  

“We think that the other search engines are way too ‘main street’ oriented. We wanted to provide a solution to explore the web in a safe environment, where you won’t bump into explicit content or immoral websites, like pornography,” said Reza Sardeha, the Amsterdam-based founder of the Muslim-oriented search engine I’mHalal. 

Public ignorance makes fraudsters’ task simpler

Mumbai: Last March, Dr Yusuf Matcheswalla got a frantic call from a worried friend. The friend had, hours ago, received an SOS email from Matcheswalla’s Gmail account, saying that his wallet had got stolen while on an official trip to South Africa and that he needed money desperately to return home. It also listed a bank account number where the emergency cash had to be transferred. 

The friend replied to the email and received a response within hours. The language of the response,however,was suspicious. The friend called up Matcheswalla, a practising psychiatrist, and what they found shocked both of them: A hacker had breached Matcheswalla’s email account and sent out a fake plea to addresses on his address book. Matcheswalla filed a complaint with the Mumbai police, but the case is yet to be cracked. 

How to tackle the Online CAT-2010

CAT may have gone online, but the key to acing it still lies in preparation

The most pressing question on the minds of student sis ‘How do I tackle the Online CAT?’ However the most obvious thing that one notices in the question is the emphasising ‘Online’aspect more than the one on ‘CAT’. Well the answer to this question is to keep it simple and not to worry about the ‘Online’ form at as much as the ‘content’ofthe paper.The key to doing well on CAT has always been ■ Sound preparation Plenty of practice on mocks simulating all possi■ Getting the basics right ■ abilities ■ Self-belief Sound Preparation encompasses looking at previous questions of CAT and understanding the ‘syllabus’ of CAT. Firstly,one should make a list of all topics/areas on which questions have been asked in Quantitative, Logic& Data Interpretation and the Verbal section. Second, one should then assess whether one is ‘proficient’, ‘average’ or ‘needs improvement’ineachof those areas. The areas that fall in the third category is what one should look at quickly addressing rather than hoping that questions from that area do not come in CAT2010! More often than not one notices that the paper setter sat the IIMs are testing the students on their understanding of basic concepts and this is where ‘Getting the basics right’ plays a role.Often students look for the toughest material to practice without realising that their understanding of concepts as simple as LCM&HCF is not as good as they think it is. CAT has often trapped students with simple and elegant questions that probe into their understanding of the basics.A quick recap of all the chapter sin Quantitative and the concepts involved in each of them would go a long way in rectifying this.

Win-win situation

Campaigns invite children to express their dreams and ideas,win prizes WIN-WIN SITUATION

Google has Launched its second Doodle 4 Google competition in India to celebrate Children’s Day on November 14.This year,the chosen theme is My dream for India in a bid to encourage young doodlers to imagine what India would be like in two decades from now and capture those image sin colour and paper.The competition is open for all children from fiveto16years, across India. The winner will have his doodle featured on Google India’s homepageonChildren’s Day.

Tweet your way to productivity

From security systems that blow the whistle on intruders via tweet to plants that demand water on Twitter, the micro blogging service has evolved into much more than just a waste of time Kavita Kukday-Deb  With more than 55 million tweets a day, many accuse Twitter, the micro blogging site, of being a drain on productivity. But that’s a misconception you had better not encourage. In fact, scores of companies have piggy-backed on the popular communication tool to build some wonderful productivity apps.

Cyber criminals hit Esc key for 10 yrs

Police Have Been Unable To Convict A Single Accused In Cyber Crime Cases In The Last Decade

Mumbai: The plethora of online Nigerian frauds, instances of hacking and obscene text messages might be spiralling endlessly, but the city is yet to see a single conviction in cyber crime cases in the last 10 years.

    

In the last four years alone, more than 110 cases have been registered in Mumbai at the cyber crime police station and with the cyber crime investigation cell under the Information Technology Act. Yet, experts say, because of the police’s inadequacies, none of the cases have been carried through to their logical conclusion.

No Facebook phone

Social networking website Facebook denied an Internet report that it will build its own phone.Ina report on Sunday, the website Tech Crunch.com had said that Facebook wants to integrate deeply into the contacts list and core functions of a mobile phone,which it can only do if it controls the phone’s operating system.
But Jaime Schopflin, a spokesman for Facebook, said the company“is not building aphone”.

IE9 beta: Power-packed, BUT NOT FOR EVERYONE

The most popular browser in the world just got one of its biggest makeovers. We take a closer look at Internet Explorer 9 beta

For most people, surfing the internet has become synonymous with clicking on the ‘e’ icon on their computers to launch Internet Explorer (IE). And while it is by far the most popular browser in the world, of late, IE had seen increasing threat from others such as Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome and Opera that claim to be faster, have more features, and more secure. Microsoft’s answer to all these criticisms has been to unveil a new version of the browser: Internet Explorer 9 (IE9). 

Is blogging, tweeting dignified for judges?

Supreme Court collegium examines if doing so defies the code of conduct for judiciary

Rakesh Bhatnagar NEW DELHI

Judges are famously taciturn. Which is precisely why one clearly remembers when high court (HC) judges — Karnataka judge DV Shylendra Kumar, and Punjab and Haryana judge K Kannan — blogged their views on the judicial disclosure of assets issue. But now, the Supreme Court (SC) collegium is examining whether blogging and tweeting by superior court judges defies the 'reinstatement of values of judicial life'. The 'reinstatement of values' is a document that a majority of SC and HC judges adopted in 1997. In the absence of law governing the conduct of superior court judges, this self-regulated code is expected to be respected. A question was raised in Parliament in August on whether the government was aware that some HC judges blog their views, and whether this was against the code of conduct. And if so, whether preventive measures were being taken to check the "trend". The law ministry despatched the query to the SC.

'YouTube should block Qaeda videos'

London: YouTube has been called on to block thousands of videos by Yemen-based preacher Anwar al-Awlaki, one of the world's most wanted terrorists, which allow him to preach directly, in English, to potential new recruits.  The head of MI5 in a speech last week warned that al-Awlaki was encouraging his followers to act "alone and with little formal training." Awlaki lived in Britain for two years and built up a substantial following that included the July 7, July 21 and trans-Atlantic airlines bombers.

Conspiracy docu on 9/11 attacks will soon be India's first e-film

Over the past few years, budding filmmaker and self-proclaimed social activist, Xahid has been poring over 9/11 literature, news reports and TV clips in order to cull material for his documentary, 9/11 T-error: The Biggest Lie of the Century. Touted as India's first e-film, the 75-minute documentary will only be released over the internet. 

"The film raises uncomfortable questions and accuses the United States of engineering the terror attacks. We figured it would be easier to release it on a website and social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter," said the 33-year-old, who plans to eventually take his documentary to cinema halls. 

Email sent after Delhi firing tracked to Mumbai

The email sent out by Indian Mujaheddin (IM) two hours after motorcycle-borne gunmen fired at a Taiwanese film making crew outside the Jama Masjid has been traced to Mumbai,the Delhi police said.

The email id, al.arbi999123@gmail.com, the police have found, was created minutes after the attack and sent using a mobile phone.Both the SIM card and the phone were bought using a fake address and name,the police said.

Why India loves Facebook

FASEBOOK OVERTAKING ORKUT WAS NO SURPRISE TO INDIA’S INTERNET COMMUNITY —THE QUESTION WA SNOT ‘IF’ BUT‘WHEN’ IT WOULD DO SO.

This August, Facebook overtook Orkut to become the number one social network in India. This came as no surprise to the tightly knit Indian Internet community—the question was not ‘if’but ‘when’Facebook would overtake Orkut. Orkut was started in 2004 after an aborted Google take overbid on Friendster. It never took off globally and was a hit only in Brazil and India.

In India, Orkut spread like wildfire amongst teenagers—scrapping was the most popular hobby amongst collegians. Like all great web properties, it got a lot of word-of-mouth and became nothing short of a cultural phenomenon.MTV crowned Orkut the youth icon of the year in 2007.

Moily moots single website for govt information

If Union law minister M Veerappa Moily's has his way, then information seekers across India may soon have a reason to rejoice. The minister has advocated setting up a website wherein proactive disclosures by all government departments can be accessed by public. This idea is in sync with Section 4(1) of the Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2005, that mandates suo motu (on its own motion) disclosure of as much information as possible by all public authorities. However, Moily's dream is still at the incubation stage. The relevant details pertaining to its operation will be worked out by the department of personnel and training, which is the nodal agency for implementing the RTI Act.

No Facebook, Twitter for a week? US college experiments

No Facebook, Twitter for a week? US college experiments

Harrisburg: A central Pennsylvania technological college with fewer students than many Facebook users have friends is  blacking out social media for a week. The bold experiment at the Harrisburg University of Science and Technology — which has drawn praise, criticism and even a jab on late-night TV — means students and staff can't access Facebook, Twitter or a host of other ubiquitous social networking sites while on the campus. Provost Eric Darr said the exercise is not a punishment for the school's 800 students nor a precursor to a ban, but a way for people to think critically about the prevalence of social media. The blackout comes on the heels of a report that Web users in the US spend more time socialising on Facebook than searching with Google, according to data released last week from researchers at comScore Inc.

Google will pay you `1 lakh per techie

Here's your chance to win Rs1 lakh without much effort. All you need to do is recommend a software engineer to Google India and hope he/she is hired. Though the concept of external referral programme is not new, Google India has taken it to a different level by agreeing to reward the efforts of the person with Rs1 lakh for every successful referral. The strategy, according to officials at Google, is one of the ways to acquire talent. "We have experimented with this programme overseas and have now decided to extend it in the Indian market. I will not be in a position to share specific details on the response to this initiative in other countries, but it certainly works. Especially when the idea is to connect with and hire prodigies in an organisation that breathes innovation," said a company spokesperson.

Facebook app lets users tell friends exact location

'places' works like networking site Foursquare — but comes with strict privacy controls

London: Amid security concerns, social networking site Facebook has launched a new application 'Places' in the UK that would allow users to share their location with friends. This new feature works similar to the location based social networking site Foursquare, but contains strict privacy controls. The service was launched in the US last month and is one of a new raft of social networking services that use the GPS function on many smartphones to work out exactly where a person is at any point.

Churchill joins Facebook, Twitter

Former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill is set to enter the virtual world with his own iPhone app,Facebook and Twitter.

The Estate of Churchill has apparently launched its own iPhone app and is to use social media to bring the former Prime Minister’s “wit and wisdom”toawider audience, it has been announced.

Nigerians held in lottery, card data theft scam

The gang was operating with the help of sales agents of banks and waiters

Nigerian scams are no longer confined to the Internet as the fraudsters have begun duping people in person and are running their rackets right under the nose of the city cops. The fact came to light on Thursday when the DN Nagar police arrested nine people including two Nigerian nationals for cheating at least 50 people of lakhs of rupees. The Nigerians, Charles Ikona Oputta and Yomi Prince, are said to be the kingpins of the racket. Explaining the modus operandi of the gang, an officer from DN Nagar police station said the Nigerians would identify their targets with the help of Indian accomplices who worked as direct sales agents (DSAs) in private banks. The officers added that once the target had been identified, the gang would send them an email or an SMS informing him that they had won a lottery worth millions of dollars.

BlackBerry told to give up its secrets by Sept 22

I: In afresh move that could precipitate the existing stalemate between Blackberry corpora tee-mail service provider Research In Motion and the government over security issues, the Department of telecommunications (DoT) has asked the telecom service providers which offer Blackberry services to install technical capability in their networks by the coming Wednesday to enable interception of these services.

‘Online CAT will be more secure this yr’

Mumbai: It’s hard to pull a Munnabhai on the IIMs this year. Stringent security measures have been put in place in order to prevent proxy candidates from taking the Common Admission Test (CAT). Incidentally, last year when some aspiring managers sent in proxies to take the CAT, they were caught as soon as they reached the gates of the IIMs and promptly shown the door.  While last year itself, candidates were put through a round of biometric tests which included fingerprinting, this time Prometric, the company that is conducting the computer-based CAT, says it has included some additional security measures.