Technology Effect

Bangalore: The mind of a criminal works way faster and quicker. The latest testimony to that is provided by BBC news website and security firm Vigilante. Now if you are smartphone user who is always on the lookout for Wi-Fi hotspots anywhere you go, here is a news that is of concern to you.Criminals are running fake Wi-Fi hotspots that let them steal passwords or log into social networking sites, as reported in the BBC news website. Your information on social network sites like Facebook or Twitter also run the same risk. This revelation has tech biggies react vehemently to the offense. Facebook responded by saying it advises people to be wary of information given out on unknown networks. Apple has however said that this can be prevented by downloading an updated app. The video demonstration on the site features Tom Beale, an IT security expert with Vigilante Bespoke, demonstrating how someone can get past a smartphone's password screen in a few seconds. Beale g...

B angalore: Most of the human beings are a lot dependent on social networking sites and emails to entertain themselves and internet banking accounts and digital photo albums are required for various kinds of works. The question that arises is what happens to all this data stored in our PCs after we die,reports Divya A. of Times News Network.Digital Will provides answers to questions like who will get an access to those passwords and user-names and who can log on as the digital heir. It is a document that bequeaths a persons digital assets to his heirs. In order to have a digital will, a digital inventory needs to be created which is an index of soft assets and an authentication of digital signature. "Then, it wont take more than a day and a couple of thousands (of rupees) to have your digital will ready," says Supreme Court advocate Pavan Duggal, who specializes in cyber law. "Most of us never think about making arrangements to name an heir for our digita...

Bangalore: With Tata Docomo already introducing 3G services in the country and other telcos like Airtel, Vodafone and Reliance also following the suit, cellphone users today are very excited as the broadband-like internet experience on mobile phones is no longer an impossible concept. There are people who have already own a 3G enabled handset and are experiencing the service or are waiting for their service providers to start the service, while many of them still to pick the 3G phone of their choice. Indian mobile phone market is brimming with new 3G capable phones. So which one to go for? Listing five 3G enabled mobile phones at reasonable prices for those who want to experience 3G services with a new 3G capable handset.Sony Ericsson Zylo The Zylo is the new Sony Ericsson's Walkman phone. It boasts of 3G and High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA), a 3.2 megapixel camera with VGA video recording, plus a TFT display with a 240x320 pixel resolution. It also com...

Bangalore: A chip with the size of a small grain of rice, which could go underneath the skin of a human and stay there for a lifetime, a chip which could be your identity, which goes with you wherever you go, created much controversy at its very inception. Yes, we are talking about biochips and the hullabaloo it bought along with it. Considered the 'mark of the beast' by many, a full-fledged project of biochip implantation is still a scientist's dream as it lies inside the vicious circle of moral debate.Microchip implants and mind control related to cybernetics is an area discussed way back in 1948 in a book by Norbert Weiner. From then till now, theories have been formulated and materialized into the real tangible entity of biochip. GeneChip, one of the first commercial biochips, contained thousands of individual DNA sensors for use in sensing defects or to understand single nucleotide polymorphisms to put it technically in tumor suppressor genes and genes...

Scientists are developing a new class of robots that can read and understand, an invention which they say will be “highly useful” in future. A team of roboticists who are working on this “literate artificial intelligence” said developing such robots would be relatively simple because computers are already able to turn scanned books into text.The team has fitted the test robots, named Marge, with advanced optical character recognition (OCR) reading software.The early prototype version has also been fitted with a dictionary and spell checker so it can interpret text which is not clearly written. The scientists hope that the fledgling technology can be used in rescue operations and work out where they are going inside buildings from signs, the Daily Mail reported.Dr. Ingmar Posner, a roboticist at the Oxford University, said that a machine that can read will be a significant step forward. “By reading a label on a closed door you can sometimes get a good idea of what can be...

Bangalore: A chip with the size of a small grain of rice, which could go underneath the skin of a human and stay there for a lifetime, a chip which could be your identity, which goes with you wherever you go, created much controversy at its very inception. Yes, we are talking about biochips and the hullabaloo it bought along with it. Considered the 'mark of the beast' by many, a full-fledged project of biochip implantation is still a scientist's dream as it lies inside the vicious circle of moral debate.Microchip implants and mind control related to cybernetics is an area discussed way back in 1948 in a book by Norbert Weiner. From then till now, theories have been formulated and materialized into the real tangible entity of biochip. GeneChip, one of the first commercial biochips, contained thousands of individual DNA sensors for use in sensing defects or to understand single nucleotide polymorphisms to put it technically in tumor suppressor genes and genes...

London: Electronics giant Sony has launched what is being billed as the world''s first television with a screen which can be tilted backwards, which the company says is optimum for comfortable viewing. Apparently, a slight backwards lean of six degrees is now the best position for a TV set as many of us mount modern flat-screens on furniture a foot or two above the ground. The new range can be slotted into the tilting position to achieve what its makers say is the optimum picture, as we slump down on our plush, comfortable sofas. It comes as design experts say we are increasingly choosing glossy, shiny TV screens which complement our homes' style even when they are switched off, reports the Daily Mail. The 'Monolithic' TV screens, priced at 1,300 pounds for a 40-inch screen, are available in state-of-the art 3D models, and can either be set up vertically or slotted to a six-degree backwards lean. "Most people don't put their televisions at w...

New Delhi: As global luxury brands continue to rush to tap the Indian market, Italian fashion house Versace's high-end mobile phones today entered into the country with a price tag of up to 4.25 lakh. Versace's exclusive Indian franchisee, Delhi-based Blues Clothing Company (BCC), said the phones will be sold at eight points of sales in metros at 'Versace Boutique' and 'Versace Collection' stores. "We are very bullish about the new range of Versace mobile phones in India. There is a market for such premium products here," BCC Executive Director Abhay Gupta said. The company has launched two variants of 'Versace Unique' mobile phones in different colors priced at 3,95,000 and 4,25,000, he added. The device boasts of features such as 3G compatibility, ceramic frame with an 18K gold and a five megapixel camera among others. The Versace Unique, made by South Korean handset vendor LG, was announced officially earlier this year. BCC is ...

Bangalore: The world is taken over by 3D and its touching our lives through movies, TVs and now mobile phones. While 3D renders more life to everything its in, the glasses required to view a 3D image not only affects the fashion conscious, it also affects your comfort level. Now there is a solution to wearing the 3D glass woes as well. Sharp, the Japanese electronic product manufacturer is launching a mobile phone with a 3D display screen. The catch here is that you won't require glasses to view the mobile screen. Sharp had released two such phones in the Japanese market in the recent past. And as per reports, Sharp will bring the handsets to India, U.S. and China markets in 2011. The device runs on Android operating system (Froyo) with the screen used is the same as that used in Nintendo 3DS, displaying 3D content sans glasses. With a display screen size of 3.8 inch, the phones are powered by 1GHz Snapdragon processor. Sharp has named the models the Galapagos 00...

Bangalore: The owners of handsets like Milestone, Milestone XT720 and the Backflip can access any Indian map for acquiring information about cities, towns and villages spread across the country entirely because they function on Google’s mobile operating system. The Android powered Motorola handsets have been designed as the perfect travel companion. Not just the cities, towns and villages but this feature also offers voice- guided street-level navigable MapmyIndia maps for users who require information about numerous lanes and major national and state highways of the country. We believe in offering the latest to our consumers in India. The new maps are more detailed and include information such as business districts, offices and market locations. Navigate on Motorola’s Android-powered handsets across 620 cities in India for a truly enjoyable experience,” remarked Faisal Siddiqui, Country Head, Motorola Mobility India. The most attractive part of these Android po...

A University of Texas research has suggested that Facebook is making us more social, albeit in ways unique to the digital age. While the social network site is helping to close the social media generational gap, it’s being used differently by men and women, and by current college students versus recent college graduates.The study, led by S. Craig Watkins, is the first to examine the distinct ways in which engagement with Facebook is evolving into a multi-faceted social experience. “Our findings indicate that Facebook is not supplanting face-to-face interactions among friends, family and colleagues. In fact, we believe there is sufficient evidence that social media afford opportunities for new expressions of friendship, intimacy and community,” said Watkins.Watkins surveyed 900 current college students and recent college graduates across the country to find out what and with whom these Facebook users communicate, the influence of gender and age, and the role of news, info...

Beware! Your PC is not safe. Even a routine Internet search, especially for a hot topic, might lead your computer into the hands of hackers. Not just dubious online advertisements and leading or attractive download offers, experts feel that usual search queries could expose your system to cyber criminals.According to experts, in a testimony to the rising threat posed by cyber criminals, many Internet search results on latest skirmishes in the Korean peninsula led the users to links of malwares and fake anti-virus software.Trend Micro, a leading network antivirus and internet content security software and services provider, in the wake of exchange of fire between North and South Koreas, found that some internet search results on the topic itself were hacked. ”...Within several hours of the cross-border incident, search results related to the subject of the clash, had been poisoned by scammers. Hijacks were detected for both English and Korean languages,” Trend Micro...

If you would like to know more about how the Internet and browsers work but are in no mood to grapple with geeky jargon, consider heading to the website '20 Things I Learned about Browsers and the Web' (http://www.20thingsilearned.com), and flipping through a virtual online 'book' - with your mouse, of course. It is the team behind the Google Chrome browser that has come up with this 20-chapter 'book' in collaboration with an illustrator, Christoph Niemann. It is an easy-to-read guide to many of the things technological that we encounter when we use the web and browsers. In itself, it is also shows how far modern browser technology has advanced - its designers have created a book-like feel using HTML 5, the latest version of the mark-up language that is used to build web pages. (If you have an 'old' browser that does not support HTML 5, you will still be able to read the 'book' but maybe not 'flip' through the pages and ...

John Ridding, chief executive of the Financial Times, said that the iPad edition of the pink, specialist newspaper had been downloaded 4,30,000 times since its launch in April.However, only a handful of those downloading the app have opted to pay GBP200-a-year subscription, which applies to anybody wanting to view more than 10 articles a month.Speaking at the Reuters Global Media Summit in London, Mr. Ridding said that the FT was growing its digital-only subscription base at a rate of about 500 a week. The United States had become the FT’s biggest market in both print and online, with the iPad continuing to drive growth, Mr. Ridding said. The FT has about 1,89,000 digital-only subscribers, some of whom sign up as part of corporate deals where their parent company pays. Of these, about one in 10 have come through the iPad since the app was launched.About 30,000 people have signed up to the GBP200-a-year deal since April, meaning that about 3,000 will have chosen to pay v...

WikiLeaks site evades hackers with shift to Amazon WikiLeaks, the site that has infuriated the US government by releasing thousands of US diplomatic cables, is being hosted by one of the symbols of that country’s internet success — Amazon. The site came under a “Distributed Denial of Service” (DDOS) attack on Sunday night (28NOV) from an unidentified hacker, forcing it to seek a new location for its computer files. And it found it though Amazon’s “Elastic Cloud Computing” (EC2) service, which enables businesses to hire its servers and store their data there. DDOS attacks typically force sites off the net unless they have enormous bandwidth at their disposal or highly effective countermeasures. WikiLeaks, being small and struggling for funds, is neither.But EC2 allows companies to pay for their usage as it mounts up, rather than upfront. While Amazon is American, not all of its servers are hosted there — and it could cause a major incident if t...

London: BBC, a media channel that offers global news and highlights 24 hours a day is planning to launch its iPlayer app as a commercial subscription for iPad users of U.S. Because it cannot charge for the content in the UK, BBC is working to offer paid subscription access to its content in foreign markets, with the U.S being one of its first targets reports Daniel Eran DilgerLuke Bradley-Jones, managing director of BBC.com said "planning for the Global iPlayer to initially launch just on the iPad platform, as it provides such potential to develop a truly interactive video-on-demand service, and also maps pretty nicely on to our core target audience for the service." BBC offers a free iPlayer iOS app exclusively to UK residents, who already pay TV licensing fees to support the company's programming. The UK government charges its residents an annual "colour TV" license fee of 145.50 pounds ($227), which is used to support television and radio broad...

Bangalore: According to experts, email is dying and the time is not so far when social media will replace it as the dominant form of communication not only in our individual lives but also in the world of business. Well, with the increased use of text, instant messaging, VoIP, and now microstreaming solutions like Twitter and Facebook, it seems that email is having a tough time, but does it really indicate a slow death of email?Research firm Gartner would answer 'Yes' to the question. According to its recent prediction, social networking services, coupled with changing demographics and work styles will surpass email as the main form of communication in businesses by 2014. It says that around 20 percent of employees will switch to social networks from email as their business communications' hub. While this is just a prediction, it has got strong support from a wide range of capabilities that have emerged in communications, enabling richer interactions among ...

Washington: The repeatedly delayed final flight of space shuttle Discovery has been pushed back until at least February to allow NASA engineers to conduct tests to discover the cause of cracks in the craft's fuel tank, the space agency said Friday. NASA has encountered numerous delays over the last month in trying to get Discovery off the ground for its farewell voyage before the shuttle fleet is retired. The mission was initially scheduled for lift-off in early November.The main culprit has been several cracks found on brackets on the external tank. The fear is that the cracks could allow insulating foam to break off and damage the shuttle during lift-off. In 2003, broken foam damaged the exterior of the shuttle Columbia, causing it to disintegrate while re-entering the atmosphere. All seven astronauts aboard were killed. Bill Gerstenmaier, associate administrator of space operations, said NASA had not yet been able to find the cause of the cracks through analysis ...

Beijing: China Friday claimed that one of its high-speed trains broke the world record for unmodified commercial use during trial service. The train hit a speed of 486.1 km per hour on the tracks between Zaozhuang city of Shandong province and Bengbu city in eastern Anhui province, which form a segment of the world's longest high-speed rail line linking Beijing and Shanghai, China Daily reported.The train's previous speed record was 416.6 km per hour set Sep 28 during its run between Shanghai and Hangzhou, capital city of east China's Zhejiang province. "It not only marks a milestone in the construction of the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway, but also is a major achievement of China's technology innovation," said Wang Yongping, spokesman of the ministry of railways.

Bangalore: A survey by CA Technologies has found that enterprises are embracing virtualization, but security is still lagging behind as managers don't implement security strategies to protect the hypervisor. The research also found that about a fifth of the companies in the survey said their IT staff does not have the skills or funds to implement security in a virtual environment.Just 55 percent, of those organizations cited budgetary restraints and the "upfront cost" of implementation, and 53 percent named the "complexity of managing security across virtual environments and platforms." Business and IT executives across 15 countries reported serious security concerns about data sprawl, hypervisor privilege, and other privacy and compliance issues in their virtual environment. Even though the majority of the business and IT leaders said virtualization would help improve IT operational efficiency, security remains a concern, with 39 percent sayi...

Bangalore: Blueberry Software has released BB TestAssistant Version 3.0, a major upgrade to its software testing tool for developers and testers. It is designed to make accurate reporting of complex defects easy, BB TestAssistant is an innovative screen-recorder-based software testing tool that puts vital information at the fingertips of developers.David Francis, Project Manager for BB TestAssistant, said: "Software testing involves using a newly developed system or application under controlled conditions in an attempt to make things go wrong - in other words to see if things happen when they shouldn't or don't happen when they should. We've worked hard to create an application that simplifies the process of reporting defects, and offers outstanding value with high-end features at a low price." Software testing usually involves software testers working to agreed-upon standards and following set procedures in order to satisfy rigorous quality assur...

Bangalore: Adobe Systems recently released the newest version of its Flash Player, 10.2 which includes a new "Stage Video" feature that promises high-performance video playback which uses just over 0 percent CPU usage. One other thing which may impress you is Adobe's availability to listen to its customers, as with the new Flash Player 10.2 beta, users with multiple monitors can watch their favorite videos in true full screen on one of them, while multi-tasking on another.Adobe has been developing GPU acceleration in recent builds of Flash player, and the Stage Video feature in the 10.2 release now offloads the whole video rendering pipeline to the Graphic Processing Unit (GPU), so not only is H.264 decoded in hardware, but other adjustments such as color conversion and scaling are managed by the GPU. This means that the video hardware will take care of video decode as well as color conversion, scaling, and blitting. With this sort of load put on t...

Bangalore: A few unavoidable circumstances had resulted in delay of the construction of the Nano Park although a 15 acre plot had also been identified by the State Government in 2007 in North Bangalore. As informed by noted scientist Prof CNR Rao, India's first Nano Park will be ready by 2007 so as to boost nano science and research technology. When questioned about the estimated cost for construction, he limited his explanations."There have been some delays earlier. But, the Nano Park will come up by 2011. The park will host several industries related to nano science and technology. The park will provide opportunities for cutting-edge research work in these exciting fields," said Rao.' Rao is also the chairperson of Vision Group on Science, Technology and Nanotechnology of Government of Karnataka. He made the announcement while talking about the third edition of Bangalore Nano- 2010 which is India's premier Nanotechnology event. To be held on ...

Cupertino: The newest version of the operating system that powers iPhones, iPads and the iPod touch - iOS 4.2 - is ready for installation. iPad users will notice the biggest changes, since this is the first ever update for that machine's operating system. It will allow multitasking on the tablet computer, so multiple applications can run at once with the possibility of transferring data between them.iPad users have also missed out on the themed folders for sorting apps that iPhone users have been able to enjoy for a while. The new Mail software can aggregate several accounts into one inbox, while a Game Center offers a sampling of simple online games. But there is something new for the iPhone - AirPrint, which allows printing via a wireless connection. Initially, the function will be supported by multiple HP printers. To download and install the system updates, the devices have to be hooked up to a computer running the iTunes programme.

Acer has launched the Iconia, a laptop-cum-tablet computer with two touch screens. The new dual-screen laptop has two 14 inch displays, including one in place of a traditional keyboard. The Iconia, which was unveiled at a press conference in New York, features two touch-screens protected by ultra-tough Gorilla Glass. The device can be used like a traditional laptop, with the second screen doubling up as a virtual keyboard, or can serve as a tablet-style computer, reports the Telegraph. A tablet computer is a portable computer equipped with a touchscreen as a primary input device. Users can spread the desktop across both screens, or use one to watch a video or surf the web, and the other to write an email or edit photos. The device features palm sensors to detect the position of the user’s hands, and automatically launch the virtual keyboard when needed. Acer said the Iconia, which runs Microsoft’s Windows 7 operating system, would introduce “a brand new tablet experie...

Google Inc. is making the leap from digital librarian to merchant in a challenge to Amazon.com Inc. and its Kindle electronic reader. The long-awaited Internet book store, which opened Monday in the U.S., draws upon a portion of the 15 million printed books that Google has scanned into its computers during the past six years. About 4,000 publishers, including CBS Corp.’s Simon & Schuster Inc., Random House Inc. and Pearson PLC’s Penguin Group, are also allowing Google to carry many of their recently released books in the new store. Those publishing deals will ensure that most of the current best sellers are among the 3 million e-books initially available in Google’s store, said Amanda Edmonds, who oversaw the company’s partnerships. Millions more out-of-print titles will appear in Google’s store, called eBooks, if the company can gain federal court approval of a proposed class-action settlement with U.S. publishers and authors. The $125 million settlement...

Inspired by the science fiction movie “I, Robot,” two high school students, one of them an Indian American, have developed a speech recognition technology that has won them a $100,000 grand prize.Akash Krishnan and Matthew Fernandez of Portland, Oregon, who developed a computer algorithm that can detect a speaker’s emotions better than current technology, would share the team prize, the Siemens Competition for America’s top math and science students announced Monday.Krishnan, 16, and Fernandez, 17, watched “I, Robot,” while taking a break from trying to come up with a project idea. The movie featured a robot that could detect when its user was stressed, and they decided to try to improve on the existing technology.Their algorithm has a 60 percent accuracy rate, compared with about 40 percent for a previous system. They say their work could be used to improve computer automated phone systems, helping, for example, to tell if a caller was becoming irate. “The duo built a...

London: How often have you forgotten your mobile chargers and been in trouble unable to charge your mobile at crucial moments? Now disregard the need to remember your chargers, Japanese technology company Fujitsu has developed a system capable of charging multiple portable electronic devices such as mobile phones, digital cameras and laptop computers without the need for cable connections simultaneously.The new prototype system unveiled by Fujitsu at an Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers conference at Osaka Prefecture University will also enable electric car users to charge their vehicles with the help of this technology. Fujitsu’s technology, averted to be the first of its kind works on the foundation of the transmission of electricity using magnetic fields between the charger and the electronic device and will support wireless charging at distances of up to several meters and aims at installing public "charging spots" on the str...

Bangalore: A pioneer of cloud telephony in India, Knowlarity has introduced a product named Emergency Coordination and Control System (ERCC) which will alert 3000 people on their mobile phones within 60 seconds of an emergency, instructing people what to do in a crucial moment. According to Ambarish Gupta, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Knowlarity Communications, "ERCC finds application in industries, hotels, housing societies, educational institutes, hospitals, theatres, offices, shopping complexes, malls etc., wherein a lot of people are present at the same time and could get affected because of a hazard, accident, natural disaster or an attack. Knowlarity's ERCC, primarily based on mobile phone communication, can save a lot of lives and prevent chaos in the area of hazard.""One can access ERCC from anywhere via a telephone, mobile phone or an Internet connection. The user can choose from a selected set of pre-recorded emergency message...

LG made its entry into the Android market with its first smartphone, the LG GW620. While the phone wasn't a bad first attempt, it failed to make its mark in the smartphone market. LG then introduced the Optimus, an entry-level smartphone which took some flak for its resistive touch screen. The company recently launched the P500 (Optimus One) in India, a handset which reportedly sold one million units in its first 40 days in the market. We got up close with the phone to see if this was really LG's redeeming Android attempt. First impressions At first glance, the P500 is a very unconventional looking smartphone. Encased in a slim rubberised panel, the phone certainly feels sturdier than most smartphones, but doesn't really give you that sleek, corporate feel. The screen is a decent sized one, at 3.2-inches. There are four buttons below the screen, and instead of the usual touch sensitive ones that we're seeing on most phones now, these ones are physical. W...

Washington: A team of researchers in the Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies (CINT) has created the tiniest battery in the world. The rechargeable, lithium-based battery is developed by a team led by researcher Jianyu Huang. The discovery has paved way for the development of smaller and more efficient batteries in future.The battery comprises of a three millimeters long lithium cobalt cathode, a single tin oxide nanowire anode and an ionic liquid electrolyte. The anode, which measures 10 nanometers in length and 100 nanometers in diameter, is one seven-thousandth the thickness of a human hair.A lithium-ion battery with nanowire-based materials greatly increases the power and energy density when compared to bulk electrodes. Researchers developed this battery in order to better understand the mechanism in which it works and formed the battery inside a transmission electron microscope (TEM) that would enable them to study the charging and discharging of the battery in ...

It is said that Apple conceived the iPad first, before it put the tablet on hold and went ahead instead with the development of the iPhone. Of course, the iPad came back and Apple launched it at the most opportune time. Dell's position as a PC maker trying its hand at a tablet was similar before it chose to tread a different path with the Streak. This device definitely looks like an oversized handset; but dimensions apart, has Dell stretched its imagination far enough for the Streak to deliver as a tablet? Let's find out. Form factor At 220 grams, the Streak is comparatively easy to carry around. Corning Inc.'s Gorilla Glass display does a lot of good for the Streak's display. Despite it being glossy and the clichéd fingerprint-magnet , it scored points for being truly resistant to scratches and dust. Needless to say, videos on the Streak played quite impressively, with little pixilation or lags. But although the company states that .wmv files...