Back up for human brain within 20 yrs

London: Back up for the human brain, including its entire memory, will be possible within the next two decades.

Award-winning scientist, Mr Raymond Kurzweil, 62, told 500 guests at a sponsored Future talk event in Vienna, Austria, that the human brain backup was now already technically possible.

Mr Kurzweil has notched up a string of pioneering computer inventions, including voice recognition technology, during his career, reports the Daily Mail.

I believe that within the next 20 years we will have thousands of nanobot computer machines in our blood that will heal our bodies, improve our performance, and even be able to back up all the contents of our brains, just as you backup your files on a computer, he said.

That means they would back up every thought, every experience, everything that makes us an individual.

It may sound far-fetched but in the early 1980s, people thought I was crazy for predicting the emergence of the world wide web by the middle of the 1990s; but it happened, and on the schedule I predicted.

At the age of 15, Mr Kurzweil created a programme that could recreate music in the style of the great composers, which earned him a visit to the White House and an interview with the then president, Mr Lyndon B. Johnson.

He also built the first machine that could read written speech for the blind for his friend Mr Stevie Wonder - for whom he also later made a revolutionary musical synthesiser capable of recreating sounds of real instruments.

Mr Kurzweil has 19 honorary doctorates and now advises governments, scientists, military and business people across the world on a variety of technology-related issues.

A car that runs on land, sea or in air

It is a car that could come straight out of a James Bond movie, changing into a speedboat, helicopter or jet whenever the respective mode of transport is required. The Halo Interceptor could be the solution to all your transport problems, provide you have the necessary cash of course.

British designer Phil Pauley has come up with the concept based around a sports car with attachments that make it float like a boat and fly like a helicopter or jet. Pauley lays emphasis on the fact that the Halo Interceptor should not be seen as a flying car but a plane, helicopter, boat and car in one.

Fitted with a hybrid power unit and a supercomputer in the cockpit, the Halo Interceptor has a top speed of over 500 km/h and accelerates from zero to 100 km/h in just 2.3 seconds. Fitted with the jet attachment Halo 120 degrees, it allows a maximum speed of Mach 2 at a height of up to 20,000 metres.

The Halo 46 degrees offers helicopter flight version for hasty businessmen. The maximum speed is 185 knots. The Halo 22 degrees speedboat attachment features a racing hull providing up to 63 knots and a range of 1,200 nautical miles.

With looming traffic chaos in the big mega cities, Pauley hopes his concept will catch on with the big car producers or at least influence the design of the cars of the future.

Virtual boon to engineers

From its humble beginnings as an ambitious start-up from the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras, Btechguru.com was founded by students and alumni of IIT Madras, Kharagpur and Delhi.This has now grown into a well-known portal across student communities for its stupendous free services, especially in the stream of engineering education.

Boundless info

The homepage of the website is a clear depiction of the diversity of the resources offered to the students. There is Btechguru News tab which gives the latest developments in engineering and technology and it is updated daily. It has information on the latest jobs and internships, upcoming technical events and festivals, plus provides an opportunity to collaborate among students. It includes placement papers (both IT and non-IT), resume building info, inspirational stories, latest information on forthcoming examinations… btechguru.com has it all.

It has links to open courseware of different universities classified according to their engineering stream or university wise. There is a huge collection of free e-books for both engineering and competitive examinations. There is also a collection of interview tips and information about civil services.

Btechguru company also provides formats and samples of bank statement copies, statement of purpose for all engineering branches, recommendation letter and other legal documents which are essential for higher studies abroad. It provides details of important dates, cut-offs, tips n tricks and online materials for various competitive exams like CAT, MAT, GMAT, GATE, GRE, TOFEL and IELTS. Some of the flagship services of btechguru.com include free online material for GATE preparation, free videos.

Professional networking

They have a lot of support from students across the country — connected as a network — ready to pour in their ideas for the student community. Every student member can share videos and bookmarks in the network, also write blogs and resumes in the site. Another important feature is they can upload files and documents such as lab and how-to-do manuals, project details, assignments etc. So it works like a social networking site for engineering students where they can collaborate with their peers throughout the country. With open source initiatives picking up across youth communities, btechguru.com is here to stay. And inspire.

Prashanth is a Final Year B.Tech Electrical and Electronics Engineering student at National Institute of Technology, Tiruchi.

All set to revolutionise Apple TV

When Apple TV was launched four years ago, it bombed — but this autumn, with YouView, the British Internet TV box just round the corner — Apple has one more shot. The new Apple TV is tiny — not much bigger than iPhone — and costs just 99 pounds. Its exterior temperature is also far less alarming. The hard drive has been stripped out. To use, it's as simple as a set-top box, with Internet radio, films and your home PC video libraries popping up from a single menu. You just rent, picking from an excellent library of films for 3.49 pounds a go, reports the Daily Mail. You can also watch YouTube, although typing via a remote is an unbearable fiddle that leaves co-viewers fidgeting. Whatever you're watching, though, is colourful and clear — although it's 720p, not Full HD. Rival film rental services offered by games consoles largely offer ‘male interest' films — i.e., packed with aliens and explosions. Apple TV is refreshingly unisex. And it's far better controlling it using an iPhone app than the finicky metal remote.

3D soundscape

Now, 3D soundscape to updates your Facebook, Twitter. AudioFeeds, software that provides 3D soundscape, could soon be alerting you, via your headphones, to updates on your social network and news feeds. The software announces Facebook updates such as friend requests with watery sounds like drips, bubbles and splashes. Bird calls are reserved for Twitter, while musical sounds such as a didgeridoo or wind chime alert you to news stories. It achieves the 3D effect by adjusting the phase, or timing, of the sounds delivered to your left and right earphones. “The idea is to tell you what is going on in your social networks in a non-intrusive manner,” said co-developer Stephen Brewster of the University of Glasgow, U.K. “Rather than having to look at your phone all the time we have created a 3D sonification of social network and news feed alerts,” he said. AudioFeeds could be built into a cellphone app, according to Brewster. The technology will be presented at the Association for Computing Machinery's Multimedia conference in Florence, Italy, next week.

Walkman, now history

It's official. Sony Walkman is now history. The multinational conglomerate has stopped the manufacturing and distribution of the cassette Walkman after retiring the floppy disk in March. Now considered to be another obsolete technology, the cassette Walkman was the first low-cost, portable music player. The final batch was shipped to Japanese retailers in April, according to IT Media. The first generation Walkman (that was called the Soundabout in the U.S, and the Stowaway in the U.K.) was released on July 1, 1979 in Japan. Although successful, it sold only 3000 units in its first month.

Sony managed to sell some 200 million iterations of the cassette Walkman over the product line's 30-year career. The decline of the cassette Walkman is attributed primarily to the explosive popularity of CD players in the 90s

Spotlight on LEDs!

With Diwali just around the corner, it's time to hit the stores to pick up everything that you might have been saving up for.

And if you have been eyeing that brightly lit, size zero display at the local electronics store but are confused by all that advertising blitzkrieg about LED and 3D TVs, allow us to enlighten you.

The big-wigs in the display game like Samsung, Sony and LG have managed to grab your attention with their larger-than-life ads for their new ‘LED' television displays, but here are a couple of things you should know about LEDs, before you shell out the big bucks.

Some ‘unlearning' first! LED TVs, as you might have been led to believe, are not truly LED (Light Emitting Diode) displays but are, in reality, LCD ones. The difference between a regular LCD and an LED TV lies in the ‘backlighting'. What's that, you ask? Here's a low-down.

Remember the digital watch you had as a kid or the scientific calculator that you dad gifted you? The display on those were LCD displays too! The only difference being, that those weren't backlit, unlike TV sets that adorn our living rooms today.

LCD displays are based on liquid crystals, which are particles that can arrange and re-arrange themselves in response to an electric current. Each crystal can act like a shutter either allowing light to pass through or blocking the incoming light.

One LCD panel constitutes millions of such liquid crystals arranged in a grid to let a backlight through and create images. As a source of backlighting, regular LCD TVs use fluorescent bulbs, technically known as CCFLs (Cold cathode fluorescent lamps). These had succeeded CRT television sets that were bulky and created pictures that were far from stunning.

The LED TVs that are being portrayed as larger-than-life displays in ads now, are an improvement on the existing LCD TV technology and are not truly a brand new technology altogether. Hence, LED TVs are actually just another type of LCD displays.

These are called LED TVs because, instead of the CCFL bulbs, a panel of Light Emitting Diodes or LEDs are the source for the backlight for these LCD TVs.

Why the replacement?

CCFLs are significantly more cost-effective for bigger displays like a TV set but when it comes to the overall picture quality, contrast ratio, colour gamut and power efficiency, LEDs can deliver better. This has prompted all major manufacturers to turn to the new lighting kid on the block.

Types of LEDs

There are two-types of LED TVs based on how they provide the backlight for the LCD display.

Backlit / Full array LED – Backlit or full-array LED TVs are made up of LEDs grouped in ‘blocks' and placed behind the LCD panel in the display. These blocks of LEDs can be switched on or off independently of each other. This ability, popularly known as local dimming is exclusive to backlit LEDs and results in a much improved contrast ratio than a traditional LCD or even an edge-lit one.

Edge-lit LED – Like the name suggests, the LEDs on these sets are arranged only along the edge of the LCD panel but a ‘diffusion' panel allows for the light to be distributed evenly throughout your TV set.

Owing to the fact that this kind of display requires the LEDs to be placed only at the sides of the unit, it paves the way for manufacturers to build a set so slim that it would give size-zero models an inferiority complex.

Edge-lit LEDs also score when it comes to power efficiency. Compared to the conventional LCD TV and even a backlit LED, an edge-lit consumes much lesser power.

Television setup

Apart from the LCD panel, an LED TV has a couple of other layers or panels that constitute the display.

One panel consists of ‘diffusers' that ensure uniform brightness throughout the screen and ‘polarisers' that sandwich the LCD panel to make sure that the picture relayed is aligned correctly.

Depending on the manufacturer, there might be another layer of anti-glare coating apart from the main display.

You have a light source behind the liquid crystal panel that shines light through the display.

Even when it comes to LED backlights, there are two categories of backlighting possible.

White LEDs – These LEDs aren't actually white but a combination of blue LEDs and yellow phosphor that give the impression of white light. Most edge-lit LED sets use this technology with the light diffusing panel behind the LCD panel to redirect and scatter the light in a way to ensure an evenly lit image.

RGB LEDs – Owing to the fact that these LEDs work on the basis of all three primary colours, the colour rendered on the screen is way superior. The colours are deeper and more realistic than those produced by white LEDs. This makes most television manufacturers to go for RGB LEDs in their high-end LED-backlit television sets.

Why does LED score?

Contrast – This parameter is usually denoted by a ratio of the brightest white to the darkest blacks that can be displayed on the screen. When it comes to contrasts, LEDs trump CCFLs because of their ability to ‘dim' locally thus allowing the screen to show both light and dark details as well as possible, resulting in an improved on-screen contrast.

Form factor – While the average thickness of LCD TVs could be anywhere between 6-inches to about 2-inches, LED TVs, especially edge-lit ones are extremely sleek and space-efficient; apart from being easy to move around and wall-mountable owing to thickness that can be as little as 7-8 millimetres.

Plasmas

Plasma TVs are based on electric current being made to pass through neutral gases to produce colour and consequently, images. These gases are trapped between two plates of glass and offer very bright, crisp images, even on a large screen surface.

However, one factor that Plasma TVs lose out on is burn-ins or dead pixels. Due to the inherent technology that Plasma TVs work on, the chances of the display getting a burn-in are present while no such thing can happen with an LED TV set as they work on a completely different technology.

Plasma screen, on the other hand, deliver amazing reproduction quality for fast-moving videos and are ideal for watching sports and movies.

Adding to this, Plasma TV sets do not suffer from motion lags or ghosting while displaying fast moving images, a common issue with LCD TVs especially in those with larger screen size.

Moolah talk

When it comes to display sizes, LED TVs can range from anywhere between 22-inches to 55-inches. The price obviously differs depending on the manufacturer, but on an average, an LED TV can cost you a minimum of about Rs 20,000 and can go up to Rs 2.5 lakh for a 55-incher.

The low-end models would be ideal for a bedroom setting but might not have the capability to playback high-definition content. On the other hand, if you have a living room to adorn a mammoth LED TV with or are planning to set it up in your home theatre, you could go with a big-screen one that will also provide you with Full HD or even 3D capabilities.

Scientists estimate Earth-sized planets could be common

A group of astronomers has estimated that as many as one in four stars similar to the Sun could be orbited by Earth-size planets.

A five-year observation of 166 stars within 80 light years of Earth, using the powerful Keck telescope in Hawaii, counted planets orbiting the stars, down to the smallest planets now detectable by telescopes.

In findings to be published in the journal Science on Friday, the researchers found larger numbers of smaller planets than of larger planets. Although the smallest planets they saw are still several times the size of Earth, the findings caused them to conclude that Earth-sized planets could be even more common.

“Of about 100 typical Sun-like stars, one or two have planets the size of Jupiter, roughly six have a planet the size of Neptune, and about 12 have super-Earths between three and 10 Earth masses,” astronomer Andrew Howard said.

“If we extrapolate down to Earth-size planets - between one-half and two times the mass of Earth - we predict that you’d find about 23 for every 100 stars.” The scientists found 33 detectable planets orbiting 22 of the stars and then used estimates to conclude that 1.6 per cent of the stars had Jupiter-sized planets and 12 per cent had super-Earths.

They also found 12 possible planets that need to be further examined.

Previous studies have looked only at larger Jupiter and Saturn- sized planets.

Astronomers hope to be able to find planets similar to Earth that also are close enough to their suns to be warm and have liquid water, but far enough away to not be boiling in the so-called “Goldilocks” zone, where conditions are just right for life.

Last month, a group of US-based scientists said they had discovered what might be the first habitable planet outside Earth’s solar system. The team of planet hunters found an Earth-sized planet - three times the mass of Earth - in orbit around a nearby star at a distance where liquid water could exist on the surface.

Scientists hope the Kepler space telescope launched last year, which is finely tuned enough to detect Earth-sized planets orbiting distant stars, will find more such planets.

Mice to accompany astronauts in Discovery’s final flight

When the space shuttle Discovery lifts off on its final flight next week, its six astronauts will be accompanied by an unusual team of co-passengers -- 16 rodents.

The rodents, who will be on a historic mission of their own, would be part of a scientific experiment to investigate spaceflight-induced immune-system impairment which makes astronauts vulnerable to infection by viruses and bacteria.

NASA has been studying the a phenomenon aboard its space shuttles for more than 25 years, collecting data from laboratory animals and astronauts themselves.

The new mouse experiment -- a collaboration between teams at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB)at Galveston and NASA’s Ames Research Centre in California -- will be the final immunology investigation planned for the shuttle programme, a UTMB release said.

“Since the Apollo missions, we have had evidence that astronauts have increased susceptibility to infections during flight and immediately post-flight -- they seem more vulnerable to cold and flu viruses and urinary tract infections,” said Dr Roberto Garofalo, a professor at UTMB Health and principal investigator for the project.

“We want to discover what triggers this increased susceptibility to infection, with the goal both of protecting the astronauts themselves and people with more vulnerable immune systems here on Earth, such as the elderly and young children,” Dr Garofalo said.

According to the scientists, the mice aboard Discovery will be in orbit for 11 days, during which time shuttle astronauts will perform daily checks on their health and well-being.

Within two hours of the shuttle’s return to Earth, eight of the animals will be infected with respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) -- a pathogen that infects almost all children by age two and ordinarily causes a relatively harmless cold-like upper respiratory disease.

In some children, however, the infection spreads to the lungs, where the inflammation it generates causes coughing, wheezing and extreme difficulty in breathing.

Another group of mice kept in nearly identical conditions on the ground will also be exposed to the virus. Garofalo’s team will then conduct genetic and protein studies of the lung and nasal tissues of both sets of mice, evaluating lung inflammation, viral replication and other key factors related to RSV infection in mice.

“We have substantial experience using mice to study immune response to RSV infection, and that will enable us to look at all the aspects of the immune responses of these mice as well as the pathological manifestations of the disease, looking at ways in which the space environment affects this respiratory infection,” Garofalo said.

Understanding how spaceflight impairs the immune system and finding ways to make sure that infection doesn’t threaten the health of space travellers are expected to become very important, as NASA plans human expeditions beyond the relative safety of Earth orbit -- to Mars or the asteroids.

The developing commercial spaceflight industry, which hopes to launch large numbers of private citizens into orbit in the near future, also has a stake in ensuring that its passengers stay safe and healthy.

Despite the shuttle program’s end, Garofalo said, immune system experiments in space may continue on the International Space Station.

Flamingos use preening oil to brighten up, attract mates

A preening oil which flamingos use to waterproof their feathers also brightens them up, says a new study. Applied most frequently and vigorously just ahead of the breeding season, it seems the birds, like humans, use make-up to attract a mate!

Rubbed onto the neck, breast and back, the pigments in the waxy substance brighten the signature pink hue of their plumage.

And just like in the human world, the female of the species uses make-up more often, reports the Daily Mail.

The fascinating insight into the life of the greater flamingo, the largest of the species, comes from a three-year study of birds living in the wetlands of southern Spain, according to the journal Behavioural Ecology and Sociobiology.

The researchers noticed that many birds deliberately rubbed their cheeks against glands near the base of their tails and then immediately onto their neck, breast and back feathers.

Tests showed that the oil rich in pigments called carotenoids. The same compounds were found in the birds’ feathers. The main source of the birds’ pink colour comes from pigments in the food they eat.

But the make-up enhances the effect, with the birds that applied it the most becoming the most colourful, researcher Juan Amat from Donana Biological Station in Seville, Spain said: “The rubbing is time-consuming. And the more frequently the birds practise it, the more coloured they appear.”

“If the birds stop rubbing, plumage colour fades in a few days because carotenoids bleach quickly in the sunlight.”

What is more, the birds applied the oil much more frequently in the months when they were looking for a mate.

Professor Matthew Anderson of Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia in the U.S. said: “It now appears that flamingos may be paying as much attention to their vibrant colouration as we are.”

Abu Dhabi to host renewable energy meet

In order to facilitate the widespread global adoption of renewable energy technology, Abu Dhabi is to host the International Renewable Energy Conference (IREC) that will see participation from government, civil society and business leaders.

The venue was announced at the closing ceremony of the Delhi International Renewable Energy Conference (DIREC), where Abu Dhabi was chosen for the global platform, due to its investments, initiatives and dedication toward the development and deployment of renewable and clean energy technologies.

Building on the success of DIREC 2010 -- and the previous events in Washington in 2008, Beijing in 2005 and Bonn in 2004 -- ADIREC will attract prominent ministers, policy specialists and industry thought leaders from around the globe.

The date of the Abu Dhabi event was not part of the announcement.

The Emirate is also the headquarters of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), the international governmental organisation mandated to facilitate widespread renewable energy development and expansion.

The Abu Dhabi International Renewable Energy Conference (ADIREC) will be held simultaneously and co-located with the World Future Energy Summit, the annual event in Abu Dhabi that gathers more than 25,000 renewable energy and environment representatives from around the world to address and advance sustainable energy solutions.

ADIREC will be the fifth in the series of the ministerial level IREC conferences that carry on the mission of the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, which is to bolster, coordinate and accelerate political momentum to foster renewable energy growth.

“Abu Dhabi’s selection as the host of the next IREC is a testament to the significant strides being taken by our leadership to pursue clean energy solutions and address the challenges of climate change,” said Dr Sultan Al Jaber, Masdar CEO and Special Envoy for Energy and Climate Change of the UAE.

Ministers and Government Representatives from around 71 countries participated in the DIREC.

Abu Dhabi is developing an unprecedented low-carbon city, the Arab world’s first national renewable energy target and are investing in renewable energy, both within Abu Dhabi and around the world.

School student creates robot having emotional intelligence

This robot may not have a Rajnikanth-like image, but the model created by a 17-year-old Doon School student possesses emotional intelligence and can even dish out answers for unexpected questions with the help of the internet.

The 3-dimension Robo ‘iTalk’, an award winning working model, talks in English, lisps like a human and understands human moods of happiness and anger with the help of unique programmed algorithms and a ‘software development kit’ offered by the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US.

“The iTalk is a robot capable of communication in a manner similar to humans. Technically, his functional construct also emulates the basic blueprint of the human body. By interpreting data in the same manner we do, he is able to emulate human behavioural tendencies,” Arjun, a class-12 student at the Doon School, said.

“He (the robot) is an intelligent module, able to take decisions on his own, learning from past experiences,” he added.

Once developed to an advanced stage, the Robo can be used for interface with children and humans for counselling and other purposes, he said.

The ‘iTalk’ Robo can distinguish between different humans with an accuracy of 97.68 per cent as it is enabled with a stereoscopic vision and face recognition software.

“The speech analysis software put inside it enables it to differentiate between different pitches and voice samples,” Arjun, who displayed his creation during his school’s 75th founder’s day celebrations, recently, said.

Arjun, who was assisted by his junior Sookrit Malik from class 10th in the project, now plans to take the Robo to international innovation forums and get a larger technical assistance from institutes like the MIT.

The students have put an initial investment of Rs 70,000 in the project which was funded by the school.

The ‘iTalk’ although has no sci-fi movie connection but it bears resemblance to the 2008 Walt Disney produced science fiction film WALL-E, in which the computer is designed to clean up a waste covered Earth sometime in the future, Arjun said.

“For each new person it meets, it creates a new profile, logging all information. This allows it to carry out various tasks such as having a conversation, and as soon as it is told something which is not already stored, it logs on to the internet and gets the information and also saves it,” he said.

The ‘iTalk’ stands 2.5-feet tall, has two eyes as webcameras, a speaker for the mouth and a track system for legs.

Wi-Fi Direct promises range, bandwidth higher than Bluetooth

Sharing, printing and connecting for Wi-Fi devices is going to be more convenient than ever with soon-to-be-launched technology Wi-Fi Direct, which enables devices to connect to each other without a conventional Wi-Fi hub.

Previously known as Peer-to-Peer Wi-Fi, this new technology will allow the Wi-Fi Direct enabled devices to connect directly to each other anytime, anywhere.

It's much like Bluetooth except that it promises typical Wi-Fi range (up to 200 metres) and bandwidth (up to 250 mbps) much higher than what Bluetooth technology offers.

Moreover, the devices have a quick set-up mechanism, follow the latest security protocols and can easily connect to existing Wi-Fi networks.

Seamless usage

It means that the huge variety of existing Wi-Fi applications can be used with the new technology seamlessly.

The Wi-Fi Alliance — a coalition of technology industry giants that does the research and standardisation in Wi-Fi — announced on October 25 that it had begun certifying devices as being compatible with the new technology protocol.

According to the Wi-Fi Alliance Website, the technology can be implemented in any device such as cameras, mobiles, laptops and human interface devices.

Single-tech solution

“The Wi-Fi users worldwide will benefit from a single-technology solution to transfer content and share applications quickly and easily among devices, even when a Wi-Fi access point isn't available,” said Wi-Fi Alliance Executive Director Edgar Figueroa in a press release.

The technology is aimed at both consumer and enterprise applications and has a vast range of applications which aim at making gaming, sharing, printing and remote operations simpler and convenient.

While the Wi-Fi Direct's entry into the market may present new opportunities for application developers, it may be argued that such kind of range and speed can be easily misused.

Security consciousness

Bhaskar Ramamurthi, Professor at the Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT-Madras, agrees: “This technology poses a security risk because if just one device in a group is compromised, almost all the devices in the group are at risk too. And this is especially true of organisations, because unlike in the past, wireless data transfers can now take place without the organisation being able to monitor them and particularly over a larger area.

“People will now have to be more security conscious than ever. Especially, the ones with a previous case of security breach.”

End of Bluetooth?

Wi-Fi Direct not only has all the features of Bluetooth, but boasts superior transfer speeds and range. Does this mean the demise of Bluetooth?

Experts speculate that Bluetooth will not be affected much.

“In an existing market where there are millions of Bluetooth-enabled devices, it is unlikely that any manufacturer will retire the technology just because of a new one.

“Bluetooth will not be affected much; at least in the next couple of years,” said Sunil Abraham, Executive Director of Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore.

Facebook to introduce technology to limit sharing of user ids

A recent Wall Street Journal investigation revealed that the 10 most popular Facebook applications compromised user identities even when they set strictest privacy settings.

It held popular applications such as the FarmVille, the Causes, the Mafia Wars, the Quiz Planet and Phrases, guilty of transmitting unique ids of users (WSJ: “identifiable information”) to third parties — mostly advertising and Internet tracking companies that profile Internet users,” often for targeted marketing.

Not only did this violate the United States laws but Facebook's privacy policy as well. Soon as the breach was brought to its notice, Facebook suspended several of the offending applications. It also sought to reassure its 500 million active users worldwide that none of the ids was used to glean personal information nor was any information misused.

The company said new technical systems would be introduced that would “dramatically limit” the sharing of user ids. In saying so, it, however, did not rule out further breaches.

“As part of our work to provide people with control over their information, we've learned that the design and operation of the Internet doesn't always provide the greatest control that is technically possible,” explained Kirthiga Reddy, Director, Online Operations and Head of Office Facebook India, in an email interview with this newspaper.

After all, policing an approximate 5,50,000 applications, which 70 per cent users access each month, is an uphill task. More than one million developers and entrepreneurs from over 180 countries work on Facebook's platforms.

Early May 2010, several social networking sites, including Facebook, were found to be (inadvertently) sharing user ids with advertisers each time they clicked on an ad. Facebook took remedial steps immediately after the infringement was brought to its notice.

Surprisingly, in both the cases, the compromised information was transmitted via ‘URL referrers.' Referrers communicate the address (URL) of the previous page whenever a user clicks a link. This helps third parties gather information on a particular user.

“This is an even more complicated technical challenge than the similar issue we successfully addressed last Spring, but one that we are committed to addressing,” Ms. Reddy stressed.

Facebook, according to her, has incorporated numerous defences to ensure a safer browsing experience for its users. Its arsenal includes complex automated systems that work behind the scenes to detect and flag Facebook accounts that show signs of anomalous activity.

These could include, for example, accounts that send out an abnormal number of messages in a short period of time, or those that propagate malicious links.

“Once we detect a phoney message, we delete all instances of that message across the site. We also block malicious links from being shared and work with third parties to get phishing and malware sites added to browser blacklists or taken down completely,” Ms. Reddy explained.

She, however, swore by the key rules of thumb: using up-to-date browsers, unique logins and passwords for every website, verifying the authenticity of the legitimate Facebook page from its URL and being wary of any message, post, or link that looks suspicious or requires an additional login. It would help users follow the ‘Facebook Security' page.

The company, which has grown “very quickly” in India with more than 15 million active users, is presently working on translating Marathi through its translation application. It is currently available in more than 70 languages.

In future, your car will wake you up if you fall asleep

Falling asleep behind the wheel of your car will be a thing of the past when built-in sensors sound an alarm the moment they detect your eyelids have closed, according to a team of German scientists.

Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Media Technology in Ilmenau, Germany, have developed an eye-tracking device that could soon help keep drowsy drivers alert on the road for a fraction of the cost of existing systems.

The 'Eyetracker', which is being unveiled at a vision-industry trade fair in Stuttgart, monitors drivers' lines of vision and issues a warning if they appear to be nodding off. After three months of in-car tests, the device will be ready for sale to auto makers, which according to Fraunhofer developer Peter Husar, could be early next year.

"The Eyetracker costs about one-tenth the price of similar devices," Husar says. These other devices also require complicated calibration to be customised to an individual's eyes. The special feature of the 'Eyetracker' is that it can be installed in any model of car. There is no need for a complicated calibration of the cameras.

"With conventional systems, every person whose line of vision is to be monitored has to complete more or less time-consuming preparations. Because every head, every face, every pair of eyes is different," notes Husar.

There is also another benefit: The system does not require a PC or a laptop.

"What we have developed is a small modular system with its own hardware and programmes on board, so that the line of vision is computed directly within the camera itself. Since the 'Eyetracker' is fitted with at least two cameras that record images stereoscopically - meaning in three dimensions - the system can easily identify the spatial position of the pupil and the line of vision," according to Husar.

The information is fed out through a standard interface. The information is stored in a standard interface (USB, CAN). This way, the 'Eyetracker' can be connected directly to the car's trip computer.

If the camera modules detect that the eye is closed for longer than a user-defined interval, it sounds an alarm. When used as a driver-assistance system, there can be four or even six cameras keeping watch over the driver's eyes. The cameras evaluate up to 200 images per second to identify the line of vision, even when a driver's head moves to the left or right.

Yet the 'Eyetracker' is only roughly half the size of a matchbox and practically undetected when mounted behind the sun visor and in the dashboard. The tiny lenses are just three to four millimetres in diameter.

There are a host of other applications for the 'Eyetracker'. In medicine, the camera system can assist with eye operations by registering a patient's every eye movement.

With this technology, players of computer games can also look around themselves, without requiring a joystick to change their viewing direction.

It is also a valuable tool for marketing and advertising researchers with an interest in determining which parts of a poster or advertising spot receive longer attention from their viewers.

China's iPad users get free TV broadcast

China's state-owned television network China Xinhua News Network Corporation (CNC) will provide a 24-hour free broadcast to iPad users in the country.

Users of Apple Inc's wireless tablet computer would be able to watch programmes of CNC's Chinese and world channels by downloading and installing the software from Apple stores free of charge, Xinhua reported.

The network's channels were earlier connected to iPhone users a month ago.

Wu Jincai, CNC president and deputy editor-in-chief of Xinhua news agency, said the broadcast through iPad will provide a new medium to audiences around the world to acquire Xinhua news.

The CNC started broadcasting Chinese programmes on Jan. 1 this year and officially launched its English language service called CNC World on July 1.

Privacy breach by Google Street View

London: In a major privacy breach, internet search giant Google copied computer passwords and entire emails from households across Britain.

The company admitted downloading personal data from wireless networks when its fleet of vehicles drove down residential roads taking photographs for its controversial Street View project.

Millions of internet users have potentially been affected.

One privacy campaigner described the intrusion as 'absolutely scandalous' and called on Google to launch a full inquiry into the affair, reports the Telegraph.

The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the privacy watchdog, said it would be looking into Google's admission.

Images for Street View were gathered by vehicle-mounted panoramic cameras starting in 2008.

In May this year, Google confessed the vehicles had also been gathering information about the location of wireless networks, the devices which connect computers to the telecommunications network via radio waves.

Now the California-based company has revealed that far more information was harvested than was previously thought, after privacy regulators in seven countries analysed the data.

"It's clear from those inspections that while most of the data is fragmentary, in some instances entire emails and URLs [web addresses] were captured, as well as passwords," said Alan Eustace, Google's vice president of engineering and research.

"We want to delete this data as soon as possible, and I would like to apologise again for the fact that we collected it in the first place."

The company archived all the material it had gathered, which included emails being sent by private individuals, the web pages they were viewing and passwords they may have entered as the Street View vehicle passed their homes.

It is believed that only wireless networks that were not password-protected were affected.

Simon Davies, director of Privacy International, said: "It's absolutely scandalous that this situation has developed and so many people have had their communications intercepted."

A Google spokesman said the wireless data was gathered so the company could amass details of Wi-Fi hot spots that could help provide location-based web services.

China launches online map service

China has launched an official online mapping service as internet giant Google is yet to apply for a licence to provide a similar service in the country.

The State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping (SBSM) officially unveiled the free online service Map World on Thursday, the China Daily reported on Friday.

The service will provide "comprehensive geological data", said Xu Deming, director of the SBSM.

Map World, the government-backed service, will "allow users to fly over mountains and plains around the world and search restaurants and traffic information across the country, free of charge", he said.

Users can enter Map World directly throughwww.tianditu.cn or www.chinaonmap.cn and search for two and three-dimensional images across the world, without client installations like Google Earth.

"It took about two years to prepare the service with all the satellite images taken from 2006 to 2010," an official at the SBSM said.

But the technology and website construction are still at a preliminary stage, the report said.

Restrictions on internet mapping have been implemented in China to avoid disclosure of State secrets and block uncertified maps.

The SBSM introduced a regulation in May that required companies providing online map and location services in China to apply for approval.

To date, about 70 to 80 companies have applied and 31, including Nokia, Baidu, Alibaba, Sina and Tencent, have been granted licences, the report said.

But Google China has not officially submitted an application.

Qualified online map service providers are required to keep servers that store map data inside the Chinese mainland and must have no record of information leakage in any form over the past three years.

Now, inflatable collar to replace helmet

The 'Hvvding' helmet is an airbag 'collar' that springs into action in an eye blink -- covering the skull and neck of a cyclist in the event of an impact.

Roughly translated in English as the 'Chieftain' - the Hvvding was designed over six years by two Swedish industrial design students.

Designer Anna Haupt said the company hoped the airbag would hit the shops across Northern Europe and Britain in spring next year.

It will first cost around 260 pounds but Haupt believes a lot of people have been crying out for an alternative to the helmet, reports the Daily Mail.

The team developed a system using a collar containing a folded airbag which only inflates when sensors inside detect a sudden jolt.

A small helium gas cylinder inflates the collar in just a hundredth of a second and it remains inflated for several seconds after impact.

The device has been 'tuned' by recreating hundreds of accidents using crash test dummies and real riders.

"The airbag is designed as a hood that surrounds and protects the rider's head," she added.

The hood itself is made from a durable nylon fabric that can withstand the scraping against the road.

"A lot of people don't like a bicycle helmet because of the way it looks and what it does to your hairstyle once you have taken it off," she added.

Apple unveils MacBook Air - thinnest, lightest laptop

Apple has unveiled the thinnest, lightest laptop ever which combines features from the iPhone and iPad with traditional series of MacBook.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced the new MacBook Air on Wednesday night which will incorporate FaceTime video conferencing and a suite of applications, which the company is now bringing to all its Macs. FaceTime allows for video calls between iPhones, iPod touches and Macs.

The new laptop has an 11.6-inch screen but weighs as little as 2.3 pounds. It comes with a multi-touch trackpad which lets users control by pinching, rotating, swiping and double-tapping just like on the iPad or iPhone, reports the Daily Mail.

The new MacBook Air uses flash storage rather than a hard drive like conventional computers, which means it can power up almost instantly from standby mode and store data twice as quickly as a standard hard drive.

However, it has less processing power compared with Apple's other laptops.

Apple will bring a version of its mobile applications store to the Mac, aiming to replicate its success and spur development of new programs.

"We asked ourselves what would happen if a MacBook and an iPad hooked up? Well, this is the result," Jobs said at a media event in Cupertino, California, calling MacBook Air the "future of notebooks".

The MacBook Air comes in two sizes, one with a screen that's 13.3 inches diagonally and another with a 11.6-inch screen.

The larger one clocks in at 2.9 pounds and can be used for seven hours - thanks in part to a low-voltage processor from Intel that consumes less power than ones running in standard laptops.

The 11-inch model with a 64 GB memory will cost 899 pounds while the 13 inch version with 256 GB of storage comes in at 1,349 pounds.

"They're basically merging the product lines; they're simplifying it," said Kaufman Bros analyst Shaw Wu.

"They're taking the strengths out of what they've learned on the iPhone and iPad and bringing that technology over to the Mac side. It makes a lot of sense," Wu added.

While plenty of attention is lavished on the iPhone and iPad, the Mac has been critical to the company's success over the past years. Apple sold $22 billion worth of Macs in 2010, comprising one-third of its revenue.

Nearly 50 million people worldwide use Mac.

Yahoo to take on Google, Microsoft with new email

San Franciso — Yahoo Inc. is sprucing up its free e-mail service in the latest attempt to persuade people to spend more time on its website.

The new look debuting on Wednesday includes several new features and repackages some previously introduced tools that hadn't been easy to find or use.

Yahoo considers it to be the biggest overhaul of its e-mail service in five years. As part of the redesign, Yahoo is promising its e-mail will run twice as fast as it has been.

Yahoo's estimated 273 million worldwide e-mail users will have the choice to switch to the new look beginning on Wednesday, in a testing period that will last through at least the rest of the year. All e-mail accounts will automatically be converted to the new format at a still-undetermined time next year.

In a long-promised change, Yahoo is finally offering its e-mail users the opportunity to connect their e-mail accounts with their profiles on Twitter's popular short-messaging service. The addition means people will be able to see incoming Twitter messages and post their own musings, or 'tweets', directly from their Yahoo e-mail. Yahoo previously had added a similar tool that connected its e-mail service with Facebook accounts.

Another upgrade will enable Yahoo's e-mail users to play videos and peruse pictures sent to them without having to follow links to a new page. Both Microsoft Corp. and Google Inc. have already included some of this technology in their own free e-mail services.

Yahoo also is adding a pane on the left-hand side of the inbox that aims to make some common tasks easier, such as finding top contacts or searching for material contained within e-mails.

The e-mail facelift comes at a time when Yahoo has been losing luster with millions of Web surfers, many of whom are communicating with each other more in online forums such as Facebook and Twitter, or gravitating to Google. The migration has made it more difficult for Yahoo to sell advertising, a factor that has had been hurting its stock price for the past two years.

The number of Yahoo e-mail users was 10 per cent lower in September than a year ago, according to the latest data from the research firm comScore Inc. That ranked Yahoo as the world's second largest Web-based e-mail service behind Microsoft's rival offering.

Microsoft's total users have dipped three per cent during the past year to 362 million. Google's Gmail has climbed 21 per cent during the past year to 193 million worldwide users.

Cultivating loyal e-mail users is important because they tend to be frequent visitors and they often remain logged in when using other online services run by the e-mail providers. The return trips and logged-in activity creates more opportunities to show ads.

iPhones, iPads on kids' Christmas wish list

A Christmas gift is no longer child's play. Now many young Britons cherish gadgets such as iphones and ipads as their presents, a survey has found.

Almost one in four children as young as five said their most wanted Christmas present was Apple's iPhone 4 smartphone, the web-surfing iPad media player or iPod MP3 music player, the Daily Mail reported.

A spokesman for Duracell, which interviewed 2,138 children and parents online, said: "Under-16s have become totally engaged with adult technology."

While demand for the gadgets is greatest among older children, with 66 percent between the ages of 13 and 16 putting the high-tech products at the top of their Christmas wish list, 17 percent of five to eight-year-olds and half of nine to 12-year-olds also did the same.

Other gadgets in the Duracell Toy Report's top 10 include Microsoft's hands-free Kinect motion controller for its Xbox 360 games console, the battery-powered Zhu Zhu Hamster pets and their Kung Zhu Hamster spin-offs, the PlayStation Move controller and the Flip HD video camera.

Although, names of traditional toys appear at the bottom of the list, they are in modern form. The Lego Harry Potter video game and Barbie Video Girl - a video camera set in a Barbie doll are the few choices.

New LTE tech to revolutionise wireless experience

The new-generation wireless technology called long-term evolution (LTE) is set to revolutionise wireless experience on smart phones or tablets and other mobile devices.

When networks around the world adopt LTE by 2012, it will boost their speeds and capabilities, leading to high-definition streaming of movies, full-screen video chatting and multi-player gaming as fast and good as on the home Internet connection.

Though there are no mobile phones yet that can use this LTE technology, Samsung is soon coming out with its Craft LTE mobile phone to take advantage of the new technology, according to reports.

When this new revolutionary technology goes mainstream it will provide a wireless Internet experience that's equivalent to a home Internet experience, PC Magazine analyst Sascha Segan was Wednesday quoted as saying in the the Globe and Mail newspaper.

"On the go, you feel it's just as fast as at home," Segan was quoted as saying.

He said, "Gaming is going to be a great LTE experience. High-def streaming of movies on tablets. Think full-screen video conversations using a tablet or a big-screen phone."

But he said devices lag behind the technology at this stage.

"At first, we are going to see its advantages coming out for people who are using PCs with wireless networks," Segan was quoted as saying.

He said when Samsung comes out with its Craft LTE mobile phone, "It will definitely be at the head of the line for LTE phones. Nokia has a big role in LTE technology and you can bet they are building LTE phones."

He said he has no idea when Apple or RIM will introduce their smart phones for the new technology.

Canada's iconic telecom maker Nortel, which liquidated itself earlier this year to pay off its debtors, had a huge inventory of 4,000 patents related to this cutting-edge, next-generation wire technology.

The outgoing giant had hinted at selling these patents, and RIM and Nokia were among the companies which were eyeing these patents for LTE.

China supercomputer could be world's fastest

Beijing: A leading Chinese research center has built the world's fastest supercomputer, an industry announcement said Thursday, underscoring the country's rise as a science and technology powerhouse.

The Tianhe-1 machine housed at the National Center for Supercomputing in the northern port city of Tianjin is capable of sustained computing of 2.507 petaflops, the equivalent of 2,507 trillion calculations, per second.

The announcement was posted Thursday on Chinese computer research websites. An official listing of the world's fastest supercomputers, the semiannual TOP500, is due to be issued Friday.

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If verified, Tianhe-1 would be significantly faster than the current title holder, the US Department of Energy's Cray XT5 Jaguar in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, which topped the list issued in June at 1.75 petaflops per second.

"This new speed achieved by China means we may replace the U.S. to hold the new world record," Tianhe-1 Project Director Li Nan told state broadcaster CCTV in an interview.

But State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley dismissed the advancement, saying he was confident the U.S. could regain the lead.

"I wouldn't call this a Sputnik moment," Crowley said, referring to the Russian craft that became, in 1957, the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth and made many Americans worry that they were losing their competitive edge. "We have very significant capabilities in this regard, and I have no doubt the scientific community will pick up the challenge."

Supercomputers are used for complex work such as modeling weather systems, simulating nuclear explosions and designing jetliners.

The announcement highlighted how China is leveraging rapid economic growth and sharp increases in research spending to join the United States, Europe and Japan in the global technology elite.

A 15-year government plan issued in 2006 promises support for areas ranging from computers to lasers to genetics.

People more likely to lie on Twitter, Facebook

People are more comfortable with being dishonest on social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook than they are when speaking to someone face-to-face, a survey shows.

A survey of about 2,000 people in Britain by Optimum Research, on behalf of Direct Line insurance firm, found that just 20 percent of people said they were more honest when communicating via Twitter or text messages.

Almost a third said they were more frank when speaking to someone in the flesh, reports the Telegraph.

"Modern technologies, such as smartphones, social networking and instant messaging have been hailed as innovations in the way people interact, removing obstacles to conversation and allowing for openness of discourse," said Glenn Wilson, a psychologist.

"However, we sometimes use these means of communication rather than a face-to-face encounter or a full conversation when we want to be untruthful, as it is easier to fib to someone when we don't have to deal with their reactions or control our own body language," Wilson added.

Police being taught to use Facebook to track killers

Detectives will be taught how to track down killers and other criminals on Facebook, Twitter and other social networks.

Sweeping changes have been made to train thousands of student investigators to bring their work into the 21st century.

They include new information on how to track down suspects through social networking sites, where wanted people may reveal valuable clues.

Updated training exercises also examine how to gather the best information from computers, mobile phones and other electronic devices, reports the Telegraph.

Senior police officers have been forced to keep pace with the rapidly evolving online world to gather intelligence on suspects from street gangs to fraudsters.

Earlier this year, escaped prisoner Craig Lynch mocked police with clues about his whereabouts on Facebook during four months on the run.

In London, detectives are examining posts on Facebook and Twitter relating to the murder of 17-year-old Marvin Henry during a suspected fight between rival gangs.

Deputy Chief Constable Nick Gargan, acting head of the National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA), said updated training is vital.

He said: "This programme is a vital part of the career pathway for detectives and the new training covers sensitive areas of policing where limited guidance existed previously.

"These improvements are exactly what detectives need to tackle the challenges and complexities of modern policing effectively."