Production of floppy discs to be stopped by Sony

According to the reports, technology writers took time out Monday to write obituaries for the floppy disc after Japanese technology giant said it would stop making them in March 2011.

A eulogist from Wired wrote, "RIP, my floppy friend."

It sold 12 million floppy discs in Japan last year but demand has dropped to the point where it they are no longer profitable, Sony said.

In most markets the technology has been replaced by UBS flash cards and improved storage on hard drives.

It was also reported that a writer from PC World put the floppy in perspective.

He said, "Consider those 12 million disks sold in Japan last year. Together they can hold about 17GB of data, which isn't even enough to fill a single-sided Blu-ray Disc."

TCS becomes new victim of hackers

In a fresh instance of rising number of cyber crimes, India's biggest softwareexporter Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) failed to remain insulated from cyber attacks.

Hackers hacked the website of the company which claims to have high internet securitymechanism for protecting its data. Going yet another step, the hackers also put its domain name on sale by taking advantage from the loopholes in the security system.

It is not the first instance of in the country when hackers challenged the digital securitynetwork in the country. Many government websites including the website of telecom regulator TRAI (trai. gov. in) and PM Manmohan Singh's website was played by the hackers in the recent past.

TATA's website continued to flash message 'this domain name is for sale' for hours and it was only around at 7am when the company restored the portal. Techie-buzz. com claims that a France based hacker were involved in this malicious exercise who tried to compromise the server through DNS hijack.

A TCS spokesman informed, "The TCS website www. tcs. com was disrupted. Subsequently, it has been restored and is functioning fine. None of the servers were compromised. Initial investigation reveals a DNS redirection at the domain name registrar's end. Further investigations are on."

Microsoft loses second Word patent appeal, on the hook for $240 million in damages

And the intellectual property rollercoaster continues. Microsoft's second appeal of that $240m judgment banning sales of Word with features infringing on i4i's XML-related patents has been rejected, leaving the Redmond giant with a huge fine to pay atop its undoubtedly sky-high lawyer bills. The appeals court held that Microsoft was explicitly aware of i4i's patents before implementing the relevant XML code into Word -- undoubtedly because i4i had been selling an extremely popular XML plugin for years and had approached Microsoft about licensing it. Yeah, oops. Don't worry, though, there shouldn't be any consumer impact here: old versions of Word aren't affected, and current versions of Word 2007 and Office 2010 don't have the offending features. Still, Microsoft might be able to appeal yet again, depending on a panel ruling on the matter -- at this rate, we'd expect it.

New Internet Explorer with ‘safety’ edition released

Microsoft has earned another reason to get appreciation by deciding to launch a new customized version of the IE8 in order to promote online safety for families. This step has been taken in collaboration with CEOP, Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre.

The new customized version of IE8 contains advice, help and report services directly into the toolbar and also provides access to information on cyber bullying, viruses, hacking, mobile protection, harmful content and sexual behaviour.

Regarding the release, the Microsoft business and marketing officer, Methew Bishop said, "As more and more young people are learning, playing and communicating online, it is vital we provide the appropriate safety information as we know this is one of the most effective ways of helping to protect people."

In addition to this, IE8 has released with the improvements on the shortcomings of IE6 and IE7. But the IE8 is not recommended for the users who are much concerned about the securitythreat from the viruses and bugs. Moreover, IE8 is slower as comparable to the other browsers.

A new threat comes up for the app world

Developers have created a Smartphone application called "WeatherFistBadMonkey." It exploits the threat of 'botnet' and has come up as the recent threat to the cyber world.

Botnet is a kind of network that is controlled by a hacker and runs on an autonomous basis. There are many other layers of computers which are used as the controlling threads.

In answer to this kind of hacker attacks, Derek Brown and Danny Tijerina from a security firm, TippingPoint, had developed software named WeatherFist.

It was originally used for forecasting the weather and looking at its properties, it was later shifted to providing aid in collecting files from phones, logging keyboards and sending emails through other people's ids. This sift was done after upgrading it.

Now, the software aids in the understanding of 'How botnets works?' and the version of thissoftware is available on ModMyi, an alternative app store.

The app store refers to iPhones that have been customized, known as jailbreaking, to acceptsoftware that are not available on the official app stores.

Experts believe that this move may affect the positioning of Apple.

Google comes up with POP3

Google developers have listed their latest feature on the GmailLabs. It aids an ability to access POP3 (Post Office Protocol) account mails.

This simultaneously helps in importing emails at a faster rate from the POP account.

What is important is that this service allows a user to import emails even while one is chatting.

The new POP accounts also help in automatic updating of emails without using the Gmailplatform. A user can access his accounts with a single click without making much of changes in the settings.

The feature has been developed for those who bank upon Gmail for bringing in the emails from their other accounts.

This feature also helps in manual refreshing and sorts of all the latest emails.

Adding to the current list of features and telling about it Developer Emmanuel Pellereau, at Google said, "Turn on Refresh POP accounts from the Labs tab under Settings, and the refresh link at the top of your inbox will not only update your inbox with your new Gmailmessages, it will also fetch messages from any other accounts which you have set up".

Bio-fuel not better option than fossil fuel in terms of environmental impact

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io-fuel is found to be inferior as compared to fossil fuels so far as the environmental impacts are concern. The forests have been cleaned up to produce thebiofuel crops.

A study in UK revealed that fossil fuels are better than to clean the forest to produce the biofuelcrops. The study also claimed that commonly-used biofuel crops such as rape seed, palm oil and soy have failed to meet the sustainability standard of the European Commission.

As per the minimum sustainability standard set by the European Commission, the emissions from biofuel should reduce by at least 35% as compared to fossil fuel. But the result of a study revealed that palm oil increases emissions by 31% because of the indirect land use change (ILUC). ILUC is producing an ample amount of carbon just because the forests and grasslands have turned into biofuel crop plantations.

However, Environmental Transport Association (ETA) commented that biofuel must have to be environmental friendly. ETA has questioned the EU's biofuel policy and said that in such circumstances biofuel couldn't be treated as a possible substitute for the fossil fuels like diesel or petrol.

iPad prices leaked

The priceinformation of the yet to be launched iPads has been leaked. The launch is due for March.

Information available with Geeky Gadgets says that the 16GB iPad will cost £389. The 32GB edition will be priced at £439 and the 64GB version will cost £489.

When calculated in terms of American dollar, the figures come down to $499, $599 and $699 respectively.

If the figures revealed are true, then the prices are very high and not very competitive considering the market.

What is worth mentioning is that all the three models are part of the first shipment of iPads and are devoid of 3G technology.

Furthermore, iPad lacks USB port. This means that a consumer has to either opt for a 3G connection during the purchase or be content with no connection at all.

This is surprising since integrated 3G enablers are the ones that make equipments very expensive. Whether in mobiles or in laptops, they tend to shoot up the price. In laptops they add close to £100.

Without these features, it would be a concern for iPad to be able to attract consumers at this high a price.

Twitter facing phishing attack

The trust factor is lacking amidst the fast moving technological world and online users should be careful about their security.

According to the expert at security firm Sophos, the Twitter followers needs to be cautious now to face a new challenge, as from now onwards if you click on the links in the tweets, you might become the victim of the fraud.

The most popular networking site of US has been affected by the Phishing attack leaving the users in a dilemma.

However to play on the safer side, if the users find a URL, having a message "This you???", then just avoid that. Reason? When you click on the link, a login page will appear where the hackers are all set to take away your credentials.

Also they can automatically send the pishing message from the users account after you have been duped.

The word for caution to all Twitter users, when in doubt don't even trust your friends as they could be the hackers in disguise, ready to invade your account and mutilate your privacy.

35 percent despised of high speed internet

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broadband data states that the thirty - five percent of Americans are devoid of high speed netentrée at their residence. This piece of evidence was corroborated by the Federal Communications Commission who tallied the list which summed up to 80 million people.

The FCC has been allotted the task for delivering a national broadband plan to Congress by March 17. FCC has also provided a rough draft of its studies.

The basic cause behind non-usage of high speed internet is due to three major factors; affordability, absence of digital competency and the lack of association or the relevance factor. It was shockingly observed that the maximum percentage 15 percent was composed of those who either were least interested for internet or thought it to be an unnecessary luxury.

Rest percentage comprised of a mixture of 'unmanageable to pay - lots' and 'the ignorant ones'. With this data, which was analyzed for the broadband connection which cost a meager $41, people have turned their backs to the bestowing hands of technology. This is a point to be pondered upon.

New smut censor introduced for You Tube by Google

A "safety mode" has been introduced by Google for You Tube watchers. This will filter out smut and other objectionable material, the company announced.

Customers can opt in to the "safety mode", which also automatically hides comments on any videos. If the user decides to view the comments, all objectionable words are censored by Google's

smut filter.

Pornography, gratuitous violence and animal abuse have been banned for long on the web's top video-sharing site. But the new filter will target such images even if they occur within a

legitimate context such as a news report, the company said in its blog Thursday.

Jamie Davidson, the product manager, said,"An example of this type of content might be a newsworthy video that contains graphic violence, such as a political protest or war coverage. While no

filter is 100 percent perfect, 'safety mode' is another step in our ongoing desire to give you greater control over the content you see on the site."

Football World Cup to be broadcasted on smartphones by BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has said it will launch new sports and news applications to satisfy mobile phone user and football fan demand with smartphone sales in UK predicted to skyrocket this year because of the FIFA World Cup,.

BBC plans to launch this year a string of free video-on-demand applications one of them is Live Sport.

The decision means that football fans will be able to watch every England game live on their smartphone, as well as clips of every goal scored in this summer's tournament in South Africa.

The Telegraph quoted Erik Huggers, BBC's director of future technology, as saying," It''s been 12 years since the launch of BBC Online, but as media converges and technology accelerates, licence fee payers are increasingly using sophisticated handheld devices to access information."

He further added," They tell us that they want to access the digital services that they have paid for at a time and place that suits them." 

Attacks on Google, other US firms traced to two Chinese schools

Computers located in two Chinese schools, including one with close ties to the Chinese military have been traced for the series of online attacks on Google and dozens of other American corporations.

According to several people with knowledge of the investigation who asked for anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the inquiry, the Chinese schools involved are Shanghai Jiaotong University and the Lanxiang Vocational School.

The attacks, aimed at stealing trade secrets and computer codes and capturing e-mail of Chinese human rights activists, may have begun as early as April, months earlier than previously believed, the New York Times quoted people involved in the investigation, as saying.

On January 12, Google had announced that it and other companies had been subjected to sophisticated attacks that probably came from China.

Evidence acquired by a United States military contractor that faced the same attacks as Google has even led investigators to suspect a link to a specific computer science class, taught by a Ukrainian professor at the vocational school.

Just a few weeks ago its students of Jiaotong, which has one of China's top computer science programs, has won an international computer programming competition, "Battle of the Brains", organized by I. B. M. the beating out Stanford and other top-flight universities.

Lanxiang is a huge vocational school that was established with military support and trains some computer scientists for the military in east China's Shandong Province. (With Input from Agencies)

YouTube now supports parental control!

With the growing rage of children getting addicted and hooked to net for fun these days, setting agitated and complaining parents on the access ofinappropriate contents access, you tube has evolved the security standards for children below 18, to set the YouTube's new parental controls and safe search features, leaving the parents tension free.

Google has taken an initiative in collaboration with YouTube, in discovering a new parental control feature in its video sharing site, YouTube to help filter the unwanted sexual content from the children. The most popular video sharing site came under the parental scanning and anger, as the site provided open access to inappropriatecontent, not suggested for children.

Thus Google stood up to provide moral support to the concerned parents, enabling the feature from today onwards which supports the feature to lock the inappropriate material and videos from viewing. So from now onwards, if the children try to be naughty and type in the word sex on YouTube site, the same shall not be supported. To which earlier, the same hit on the word sex, throngs out innumerable provocative and violent videos.

The president of Internet safety advocacy group iKeepSafe.org, was amongst the many parents who shared similar concern and did make a complaint to YouTube two years back, forcing the company to do make it a clean and learning experience on the site for children.

However, to filter the appropriate content amongst the million of videos is not a easy nut to crack as with 20 hours of video uploading done every minute to YouTube.

The Safety Mode is the feature that prevents children from browsing sexual or inappropriatecontent. Further, it has 3 features which limits the content on videos containing nudity, pornography, narcotics, graphic violence, and news events containing graphic violence; secondly it locks Safety Mode for all users, even if the user has logged out, so that the kids can’t turn off Safety mode.

So from now onwards for every single browsing you do, you would have to turn the safety mode. Also it is account-specific, in case you have different accounts on a system, you have to turn on Safety Mode for all the accounts you want to filter.

However this feature is not supported in private browsing mode.

Google plans to develop software for real time language conversion

Google has planned to tap the future market of real time language conversion applications for the advanced telecommunication gadgets. Under its strategy, the search giant has been developing newtranslation software for mobile phones which will enable two people from different sides of the world to talk in real time, while one won't need to speak the same language.

Although, this technology is yet in concept phase, Google has already launched its online text-to-text translation service and its Google Voice technology which will be soon launched for the mobile phones.

In a conversation with Times online, Google's head of translation services, Mr. Franz Och said, "We think speech-to-speech translation should be possible and work reasonably well in a few years' time."

But like Google, there are some other players too which have the similar vision about the application. Working in the similar sector is the company Sahr, which made an announcement in June 2009, that it was pioneering and developing "the World's richest knowledge base for Arabic natural language processing."

Moreover, many high profile organizations including the US Departments of defence, Homeland Security and justice has started to test Sahr's instant translation service on the blackberry and iPhone mobile platforms

Hillary Clinton to Call for Uncensored Global Internet

Tomorrow, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is all prepared to send out a call for an uncensoredglobal Internet, wherein individuals and businesses can operate without any fears of repression or cyber attacks like those which Google Inc. has said it experienced in China.

With the call, Secretary Clinton will be outlining the Obama Administration’s vision of encouraging Internet freedom and security, while also highlighting how America is offering support to organizations across the globe to develop and use tools to "circumvent firewalls and promote democracy and economic growth", as has been shared by officials.

“Do we want to live in a world where there is one Internet, one knowledge commons from which we can all draw or where the knowledge you have access to is based on what country you live in and the whim of the censors?”, said Ms. Clinton's adviser on technology, Alec Ross, while sharing that the Secretary's upcoming speech would pose the issue as a strong threat to the "the free flow of information and resources".

The call from the Secretary seems to be a direct result of news shared by Google, according to which, the company had stressed on January 12 that it might be putting an end to its operations across China. The announcement was a result of a cyber attack which was targeted at Google, and seemed to be looking to steal information from Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists.

Chinese used 'flaws' in Microsoft explorer to hack Google

 The Chinese managed to hack Google accounts of human activists and many businesses thanks to flaws in Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) browser, according to reports Friday.

Google has threatened to close its operations and offices in China after hacking and "phishing'' attempts to break into gmail accounts of US, China and Europe based Chinese human rights activists.

The company, which agreed to censor of Google. cn at its launch in 2006, has also said it is "no longer willing to continue censoring our results onGoogle. cn.''

Reports Friday quoted security researcher McAfee Inc. as saying that Chinese cyber attacks on Google accounts were engineered by using an unknown flaw in Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser.

According to McAfee, 'phishers' fooled users into clicking on a link to a website. This website then secretly downloaded malicious software onto their computers. The spyware allowed the hackers to take remote control of the computers.

Microsoft has already admitted in its blog that IE browser might be used by hackers to remotely spy on infected computers. It is likely to unveil a software update for the browser.

"We need to take all cyber attacks, not just this one, seriously,'' Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer told CNBC.

"We have a whole team of people that responds in very real time to any report that it may have something to do with our software, which we don't know yet,'' he said.

Google has said that "these accounts have not been accessed through any security breach atGoogle, but most likely via phishing scams or malware placed on the users' computers.''

It says it will soon hold discussions the Chinese soon whether it can operate an unfiltered search engine. "We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google. cn, and potentially our offices in China," Google warned in a blog Tuesday.

Bono calls for control over net downloads

U2 frontmanBono has slammedinternet service providers for their failure to clamp illegal file sharing over their networks, and warns the film industry not to be dogged like music industry.

Writing for the New York Times, Bono claimedInternet service providers were "reverse Robin Hoods" benefiting from the music industry''s lost profits.

He hinted that China''s efforts prove that tracking net content is possible.

"The immutable laws of bandwidth tell us we''re just a few years away from being able to download an entire season of ''24'' in 24 seconds," BBC News quoted Bono as saying.

"A decade''s worth of music file-sharing and swiping has made clear that the people it hurts are the creators... the people this reverse Robin Hooding benefits are rich service providers, whose swollen profits perfectly mirror the lost receipts of the music business," he added.

Bono further suggested that the feasibility of tracking down file-sharers had already been proven.

"We know from America''s noble effort to stop child pornography, not to mention China''s ignoble effort to suppress online dissent, that it''s perfectly possible to track content," he said.

However, Bono’s editorial has attracted significant criticism, both on its economic merits and for the suggestion of net content policing, with the critics pointing out that U2 topped 2009''s list of top-grossing live acts.

"Bono has missed that even a totalitarian government... can''t effectively control net-content," said Cory Doctorow, a blogger and journalist noted for his study of file-sharing policy.

"If only greed and ignorance could sequester carbon, Bono could finally save the planet," he added

Google challenges China by ending censorship of search results

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he world''s leading search engine, Google, has said it is no longer willing to censor search results on its Chinese service.

The Internet giant said the decision followed a cyber attack it believes was aimed at gathering information on Chinese human rights activists.

The move follows a clampdown on the Internet in China over the last year, which has seen sites and social networking services hosted overseas blocked – including Twitter, Facebook and YouTube – and the closure of many sites at home. Chinese authorities criticised Google for supplying "vulgar" content in results, reports The Guardian.

Google acknowledged the decision "may well mean" the closure of Google. cn and its offices in China.

Google was in contact with the US State Department before its announcement.

Spokesman PJ Crowley said: "Every nation has an obligation, regardless of the origin of malicious cyber activities, to keep its part of the network secure. That includes China. Every nation should criminalise malicious activities on computer networks."

In a post on the official Google Blog, the company outlined a "highly sophisticated and targeted" attack in December, which it believes affected at least 20 other firms:

"These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered, combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web, have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China,” the statement from Google said.

"We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google. cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all," it added.

Human Rights Watch praised the decision and urged other firms to follow suit in challengingcensorship

Wipro tops list of H-1B visa professionals in 2009

With 1,964 H-1B visas in 2009, Indian IT major Wipro has topped the list of firms that got the coveted US visas for highly skilled professionals.

Microsoft with 1,318 visas came next, with Intel (723) in third place, while Google with 211 in 25th place brought up the rear. IBM India (695), Infosys (440), Polaris Software Lab India (254) and Satyam (219) were the other major Indian visa getters.

At least 200 US and Asia-based technology, financial and consulting companies applied for H-1B visas in 2009. The major technology companies that did not rank in the Top 25, but did rank in the Top 50 include Yahoo, Amazon, Apple, Texas Instruments, Nvidia and IBM, according to e-week. com.

Some of the leading research universities in the United States also rank in the Top 50 --University of Maryland, University of Michigan, Johns Hopkins, University of Illinois, University of Pennsylvania, Yale, Stanford, Harvard, University of Pittsburgh, Columbia and Baylor College of Medicine.

Here is a countdown of the top 25 companies with the specific number of H-1B visas they were granted by the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) in 2009:

1. Wipro 1,964, 2. Microsoft 1,318, 3. Intel 723, 4. IBM India 695, 5. Patni Americas 609, 6. Larsen & Toubro Infotech 602, 7. Ernst & Young 481, 8. Infosys 440, 9. UST Global 344, 10. Deloitte 328, 11. Qualcomm 320, 12. Cisco Systems 308, 13. Accenture 287, 14. KPMG 287, 15. Oracle 272, 16. Polaris Software Lab India 254, 17. Rite Aid 240, 18. Goldman Sachs 236, 19. Deloitte & Touche 235, 20. Cognizant 233, 21. Mphasis 229, 22. Satyam 219, 23. Bloomberg 217, 24. Motorola 213 and 25. Google 211.