Questions Arise on Google's privacy policy

A European Commission advisory group has raised concerns about how Google uses and manages users' search data.

A privacy advisory group composed of representatives from all of the European Union countries sent Google a letter expressing concern over the search giant's new privacy policy announced in March.

The issue surrounds Google's policy of anonymizing its server logs after 18 to 24 months. According to a Commission source, the advisory group is concerned with how the information is managed, rather than the length of time it is stored.

Google, which confirmed it received a letter from the chairman of the advisory group, said it will respond, as requested, before the group holds its next meeting in mid-June.

Read More...

Harmful program distributed through e-mail

Hackers are trying to play on business' fear of legal action from customers to trick them into downloading a harmful program distributed through e-mail.

The e-mails purport to come from the Better Business Bureau, an organization that monitors and arbitrates disputes between consumers and businesses in the U.S. and Canada. The e-mails assert that a customer lodged a complaint against the recipient's business, according to a warning on the Web site of Websense, a security vendor.

The e-mails contain a Microsoft Word attachment with the text of the supposed complaint and instructions for how to respond. But embedded in that document is a keylogging program that captures data on the victim's computer and then uploads it to a server in Malaysia.

Read More...

Powerful new weapon to fight against movie pirates

Malaysian cinemas have found a powerful new weapon in their fight against movie pirates -- military-style night-vision goggles.

After showing people to their seats, trained ushers are strapping on the goggles and scanning darkened cinemas around the country to spot anyone trying to make illegal copies of movies with hand-held video recorders or mobile phones.

The Motion Picture Association, which is training Malaysian ushers to catch the pirates, said cinemas had caught 17 people in the past two months, during which Hollywood studios released blockbusters like "Spider-Man 3" and "Pirates of the Caribbean."

Read More...

Skype Worm Jumps to ICQ, MSN

A new variant of the Stration worm, which has been plaguing Windows users for the past year, has made the jump from Skype to the ICQ and MSN Messenger networks.

This latest variant popped up earlier this week, according to Chris Boyd, a researcher at FaceTime Communications Inc., who blogs under the pseudonym "Paperghost."

"They're using Skype as a jump off into other more established networks," Boyd said. "The infection will go looking for other instant messaging clients that are on the PC and then attempt to send the infection message that it initially sends through Skype through these other chat systems."

Read More...

Firefox 3.0 Passes Major Milestone

Mozilla Corp. has met a major milestone in its march to Firefox 3.0, developers said yesterday, by adding another chunk of the new Places feature to the alpha set for release late next week.

Places -- a complete revamp of the bookmarks and history functions of the browser -- was at one point slated to debut in Firefox 2.0, but was yanked a year ago in the run up to that version's October 2006 release. Instead, it will debut in Firefox 3.0.

"We enabled the Places implementation of bookmarks on the trunk," said the Places team in a post to the Mozilla developer center blog. "Although there is still much to be done, this is an important milestone for us." Firefox 3.0 alpha 5 is scheduled to launch June 1.

Read More....

Intel India contributes 50 per cent to global revenues

The contribution of India to Intel’s global products is on the rise. The latest contribution has been on the notebook processor technology front with the Intel India Development Centre (IIDC) in Bangalore making around 50 per cent contribution to the Intel Centrino Mobile platform. Intel in India has around 3,000 people spanning various functions with the majority engaged in R&D activity.

Addressing media persons here on Thursday, Sandeep Shah, director - mobility group, Intel India, said, “We are on a ramp-up and increasing our value & inputs to these products.”

The latest mobile platform of Intel, formerly codenamed Santa Rosa, saw the India centre making various contributions in the areas of software validation, hardware board design, chipset and validation for the customers.

Mr Shah said that for the first time, the entire hardware board has been designed in Bangalore. Intel has also seen its three previous mobile platforms having contributions from IIDC. This also signifies the growing confidence of Intel in its India operations.

Intel India officials said that its expertise has been growing and has developing domain expertise in certain verticals. It was earlier providing support and validation functions and now has gone about implementing products independently. Mr Shah said this latest mobile platform will also be used in the small form factor PCs. This has been the second such activity for Intel in the recent past. It had recently unveiled a new chip called teraflop processor, which is capable of doing trillions of calculations per second. The IIDC had contributed 50 per cent towards the products in the areas of logic, circuit and physical design.

Microsoft introduces Fortza 2 in India

Microsoft Game Studios on Wednesday launched the upgraded version of its motor sports game, Fortza Motorsport 2, in India priced at Rs 1,895.

"The launch of Fortza 2 marks a new price point that Microsoft has introduced in the Indian market. We were earlier selling our titles for Rs 2,599 and have brought this popular title for just Rs 1,895," Microsoft Country Manager Entertainment and Devices division Mohit Anand told reporters.

He said the company had spent nearly 40 million dollars and two years in upgrading the title for gamers globally.

Microsoft is also planning to bring a top-end variant of its high-definition gaming console, X-Box Elite, in the Indian market by August.

The company is presently looking at bringing online gaming through XBox live in the country soon.

"We will introduce XBox live in India within this year," Anand said.

The company presently sells over 70 gaming titles in India and would soon introduce two new titles here, he added

Intel should be ashamed: Negroponte

The much-talked about 'One Laptop Per Child' project (OLPC) has sparked off yet another controversy. A big one actually! Nicholas Negroponte, founder and leader of the OLPC project and professor at MIT, has said in a TV interview that he would have notched up three million orders for the $100 laptop (now revised to $175), but for Intel's "shameless" business practices.

Negroponte bitterly accused the microprocessor major of selling its own cut-price laptop -- the Classmate PC – well below cost to drive him out of market. "Intel has hurt the mission enormously," Negroponte said.

Both Intel and Negroponte's not-for-profit organisation, OLPC, have developed a low-cost laptop aimed specifically at school children in the developing countries. Intel's Classmate PC runs Microsoft Windows and Linux, besides Open Office. There are several other differences in both the hardware and software. (Stay tuned in as we plan to bring more on this topic in the coming weeks!)

Negroponte believes that the main problem is that his machine uses a processor designed by Intel's arch rival AMD. "Intel and AMD fight viciously," he said. "We're just sort of caught in the middle."

Negroponte says Intel has distributed marketing literature to governments with titles such as "the shortcomings of the ‘One Laptop per Child’ approach," which outline the supposedly stronger points of the Classmate.

Negroponte's project is currently in a critical phase. Countries have time until this month-end to place their orders for the first batch and will be able to purchase in the lots of 250,000.

The laptops will initially cost $176, but the eventual aim is to sell the machine to government-run educational institutions in developing countries at its originally promised price tag of $100.

Speaking to US broadcaster CBS, Intel's chairman Craig Barrett denied the claims. "We're not trying to drive him out of business," said Craig Barrett. "We're trying to bring capability to young people."

Barrett has previously dismissed the $100 laptop as a mere "gadget." Meanwhile, Intel is very aggressively pushing its Classmate PC worldwide.

Infy to give biz edge to social entrepreneurs' dreams

After incubating purely-for-profit firms like Yantra and Onmobile, Infosys Technologies now plans to give social entrepreneurs a leg up.

The company, which donates 1% of its profits to social causes through the Infosys Foundation, has started a new initiative within the company through which it will support, and in some cases fund, ideas on social entrepreneurship and convert them to viable business plans.

However, the focus will not be so much on funding, as it will be on providing guidance in taking the idea forward and making it self-sustaining, says Sanjay Purohit, associate vice-president & head of corporate planning at Infosys. Mr Purohit is one of the key people spearheading the initiative in the company.

“Right now, what we have is an operational corpus to run the program. Entrepreneurs can approach Infosys like any other corporate. We’re not shutting out the possibility of seed funding some of the initiatives,” Mr Purohit told ET.

The linkage will allow entrepreneurs to tap the management expertise of one of India’s most admired firms and use it to build world-class organisations working for social causes. Apart from Mr Purhoit, CEO designate Kris Gopalakrishnan will also be actively involved in the initiative. He will be the sponsor and official mentor of the initiative.

The initiative, called InfYi will function as the corporate chapter of the Young India initiative started by the Confederation of Indian Industry. Reflecting that charter, all its members below the age of 35 will be Infoscions.

So far, 90 people have been enrolled in the program, in addition to the dozen people who form part of the InfYi’s core team. The core team is made up of Infosys management council alumni — these are young Infoscions who are selected every year from among the employees to be on the management council for a year.

InfYi will have the backing of the Infosys management council to review the progress of the entrepreneurial ideas. The management council consists of the board members, head of departments, business heads and the 12 young Infoscions. It meets about eight times a year.

Based on the inputs that a project or idea needs, a senior council member will contribute to it. The projects could be in youth affairs, education, healthcare, economy or any other socially-relevant area. So far, InfYi has received 13 project ideas. Three of these will be shortlisted taken from concept to execution. They will be put through the paces by a team which has worked out how to capitalise on opportunities and survive downturns.

IBM rules out setting up fab unit in India

Ruling out setting up of any fab facility in India, IBM has said that it would be keen to providing the technology know-how to any of the units coming up in the country.

“We will be ready for technology transfer whenever they (fab units) are ready as we are keen on contributing towards the growing ecosystem of the Indian semiconductor industry,” said, Adalio Sanchez, GM of global engineering solutions, STG, IBM.

IBM has been associated with the semiconductor industry for around 30 years and its activity includes manufacturing, design and R&D. The multi-billion dollar IT giant had also recently set up the Semiconductor Research and Development Enablement Centre (SRDC) in Bangalore, which is its sixth globally and the first outside the US and Europe. Mr Sanchez said it would be keen on the transfer of process technology to proposed fab units in India and not any chip design activity.

IBM has also announced a grand alliance with four other major players in the semiconductor industry to work on the latest 32nm bulk CMOS process technology. The other partners include Chartered, Samsung, Infineon and Freescale.

According to IBM, the five companies intend to work together to come out with technology for chips which is high on performance while using lesser power. It is also looking at a common manufacturing platform strategy, whereby the technology can be more easily transferred between partners.

Mr Sanchez said that the Bangalore centre will also be playing very key role in latest development. As the centre is less than a year old, it is still on the growth phase it has been engaged in the testing and validation services. The chips developed by IBM and its partners have found its application largely in servers and storage products. However, it has also used in video games, medical electronics, telecom, defence among others

Google hopes search translation tools make profit

Google Inc. planned to introduce a feature Wednesday that automatically translates Internet search requests and results in 12 languages, underscoring the rapidly growing company's ambitions outside the United States.

The tools allow Google's users to enter search requests in their native languages and then choose to have the phrases as well as the accompanying results automatically translated into another language. Users can then click on a link and have the entire Web page translated through a service that Google had already been offering.

Google expects the new translation service for search results to be particularly popular outside of the United States and the United Kingdom because so much of the Internet's content is published in English.

Besides English, Google's search results translator works in Arabic, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Japanese, Korean, traditional Chinese and simplified Chinese. Yahoo Inc., which runs the Web's second largest search engine behind Google, already offers a service that has been automatically translating search results in Germany, France and Japan since 2005, spokeswoman Kathryn Kelly said. The Sunnyvale-based company also offers translation tools through its BabelFish site.

More recently, Yahoo has been trying to woo more traffic outside the United States through its ``answers'' service, which relies on its users to respond to each other's questions in nine different languages.

By making its search engine more appealing to people who don't speak English, Google is angling to sell more advertising in international markets and maintain the impressive financial growth that has driven a more than fivefold increase in its stock price in less than three years. The Mountain View-based company's shares fell $1.89 to $473.97 Wednesday.

Google's family of Web sites, including online video pioneer YouTube.com, already attracts the world's largest audience, according to comScore Media Metrix.

American Technology Research analyst Rob Sanderson is among those who believe Google is poised to cash in on its opportunities outside the United States and Britain.

Google collected $7.6 billion (euro5.63 billion), or 72 percent, of its 2006 revenue from sources in the United States and Britain, Sanderson said in a report issued Tuesday. If the company had fared as well in other key markets around the world, Sanderson estimated Google would have generated an additional $4.9 billion (euro3.63 billion) to $8.7 billion (euro6.45 billion) in revenue last year

``Clearly growth in international markets can significantly move the needle for'' Google, Sanderson wrote. ``We believe it is only time that stands in the way of capturing this opportunity.'' In a separate move to boost its profits, Google reportedly is nearing a $100 million (euro74 million) deal to buy privately held FeedBurner Inc., which helps Web logs and other online publishers attract traffic and advertising through a distribution channel known as ``really simple syndication,'' or RSS.

The acquisition, which has been rumored for the past week, is expected to close in early June, according to TechCrunch, a well-connected blog that revealed Google's plans to buy YouTube three days before that deal was announced last October. Contacted Wednesday, Google declined to comment on its reported interest in Chicago-based FeedBurner.

In another move Wednesday that had long been anticipated, Google began experimenting with the distribution of video ads to a small group of Web sites. The company will share the video revenue with its partners, just as it does with the short, text-based ads that account for most of its profit.

The video ads, which will be limited to 30 seconds, can be skipped by a Web site's visitors.

Microsoft on CNBC TV shows

Catch up on Microsoft IndiMIX where innovative business models on the web and state-of-the-art technology converged to be the next generation of the internet. Join Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer as he shares his vision of the next web and the immense opportunity and innovation happening around it. Watch Yash Chopra, Anil Kumble and Rajnikant Patel speak about how the next generation web is changing the world of Bollywood, Cricket and Dalal Street. The top DotComs and media houses like Hungama.com, Shaadi.com, MSN and NDTV share their experiences about the opportunity that the next web provides. Get a glimpse of the latest technologies that make the web experience come alive... Sunday 27-May-2007 5.30 pm Saturday 2-June-2007 6.30 pm Join us for a half hour episode on the future of software development. Indian IT companies have expanded across the globe and become the trusted IT advisors of Fortune 500 companies. Join us as they share their experiences and challenges in moving up the value chain. Get a ring side view of the innovations that are driving improvements in productivity, profitability and competitiveness by investing in the next generation of SDLC tools and processes. Watch experts from Infosys, Microsoft, Mindtree, Covansys, Persistent and US Technologies as they share their experiences and how they have overcome the challenges of software development in a global delivery environment. Saturday 9-June-2007 6.00 pm Sunday 10-June-2007 6.30 pm Catch a glimpse of the excitement at Microsoft TechMela the biggest technology event from Microsoft. TechMela is the fusion of the latest technologies, technical expertise, and structured learning experiences. It is an evolution of the erstwhile TechEd, Mobile and Embedded Developers Conference, MIX, and IT Professionals Conference. Get an inside view into the latest technologies from Microsoft that will revolutionize the future of software and computing and be ready to grab the opportunities that emerge. Watch the top CXOs from Indian industry discuss technology trends and innovations and how you can be prepared. Saturday 23-June-2007 6.00 pm Sunday 24-June-2007 6.30 pm

Angry online shoppers

A recent survey of more than 2,400 web users has found that Britain is becoming a nation of angry online shoppers.

The report, commissioned by MoreComputers.com, found that 93 per cent of UK users are annoyed by 'sneaky' website charges.

Hidden delivery charges provoke the most anger, with 64 per cent saying they would not buy from sites engaging in the practice.

The growing practice of so-called 'philfing' describes online stores holding back the real cost of 'extras' until the last minute.

Brian Trevaskiss, operations manager at MoreComputers.com, said: ''Shopping online is without doubt quick and convenient. But this growing trend of 'philfing' is so annoying for consumers that they abandon their baskets and shop elsewhere.''

Read more...

Microsoft and Open Source

Microsoft's approach toward licensing as it applies to open source software is not an attack, but a response to the demands of customers, a senior company executive said Wednesday.

Bob Muglia, senior vice president of Microsoft's server and tools business, told attendees at the Interop business technology conference that controversy revolving around the company's claim that Linux and other open source software infringe on more than 200 Microsoft patents compelled him to "clarify our position on this, and where we're going."

Muglia said Microsoft was focused on interoperability with open source software, not on challenging the use of its intellectual property in court. "Our approach is a licensing based one," Muglia said. "It's a real issue for customers, and one that Microsoft is addressing proactively."

Microsoft has addressed the issue by offering licensing deals to open-source distributors. Novell, for example, entered a two-way deal last year that protects its customers from potential patent claims by Microsoft, while giving the software maker's customers the same protection in regards to Novell's intellectual property. The deal has been severely criticized by the open source community.

Read more...

Software piracy

A software pirate who sold illegal copies of Symantec Corp. software on the online auction site eBay Inc. has agreed to pay a $205,000 fine.

In an announcement today, the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) trade group, which filed suit in the case on behalf of Symantec -- a SIIA member -- said the defendant has also agreed to assist authorities in identifying the parties who actually made and distributed the illegal software that was sold.

Keith Kupferschmid, senior vice president of intellectual property for the Washington-based SIIA, said the name and location of the defendant is being kept secret under the terms of the settlement.

Read more...

A Linux computer everywhere

A U.S. government- and industry-led coalition aiming to equip every car and roadside in America with wirelessly connected computers has tapped Linux for a prototype design. The Vehicle Infrastructure Integration Consortium (VII-C) hopes to lower driver death rates, reduce traffic jams, and media-enable cars before 2017.

The VII-C is funded by the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), along with AASHTO, ten State Departments of Transportation, and seven vehicle manufacturers already involved in the U.S. DOT's Intelligent Vehicle Initiative: BMW, DaimlerChrysler, Ford, GM, Honda, Nissan, and Toyota.

The VII-C says that 21,000 of the 43,000 traffic fatalities in 2003 were caused by vehicles leaving the road or entering intersections when they should not have. It hopes a massive network connecting cars to each other and to roadsides can help.

Like a lot of large-scale government projects, VII is a long-term effort that, if all goes well, will roll out between 2015 and 2017. Closer at hand is the deployment decision, which looms in late 2008 or early 2009.

Read more...

Protect Office 2003 from malware attacks

Microsoft officials have released a much-anticipated tool to help protect Office 2003 from malware attacks.

"One of the things we noticed is that when we converted an exploit document to the new Office 2007 'Metro' format, it would either fail the conversion, emit a non-exploitable file or the converter itself would crash," Microsoft Senior Software Development Engineer David LeBlanc wrote in a blog post earlier this month. "Thus," he continued later, "if we could pre-process documents coming from untrusted sources from the older format to the new format, and then get an older version of Office to use its converter to read in the new file format, the customer is going to end up safer."

Read more...

Google launches 'Hot Trends'

"Hot Trends is Google's newest tool for users who want to keep their finger on the pulse of what the world is searching for," Google said in the statement.

Because of this new feature, Google said it will discontinue producing the weekly Google Zeitgeist, a manually compiled list of popular searches.

However, Google said it will still produce a year-end Zeitgeist for users.

Google said results for each Hot Trends report will include information from the associated Google News, blog searches and Google Web search results, putting the information in context for users.

Read more...

Attend LIVE Webcasts on Graphics & Multimedia!

Attend the Webcasts on Windows Embedded CE 6.0 Graphics Pipeline and Multimedia Architecture. First, learn the basics of GDI, DirectDraw and Direct3D interfaces, and how you can use them in your device applications, fully exploiting the power of the CE 6 graphics architecture. Then, take a tour of the enhanced multimedia features supported by CE 6 and the underlying architecture that makes it all possible. The Webcast covers DirectShow and its extensible filter graph mechanism for handling media streams, an overview of the relevant device drivers, as well as performance turning of multimedia devices using CE. for these Webcasts. Webcasts: Windows Embedded CE 6.0: Graphics Pipeline & Multimedia Architecture Speaker: Vignesh Doraiswamy Date: May 16th & 17th, 2007 Time: 4:30-6:00 PM

Adding HTML Code to Blog Post

If you are stuck for

• How to add HTML code to your blogpost
• Adding HTML Code to blogpost
• Coding inside blog post.

Than here is simple step you should follow.

• Put your code inside </pre> and </pre>
• Replace Each < with &lt; and > with &gt;
• And Finally to display &lt; and &gt; use "& amp;lt;" and "& amp;gt;"
  

That's it you are done with the stuff.

Code for Adding Social Bookmarking at end of each Post

If you got stuck for following, than below given code will help you out.

• Adding Social Bookmarking at end of each post.
• Adding Popular Bookmark such as Google, Technorati, Reddit, Spurl, Digg, Yahoo
  
• Code for adding bookmarks at bottom of each post
• Add Post to Del.icio.us or Furl
• Adding Online Bookmarking at end of each post in new blogger

At you new Blogger template -> Edit Html -> check Expand Widget Templates -> search for <div class='post-body'> -> Copy paste the below before its closed </div>

<!-- Start of social bookmarks -->
<!-- http://dailylifeneeds.blogspot.com -->
<p class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-1'>
<center>
<span style='font-size: 85%;' class='post-author'>

<a expr:href='"http://www.google.com/bookmarks/mark?op=edit&bkmk=" + data:post.url + "&title=" + data:post.title'
target='_blank'>Google</a>

<a expr:href='"http://digg.com/submit?phase=2&url=" +
data:post.url + "&title=" + data:post.title'
target='_blank'>Digg</a>

<a expr:href='"http://del.icio.us/post?url=" +
data:post.url + "&title=" + data:post.title'
target='_blank'>del.icio.us</a>

<a expr:href='"http://technorati.com/faves?add=" +
data:post.url'
target='_blank'>Technorati</a>

<a expr:href='"http://myweb2.search.yahoo.com/myresults/bookmarklet?t=" +
data:post.title + "&u=" + data:post.url'
target='_blank'>Yahoo</a>

<a expr:href='"http://www.blinklist.com/index.php?Action=Blink/addblink.php&Url=" +
data:post.url + "&Title=" + data:post.title'
target='_blank'>Blinklist</a>

<a expr:href='"http://www.spurl.net/spurl.php?url=" +
data:post.url + "&title=" + data:post.title'
target='_blank'>Spurl</img></a>

<a expr:href='"http://reddit.com/submit?url=" +
data:post.url + "&title=" + data:post.title'
target='_blank'>Reddit</a>

<a expr:href='"http://www.furl.net/storeIt.jsp?t=" +
data:post.title + "&u=" + data:post.url'
target='_blank'>Furl</a>

</span>

</center>
</p>
<!-- http://dailylifeneeds.blogspot.com -->
<!-- End of social bookmarks -->

Google Analytics False Statistics

Google Analytics shows false statistics???


Yes it is true.

Identification of Google Analytics False Statistics

• People posting a comment on my blog still it displays ZERO users visited.
• This had given me strong reason to put site meter to confirm it. But finally i conclude that yes it is true that Google Analystics is showing false statistics.
• I hope they improve there service and we get a better Analytics from google.

Please pass on your comments, if you too have face the same problem.

Adsense Terms and its explanation

Adsense Terms and its explanation.

Adsense Terminology explained are

Page impressions

Clicks

Page CTR

Page eCPM

Earnings

1. Page Impressions : Number of times the page or pages containing the AdSense advertisement was shown to visitors.
2. Clicks : Number of times advertisement was clicked.
3. Page CTR : It is a click thru rate percentage. It is calculated as
   
• CTR = Page impressions / Clicks (formula for calculating Page CTR)
  
4. Page eCPM : It is effective cost per thousand, it is used for comparing ad placements and overall performance of ads or pages. It is calculated as
   
• eCPM = (Earnings / Page Impressions) * 1000 (formula for calculating Page eCPM)
5. Earning : Your actual earned amount from Adsense. It is calculated as (sum of all the click values) x (Your percentage rate). This figure depends on Adsense company, that how much they share you as a part of revenue.
   

The Domain Name Sells for $9.5M

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Google moves to universal search

Google Inc. will make a significant push toward integrating results from a variety of its search engines in an attempt to deliver as relevant and comprehensive a result set as possible to search queries.

Although Google and its competitors have been moving in this direction for years, Google's announcement on Wednesday is its clearest and most concrete statement of direction yet regarding its efforts in this area. The announcement was made by Marissa Mayer, Google's vice president of search products and user experience, at an event in the company's headquarters in Mountain View, California.

Internet search providers such as Google, AOL LLC, Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp. offer, in addition to their general Web search engines, a set of specialty engines that deliver only news articles, photos, local business listings, blog postings, maps and video clips.

Google Lovers Read More

Yahoo Remakes Mapping Site

Yahoo Inc. has moved its online mapping service to a new platform that the company said makes the Web site faster and more accurate.

The new mapping platform will make its debut on Wednesday, along with other enhancements to the site in areas like user interface design, according to the Sunnyvale, California company.

Yahoo has been using mapping technology from deCarta Inc. for over five years, but with the new platform, developed in-house, Yahoo Maps will perform better, offer more precise results and make backend upgrades easier to implement, Yahoo said.

More

40 million Vista copies sold

Microsoft has sold nearly 40 million copies of Windows Vista so far, Bill Gates told a crowd of hardware developers Tuesday.

That's more than the total install base of Windows' largest competitors, Gates quipped as he began his keynote at the Windows Hardware and Engineering Conference (WinHEC) here.

"As of last week, we've sold nearly 40 million copies," Gates said. "That's twice as fast as the adoption of Windows XP, the last major release we had."

More

U.S. Piracy Crackdown

A U.S. Department of Justice crackdown on online piracy has recorded its 50th felony conviction, the agency announced.

Christopher E. Eaves, 31, of Iowa Park, Texas, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit copyright infringement for his involvement in the Apocalypse Crew, an online organization offering downloads before music was released to the public, the DOJ said. Eaves' plea, part of the DOJ's Operation FastLink, came Monday in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Eaves is scheduled to be sentenced Aug. 10. He faces up to five years in prison and a US$250,000 fine.

The 50th conviction "represents a milestone never before achieved in any online piracy prosecution," Alice Fisher, assistant attorney general in the DOJ's criminal division, said in a statement.

More

Malware alert

Google has warned web users of the increasing threat posed by malware that can be dropped onto a computer as a web surfer visits a particular site.

The search giant carried out in-depth research on 4.5 million websites and found one in 10 web pages could successfully launch a 'drive-by-download' - such as a Trojan - onto a user's computer.

The software potentially allows hackers to access sensitive corporate information or install rogue applications.

Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos, told silicon.com Google is right to highlight what he said is a worsening trend and "a considerable problem" for businesses and end users.

Cluley said an average of around 8,000 new URLs containing malware emerged each week during April.

more on...

Intel played key role in Centrino mobile platform

Intel played key role in Centrino mobile platform

Global chip major Intel's India unit here played a key role in designing some of the important parts and the validation process of the newly launched next generation Intel Centrino mobile platform.

The key components and technologies on which Intel's India Development Centre worked included the Intel Turbo Memory software validation, crestline chipset, customer enablement, customer reference board and battery life analysis, Intel India Director (Mobility Group) Sandeep Shah said at a press meet here.

The Centre has been playing an increasingly active role in the Intel Centrino Mobile platform since 2003 when Mobility Group India was formed here.

"From enabling and supporting global teams to driving major developments of the platform, the centre has started contributing in a very significant way to the global market," Shah added.

Formerly named Santa Rosa, the newly-launched platform is the fourth generation Intel Centrino Processor Technology.

The key parts include the CPU (with Intel Core 2 Duo Processor), graphics memory controller Hub (GMCH) code-named crestline, I/O controller Hub-ICH8, 802.11n wireless technology, Intel Turbo memory and Intel active Management Technology for security and manageability.

"The entire Intel Turbo Memory validation was performed by the India Team," he said.

With turbo memory, consumers have upto 20 per cent faster boot time and 2X faster application load. The team also created some of the software utilities and tools that help in enabling certain features of the processor

Idea Cellular and Nokia Siemens

Idea Cellular and Nokia Siemens sign 500 mn dlr deal

Idea Cellular and Nokia Siemens on Thursday signed a 500-million-dollar GSM network expansion contract.

As per the deal, Nokia Siemens will expand Idea Cellular's network in Delhi, Haryana, Eastern and Western Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala, the company said in a statement

Google search gets a universal glow

Google search gets a universal glow

In its latest technological leap, online search leader Google Inc. will begin showing videos on its main results page along with photos, books and other content previously separated into different categories.

Under a new "universal search" approach that Google began rolling out Wednesday afternoon, some requests will produce more than just a series of links and snippets pointing to other Web sites.

As an example, the results to the search request "I have a dream" will include an actual video showing Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous 1963 speech along with the usual assortment of Web links.

The videos will be shown on Google's results page if it's contained in the company's own database or the vast library of its YouTube subsidiary. A thumbnail will direct traffic to videos hosted on other sites like Metacafe.com.

Other Google results will more frequently show photos or information from the more than 1 million books that the company has copied during the past two years. More news stories and local information pertaining to search requests will be displayed on Google's first results page - perhaps the most prized showcase on the Web.

Google's database has included photos, books, videos and local information for several years, but fetching the content usually required searching through one of the customized channels featured in a row of links above the main query box.

A new link to Google's increasingly popular e-mail service, Gmail, will be added above the query box in the next day or two to make it easier to access for existing users and presumably more alluring to Web surfers who haven't already opened an account.

By intermingling different types of Web content on its main result page, Google is betting it can become even more useful to its millions of users and maintain the competitive advantage that has established the Mountain View-based company as a cultural and financial phenomenon.

The increased emphasis on video also could alienate some longtime users who revere Google for its traditionally staid results page.

"It's going to be interesting to see how people react," said Greg Sterling, who runs the research firm Sterling Market Intelligence. "I think it will create more value for users."

The changes also illustrate the challenges facing Yahoo Inc from Microsoft Corp. and a host of smaller Internet search engines as they try to gain ground on Google. While those rivals have been investing heavily in improvements just to catch up, Google has been spending even more to soup it search engine.

Last year alone, Google's capital expenditures totaled $1.9 billion, and the company is on a pace to spend even more this year as it builds more data centers to handle heavy-duty computing jobs. Google executives said it took two years to lay the groundwork for the switch to universal search.

The change realizes one of the visions that drove Google's $1.76 billion acquisition of the video-sharing site YouTube. Just days before announcing that deal last October, Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page lamented their inability to show videos on the main results page and said they were working hard to address the weakness.

Now that Google is showing videos in the search results, it may not be much longer before the company begins airing video ads in addition to the short text ads that have accounted for nearly all of its profits so far.

"I do think this opens the door for a richer medium on the search results page," said Marissa Mayer, Google's vice president of search products and user experience. "For us, ads are answers as well."

Since all videos from YouTube and the company's database will be streamed on a player embedded on the main results page, the change also could mean people stay longer on Google's Web site - another factor that could boost profits. Although Google also distributes ads to thousands of other Web sites, it makes more money from messages on its own property because it doesn't have to share the commissions.

"Our goal is not to have people spend more time on Google," Brin said Wednesday. "It's for people to accomplish more on Google."

By creating another major channel to show YouTube videos, Google also could be courting more copyright trouble. Since its inception, YouTube has regularly shown pirated videos posted by its users, a problem that has spurred several copyright infringement lawsuits, including a $1 billion damage claim by Viacom Inc.

Both Google and YouTube say they have adhered to the law by removing pirated videos after receiving a request from a copyright holder.

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Higher Education in USA

US to promote US higher education in India

An official US delegation will visit India March 24-30 to promote the quality, dynamism and diversity of higher education in America as also their desire to expand educational partnerships with Indians.

Led by Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Karen P. Hughes, the delegation will comprise senior US government officials and US college and university presidents, the state department announced Thursday.

In meetings with students and leaders in higher education, government, and business in
Mumbai and New Delhi, the delegates will convey the message that America welcomes and values international students who want to study in the United States.

They will highlight the importance of international education to strengthening US-India ties and preparing globally competitive American students at educational institutions. This unique pairing of US government and higher education leaders is the second in a series of delegations stemming from a commitment to greater partnership in the national interest, the announcement said.

It was made at the US University Presidents Summit on International Education co-hosted by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and US Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings in January 2006.

Besides Hughes, the delegation will include Thomas A. Farrell, deputy assistant secretary of state for academic programmes, Dr John J Bowen, Dr Mark A Emmert and Dr John M Lilley, presidents of Johnson and Wales, Washington and Baylor Universities, respectively.

It will also have Dr James L Oblinger, chancellor, North Carolina State University and Dr Eileen Wilson-Oyelaran and Dr Margaret B Lee, presidents of Kalamazoo College and Oakton Community College respectively

US visa policies

Bill Gates criticises US visa policies

Slamming American immigration policies, Microsoft Chairperson Bill Gates has said the US was shutting the door on the best and the brightest at a time when the country needed it the most.

Gates, one of the most vocal in the industry to constantly plead for an increase in skilled worker visas, told the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labour and Pensions that the United States must also come to terms with the issue of permanent residency over and above what it intended to do with the H1B visas.

The Senate panel headed by Senator Edward Kennedy was focused on "Strengthening American Competitiveness for the 21st century" with Gates as the principal witness.

The Microsoft chairperson slammed the visa policies that has now come to heavily restrict foreign-born US college graduates from working in the US and limit citizenship or permanent residency opportunities for scientists and engineers.

"It makes no sense to tell well-trained, highly skilled individuals many of whom are educated at our top universities that they are not welcome in US.

"We have to welcome the great minds in this world, not shut them out of our country," Gates said. "Unfortunately, America's immigration policies are driving away the world's best and brightest precisely when we need them most."

He also made the point that if the federal government did not make it easier for foreign scientists and engineers to obtain permanent US residency, the talent would flow to India and China.

Ten things to know about Google

Ten things you didn’t know about Google

Google is part of Net surfers’ everyday life. It is in fact difficult to imagine life without Google, the search engine company that is now as revered as the mighty software giant Microsoft, if not more. But there are a number of things about Google that few people know about.

Here is a list of 10 such very interesting things about the search giant.

The name Google is a spelling error. The founders of the site, Larry page and Sergey Brin, thought they were going for 'Googol.' Googol is the mathematical term for 1 followed by 100 zeros. The term was coined by Milton Sirotta, nephew of American mathematician Edward Kasner, and was popularized in the book, Mathematics and the Imagination by Kasner and James Newman. Google's play on the term reflects the company's mission to organize the immense amount of information available on the web.

Initially, Larry and Sergey Brin called their search engine BackRub, named for its analysis of the of the web's "back links." The search for a new name began in 1997, with Larry and his officemates starting a hunt for a number of possible new names for the rapidly improving search technology.

The reason the google page is so bare is because the founder didn’t know HTML and just wanted a quick interface.

Due to the sparseness of the homepage, in early user tests they noted people just kept sitting staring at the screen, waiting for the rest to appear. To solve the particular problem the Google Copyright message was inserted to act as an end of page marker

Google started as a research project by Larry page and Sergey Brin when they were 24 and 23 years respectively. Google's mission statement is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.

The company’s first office was in a garage, in Menlo Park, California. Google’s first employee was Craig Silverstein, now Google's director of technology.

The basis of Google's search technology is called PageRank that assigns an "importance" value to each page on the web and gives it a rank to determine how useful it is. However, that is not why it is called PageRank. It is actually named after Google co-founder Larry Page

Google receives about 20 million search queries each day from every part of the world, including Antarctica and Vatican.

You can have the Google homepage set up in as many as 116 different languages -- including Urdu, Latin, Cambodia, Tonga, and Yoruba. In fact, Google has the largest network of translators in the world.

In the earliest stage of Google, there was no submit button, rather the Enter key needed to be pressed.

Google has banned computer-generated search requests, which can sop up substantial system resources and help unscrupulous marketers manipulate its search rankings

The Google’s free web mail service Gmail was used internally for nearly two years prior to launch to the public. The researchers found out six types of email users, and Gmail has been designed to accommodate these six.

The free e-mail service recently changed its name for new UK users. Following a trademark dispute with a London-based Independent International Investment Research, the mail account has been renamed Google Mail.

It would take 5,707 years for a person to search Google's 3 billion pages. The Google software does it in 0.5 seconds.

Google Groups comprises more than 845 million Usenet messages, which is the world's largest collection of messages or the equivalent of more than a terabyte of human conversation.

The logos that appear on the Google homepage during noteworthy days and dates and important events are called Google Doodle. The company has also created an online museum where it has all the logos it has put on various occasions so far.

Dennis Hwang, a Korean computer artist in the United States, is the guy behind these witty Doodles. Hwang has been drawing the face of Google for over two years.

You have heard of Google Earth, but not many know there is a site called Google Moon, which maps the Lunar surface.

Google Moon is an extension of Google Maps and Google Earth that, courtesy of NASA imagery, enables you to surf the Moon’s surface and check out the exact spots that the Apollo astronauts made their landings

Keyhole, the satellite imaging company that Google acquired in October 2004 was funded by CIA.

Keyhole's technology runs Google's popular program Google Earth that allows users to quickly view stored satellite images from all around the world.

Future tech breakthroughs to come from Asia

Future tech breakthroughs to come from Asia: Gates

Future technology breakthroughs will increasingly come from Asia, Microsoft Corp Chairman Bill Gates said, adding that research being done at the software giant's regional development centers was among the best in the world.

Gates' comments come at the end of a visit to China yesterday during which he announced several new ventures, including USD 3 software packages for government-subsidised student computers.

In a speech to a regional economic forum in southern China, Gates said Americans were increasingly expecting Asia to produce major new leaps in computers and other technology, citing in part the region's strong showing in engineering and the sciences.

"And so not only is Asia benefiting from the uses of new technology, Asia will increasingly be the source of advances in technology," Gates told participants at the opening ceremony of the Boao Forum for Asia, a gathering of business leaders and politicians modeled on the World Economic Forum held each winter in Davos, Switzerland.

Gates said Microsoft has been gratified by the results of its Asian research and development centres and was planning to expand campuses in Beijing and Shanghai.

"The results and the quality of the work is absolutely among the best in the world," Gates said.

Gates repeated calls made earlier in his visit for greater investments in technology to improve health care and education, saying all students would soon be equipped with super powerful tablet computers no bigger than a piece of notebook paper..

Privacy groups challenge Google

Privacy groups challenge Google - DoubleClick deal

Consumer privacy groups on Friday sought to derail Google Inc's $3.1 billion deal to buy online ad supplier DoubleClick Inc, filing a complaint with US regulators to block the merger on privacy grounds.

Groups led by the Electronic Privacy Information Center have filed the complaint with the US Federal Trade Commission arguing the merger would violate agreed limits on how much data advertisers collect on consumers and seeking an injunction.

"Google's proposed acquisition of DoubleClick will give one company access to more information about the Internet activities of consumers than any other company in the world," the complaint by the privacy activist groups argues.

New York-based DoubleClick responded in a statement by denying any plan by Google and itself to link the various pools of anonymous data their automated services collect on consumer Web surfing and Internet search behavior.

DoubleClick serves up billions of graphical display ads every day from corporate marketers on thousands of sites across the Web. Google, the leader in an alternative form of online marketing that places ads alongside Web search results, would emerge as an even more powerful force in the online ad market if the DoubleClick deal closes as planned later in 2007.

DoubleClick denied that the data it collects through its system for serving graphical ads to Web site visitors would be combined with Google data on consumer Web-searching habits so as to keep tabs on consumers' spending or browsing habits.

DoubleClick said information collected by its ad-delivery technology is retained by marketing clients who use its system, not DoubleClick itself, and that those rights would not change once Google acquires it. DoubleClick has only limited rights to use such data to identify aggregate trends, the company said.

"Further, Google would not be able to match its search data to the data collected by DoubleClick, as DoubleClick does not have the right to use its clients' data for such purposes," the company said.

The challenge comes a month after Google, which collects mountains of data on its users Web search habits, said within 18 to 24 months it aimed to "anonymise," or obscure key details on, surfing habits that could identify individuals. Previously, Google had kept data "as long as it was useful."

The 11-page EPIC complaint filed on Friday with the FTC criticizes the privacy safeguards both Google and DoubleClick have in place and seeks an injunction to block their combination unless the companies present a plan that provides for stricter data privacy protections.

The groups urge the FTC to force Google to adopt stricter privacy guidelines applied in Canada and some European nations on how much personal data organizations can collect and store.

They asked the FTC to assess the ability of Google to record, analyze, track, and profile the activities of Internet users with data that is both personally identifiable and data that is not personally identifiable.

Unless such steps are taken, EPIC asked the FTC to halt Google's tie-up with DoubleClick, its largest deal to date.

Washington, D.C.-based EPIC led a successful campaign in 2000 to block a plan by DoubleClick to combine data from a national marketing database it had acquired and its own anonymous data collected from the computers of Web surfers.

The fallout from the controversy led DoubleClick to back off the plan and to provide consumers with an "opt out" option to block DoubleClick software that tracks Web surfing habits. The FTC then dropped a probe of the company.

Tips for Avoiding Online Fraud

How to avoid online fraud?

How to avoid online fraud?

Picture this: a complete stranger comes up to you and asks you for your apartment keys. Would you hand them over? Most certainly not! But you’d be amazed at the number of people who are ready to part with their login names and passwords to strangers.

Take the case of Rohit Sharma . One morning he got an email, apparently from his bank, which simply stated that they were checking on the validity of their customers’ email accounts. And to validate his account he should fill in his account number and online banking username and password or else his account would be blocked. He followed the instructions and his bank account was cleaned out the very next day.

The truth is that despite countless headlines screaming about online frauds-phishing , pharming and online scamsthe idea of online security is still pretty abstract for most people. So instead of ranting about the sneaky scams fraudsters pull on us, here are a few quick checkpoints that will help you take stock of your security quotient:

How to avoid online fraud?

Picture this: a complete stranger comes up to you and asks you for your apartment keys. Would you hand them over? Most certainly not! But you’d be amazed at the number of people who are ready to part with their login names and passwords to strangers.

Take the case of Rohit Sharma . One morning he got an email, apparently from his bank, which simply stated that they were checking on the validity of their customers’ email accounts. And to validate his account he should fill in his account number and online banking username and password or else his account would be blocked. He followed the instructions and his bank account was cleaned out the very next day.

The truth is that despite countless headlines screaming about online frauds-phishing , pharming and online scamsthe idea of online security is still pretty abstract for most people. So instead of ranting about the sneaky scams fraudsters pull on us, here are a few quick checkpoints that will help you take stock of your security quotient:

Be wary of emails that ask for your personal details:

The first thing you need to remember about such scams is that most of these scamsters don’t rely on the technology, they rely on you! Agreed that they keep thinking up new ways to con you and technology does help them, but remember that it’s still a con game, which won’t work without your “cooperation”.

They are playing mind games with you, which work better if you are upset or excited. So think calmly. In Sharma’s case for instance, if he wasn’t upset about his bank account being blocked, he may not have filled in his details.

Therefore always be suspicious of any email that contains urgent requests for any kind of personal or financial information. Read it over and over again.

Give it some thought. Ask questions such as has this institution ever contacted you via email? If it’s a bank won’t they know my details? Why would an online survey need your credit card number? The easiest way to check validity of websites is to get an antiphishing toolbar. New versions of most browsers, such as IE 7 FireFox version 2, come with such toolbars built-in. You can also download this from sites like Earth-Link (www.earthlink .net/earthlinktoolbar).

Be wary of emails that ask for your personal details:

The first thing you need to remember about such scams is that most of these scamsters don’t rely on the technology, they rely on you! Agreed that they keep thinking up new ways to con you and technology does help them, but remember that it’s still a con game, which won’t work without your “cooperation”.

They are playing mind games with you, which work better if you are upset or excited. So think calmly. In Sharma’s case for instance, if he wasn’t upset about his bank account being blocked, he may not have filled in his details.

Therefore always be suspicious of any email that contains urgent requests for any kind of personal or financial information. Read it over and over again.

Give it some thought. Ask questions such as has this institution ever contacted you via email? If it’s a bank won’t they know my details? Why would an online survey need your credit card number? The easiest way to check validity of websites is to get an antiphishing toolbar. New versions of most browsers, such as IE 7 FireFox version 2, come with such toolbars built-in. You can also download this from sites like Earth-Link (www.earthlink .net/earthlinktoolbar).

Be wary of emails that ask for your personal details:

The first thing you need to remember about such scams is that most of these scamsters don’t rely on the technology, they rely on you! Agreed that they keep thinking up new ways to con you and technology does help them, but remember that it’s still a con game, which won’t work without your “cooperation”.

They are playing mind games with you, which work better if you are upset or excited. So think calmly. In Sharma’s case for instance, if he wasn’t upset about his bank account being blocked, he may not have filled in his details.

Therefore always be suspicious of any email that contains urgent requests for any kind of personal or financial information. Read it over and over again.

Give it some thought. Ask questions such as has this institution ever contacted you via email? If it’s a bank won’t they know my details? Why would an online survey need your credit card number? The easiest way to check validity of websites is to get an antiphishing toolbar. New versions of most browsers, such as IE 7 FireFox version 2, come with such toolbars built-in. You can also download this from sites like Earth-Link (www.earthlink .net/earthlinktoolbar).