Google with New Cool Features

Recently Google introduced some cool features in to its Mail and Chat Services. The Google Mail (GMail) has got more than 50 themes which can really change your mailbox in to totally new space. Also another good news is Google Video Chat !!!!! The good old text chat is over. Now you can use google talk for making video chats possible.

10 Apple patents to watch

Perhaps more than any tech company, Apple continues to surprise and delight with its innovative products.
The concepts behind many of these are patented - so to get a glimpse into the inner workings of the Apple design team, silicon.com's Nick Heath has rounded up and rated 10 of the most interesting and absurd patent applications submitted by Apple in recent years. Read More

CHANDRAYAAN-1

India's First Mission to the Moon.

Read More.

CERN Grid May Boost Drug and Climate Research

The computing grid built to carry data from the Large Hadron Collider to scientists around the world is also being used to speed the development of life-saving drugs and uncover the causes of climate change, people involved in the project said Friday. Read More

GPS Receivers also can be spoofed

Just like flat-screen televisions, cell phones and computers, global positioning system (GPS) technology is becoming something people can't imagine living without. So if such a ubiquitous system were to come under attack, would we be ready? Read More

Now mobile phones can unlock car and start them

Mobile phones now will be fitted with technology that will allow users to unlock the car and start the engine without using conventional keys. Sharp designed a phone that would work on Japanese phone company NTT DoCoMo's network.. Read More

Who were you in 2001? Check Google's old index

Once of Google's 10th birthday gifts to the world is its re-release of a 2001 version of the search index. (The FAQ says there are "various technical reasons" for not displaying results back to Google birth year of 1998.) On it you can see what the service knew about any topic back then. Like you. Go ahead Read More

The origin of Google Chrome

A nice narration on origin of Google Chrome

http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/small_00.html

This Robot Toots Its Own Flute

Atsuo Takanishi, a professor of engineering at Waseda University, Tokyo, has completed building the first member of his robotic orchestra, a flute-playing robot. Takanishi hopes to eventually create a humanoid robot orchestra. The next robot, currently in development, is a saxophone-playing robot, though Takanishi believes the process will go much faster because he started with one of the most difficult instruments. Read More

Set Top Boxes to Revolutionise Internet Architecture

National ICT Australia (NICTA) has earned a spot in a European Commission project that aims to revolutionise the way information is delivered over the Internet. Read More

'Nanonet' circuits closer to making flexible electronics reality

Researchers from Purdue University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have overcome a major obstacle in producing transistors from networks of carbon nanotubes, which could lead to the printing of circuits on plastic sheets for applications such as flexible displays or electronic skins to cover structures such as aircraft to monitor for cracks. The "nanonet" technology, circuits made of numerous carbon nanotubes that randomly overlap in a fishnet-like structure, has been hindered by metallic nanotubes that cause short circuits. Read More

Secret Messages Could Be Hidden in Net Phone Calls

Polish information scientists are developing a system for hiding messages in Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) phone calls. Read More

American Military Supercomputer Sets Speed Record

An American military supercomputer created from components originally designed for video-game machines has passed the petaflop threshold by processing more than 1.026 quadrillion calculations per second. "This is equivalent to the four-minute mile of supercomputing," says University of Tennessee computer scientist Jack Dongarra. The Roadrunner is more than twice as fast as the previous fastest computer, the IBM BlueGene/L based at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. Read More

Microsoft’s CAPTCHA successfully broken

Jeff Yan and Ahmad Salah El Ahmad, at the School of Computing Science, Newcastle University, England recently published a research paper entitled “A Low-cost Attack on a Microsoft CAPTCHA“, demonstrating how they’ve managed to attack the Microsoft’s CAPTCHA used on several of their online services such as Hotmail and Windows Live, with over 92% recognition rate. Read More

Method uses 'Bluetooth' to track travel time for vehicles, pedestrians

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Engineers have created a method that uses pervasive Bluetooth signals from cell phones and other wireless devices to constantly update how long it takes vehicles and pedestrians to travel from one point to another. Read More

A robotic brain-computer interface

California Institute of Technology (Caltech) engineers have developed a robotic device able to act as a brain-computer interface. This is the ‘first robotic approach to establishing an interface between computers and the brain by positioning electrodes in neural tissue.’ According to the researchers, their approach ‘could enhance the performance and longevity of emerging neural prosthetics, which allow paralyzed people to operate computers and robots with their minds.’ Read More

Graphene-based gadgets may only be few years away

It's only a matter of a few years before scientists develop graphene based computer and TV displays, for researchers at the University of Manchester have taken a step in this direction by creating tiny liquid crystal devices with electrodes made from graphene. Read More

OLPC's new $75 XO-2 Laptop

It's take 2 for the One Laptop Per Child project--version XO-2 of its laptop geared for children in developing countries features two side by side screens. The XO-2 is expected to arrive in 2010.
Some highlights of the new laptop, according to Larry Dignan:
# OLPC is betting that new developments in hardware, software, display and processor technologies will lower the XO-2’s price tag to $75.
# OLPC is going with the 1 watt power consumption target so XO-2 can be powered by a hand crank.
# The XO-2 will feature dual-touch displaces for the e-book.

Google releases Health API to developers

Only a day after launching the actual Google Health service, they have now also released an API that health providers and developers who create health related applications can use to interact with Google’s data. This API supports a subset of the CCR (Continuity of Care Record) standard, as described here.
Your client application can use the Health Data API to create new medical records, request a list of medical records and query for medical records that match particular criteria.
According to the documentation, Google is opening up their database by giving developers the ability to create and read users’ medical records — but don’t worry, in order for an someone to get your information, you must explicitly grant them access. Read More

Linköping University researchers break "unbreakable" crypto

Quantum cryptography has been regarded as 100-percent protection against attacks on sensitive data traffic. But now a research team at Linköping University in Sweden has found a hole in this advanced technology. Read More

Beating the Codebreakers With Quantum Cryptography

Cryptography has been an arms race, with codemakers and hackers constantly updating their arsenals, but quantum cryptography could theoretically give codemakers the upper hand. Even the absolute best in classical encryption, the 128-bit RSA, can be cracked using brute force computing power. However, quantum cryptography could make possible uncrackable code using quantum key distribution (QKD). Modern cryptography relies on the use of digital keys to encrypt data before sending it over a network so it can be decrypted by the recipient. QKD promises a theoretically uncrackable code, one that can be easily distributed and still be transparent. Additionally, the nature of quantum mechanics makes it so that if an eavesdropper tries to intercept or spy on the transmission, both the sender and the receiver will know. Any attempt to read the transmission will alert the sender and the receiver, allowing them to generate a new key to send securely. QKD had its first real-world application in Geneva, where quantum cryptography was used in the electronic voting system. Not only did QKD guarantee that the poll was secure, but it also ensured that no votes were lost in transmission, because the uncertainty principle established that there were no changes in the transmitted data. The SECOQC project, which did the work for the voting system, says the goal is to establish network-wide quantum encryption that can work over longer distances between multiple parties.

Information Security Set for Explosive Growth

Driven by compliance and public confidence issues, information security is expected to expand dramatically over the next few years, according to new research released by Frost & Sullivan and (ISC)². Worldwide, the number of information security professionals will grow from 1.66 million in 2007 to about 2.7 million in 2012, experiencing a compound annual growth rate of 10 percent. Read More

Google diving into 3D mapping of oceans

Google is planning the creation of a 3D oceanographic map, ostensibly called Google Ocean, that should allow people to visualize underwater topography, locate specific sites or attractions, and use pan and zoom functions to navigate the environment. Oceanographers say such a tool would be very helpful, given the lack of an oceanographic terrain or depth model in Google Earth. Tim Haverland with NOAA's Fisheries Service notes that "you can't get in a submarine and in essence fly through the water and explore ocean canyons yet. Read More

Laptops as Earthquake Sensors

Earthquake researchers in California will use the motion sensors built into laptops to provide an earthquake-sensing network that will collect information on major quakes and possibly provide an early warning system. The Quake Catcher Network is beta testing a distributed computing network of several hundred laptops. Initially, the network will focus on the quake-prone San Francisco Bay and Greater Los Angeles Basin areas of California. Stanford earthquake seismologist and project participant Jesse Lawrence says the goal is not to predict earthquakes, but to measure them very quickly and get the information out before any damage is done. California already has hundreds of sophisticated seismometers placed throughout the state, but they are spaced relatively far apart. Read More

DARPA Pushes Machine Learning with Legged LittleDog Robot

DARPA's LittleDog project is an effort to build an autonomous legged robot that is aware of its environment and capable of deliberately placing its feet to avoid falling. The software used in LittleDog determines the robot's route and its cameras and leg sensors help it detect obstacles to avoid missteps. DAPRA wants LittleDog, a follow-up to its BigDog project, to be able to move across progressively more difficult terrain at increased speeds. "BigDog and LittleDog are related in that they are both focused on solving the problems that will enable legged robots to accompany war fighters as they cross complex terrain," says DARPA's Tom Wagner. Phase three of LittleDog's development process is scheduled to begin this summer. Phase one challenged six teams of roboticists to improve on the basic robot platform developed for BigDog. Successful completion of phase one required each team's LittleDog to move at a rate of at least a half inch per second over terrain that included obstacles 1.9 inches high. Read More

CERN GRID - 10,000 times faster than broadband

he European Centre for Nuclear Research (CERN) is working on a new super fast Internet infrastructure called Grid. CERN, the particle physics center based in Geneva that created the web, has built “the grid,” a replacement for the Internet is expected to be 10,000 times faster than the regular broadband speed.

The Grid is a service for sharing computer power and data storage capacity over the Internet. The Grid goes well beyond simple communication between computers, and aims ultimately to turn the global network of computers into one vast computational resource.

The institutions behind the grid for the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) successfully completed a challenge to sustain a continuous data flow of on average 600MB per second for 10 days between the CERN and seven sites in Europe and North America. ReadMore

Soccer robots compete for the title

Robot soccer is an ambitious high-tech competition for universities, research institutes and industry. Several major tournaments are planned for 2008, the biggest of which is the ‘RoboCup German Open’. From April 21-25, over 80 teams of researchers from more than 15 countries are expected to face off in Hall 25 at the Hannover Messe. Read More

IBM Math Algorithms Aim to Transform Management of Natural Disasters

IBM's 'stochastic optimization model' was developed by IBM math scientists from IBM Research Labs in New York and India working with business experts from IBM's Global Business Services and directly with clients to arm government bodies, relief agencies and companies with tools for strategic planning for more effective allocation of resources for natural disaster management and mitigation. Read More

Report by World's Leading Computer Systems Researchers and Designers Claims Human Values Key to Successful Innovation

LONDON — 2 April 2008 — A new report launched today looks at how emerging computer technologies will change our lives by 2020. "Being Human: Human-Computer Interaction in the Year 2020" details the findings of a Microsoft Research-hosted conference that gathered together 45 leading human-computer interaction (HCI) specialists from around the world in March 2007. The conference in Seville, Spain, addressed the question, "What will human-computer interaction look like in the year 2020?" The report explores new technologies and examines their potential impact, both positive and negative, on human behaviour and environments. "Being Human" makes clear recommendations that aim to set human experience at the heart of progress to ensure that the computer's increasing influence in society is a positive one. Read More

Now take a look at MARS through Google

Googles new Google MARS explores the planet Mars with a detailed map view. The maps are created by NASA scientists . Its really cool ! revealing the potential of Google maps.
So now move from Earth to Mars . Read More

Fedora 9 Beta Preview

Almost two months back Fedora 9 Alpha released. Now Red Hat has pushed out the beta release of Fedora 9 (codenamed Sulphur) with many more features implemented and ready to be tested. We have taken the time to explore the features of Fedora 9 and the progress that has been made. Read More

Sun Certified Mobile Application Developer (SCMAD)

This certification is for developers who create mobile applications using Java technologies for cell phones or "smart" devices.
To achieve this certification, candidates must succesfully complete one exam. Prior to attempting certification, candidates must be certified as a Sun Certified Programmer (SCJP), any edition. Read More

Yahoo Empowering Semantic Web Programmers

Yahoo announced that it will soon provide APIs to its Search platform to allow third-party developers to alter search results with structured data to make it more useful for Web users. The program will enable developers to overlay their own algorithms to determine how the Yahoo Search index is used. Yahoo is also supporting several semantic Web standards, including RDF, and microformats to make programming on Yahoo's search platform easier, says Yahoo's Amit Kumar. Programmers have been slow to support standards and write software for the semantic Web, in part because it lacks a killer application, Kumar says. He says Web search is the missing killer app. Instead of independently developed semantic silos scattered across the Web, Yahoo aims to bring all the semantic information together once it is available. For example, Kumar says that marking up profile pages with microformats will allow Yahoo Search to better understand the semantic content and the relationships of its site's components. "If I can put an algorithm on top of search that says here are all of the things I want the algorithm to prioritize and here's all of the things I want it to exclude that's really powerful," says IDC analyst Rachel Happe. Read More

Defending Laptops from Zombie Attacks

Intel is developing more-accurate ways to tell when a machine has been infected.
Laptop-based security software that adjusts to how an individual utilizes the Internet so that the detection of malicious activity is more dynamic and personalized has been developed by Intel researchers. The software targets corporations that pass out laptops and mobile devices to workers, since IT departments typically install homogeneous security software on all their hardware, which partly explains why security breaches are so profuse, according to Intel Research Berkeley researcher Nina Taft. Most IT departments deploy security software with a component that analyzes the stream of Internet traffic flowing into and out of a computer, and that suggests infection when traffic exceeds a preset limit. However, this method can incorrectly target people who habitually send out large volumes of information while ignoring traffic that falls below the threshold that may harbor malevolent activity without the sender's knowledge. Intel researchers have devised algorithms capable of more subtle evaluations, including one that creates individualized traffic thresholds by monitoring a person's Internet use through standard statistical and machine-learning techniques, and another that assesses how people's Internet usage changes throughout the day. Another set of algorithms uses the same behavioral principles to study communication between laptops and other devices on the Internet to detect the presence of botnets. "I think the basic takeaway is, if you can be really precise in capturing user behavior, you can make the work of the attackers much harder," notes Taft. Georgia Institute of Technology professor Nick Feamster attributes the lack of application of the behavioral security strategy to laptops to the absence of an automated way to develop personalized rules. Read More

GATE 2008 results are out now

For more visit :http://gate.iisc.ernet.in/gate_web_2008/result_query/result_query.html

2009 International Fulbright Science and Technology Award for Outstanding Foreign Students

For the outstanding indian students here is the outstanding opportunity to build their career
more on : http://www.fulbright-india.org/Scripts/ForIndianNationalsForStudentsInternationalFulbrightScienceandTechnologyAward.aspx

Yahoo launches Fire Eagle

At the O’Reilly ETech Conference in San Diego, Yahoo’s Tom Coates demonstrated their latest API, and perhaps their most unique API: Fire Eagle. It’s a platform for sharing your location online. It gives applications the ability to update, query and track your location, with user-driven privacy controls allow setting of location availability and granularity. We have created a new Fire Eagle API profile here.
Yahoo’s site describes it as: The secure and stylish way to share your location with sites and services online while giving you unprecedented control over your data and privacy. We’re here to make the whole web respond to your location and help you to discover more about the world around you.

Some key informations:
It’s currently an invite only beta release.
Since privacy issues are naturally a top concern in any system capable of sharing your current location, the Fire Eagle platform has this built-in a very deep level. You can choose how specific a location to make available as well as how long to make this available (Fire Eagle can send you reminders).
It’s unique in that it’s a pure platform play — there is currently no consumer-facing Yahoo app on top it.
The REST-based API is one of the first from a major vendor to support OAuth as the authentication mechanism. One implication of this is that the application does not need to know the Yahoo ID of the user.
The query API lets you retrive data in GeoJSON and GeoRSS formatted data.
There are user-selectable levels of accuracy that range from neighborhood to country.
The Dopplr service will be one of the first to use it.
Initial sample apps from Yahoo will include a Fire Eagle widget badge for MySpace, an app for connecting with friends on Facebook, and an SMS updater for texting your location.
The API includes user-specific methods like /update and /lookup, as well as general purpose methods like /recent.
It keeps only the most recent piece of location information it received.

Free training on Microsoft Windows Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008 & SQL Server 2008

Introductory training on the latest Microsoft Products are offered free in selected cities on March 15, 23 & 29.
Registration link http://www.heroeshappenhere.co.in/FirstLookClinic.aspx

Adobe Design Challenge 2008

The 2008 Adobe Design Achievement Awards gives higher education students from around the world the creative license to propel their careers in the future. Enter in 12 categories in 3 media areas endorsed by the industry, over 60$K US in cash prizes will be awarded in New York City.
more on http://www.adaaentry.com/

Google Summer of Code™ 2008 is coming

The prestigious Google summer code contest is going to start this year for students all over the world.
Have a look http://code.google.com/soc/2008/

Adobe Launches AIR

Adobe AIR is a cross-operating system runtime that enables ദ users to use existing HTML/Ajax, Flex, or Flash web development skills and tools to build and deploy rich Internet applications to the desktop.
AIR applications support native desktop integration, including clipboard and drag-and-drop support, local file IO, system notification, and more.


More on AIR http://www.adobe.com/devnet/air/

Google Android Developer Challenge - $100,000 awards.

Android is a software stack for mobile devices from Google that includes an operating system, middleware and key applications.
Making applicatioin for Android is really cool. Eclipse has got plugin which makes development process very easy.
Getting Started
Download the SDK
Build your applications
Submit your applications