Nokia to recall 46mn batteries worldwide

del.icio.us Digg this

Mobile handset manufacturer Nokia today issued a product advisory to recall close to 46 million Nokia-branded BL-5C batteries manufactured by Japan-based Matsushita Battery Industrial between December 2005 and November 2006.

The company stated that in rare cases, the batteries could potentially experience overheating initiated by a short circuit while charging causing the battery to dislodge. The company has received more than 100 complaints of overheating globally.

Nokia is working closely with Matsushita, and will be co-operating with relevant authorities to investigate the situation. Nokia has several suppliers for BL-5C batteries who have collectively produced more than 300 million BL-5C batteries.

In order to determine if a battery is subject to this advisory, it is necessary to remove the battery from the device. A Nokia battery will have "Nokia" and "BL-5C" printed on the front of the battery. On the reverse, the Nokia mark appears at the top and the battery identification number (consisting 26 characters) is found at the bottom. Consumers should refer to this identification number to determine if their battery is among the batteries manufactured by Matsushita between December 2005 and November 2006.

It is important to note that the BL-5C battery is not used in all Nokia products and that only a portion of the Nokia BL-5C batteries in use are subject to this advisory.

Nokia handset owners should visit http://www.nokia.com/batteryreplacement/en/ to verify if their batteries can be replaced free of charge.

Read More......

Iterating : A Wiki Based Software Directory

del.icio.us Digg this

Iterating.com is a Wiki-based software directory covering open-source, commercial, and hosted software. The site provides ratings, articles, and detailed product feature comparisons. It was founded by Nicolas Vandenberghe. He felt like he wanted some directory sort of thing for softwares although there exists some. But most of them were unstructured i.e there are many articles and categories but the page might be unstructured. So he came up with the idea to build a "striki," a structured wiki.

Structured data is usually done through databases, but after some thoughts, he concluded that the most elegant, forward-looking approach was to structure the information with the Semantic Web and RDF. And he decided to build the site in Java using a tool from HP Labs called Jena, a tool to enter RDF statements.

They recently announced a Comparison Matrix feature, which allows you to compare several tools feature by feature. And it's editable, so if someone knows something has changed in the feature set of a product, users can edit the data. That's why they call it "Iterating," because the issue is usability; everything is editable and can be changed, but it's still displayed and understandable.

Considering the popularity if wiki, and the way iterating is developing striki seems to be a hit too. The company has already had talks with Giants like Microsoft and Oracle and are now planning to have talks with IBM.

Much more details is provided in his interview with John Dorsey.

Read More......

STRTL Live CD

del.icio.us Digg this

Modern day Linux Installations have been quiet easy to install, with the growing popularity of Ubuntu and others which come with GUI installations. But it has not been the same with the installation of a real-time Linux flavor. Especially if you are new to Linux. As it was with the partitioning of the OS, or worrying about data loss due to partitioning. However with this first version of the STRTL Live CD these issues seems to be resolved to a certain extent.

The first version of the STRTL Live CD offers a quick-and-dirty, plug-and-play type solution to this problem. It was presented as a paper at the Eighth Real-Time Linux Workshop held at the at the School for Information Science and Engineering, Lanzhou University, in Lanzhou, China.

Thanks to Arthur Siro and Emilio Sanchez

Here is a link towards this paper.

http://i.cmpnet.com/ddj/images/article/2007/rtl_pdf/asiro01.pdf

Read More......

WabiSabiLabi - Selling Exploits

del.icio.us Digg this

A Swiss company named WabisabiLabi has made available an online auction kind of site for new security exploits. Here is a short introduction about the company written on their website.

WabiSabiLabi is aiming to a single moving target: to bring the world closer to zero risk. If the world must become a safer place, the first part of the recipe is simple: to provide a better rewarding for the security researchers, organising an efficient and transparent marketplace, here to maximise the results of their efforts.

Now one can just imagine a scenario where in these exploits get in to wrong hands. And if that happens then how effective would be their punch line which states "closer to zero risk". It might be true only for those who bid and win the exploits. Or to make it worse if the winning bidder has got some wrong intentions by getting the exploit, then just image how closer would we be to zero risk.

Read More......

Microsoft Files Patent On Advertising Services Architecture

del.icio.us Digg this

Microsoft on 5th of July filed a Patent on Advertising Services Architecture. The Inventors of this architecture are Carpenter; Bradley L.; (Carnation, WA) ; Vargas; Garrett R.; (Sammamish, WA) ; Johnson; Krista L.; (Newcastle, WA) ; Searle; Scott; (Kirkland, WA).

Now this new architecture would allow, for instance, your word processor to display ads to you based on the words that you were typing, or for your media player application to display ads to you based on what music it found on your hard drive.

Here is the copy of the abstract filed by them

An advertising framework registers context data sources and advertising display clients from a variety of resources on a local computer. The ad framework may then receive context data and display triggers from the registered context data sources. The context data and display triggers may be processed and an advertising request generated and sent to an external advertising source. Non-advertising content may also be supported. When a targeted advertisement is received in response, a display manager may send the ad to an appropriate display client. When the ad has been presented a the advertising framework will communicate to the advertising supplier who may apportion and credit advertising revenue to the participating parties.

It appears as if the company is preparing tools to compete with Google Desktop and other free Operating Systems to be launched supporting ads.

Read More......

Effect of Lightening on iPod

del.icio.us Digg this

Here is a Photograph from the Seattle Times Newspaper. One might be wondering what has stuck this young man's ears.

This is a picture of Jason Bunch who suffered burns after lightning struck while he was jogging and wearing iPod. Link

Well this is the what u can expect when lightening travels through your music player's wires (in this case it being iPod).

It was reported that "A Canadian jogger suffered wishbone-shaped chest and neck burns, ruptured eardrums and a broken jaw when lightning traveled through his music player's wires."

For more such information you can check out this Web site, www.struckbylightning.org.

Read More......

Parakey: Facebook's first acuistion

del.icio.us Digg this

This week Facebook acquired a new web OS company named Parakey. This being their first acquisition. Parakey was started by Firefox's two founders Blake Ross and Joe Hewitt.

According, to Facebook "Parakey is intended to be a platform for tools that can manipulate just about anything on your hard drive?e-mail, photos, videos, recipes, calendars."

They also announced in theior press release that Ross and Hewitt will join Facebook’s team to work on the development of Facebook Platform and the company’s website. Ross and Hewitt are best known as the co-founders of Firefox, which has been downloaded more than 300 million times by people worldwide. Hewitt went on to build popular web development tools such as Firebug. In early 2006, Ross and Hewitt founded Parakey to build a platform bridging the gap between information on the web and the desktop.

Parakey is Facebook’s first acquisition and the financial terms of the transaction were not released.

Press Release link here.

Read More......

Microsoft to Setup University in India

del.icio.us Digg this

Here is a snippet from a news paper article.

"Microsoft Corporation has chosen Bangalore for its first-ever exclusive and independent educational venture in the world. The company will set up a university in the city to impart high-end computer education. The university may well be India's first run by a multinational company.

The varsity is expected to contribute greatly towards building a pipeline of billable tech talent in the country. To start with, the university may train around 1,000 students. "
...
"However, India will be the first country where it would have a wholly-owned university," sources said.

This article was published in Times Of India. Here is the Link

Read More......

FeedBurner : Another Google Acuisition

del.icio.us Digg this

Last Friday, as expected FeedBurner announced it's acquistion by Google. Chicago-based FeedBurner was founded in 2003 and has raised about $10 million in venture capital funding. The site allows blog owners to manage their RSS feeds and track usage of their subscribers.

Now with this acquisition FeedBurner readers can get involved in making some income using Google Adsense. Accordingly, Google advertisers will also benefit by targeting FeedBurner 's more than 430,000 publishers.

Read More......

A Greener Apple

del.icio.us Digg this

As I mentioned in the previous post about Global Warming and Nokia's action to reduce the same by manufacturing energy efficient products. I recently found that Steve Jobs had last week had mentioned something on the same lines making Apple greener. Here is a link to the pdf document.

In short they forecast the following things.

Apple plans to completely eliminate the use of arsenic in all of its displays by the end of 2008.

By 2010, Apple may be recycling significantly more than either Dell or HP as a percentage of past sales weight.

All the e-waste we collect in North America is processed in the U.S., and nothing is shipped overseas for disposal.

Apple products are designed using high quality materials that are in high demand from recyclers.

Read More......

Vulnerability in RPC on Windows DNS

del.icio.us Digg this

Microsoft has currently posted a new vulnerability in the Domain Name System (DNS) Server Service in Microsoft Windows 2000 Server Service Pack 4, Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1, and Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2. Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional Service Pack 4, Windows XP Service Pack 2, and Windows Vista are not affected as these versions do not contain the vulnerable code.

This vulnerability could allow an attacker to run code in the security context of the Domain Name System Server Service, which by default runs as Local SYSTEM. A new Nirbot variant has been discovered that attempts to exploit the recent zero day vulnerability in Microsoft’s DNS Server Service. McAfee had reported this on Monday, April 16, 2007.

W32/Nirbot.worm!83E1220A is an internet relay chat controlled backdoor, which provides an attacker with unauthorized remote access to the compromised computer. An attacker can gain control over the compromised computer and use it to send spam, install adware, distribute illegal content or launch a DDos attack on internet systems. This is a variant of W32/Nirbot.worm.gen.

Read More......

Sun Certification Retake Promotion

del.icio.us Digg this

Purchase a voucher for most Java technology or Solaris OS certification exams between March 21 and June 23, 2007 - and should you need it, you can take the exam one additional time for free.

Those who purchase a certification exam voucher using the priority code between March 21 and June 23, 2007, and who do not pass the exam, qualify for the free retake. Simply contact the Authorized Prometric Testing Center in the same manner you did for your initial attempt at the exam, and provide your original certification exam voucher number. You must allow 72 hours after taking your initial exam before scheduling the free retake exam. Please also be aware that per Sun certification guidelines you must wait at least 14 days before you may retake any exam. There is no need to contact Sun to schedule your retake exam.

For more information check this link

http://www.sun.com/training/savings/retake_SDN.xml

Read More......

Fortran Inventor John Backus Dead at 82

del.icio.us Digg this

John Backus, whose development of the Fortran programming language in the 1950s changed how people interacted with computers and paved the way for modern software, has died. He was 82.

Backus died Saturday in Ashland, Ore., according to IBM Corp. (IBM), where he spent his career.


TypeJohn Warner Backus (December 3, 1924 – March 17, 2007) was an American computer scientist. He led the team that invented the first implemented high-level programming language (FORTRAN) and was the inventor of the Backus-Naur form (BNF), the almost universally used notation to define formal language syntax. He also did research in function-level programming and helped to popularize it.



The IEEE awarded Backus the W.W. McDowell Award in 1967 for the development of FORTRAN. He received the National Medal of Science in 1975,^[1] and the 1977 ACM Turing Award “for profound, influential, and lasting contributions to the design of practical high-level programming systems, notably through his work on FORTRAN, and for seminal publication of formal procedures for the specification of programming languages.”

Read More......

India, China lead strong growth in Internet users: survey

The number of Internet users worldwide increased 10 per cent over the past year amid a surge in India and China, a survey showed Tuesday.

The report by market research firm comScore Networks found that 747 million people aged 15 and above used the Internet worldwide in January 2007 – a 10 per cent increase from January 2006.

The US still held the largest number of users with 153 million, but growth was just two per cent, comScore found.

China was second overall with 86.7 million, but growth was 20 per cent. The figure differs from the official Chinese estimate of 137 million, which includes users in cybercafes and other public locations.

The strongest growth was seen in India, where the number of users increased 33 per cent to 21.1 million. That placed India with the eighth largest Internet population, just behind France.

In terms of overall Internet users, the highest numbers after the US and China were, in order, Japan, Germany, Britain, South Korea, France, India, Canada and Italy.


Thanks: http://www.comscore.com

Read More......

Researchers unveil medical mini robot

Researchers have developed a prototype miniature robot that can be inserted through an incision and used to perform medical procedures inside the body.

The beetle-shaped robot, weighing five grams and measuring two centimetres in length and one in diameter, was developed by Japanese researchers from Ritsumeikan University and its partners.

The tiny robot incorporates various medical devices including a small camera, sensors and a drug delivery injector, which could reduce the need for surgery. As of now, data is sent to a computer through a slim cable, although researchers hope to develop a transmitter.

Previously miniature robots for inside the body have been designed to be swallowed and can only take pictures, although US researchers are also working on a small robot that enters though an incision to treat heart problems.

Read More......

Now, cameras that can tell your age

TOKYO: Teens trying to fool their way into adult-only venues or illegally buy liquor and cigarettes could soon be found out by a Japanese camera that identifies age and gender by looking at their faces.

The camera, unveiled at a security show in Tokyo this week, distinguishes these characteristics by using a database of over one million mugshots.

It then categorises people into more than four age groups, including “0 to 9”, “10 to 19”, and “20 to 39”. Manufacturers say they expect demand from establishments trying to protect children and under-age youths.

“There has been a growing need for a device which can detect underage kids in places like bars, video arcades and vending machines for liquor and cigarettes. We expect it would be introduced at such locations first,” said Erina Takikawa, engineer at Japanese electronic firm Omron.

However, she added, the camera’s database is only of Asian faces and can not yet correctly identify non-Asians.

Thanks REUTERS

Read More......