Technology

Deadly ‘Heartbleed’ virus arrives in Indian cyberspace

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Indian cyber security sleuths have alerted Internet users against a “highly severe” virus named ‘heartbleed’, which has sent alarm bells ringing across the globe for fear of exposing millions of passwords, credit card numbers and other sensitive information to hackers.

The virus prowling in the domestic arena, authorities said, attacks the openSSL of an online system which is the most essential protocol which encrypts information and data transfer over the Internet.

24-year-old Hubble now able to measure 10 times furtherer into space

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Astronomers have come with a new use of NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, even though it is 24 years old.

The innovative technique improves Hubble’s observing accuracy to the point where rock-solid distance measurements can be made to Milky Way stars 10 times farther away than ever accomplished before.

To do this, Hubble observations and subsequent analysis were fine-tuned to make angular measurements (needed for estimating distances) that are so fine that if your eyes had a similar capability you could read a car’s license plate located as far away as the Moon!

Beautiful streamlined islands on Mars were formed by fast-flowing water

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Researchers have claimed that beautiful streamlined islands and narrow gorges were carved by fast-flowing water pounding through a small, plateau region near the southeastern margin of the vast Vallis Marineris canyon system.

Images captured on 7 December 2013 by ESA’s Mars Express show the central portion of Osuga Valles, which has a total length of 164 km. It is some 170 km south of Eos Chaos, which lies in the far eastern section of Valles Marineris.

NASA set to construct probe due to visit asteroid in 2018

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NASA’s team which will be conducting the first US mission to collect samples from an asteroid has been given the go-ahead to begin building the spacecraft, flight instruments and ground system, and launch support facilities.

This determination was made Wednesday after a successful Mission Critical Design Review (CDR) for NASA’s Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx).

The CDR was held at Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company in Littleton, Colo., April 1-9.

Supernova that swept materials equivalent to about 45 times sun’s mass found

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Researchers have identified a supernova remnant – known as G352.7-0.1 (or, G352 for short) – that has swept material, equivalent to about 45 times the mass of the Sun.

Another atypical trait of G352 is that it has a very different shape in radio data compared to that in X-rays. Most of the radio emission is shaped like an ellipse, contrasting with the X-ray emission that fills in the center of the radio ellipse.

LastPass adds security check scan to scour sites for ‘Heartbleed’ bug

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Password manager LastPass has reportedly added a bug vulnerability scan to its site security check in order to detect the most dangerous bug “Heartbleed” plaguing the Web world.

LastPass’s Security Check warns Web users when they need to change their passwords and keeps them updated on which sites have updated their certificates.

According to Cnet, the feature update saves you the trouble of going to a Heartbleed site checker like the ones offered by LastPass or Qualys, and also provides clear instruction to LastPass users on which of their sites are safe and which have to be updated.

Now, app that spies on your partner’s dreams

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If you wanted to snoop on your partner’s dreams, you can now download an app to record what they say in their sleep.

Users can then check the app in the morning to see if any juicy secrets were revealed, News.com.au reported.

The Sleep Talk Recorder, created by Swedish developer Martin Lindau, is designed to pick up noises while users sleep – anything from a slight murmur to a nightmarish scream – and begin recording as soon as it registers a sound.

At 1.29 dollars in the iTunes store, it’s a cheap app that’s bound to solve and spark a few arguments in the bedroom. (ANI)

Facebook to roll out magnified right-hand column ads to make them hard to miss

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Facebook is reportedly planning to increase the size of the advertisements that are shown in the right-hand column on its Web site, in an attempt to attract more attention.

The ads will start appearing on the Facebook Web site later this month.

According to Cnet, they will have the same aspect ratio of the ads that run in News Feed and span the full width of the right column, which means marketers can run the same image in any of their ads and members will see fewer ads displayed in the right column.

Mysterious bright light in Mars photo not caused by aliens, says NASA

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NASA has revealed that the bright light that features in a photo from the surface of Mars taken by its Curiosity rover is not some kind of luminous alien, but it is “likely a glinting rock or cosmic-ray hit”.

The image has been widely shared since the rover tweeted it, with people trading various optimistic theories as to what could be causing the light on Mars’ horizon, the Independent reported.

Chilled lager beer originated in 500-year-old caves!

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The origin of cold-adapted yeast that blended with a distant cousin to make your favourite lager beer has been found in 500-year-old caves in south America.

An analysis of the yeast’s genetic sequence revealed its closest affinity to one of two highly diverse Patagonian populations.

It confirmed it was the cold-loving microbe that 500 years ago found its way to the caves and monastery cellars of Bavaria where lager beer was first concocted.

Patagonia is a region located at the southern end of south America shared by Argentina and Chile.

Here’s why Apple is seeking $2.2Bln claim from Samsung

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Apple has accounted a claim of 2.2 billion dollars against Samsung Electronics, demanding money for the lost sales and royalties the company faced.

Apple stated that the patent infringement by Samsung has caused a significant loss to the company.

The trial began last week, involving 5 Apple patents and 10 Samsung products.

The patents are ‘slide to lock’, ‘universal search’, data syncing in background, autocorrect, and contextual links that attach a menu to items such as phone numbers, email addresses and postal addresses, PC World reports.

Humans had sex with Neanderthals: Study

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Geneticists have found that early European humans had children with Neanderthals.

“The study allows us to conclusively reject an alternate theory that humans and Neanderthals evolved from the same sub-population,” scientists said.

The new genome analysis also indicates that modern Europeans and Asians inherited more Neanderthal DNA than previously thought.

New report claims Apple will unveil two new iPhones this year

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Apple is reportedly planning to launch a 4.7-inch iPhone 6 in July, followed by a 5.5-inch edition in September, a Japanese Web site EMSOne has revealed.

The revelation comes amid multiple other reports claiming the same.

Citing information from Taiwan’s Industrial and Commercial Times, the site says that both models would go on sale during the fourth quarter of 2014, though the 4.7-inch will hit the market ahead of its larger cousin, Cnet reported.

India made second-highest number of user data requests to Google in 2013

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ndia ranks second in Google’s latest Transparency Report, focusing on law, policy and access to information online.

The report revealed the number of law enforcement agency requests that Google and YouTube received from each country in 2013.

It also listed the percentage of requests with which the company actually complied.

According to Mashable, law enforcement agencies in the US submitted 21,492 requests for data on Google users last year, which was by far the highest number on the list.

India’s first Mars mission crosses halfway mark

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India’s first mission to Mars has successfully crossed the half-way mark, four months after leaving on an voyage to the Red Planet which is scheduled to take 11 months.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) made the announcement on Wednesday in a statement from the southern city of Bangalore, News 24 reported.

It said that the spacecraft and its five scientific instruments are in good health.

The gold-coloured probe, the size of a small car, will aim to detect methane in the Martian atmosphere, which could provide evidence of some sort of life form on the Red Planet.

Solar-powered plane to fly around the world in 2015

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The two Swiss pilots who flew a solar-powered plane on a record-setting coast-to-coast flight across the United States last summer have revealed that they will use their next-generation solar plane in 2015 to circumnavigate the globe.

Pilots Andre Borschberg and Bertrand Piccard are slated to reveal a new solar-powered airplane, dubbed Solar Impulse 2, in a ceremony on April 9. The event will be webcast live on the Solar Impulse website, according to Mashable.

After diabetes, Google Glass sets eyes on Parkinson’s

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After unveiling a smart contact lens that monitors glucose levels in tears in January, Google is now working on to support people with Parkinson’s disease – via Google Glass, it much-anticipated wearable device to be launched later this year.

Experts at Newcastle University in Britain are investigating Google Glass as an assistive aid to help people with Parkinson’s retain their independence for longer.

Twitter’s new look ‘borrows a page’ from Facebook

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Twitter has changed its old look to one which somewhat looks like a Facebook page.

Now one can display a bigger display picture and manage the header like Facebook’s display picture and Cover photo.

At the top of the page, information on the number of tweets, photos/videos posted, people followed by the users and their own followers will be displayed.

According to Cnet, the new look allows users to highlight their tweets by pinning them and manage the flow of tweet s to their accounts.

Humans are born with basic fundamental knowledge of language

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A new study has revealed that humans are in fact born with the basic fundamental knowledge of language.

While languages differ from each other in many ways, certain aspects appear to be shared across languages. These aspects might stem from linguistic principles that are active in all human brains.

A natural question then arises: are infants born with knowledge of how the human words might sound like? Are infants biased to consider certain sound sequences as more word-like than others?

Britain gets its first cloned dog!

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Britain has got its first cloned dog named “mini Winnie”, after an owner of a dachshund won a competition.

The 12-year-old dachshund was reproduced, after a sample of her skin tissue was taken and stored in liquid nitrogen before being transported to South Korea, the Mirror reported.

The dog’s cells were put into eggs from a donor dog of the same breed in Seoul and a spark of electricity then created a cloned embryo which was in turn transferred into a surrogate dog.

‘Mysterious’ blip of light on Mars sparks wild UFO theories

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A photograph of Mars sent by Curiosity rover, which features an apparent blip of light on the horizon has sparked people’s interest with UFO enthusiasts speculating that it could be an artificial light source.

Rover’s right navigation camera clicked the image. A close-up of the light makes it look like it has a flat bottom and rises upward, where it dissipates, CNET reported.

Doug Ellison, visualization producer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory , wrote on his Twitter account “It’s not in the left-Navcam image taken at the exact same moment. It’s a cosmic ray hit.” (ANI)

‘Heartbleed Bug’ leaves every computer at risk of hacking

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A major flaw in the World Wide Web, known as ‘Heartbleed’ Bug, has been found in the OpenSSL (open-source software package), broadly used to encrypt Web communications, putting every computer at risk.

The major flaw can essentially allow attackers to gain access to highly sensitive information, including credit card numbers, usernames, passwords, and other sensitive data.

‘I will do it tomorrow’ attitude hidden in genes

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Is “I will do it tomorrow” is all you hear every time you ask your kid to do homework? The secret of such a trait may well be trapped in his/her genes, a study reveals.

Those who procrastinate are also likely to be more impulsive and both the traits are linked to genes that one inherits, the study has found.

Livestream unveils broadcasting app for Google Glass

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Livestream has reportedly developed its first broadcasting app for Google glass, which gives the wearable computer a way to stream live video directly on to the platform.

Livestream was behind the live feed of Twitter’s IPO from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, and provides streaming support to giant companies, Cnet reported.

Phil Worthington, Livestream co-founder and chief product officer said that it’s a balance between privacy and journalism.

‘Humans and Neandertals interbred’

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Researchers have claimed that a new method has helped them confirm that humans and Neandertals interbred.

The technique can more confidently detect the genetic signatures of interbreeding than previous approaches and will be useful for evolutionary studies of other ancient or rare DNA samples.

Study co-author Konrad Lohse, a population geneticist at the University of Edinburgh, said that their approach can distinguish between two subtly different scenarios that could explain the genetic similarities shared by Neandertals and modern humans from Europe and Asia.