Science

New Delhi, February 24: The Supreme Court Thursday said that with the march of technology, privacy is ‘virtually disappearing’.

‘Given the technological advancement, privacy is virtually disappearing,’ said a bench of Justice G.S. Singhvi and A.K. Ganguly.

The court’s observation came in the wake of senior counsel Harish Salve’s submission that if the government had the right to snoop on the citizen’s privacy (through phonetaps)in the national interest, then it also had a corresponding responsibility of guarding these intercepts from public gaze.

VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, California, 23 February: Officials at a military base in central California have delayed the launch of a rocket carrying an Earth-observation satellite.

Tech Sgt. Ben Rojek of the 30th Space Wing at Vandenberg Air Force Base confirmed that the launch was scrubbed five minutes before its planned takeoff early Wednesday.

Florida, February 22: After a four-month grounding of the space shuttle fleet, NASA’s

countdown clocks started ticking again Monday for Discovery’s final ride into orbit.

Discovery is scheduled to blast off Thursday afternoon to the International Space Station. Forecasters put the odds of good weather at 80 percent.

London, February 22: Computer scientists have developed a new system that helps you steer a car with your thought power alone.

Using commercially available sensors to measure brain waves, scientists were able to distinguish the bioelectrical wave patterns for control commands such as “left”, “right”, “accelerate” or “brake” in a test subject.

They then succeeded in developing an interface to connect the sensors to their otherwise purely computer-controlled vehicle, so that it can now be “controlled” via thoughts.

Bangalore, February 21: The central government is in the process of setting up an electronics development fund to promote innovation, research and development (R&D), intellectual property (IP) and manufacturing in the electronics sector, a senior official said Monday.

Bangalore, February 21: The fledgling Indian semiconductor (semicon) industry has to invest in the research and development (R&D) of nanotechnology to face the challenge of disruptive technologies and shrinking innovative product cycles, a top expert said Monday.

London, February 20: A team of British and Russian scientists have launched a project that could predict when and where earthquakes will occur, and thus save thousands of lives.

An agreement to work together on the project, that was signed in Moscow, says the TwinSat project involves the launch of two satellites – one is about the size of a TV set and the other smaller than a shoebox – which will orbit the earth a few hundred kilometres apart, The Independent reported.

Madurai, February 19:Two Information Technology parks at Tirunelveli and Madurai and the State Data Centre in Chennai will be inaugurated by Chief Minister M Karunanidhi through video conferencing tomorrow.

The Managing Director of Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu (ELCOT) Santhosh Babu said the Special Economic Zone at Ilandaikulam had come up at a cost of Rs 16 crore with all infrastructure. Money used to build the infrastructure would be collected from companies which would operating from here.

Shanghai, February 18: Visitors to a fast-food restaurant in Shanghai may be pleasantly surprised when they are served food cooked by two robot chefs.The robot chefs at the Wishdoing restaurant on Shanghai’s Nanjing Road can cook delicious Chinese cuisine within three minutes. They can serve customers eight popular dishes, including “crowd-puller dishes” like Kung Pao chicken, spicy diced chicken with peanuts and Mapo Tofu, bean curd with chilli sauce.

Northern Lights, February 18: Your pictures Aurora Borealis to light up sky Sun unleashes huge solar flare Scientists around the world will be watching closely as three eruptions from the Sun reach the Earth over Thursday and Friday.

These “coronal mass ejections” will slam into the Earth’s magnetic shield.

The waves of charged solar particles are the result of three solar flares directed at Earth in recent days, including the most powerful since 2006.

The biggest flares can disrupt technology, including power grids, communications systems and satellites.

New Delhi, February 17: The government Thursday scrapped the controversial deal between Antrix, the commercial arm of Indian space agency ISRO, and private firm Devas on the allocation of space spectrum using S-band, high value and scarce radio waves.

“The agreement for the lease of space segment capacity on Antrix S-Band spacecraft (satellite) by Devas Multimedia Pvt. Ltd. shall be annulled forthwith,” Law Minister M. Veerappa Moily told reporters, announcing the decision of the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) here presided over by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Dubai, February 16: The Emirates Institution for Advanced Science and Technology (EIAST) has signed a contract with the Moscow-based international space company Kosmotras (ISCK) for the launch of the United Arab Emirates’ second remote sensing satellite — DubaiSat-2.

The contract was signed between Ahmed Obaid Al Mansoori, director general of Emirates Institution for Advanced Science and Technology, and Dr. Vladimir Andreev, director general of international space company Kosmotras of Russia.

London, February 15: Cosmic radiation hitting human bodies would nix sex in space, NASA scientists assert.

Researchers at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Ames Research Centre found that without effective shielding, powerful proton particles would probably sterilise any female embryo conceived in deep space, the Journal of Cosmology reports.

They also concluded that radiation would affect male fertility, with the particles damaging the sperm count, the Telegraph reports.

Washington, February 15: Researchers, several of them of Indian origin, have developed the first wireless radio that can send and receive signals at the same time. This makes them twice as fast as existing technology.

“Textbooks say you can’t do it,” said Philip Levis, assistant professor of computer science and electrical engineering at Stanford University. “The new system completely reworks our assumption of how wireless networks can be designed,” a Stanford statement quoted him as saying.

New Delhi, February 14: A insect repellent that keeps Indian soldiers safe from mosquito bites in far-flung interiors of Jammu and Kashmir and the northeast is now commercially available for the general public.

The product, a spin-off from military research, was Monday launched here as a commercial product by India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) in association with private firm Jyothy Laboratories Limited.

Bangalore, February 14: Is it a stove or a lamp? ‘It is actually both,’ says engineer-inventor Anil Rajvanshi, developer of a dual purpose device that simultaneously solves the twin problem of cooking and lighting in rural homes that do not have electricity.

A lantern, which burns kerosene to produce bright light and also doubles up as a cooking stove, is the latest invention from Nimbkar Agricultural Research Institute (NARI) at Phaltan in Maharashtra, a non-profit organisation that undertakes research in agriculture, renewable energy, animal husbandry and sustainable development.

Washington, February 14: The moon possesses an iron-rich core with a solid inner ball nearly 150 miles in radius, which is similar to that of the earth, according to a new study.

A team of NASA-led researchers applied new technology to seismic data from the Apollo mission and detected what many scientists have predicted: the moon has a core.

Mumbai, February 13: Reliance Communications categorically reiterated Sunday it had violated no norms, as its own and the group’s equity holding in Swan Telecom, now under probe in the 2G spectrum saga, did not exceed 9.9 percent.

The company, which offers mobile telecom under the platforms of both CDMA and GSM, said it got a dual technology license under the same terms that applied to three other firms – Tata Teleservices, Himachal Futuristic and Shyam Telecom.

Bangalore, February 13: Devas Multimedia Saturday welcomed the decision of the Indian Space Commission to await the result of the review of its pact the Indian space agency over allocation of S-band frequency before taking a call on whether to annul the pact.

“We will cooperate with the government in participating in the forthcoming reviews and are committed to provide any requested information or clarifications,” Devas, a Bangalore-based firm, said in a statement late Saturday.

London, February 11: Simply upper-casing your password can minimise a hacker’s chance of finding out your account.

A six-letter password in lower-case text takes a hacker’s computer just 10 minutes to crack. But make those letters upper-case and it takes 10 hours for it to randomly work out your password.

Add numbers and/or symbols to your password and the hacker’s computer has to work for 18 days.

Despite widespread warning, 50 percent of people choose a common word or simple key combination for their password, the Daily Mail reports.

New Delhi/Bangalore, February 10: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Thursday formed a two-member commission to probe allegations of revenue losses in the allocation of space spectrum using S-band — high value and scarce radio waves — between the Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) commercial arm and a private company.

‘The prime minister has formed a high-level commission, which will submit its report within a month,’ Information and Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni told reporters in New Delhi.

Bangalore/New Delhi, February 10: The Indian government Thursday initiated a probe into reported revenue loss by its space agency’s pact with a private firm on allotting S-band frequency – high value and scarce radio waves – as the agency and the firm seemed set for a legal battle.

‘The prime minister (Manmohan Singh) has formed a high-level commission, which will submit its report within a month,’ Information and Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni told reporters in New Delhi.

Washington,February 10:In an effort to reach out to the Arab world, the US State Department has created a Twitter account that transmits messages in Arabic, The Washington Post reported Wednesday.

The account, described as the “US Department of State Arabic Media Hub,” has the username USAbilAraby, which means “USA in Arabic.” It had over 375 followers by 6:30 pm ET Wednesday.

According to the Post, one of the first tweets read, “The US foreign ministry has recognized the historic role of social media in the Arab world and we want to be part of your conversations.”

Wellington, February 07: A company in New Zealand has developed a robot that reminds the aged people about their medication, monitors their vital signs, and will soon be able to entertain them too while encouraging exercise and mobility.

Christchurch-based gaming company Stickmen Studios has developed a game – Kung Fu Funk – that can help rehabilitate people who have suffered brain injuries.

London, February 04: Microsoft has warned that the 900 million users of its Internet Explorer Web browser are at risk of having their computers hijacked and their personal information stolen by hackers.

The software giant has issued a ‘critical’ security alert over a newly-discovered flaw that affects all versions of the company’s Windows operating system, including Windows XP (SP3), Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008 (R2), reports the Daily Mail.