Death from space…

Washington, January 24: The US is doing little to defend the planet against potentially devastating asteroids and is not doing the basic searches that Congress has ordered, according to a report released on Friday.

While most of the really big and obvious threats are being found, almost nothing is being done to find the smaller objects that are arguably a more likely threat, the strongly worded report from the National Academy of Sciences said.

Pope urges priests to use Internet astutely

Washington, January 23: Pope Benedict XVI has urged priests to use the internet “astutely” in a message for this year’s World Communications Day.

“Make astute use of the unique possibilities offered by modern communications,” the Pope said.

The Christian message “can traverse the many crossroads created by the intersection of all the different ‘highways’ that form cyberspace and show that God has his rightful place in every age, including our own,” he said.

“Priests stand at the threshold of a new era,” the 82-year-old said.

Medical science eyes cell phone route to reach remote areas

Chandigarh, January 22: The Indian mobile phone market is one of the fastest growing markets in the world. And now, medical science is gearing up to use the same technology to deliver health care to remote parts of the country.

Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER), the prestigious Chandigarh-based institute, is working in collaboration with Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (Barc), country’s premier multi-disciplinary nuclear research centre on a pioneering national healthcare project called mhealth.

India successfully tests laser guided bombs

New Delhi, January 22: India today carried out two successful flight trials of laser-guided bombs (LGBs) for the IAF to test the effectiveness of the guidance and control systems at the Chandipur integrated test range in Orissa.

“Two flight trials were conducted today at Integrated Test Range, Chandipur, to test the effectiveness of the guidance and control systems of the LGBs,” a Defence Ministry release said here.

Lara Croft named most successful woman computer game

London, January 21: Angelina Jolie’s on-screen character Lara Croft has been voted as the the most successful babe in the computer game history.

Jolie played Croft in the “Tomb Raider” series and the computer game based on the same has picked up six awards in the new Guinness World Records Gamer Edition.

“Lara epitomises all that’s great about video gaming. We’re delighted to acknowledge her success,” said Gaz Deaves, editor of Guinness World Records Gaming.

—Agencies

Funds for climate change missions in Union Budget

New Delhi, January 21: India’s eight ambitious missions to address climate change may get funds in the Union Budget that will be presented in Parliament next month.

“The ministries implementing the missions will be provided the necessary budget for it. We are tying up funds domestically,” Prime Minister’s Special Envoy on Climate Change Shyam Saran said when asked whether there would be any allocation for the eight missions in the Union Budget.

He said each of the missions would be discussed at the Planning Commission and will be incorporated in the Plan.

Cyber Crime: Time to buckle up

New Delhi, January 20: Last week’s massive cyber attack on organizations throughout the world has generated serious concern over the security of computer systems installed at key establishments and the steps being taken to ensure their security. Recent disclosures by National Security Advisor N K Narayan that attempts were made to hack NSA’s and few other government offices have brought renewed focus on the alarming situation. Large quantum of Intellectual Property was stolen from companies the world over during last week’s cyber attack.

Region cut off for 6 months

Liuyuan, January 20: They arrive at this gritty desert crossroads weary from a 13-hour train ride but determined. The promised land lies just across the railway station plaza: A large, white sign that says “Easy Connection Internet Café”.

The visitors are internet refugees from China’s western Xinjiang region, whose 20 million people have been without links to the outside world since the government blocked virtually all online access, text messages and international phone calls after ethnic riots in July. It’s the largest and longest such blackout in the world, observers said.

GM crops surging ahead in SA

Johannesburg, January 20: Genetically modified (GM) crops are surging ahead in SA, where during the 2009/10 planting season it is estimated that 10% more white maize and 14% more soybeans have been planted, Andrew Bennett, Monsanto’s technology development manager for GM crops in Africa, said on Wednesday.

White and yellow maize are estimated at 2.5 million ha, of which over 75% is GM, he said.

In a new year’s message, Bennett said 2009 was undoubtedly “the Golden Era for GM crops worldwide”.

Finland winters get warmer

Helsinki, January 20: Freezing weather could be a thing of the past in parts of Finland by the end of the century as climate change leads to rising temperatures, Finland’s Meteorological Institute said on Tuesday.

“Due to climate change, cold winters will become increasingly rare,” the agency said in a statement, referring to data from a project it is conducting with the University of Helsinki.

YouTube to stream IPL cricket

Mumbai, January 20: Google announced on Wednesday its video sharing website YouTube will stream all Indian Premier League cricket matches live in a deal that highlights the internet giant’s broadcasting ambitions.

The third season of the lucrative IPL, which features the world’s top players in eight teams owned by rich businessmen and Bollywood stars, will be held in March and April this year.

Under the terms of the agreement, Google will have exclusive online rights for IPL content for two years, and Google and IPL will jointly share revenues from sponsorship and advertising.

Baidu sues over hacking

Shanghai, January 20: China’s top search engine, Baidu Inc, filed a lawsuit against its US-based domain name service provider on Wednesday after a cyber attack interrupted its web services last week.

Hackers calling themselves the Iranian Cyber Army briefly hijacked Baidu’s home page on January 12, weeks after doing the same thing to popular micro-blogging site Twitter.

Baidu said it was seeking damages from Register.com, its US service provider, after web users around the world were unable to access its search engine for at least four hours.

Battle looms over e-ciggies

London, January 20: Greek researchers called on Wednesday for more safety studies into electronic cigarettes, saying scientific knowledge of them was “very limited”.

Electronic cigarettes, or e-cigarettes, were first made in China and are sold mostly on the internet.

They are battery-powered devices which emit a “puff” or fine mist of nicotine into the lungs and are intended to replace normal cigarettes and help smokers quit.

Engineers slam ‘eco-bling’

London, January 20: Installing wind turbines and solar panels in people’s homes is “eco-bling” that will not help meet Britain’s targets on cutting carbon emissions, engineers warned on Wednesday.

In a new report by the Royal Academy of Engineering (RAE), Professor Doug King said it was better to adapt buildings to make them more energy efficient than try to offset energy use with “on-site renewable energy generation”.

Google struggles in China

Beijing, January 20: Beijing college student Zhao Fang says he admires internet giant Google for standing up to China, but admits that won’t make him any more likely to use the world’s top search engine.

“Baidu is better for Chinese users,” Zhao said, referring to China’s search market leader, as the 22-year-old clicked through a jobs website in a cyber café.

“I have never felt as comfortable using Google, which feels like it is made by a foreign company,” he said.

Zhao’s appraisal came after Google’s announcement last week that it could abandon google.cn and leave China entirely.

New light on brain cancer

Washington, January 20: The most common form of brain cancer in adults, glioblastoma multiforme, probably is a set of diseases, rather than a single disease, US researchers said on Tuesday.

The team identified four distinct subtypes of the brain tumours, each with unique molecular characteristics, a finding they say may lead to targeted therapies.

Story of Newton’s encounter with apple goes online

London, January 19: An 18th-century account of how a falling apple helped Isaac Newton develop the theory of gravity is being posted to the Web, making the fragile paper manuscript widely available to the public for the first time.

Newton’s encounter with the apple ranks among science’s most celebrated anecdotes, and Britain’s Royal Society said it was making the documents available online.

France joins Germany in warning against using Microsoft IE

Paris, January 19: France has followed Germany’s lead and urged web users to avoid using Internet Explorer until Microsoft develops a patch to fix a security flaw that led to hacks against websites including Google.

Both French and Germans have now been instructed to use a browser other than Explorer to ensure their computer’s security.

Certa, a French government agency that protects against cyber threats, warned against using all versions of the web browser. Logo for Microsoft at their office in Herndon, Virginia

Google develops new system to trace quake survivors

San Francisco, January 19: Web search giant Google has created a centralised search system for tracking down people missing in the Haitian earthquake, the company announced Monday in a blog posting.

The new platform incorporates the major people search services that sprang up in the US media in the days following the devastating temblor. However, news sites like CNN, The Miami Herald and The New York Times, all collected similar information, people may not find each other if they’re looking in the wrong places online.

Google develops new system to trace quake survivors

San Francisco, January 19: Web search giant Google has created a centralised search system for tracking down people missing in the Haitian earthquake, the company announced Monday in a blog posting.

The new platform incorporates the major people search services that sprang up in the US media in the days following the devastating temblor. However, news sites collected similar information, people may not find each other if they’re looking in the wrong places online.

Renault-Nissan research centre to expand

Chennai, January 18: The automobile engineering design and research company Renault Nissan Technology and Business Centre India Pvt Ltd (RNTBCI) will soon shift the fuel cell research team from near Chennai to IIT Madras Research Park in the city.

“The new centre will have around 100 research engineers. They will study ways to improve the performance of fuel cells,” Grahame Cornforth, senior vice president and director, told reporters here Monday on the sideline of a Nissan Motor dealership launch.

China tried to hack Indian govt’s computers: NSA

London, January 18: Chinese hackers have tried to penetrate computers in the offices of National Security Adviser MK Narayanan, a British paper Monday quoted him as saying.

Narayanan said his office and other government departments were targeted Dec 15, the same date that US defence, finance and technology companies, including Google, reported cyber attacks from China.

“This was not the first instance of an attempt to hack into our computers,” Narayanan told The Times in an interview, adding the would-be hackers sent an e-mail with a PDF attachment containing a Trojan virus.

‘World misled over glacier meltdown’

London, January 18: A warning that most of the Himalayan glaciers will melt by 2035 owing to climate change is likely to be retracted after the United Nations body that issued it admitted to a series of scientific blunders.

Two years ago, the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) headed by India’s Rajendra Pachauri, issued a benchmark report that claimed to have incorporated the latest and most detailed research into the impact of global warming.

A central claim was that world’s glaciers were melting so fast that those in the Himalayas could vanish by 2035.

China launches satellites to build its own GPS

Beijing, January 18: China this weekend launched the third in a series of 35 satellites, designed to create its own global positioning network by 2020 and catch up to countries with a more established presence in space.

The network, known as Beidou or COMPASS, is intended to provide navigation and communication services for users in the Asia-Pacific region by around 2012, and is to cover the globe by 2020, according to the program’s newly unveiled official website, www.beidou.gov.cn.

‘Illegal trading easy on web’

Singapore, January 17: Illegal wildlife traders are turning to the internet to reach a wider customer base, circumvent laws and evade authorities, an animal rights activist told a conference on Sunday.

Items such as rhinoceros horns, leopard pelts and even live tiger cubs are being hawked openly in online advertisements on public websites, said Grace Ge, Asian regional director of the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW).