Washington, January 17: Online maps, mobile phone donations, wikis and a slew of websites are being deployed as telecoms firms, technology giants and start-ups set aside their rivalries and put the latest tools to work to help earthquake-ravaged Haiti.
“Technology is playing a key role in mobilising support for the victims of the Haiti earthquake and also in co-ordinating relief efforts,” said Akhtar Badshah, Microsoft’s senior director of global community affairs.
London, January 17: Britain’s army chief wants traditional investment in warships and fighter jets cut to fund a boost in cyber warfare technology, he told The Sunday Times newspaper.
General David Richards said future conflicts would be fought in increasingly high-tech ways and the threat of cyber-attacks against Britain’s infrastructure now meant radical change was unavoidable.
Britain’s armed forces are facing a new “horse versus tank moment” in dealing with the challenges of modern warfare, he told the weekly broadsheet.
Berlin, January 17: A German zoo says the gorilla who gained fame for mourning her dead baby by carrying its body for several days in 2008 has died following illness.
Muenster zoo spokesperson Ilona Zuehlke told the DAPD news agency that a keeper found 12-year-old Gana dead in her cage early on Sunday. Zuehlke said the exact cause of death has not been determined, but the gorilla had been ill for several weeks.
Juno Beach, January 17: Hundreds of endangered sea turtles are being released back into the Atlantic Ocean now that Florida’s weather has warmed enough.
Officials in the Sunshine State helped rescue nearly 3 000 turtles from frigid waters in the past week, plucking them from the ocean, lagoons and rivers as air temperatures dipped to about 0ºC to 4ºC along the coast.
Washington, January 17: American space agency NASA has launched a full investigation into how a bag of cocaine got into the hangar housing the space shuttle Discovery.
According to a NASA spokesman, the plastic bag was found in a secure part of the hangar at the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida.
The Agency began testing about 200 shuttle workers following the discovery of the drug.
The substance was found on the floor outside two bathrooms and a janitor’s closet, in an area where workers swipe their identification cards, said Space Center Spokeswoman Lisa Malone.
Washington, January 17: The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has slashed the price of its space shuttles from 42 million dollars to 28.8 million dollars a piece.
The 1970s-era spaceships are for sale once their flying days are over, which is scheduled to be this fall.
NASA has received about 20 inquiries after the Agency put out the call seeking buyers in December, 2008.
NASA spokesman, Mike Curie, said it was unlikely that the bids of oil tycoons or dot-com billionaires would garner a shuttle.
“The intent is not for NASA to make money,” Curie said.
Shanghai, January 17: Yahoo got pulled into a growing row between China and Google on Saturday, as its Chinese partner slammed Yahoo’s statements supporting Google while a source revealed the search giant had stayed silent about cyber-attacks.
Yahoo knew it had been a target of sophisticated Chinese cyber attacks on US firms before Google alerted the company to them, but remained silent while its bigger rival went public, a source familiar with the situation said.
San Francisco, January 16: Google is learning that being a star contender in the smartphone arena takes more than a big name and well-crafted hardware.
Nexus One has stumbled since its grand launch on January 5 as buyers grumble that there is nowhere to go but online for answers to complaints or questions.
“You would have to call their approach either naivete or hubris,” said interpret analyst Michael Gartenberg.
“Google has learned a number of things; most importantly that selling the device is only part of the equation.”
London, January 16: The founder of a website accused of being one of the world’s biggest sources of illegally downloaded music has been cleared of fraud by a British court.
Music-industry group the BPI said on Friday’s verdict in Britain’s first trial for online file-sharing was “hugely disappointing.”
Alan Ellis set up Oink, a members-only site that let users exchange music files, in 2004.
By the time police raided his house in Middlesbrough, northern England, in October 2007 the site had almost 200 000 members who had downloaded 21 million music files.
Washington, January 16: Yahoo Inc. was among the companies targeted in the recent cyber attacks that hit Google Inc. and other companies, according to several people briefed on the matter.
Yahoo has talked with its Internet rival about the attack, according to two of these people, though it wasn’t clear whether the attack on Yahoo resulted in a breach of its systems, as it did for Google.
Washington, January 16: Is there life on Mars? The most intriguing question for everyone on the Earth would be answered by American space scientists by the end of this year, a NASA expert has claimed.
According to David McKay, chief of astrobiology at NASA’s Johnson Space Centre in Houston, the fact that Mars has bred life will be confirmed this year and the historic discovery will not be made on the Mars, but here on Earth using the chunks of the red planet.
San Francisco, January 16: Yahoo Inc knew it had been a target to sophisticated Chinese cyber attacks on US corporations before Google alerted the company to them, a source familiar with the matter said, but chose to remain silent after its bigger rival went public.
The two Internet search and email providers had discussed a highly coordinated attack originating in China prior to Google’s high-profile announcement on Tuesday, the person said.
New Delhi, January 16: The Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) launched a total of 11 Rohini series indigenous sounding rockets from the Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station here and the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikotta to investigate the effects of the longest annular solar eclipse of this millennium, which occurred on Friday, on the earth’s atmosphere.
New York, January 15: Two South Korean teenagers have been crowned fastest texters in the world.
The team of 17-year-old Bae Yeong Ho and 18-year-old Ha Mok Min went thumb-to-thumb against competitors from a dozen countries to win the title in a competition on Thursday in New York City.
The LG Mobile World Cup challenged nimble-fingered youths on both speed and accuracy. The winning team took home a $100 000 prize.
San Francisco, January 15: In drawing a battle line with Chinese internet censors, Google is reclaiming a “Don’t Be Evil” mantle lost in a global business arena where profits routinely trump morals.
While critics challenge whether Google’s motivation is altruistic, the search engine seized the high ground by declaring it will not filter query results in China even at the price of being shut out of the booming market.
New York, January 15: The minute hand of the Doomsday clock was moved back slightly on Thursday, indicating the world has inched away from nuclear or environmental catastrophe, but stressing it was not out of danger.
“We are encouraged by recent developments, but we are mindful of the fact that the clock is ticking,” said Lawrence Krauss, co-chair of the board of sponsors of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, which created the symbolic clock in 1947.
He then nudged the clock’s minute hand back by just one minute at its home in New York.
London, January 15: Technological advances have led to a sharp fall in the weight of women’s handbags, research from British department store chain Debenhams has revealed.
Women’s handbags now weigh an average of 1.5 kg, 57% less than the average of two years ago, Debenhams said in an e-mailed statement on Thursday.
A new generation of smaller, lighter multi-purpose gadgets such as Apple Inc’s iPhone and Research in Motion Ltd’s Blackberry have replaced heavy laptops, old fashioned cellphones, music players and paper organisers.
Washington, January 15: Facebook launched a “Global Relief” page on Thursday that helps members assist victims of natural disasters such as the earthquake that hammered impoverished Haiti.
“The devastating earthquake in Haiti has underscored the internet’s critical role in connecting the world’s population in times of tragedy,” Facebook spokesperson Andrew Noyes said in a statement.
North Haven, January 15: Researchers who examined an Egyptian mummy with the latest imaging technology say they found no evidence that a packet inside her was an offering to the gods of the ancient world.
Tests in 2006 led to speculation that the packet was a bird mummy, but high-resolution tests on Thursday at Quinnipiac University showed no remnants of a bird. Instead, researchers said the packet and a few others in the mummy likely contained organs.
Beijing, January 15: Google’s employees in China may soon be facing unemployment following the internet giant’s ultimatum to Beijing, but the US firm let them know they are appreciated – by taking them to see Avatar.
The company bought more than 200 tickets for the blockbuster and allowed staff members to take the afternoon off on Thursday to see it, the Beijing Youth Daily reported on Friday.
Johannesburg, January 15: Africa’s telecoms sector lacks clear and comprehensive legislative frameworks, consultancy Frost and Sullivan said on Friday.
In a statement, its ICT industry analyst Spiwe Chireka commented on the issues being faced by MTN Nigeria and Vodacom Congo.
He said that while the absence of comprehensive legislative frameworks placed multinationals in a vulnerable position, there was an element of “no pain, no gain” in play.
“Nigeria and the DRC are the most lucrative markets in which to operate, but they are also the most difficult.”
New Delhi, January 15: Cyber War and Cyber Terrorism are matters of grave concern to all countries. Equally important are the issue pertaining to cyber security of defense forces in India.
These issues are important as they strike at the very root of the critical ICT infrastructure protection in India. While countries like US and Russia are negotiating to limit the impact of cyber wars, India is not doing the needful in this regard. Cyber War Capabilities should be an Integral Part of Indian National Defense and Security says India’s leading Techno-Legal Expert Praveen Dalal.
Indianapolis, January 15: Scientists who detected worrisome signs of growing stresses in the fault that unleashed this week’s devastating earthquake in Haiti said on Friday they warned officials there two years ago that the country was ripe for a major earthquake.
Their sobering findings, presented during a geological conference in March 2008 and at meetings two months later, showed that the fault was capable of causing a 7.2—magnitude earthquake – slightly stronger than Tuesday’s 7.0 quake that rocked the impoverished country.
New Delhi, January 15: Sceptical about the weatherman’s predictions You may soon change your stance, with more accurate predictions coming your way. Having acquired a high performance computing system (IBM P6), the Indian Meteorological Department is poised for a “quantum jump” in its weather forecasting capability.
The Minister for Science and Technology and Earth Sciences Prithviraj Chavan is going to launch the system today, the 135th Foundation Day of IMD. Director General IMD Ajit Tyagi told.
Moscow, January 14: Russia’s Mission Control says two cosmonauts have taken a spacewalk to get a new module ready to dock with the International Space Station.
Mission Control spokesperson Valery Lyndin said that Maxim Suraev and Oleg Kotov left the station at 13:05 Moscow time (10:10 GMT) on Thursday. He said their mission is expected to last nearly six hours.