London, August 30: It all used to be simpler for Mac users: viruses and other malicious software affected Windows computers, not them.
That is slowly changing. “The threats have intensified,” says Candid Wuest from anti-virus maker Symantec.
Cape Canaveral, August 30: Space shuttle Discovery’s astronauts steered closer to the international space station for a Sunday linkup, while checking their ship for any signs of launch damage.
The routine survey began early Saturday evening and lasted until the wee hours of Sunday.
Toronto, August 30: Browsing on your BlackBerry smart phone could soon become a much better experience.
Customers have been complaining about BlackBerry’s browser since the launch of Apple’s iPhone which offers better browsing experience. To improve browsing on its smart phones, the BlackBerry maker has acquired Toronto-based company called Torch Mobile.
The company, which makes the Iris mobile browser, will give BlackBerry edge in competition with other smart phones, including Apple’s iPhone.
New Delhi/Bangalore, August 29: Scientists have lost radio contact with Chandrayaan 1, India’s space mission to the moon.
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) abruptly lost radio contact with the unmanned spacecraft at around 0130 hrs IST on Friday. Data was last received from spacecraft shortly after midnight.
“The mission is definitely over. We have lost contact with the spacecraft,” Project Director of the Chandrayaan-1 mission M Annadurai told PTI.
London, August 29: British scientists have warned that UN negotiations aimed at tackling climate change are based on substantial underestimates of what it will cost to adapt to its impacts and were produced too quickly without including key sectors like energy, manufacturing and ecosystems.
The real costs of adaptation to climate change are likely to be two to three times greater than the USD 40-170 billion estimate made by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the researchers say.
Florida, August 29: For the third time this week, NASA fueled space shuttle Discovery for a launch to the international space station after resolving a fuel valve problem.
The seven astronauts waved as they headed out to the launch pad under clearing skies. Thunderstorms surrounded the area earlier in the evening, and three lightning strikes were recorded within five miles of the pad.
Toronto, August 29: People with speech disability will now be able to speak, literally.
A Canadian professor at the University of Toronto says heat-seeking infrared camera can pick up mouth gestures of a person with speech disability and then pick the letters of the alphabet to translate the gestures into verbal message.
According to Prof Tom Chau, who is senior scientist at Bloorview Research Institute of the university, infrared thermography can help people with speech disabilities to interact and perhaps eventually communicate.
Washington, August 29: The space shuttle Discovery was set for a midnight launch on Friday after problems associated with a fuelling valve that forced previous delays were resolved, NASA officials said.
Discovery is set to blast off at 11.59 p.m. (0359 GMT Saturday) from Cape Canaveral, Florida, en route to the International Space Station (ISS).
NASA was fuelling the shuttle for the launch and the readings on what had been a suspect valve were normal. But weather was beginning to emerge as a potential challenge.
Promontory, Utah, August 28: A mechanical failure forced a NASA contractor on Thursday to call off the first test firing of the main part of NASA’s powerful new moon rocket.
The test wasn’t immediately rescheduled as officials scrambled to learn the root cause of the failure.
Alliant Techsystems Inc called off the rocket burn with just 20 seconds left on the countdown clock. Operators cited failure of a power unit that drives hydraulic tilt controls for the rocket’s nozzle. The rocket was anchored to the ground in a horizontal position for the test.
New Delhi, August 28: Buffalo is previously known for its storage devices but this time Buffalo had landed with Drive Station CX series in Indian market.
Buffalo Drive station CX promises for the protection of the data other then this device is fully loaded with the features like:
1. plug-and-play installation that allows the user to easily get connected.
2. Eco power management
3. Secure Lock Manager
4. High speed data transfer
5. Power Savings Mode
6. Auto Backup
7. Google Picasa photo manager
Kolkata, August 28: Electronics major Samsung India Friday said it expected its mobile phone business to contribute 25-30 percent of its $2.5 billion turnover this year.
“We have targeted a total (consumer home appliances, information technology business and mobile) turnover of $2.5 billion this year of which 25-30 percent will come from mobile business, we expect,” Samsung India Country Head Sunil Dutt said during the launch of the world’s first open market handset (OMH) phone.
Washington, August 28: Noting that India and China need to be part of the solution on climate change, the United States has said that it would like the two Asian giants to make significant investment in the success of a summit on climate change to be held in Copenhagen in December.
“What we want to see from India and China is a significant investment in the Copenhagen process,” the Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs, P J Crowley, told reporters yesterday at the daily State Department press briefing.
New Delhi, August 28: Laughing gas or Nitrous Oxide (N2O) is the most abundant ozone-depleting substance in the 21st century as the emissions of CFC, another green house gas, has come down, a new study suggests.
“Although N2O is roughly 160th of Chloro-fluoro carbon (CFC)-11 in terms of ozone depleting potential, it has become the largest ozone depleting substance as Montreal Protocol has considerably reduced emission of others,” A R Ravishankara, Director Chemical Sciences Division, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, (NOAA) USA, told PTI over phone.
Washington, August 28: NASA has delayed the launch of the space shuttle Discovery by 24 hours to allow more time to review data about a suspect valve in the liquid hydrogen fuel tank, officials told Thursday.
NASA earlier this week scrubbed a Tuesday launch to the early hours of Friday morning after detecting a problem with the fill and drain valve. The latest plan is to proceed with the launch about midnight Friday (0400 GMT Saturday).
New Delhi, August 28: Laughing gas or Nitrous Oxide (N2O) is the most abundant ozone-depleting substance in the 21st century as the emissions of CFC, another green house gas, has come down, a new study suggests.
“Although N2O is roughly 160th of Chloro-fluoro carbon (CFC)-11 in terms of ozone depleting potential, it has become the largest ozone depleting substance as Montreal Protocol has considerably reduced emission of others,” A R Ravishankara, Director Chemical Sciences Division, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, (NOAA) USA, told PTI over phone.
Washington, August 27: NASA has delayed the launch of the space shuttle Discovery by 24 hours to allow more time to review data about a suspect valve in the liquid hydrogen fuel tank, officials said Thursday.
NASA earlier this week postponed a Tuesday launch to the early hours of Friday morning after detecting a problem with the fill and drain valve. The latest plan is to proceed with the launch about midnight Friday (0400 GMT Saturday).
San Francisco, August 28: US computer maker Dell reported a 23-percent drop in second-quarter profits Thursday as corporate spending continued to lag.
But the earnings of $472 million on sales of $12.76 billion narrowly beat Wall Street expectations, and the Texas-based company said that its prospects for recovery were improving.
“If current demand trends continue, we expect revenue for the second half of the year to be stronger than the first half,” chief executive Michael Dell said.
New York, August 28: Some of the world’s biggest websites are taking sides as the most popular browser in history is phased out.
Internet Explorer 6 – for years the most popular program used to surf the web – is on the way out, with top sites dropping support for the ageing software.
And the phasing-out is shaking up the browser market, as rivals like Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome compete to snap up its users.
YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Google are all urging IE6 users to upgrade or switch browsers.
Florida, August 28: NASA postponed shuttle Discovery’s resupply mission to the International Space Station for a third time overnight to review tests of a potentially faulty valve in the ship’s fuel tank.
Launch of NASA’s 128th shuttle mission was rescheduled for 11.59pm EDT on Friday (1.59pm Saturday AEST).
Managers delayed the launch to allow more time to assess information collected during tests of the suspect valve.
New Delhi, August 27: The wait for next generation telephony is finally over with an empowered group of ministers Thursday fixing the base price of third generation (3G) radio waves at Rs.3,500 crore. It had been earlier pegged at Rs.4,040 crore.
The ministerial group also fixed of Rs.1,750 crore as the base price for pan-India WiMax or wireless Internet spectrum.
The government is hopeful of completing the spectrum auction within 90 days of the announcement of the base price and of earning about Rs.25,000 crore from the auction of 3G and WiMax spectrums.
Washington, August 27: Scientists are on the verge of ridding inherited diseases from future generations with a new technique for swapping genes between unfertilised human eggs before the resulting IVF embryos are implanted into the womb.
The technique has been successfully tested on laboratory monkeys and researchers believe it is now safe enough to apply for clinical trials on the many thousands of women at risk of giving birth to babies with some of the most debilitating inherited disorders.
Washington, August 27: Scientists have come up with a novel electronic sensor that ensures faster, more accurate and cost-effective testing of DNA for diagnostics and biological research.
Developed by the Singapore-based Institute of Bio-engineering and Nanotechnology (IBN), the Nanogap Sensor Array has shown “excellent” sensitivity in detecting trace amounts of DNA.
Sydney, August 27: Eavesdropping helps dry wood termites avoid their more aggressive kin as a mode of survival, according to scientists.
Both species eat dry wood and can co-exist in the same tree but each dry wood termite colony has just 200 members, confined to a single tree.
But colonies of the dominant wood-eating termite contain around a million members, including thousands of aggressive soldiers, and can forage upto 20 trees simultaneously.
Los Angeles, August 27: Bouts of extreme muggy heat lasting for days, once rare in California, are becoming more frequent and intense due to ocean patterns altered by climate change, scientists said in a study released on Tuesday.
Research meteorologists at the University of California’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography reached the conclusion after examining a severe 2006 summer heat wave that was blamed for the deaths of 600 people and 25,000 cattle in California.
Warsaw, August 27: Microsoft officials in Poland apologized Wednesday for a photo on the company’s Polish website that changed a black man’s face to white.
The photo on the computer giant’s US website shows a black man, an Asian and a woman at a business meeting, with the slogan “Empower your people”.
The black man on Microsoft’s Polish website, however, was changed to have the head of a white man. The figure’s hand went unedited and remained black.