Bill Gates: The Great Technologist

William Henry Gates III (born October 28, 1955 in Seattle, Washington, USA) is an American business magnate, philanthropist, the world's richest person (as of Aug. 29th, 2008), and chairman of Microsoft, the software company he founded with Paul Allen. During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions of CEO and chief software architect, and remains the largest individual shareholder with more than 8 percent of the common stock. He has also authored or co-authored several books. and

Gates is one of the best-known entrepreneurs of the personal computer In the later stages of his career, Gates has pursued a number of philanthropic endeavors, donating large amounts of money to various charitable organizations and scientific research programs through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, established in 2000. revolution. Although he is admired by many, a large number of industry insiders criticize his business tactics, which they consider anti-competitive, an opinion which has in some cases been upheld by the courts.

Bill Gates stepped down as chief executive officer of Microsoft in January, 2000. He remained as chairman and created the position of chief software architect. In June, 2006, Gates announced that he would be transitioning from full-time work at Microsoft to part-time work at Microsoft and full-time work at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He gradually transferred his duties to Ray Ozzie, chief software architect and Craig Mundie, chief research and strategy officer. Gates's last full-time day at Microsoft was June 27, 2008. He remains at Microsoft as a part-time, non-executive chairman.

The Digital Size Units

Dear friends,
We all know about the digital units such as KB, MB, GB etc. But I think most of us don;t know more about these units. Here is some information about them.

KB- Kilo Byte - Basic Unit
MB- Mega Byte- 1024 Kb
GB- Giga Byte- 1024 GB
TB- Tetra Byte- 1024 GB

I think this post was a useful one.

Remember BLOG4INFO is a blog full of informations.

How do you calculate the surface area of a globe?

To calculate the surface area of a sphere use the formula -
4pr2

r being the radius of the sphere.
and 'p' being pi 3.14...

Radius of earth; 6,356.750 km

World's 'rarest tree frog' found

Courtesy: BBC News -Science and Nature Department

An extremely rare female frog has been spotted for the first time in 20 years.
The tiny tree frog, Isthmohyla rivularis, was seen in Costa Rica's Monteverde Cloud Forest Preserve.
This species was thought to have become extinct two decades ago, but last year a University of Manchester researcher caught a glimpse of a male.
However, the discovery of the female and more males suggests this species is breeding and has been able to survive where many other frogs have not.
Andrew Gray, a herpetologist from Manchester Museum at the University of Manchester, said: "This has been the highlight of the whole of my career. "Now that we know that both sexes exist in the wild, we should intensify efforts to understand their ecology and further their conservation."
The BBC has been following the team from the University of Manchester and Chester Zoo that is working on amphibian conservation programmes
The BBC video of the frog is the first-known footage of this species.
The 2.5cm-long female, which was released after the discovery, was brown with metallic green speckles and was packed full of eggs.
A difficult task
Finding female frogs is extremely difficult; males make a distinctive call but females are silent for most of the time.
And tracking down this particular species in a great expanse of rainforest was even more difficult - the team had few clues about where the frogs might be, and the search could only take place at night.
The team trekked deep into the forest to a spot close to where the male Isthmohyla rivularis was spotted last year.
The researchers first discovered another male from its soft insect-like call.
The conservationists then trained their torches on the undergrowth, and eventually Luis Obando, head of park maintenance at Monteverde's Tropical Science Center, found the tiny female, which was sitting on a leaf.
Mr Gray told the BBC: "It is hard to describe just how unlikely it was to have discovered a female of this particular species.
"The only time you ever come across a female is by chance - and it is only once in a blue moon that they come down to lay their eggs. You really have to be in the right place at the right time.
"You could come out here every night for a year and not see a thing.
"I really think that this time we have had luck on our side." The discovery of both sexes of this species has given the researchers hope that this population may be surviving against the odds.
Mr Gray explained: "Last year, when we saw the male, we had no idea whether this was one of the last few remaining male specimens of this species.
"But now we have found the female, there is hope that the species may recover.
"It still seems that these critically endangered creatures are on the very brink of extinction - and although we have been intensively searching the streams all through the night, it appears that the density of the population is precarious."
The researchers swabbed the frogs before they were released to see if they are carrying the chytrid fungus - a disease thought to have killed of many other species in this area.
They also used a spectrometer to look at the properties of the frogs' skin to try to find out why this species has survived where others have not.
"It is imperative for the future conservation of Costa Rican amphibians that collaborative efforts harness the skills of biologists, researchers, educators and committed individuals, if we are to save these rare species," Mr Gray added.

'Big Bang' experiment starts well

Scientists have hailed a successful switch-on for an enormous experiment which will recreate the conditions a few moments after the Big Bang.

They have now fired two beams of particles called protons around the 27km-long tunnel which houses the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).

The £5bn machine on the Swiss-French border is designed to smash protons together with cataclysmic force.

Scientists hope it will shed light on fundamental questions in physics.

The first - clockwise - beam completed its first circuit of the underground tunnel at just before 0930 BST. The second - anti-clockwise - beam successfully circled the ring after 1400 BST.

So far, all the beams have been stopped, or "dumped", after just a few circuits.

On Thursday, engineers hoped to inject clockwise and anti-clockwise protons again, but this time they plan to "close the orbit", letting the beams run continuously for a few seconds each.

The BBC understands that low-energy collisions could happen in the next few days. This will allow engineers to calibrate instruments, but will not produce data of scientific interest.

"There it is," project leader Lyn Evans said when the beam completed its lap. There were cheers in the control room when engineers heard of the successful test.

He added later: "We had a very smooth start-up."

The LHC is arguably the most complicated and ambitious experiment ever built; the project has been hit by cost overruns, equipment trouble and construction problems. The switch-on itself is two years late.

The collider is operated by the European Organization for Nuclear Research - better known by its French acronym Cern.

The vast circular tunnel - or "ring" - which runs under the French-Swiss border contains more than 1,000 cylindrical magnets arranged end-to-end.

The magnets are there to steer the beam around this vast circuit. Eventually, two proton beams will be steered in opposite directions around the LHC at close to the speed of light, completing about 11,000 laps each second.

At allotted points around the tunnel, the beams will cross paths, smashing together near four massive "detectors" that monitor the collisions for interesting events.

Scientists are hoping that new sub-atomic particles will emerge, revealing fundamental insights into the nature of the cosmos.

Major effort

"We will be able to see deeper into matter than ever before," said Dr Tara Shears, a particle physicist at the University of Liverpool.

"We will be looking at what the Universe was made of billionths of a second after the Big Bang. That is amazing, that really is fantastic."

The LHC should answer one very simple question: What is mass?

"We know the answer will be found at the LHC," said Jim Virdee, a particle physicist at Imperial College London.

The favoured model involves a particle called the Higgs boson - dubbed the "God Particle". According to the theory, particles acquire their mass through interactions with an all-pervading field carried by the Higgs.

The latest astronomical observations suggest ordinary matter - such as the galaxies, gas, stars and planets - makes up just 4% of the Universe.

The rest is dark matter (23%) and dark energy (73%). Physicists think the LHC could provide clues about the nature of this mysterious "stuff".

But Professor Virdee told BBC News: "Nature can surprise us... we have to be ready to detect anything it throws at us."

Full beam ahead

Engineers injected the first low-intensity proton beams into the LHC in August. But they did not go all the way around the ring.

Technicians had to be on the lookout for potential problems.

Steve Myers, head of the accelerator and beam department, said: "There are on the order of 2,000 magnetic circuits in the machine. This means there are 2,000 power supplies which generate the current which flows in the coils of the magnets."

If there was a fault with any of these, he said, it would have stopped the beams. They were also wary of obstacles in the beam pipe which could prevent the protons from completing their first circuit.

Superconducting magnets are cooled down using liquid helium

Mr Myers has experience of the latter problem. While working on the LHC's predecessor, a machine called the Large-Electron Positron Collider, engineers found two beer bottles wedged into the beam pipe - a deliberate, one-off act of sabotage.

The culprits - who were drinking a particular brand that advertising once claimed would "refresh the parts other beers cannot reach" - were never found.

In order to get both beams to circulate continuously, engineers will "close the orbit". The beams themselves are made up of several "packets" - each about a metre long - containing billions of protons.

The protons would disperse if left to their own devices, so engineers use electrical forces to "grab" them, keeping the particles tightly huddled in packets.

Once the beams are captured, the same system of electrical forces is used to give the particles an energetic kick, accelerating them to greater and greater speeds.

Long haul

The idea of the Large Hadron Collider emerged in the early 1980s. The project was eventually approved in 1996 at a cost of 2.6bn Swiss Francs, which amounts to about £1.3bn at present exchange rates.

However, Cern underestimated equipment and engineering costs when it set out its original budget, plunging the lab into a cash crisis.

Cern had to borrow hundreds of millions of euros in bank loans to get the LHC completed. The current price is nearly four times that originally envisaged.

During winter, the LHC will be shut down, allowing equipment to be fine-tuned for collisions at full energy.

"What's so exciting is that we haven't had a large new facility starting up for years," explained Dr Shears.

"Our experiments are so huge, so complex and so expensive that they don't come along very often. When they do, we get all the physics out of them that we can."

Engineers celebrated the success with champagne, but a certain brand of beer was not on the menu.

My Opinion:

In my view the BIGBANG experiment cannot be over rated as a wonderful experiment. This people are playing beyond the God. One day everyhting will go from the hands of humans and the earth will cause total destruction. Now itself if the experiment goes wrong the earth is gonna melt.

Trojan- A dangerous antivirus

Special thanks to wikipedia.

Hi Friends,
I call it as dangerous not beacause of its results but it cannot be detected by most antivirus programmes.

In the context of computing and software, a Trojan horse, also known as a trojan, is malware that appears to perform a desirable function but in fact performs undisclosed malicious functions. Therefore, a computer worm or virus may be a Trojan horse. The term is derived from the classical story of the Trojan Horse.

Origin of the term
The word 'Trojan horse' is generally attributed to Daniel Edwards of the NSA. He is given credit for identifying the attack form in the 1972 report "Computer Security Technology Planning Study". The term derives from the Trojan War, as mentioned in Homer's Iliad and Odyssey and Virgil's Aeneid: worn out by the long siege, the attacking Greeks built a giant wooden horse, ostensibly a peace offering, and pretended to sail away, but in fact left soldiers hidden inside the statue. After the Trojans brought the horse inside the city walls, the soldiers emerged, (through an opening in the bottom of the horse) opened the gates to the Greek armies, and sacked the city of Troy.
A classic example originated from computer pioneer Ken Thompson in his 1983 ACM Turing Award lecture. Thompson noted that it is possible to add code to the UNIX "login" command that would accept either the intended encrypted password or a specific special password, allowing a back door into the system with the latter password. Furthermore, Thompson argued, the C compiler itself could be modified to automatically generate the rogue code, to make detecting the modification even harder. Because the compiler is itself a program generated from a compiler, the Trojan horse could also be automatically installed in a new compiler program, without any detectable modification to the source of the new compiler.

A program named "waterfalls.scr" serves as a simple example of a trojan horse. The author claims it is a free waterfall screensaver. When run, it instead unloads hidden programs, commands, scripts, or any number of commands without the user's knowledge or consent. Malicious Trojan Horse programs are used to circumvent protection systems in effect creating a vulnerable system to allow unauthorized access to the user's computer. Non-malicious Trojan Horse programs are used for managing and forensics.

Types of Trojan horse payloads
Trojan horse payloads are almost always designed to cause harm, but can also be harmless. They are classified based on how they breach and damage systems. The six main types of Trojan horse payloads are:
Remote Access
Data Destruction
Down loader
Server Trojan(Proxy, FTP , IRC, Email, HTTP/HTTPS, etc.)
Security software disabler
Denial-of-service attack (DoS)
Some examples of damage are:
Erasing or overwriting data on a computer
Re-installing itself after being disabled
Encrypting files in a cryptoviral extortion attack
Corrupting files in a subtle way
Upload and download files
Copying fake links, which lead to false websites, chats, or other account based websites, showing any local account name on the computer falsely engaging in untrue context
Falsifying records of downloading software, movies, or games from websites never visited by the victim.
Allowing remote access to the victim's computer. This is called a RAT (remote access trojan)
Spreading other malware, such as viruses (this type of trojan horse is called a 'dropper' or 'vector')
Setting up networks of zombie computers in order to launch DDoS attacks or send spam.
Spying on the user of a computer and covertly reporting data like browsing habits to other people (see the article on spyware)
Making screenshots
Logging keystrokes to steal information such as passwords and credit card numbers
Phishing for bank or other account details, which can be used for criminal activities
Installing a backdoor on a computer system
Opening and closing CD-ROM tray
Playing sounds, videos or displaying images
Calling using the modem to expensive numbers, thus causing massive phone bills
Harvesting e-mail addresses and using them for spam
Restarting the computer whenever the infected program is started
Deactivating or interfering with anti-virus and firewall programs
Deactivating or interfering with other competing forms of malware
Randomly shutting off the computer
Installing a virus

Methods of deletion
Since Trojan horses have a variety of forms, there is no single method to delete them. The simplest responses involve clearing the temporary internet files file and deleting it manually. Normally, anti-virus software is able to detect and remove the trojan automatically. If the antivirus cannot find it, booting the computer from alternate media(cd) may allow an antivirus program to find a trojan and delete it. Updated anti-spyware programs are also efficient against this threat.

Disguises
Most varieties of Trojan horses are hidden on the computer without the user's awareness. Trojan horses sometimes use the Registry, adding entries that cause programs to run every time the computer boots up. Trojan horses may also work by combining with legitimate files on the computer. When the legitimate file is opened, the Trojan horse opens as well.

How Trojans work
Trojans usually consist of two parts, a Client and a Server. The server is run on the victim's machine and listens for connections from a Client used by the attacker.
When the server is run on a machine it will listen on a specific port or multiple ports for connections from a Client. In order for an attacker to connect to the server they must have the IP Address of the computer where the server is being run. Some trojans have the IP Address of the computer they are running on sent to the attacker via email or another form of communication.
Once a connection is made to the server, the client can then send commands to the server; the server will then execute these commands on the victim's machine.
Today, with NAT infrastructure being common, most computers cannot be reached by their external ip address. Therefore many trojans now connect to the computer of the attacker, which has been set up to take the connections, instead of the attacker connecting to his or her victim. This is called a 'reverse-connect' trojan. Many trojans nowadays also bypass many personal firewall installed on the victims computer (eg. Poison-Ivy).

Some ways 2 publicize your blog.

Here are some sites 2 market your blog.

www.blogcatalog.com
www.bloggerforum.com
www.technorati.com
www.blog4info.co.cc
www.mammuonline.tk
www.indiblogger.com

Some ways 2 publicize your blog
1. Answer question in yahoo with signature as your blog link.
2. Participate in maximum number of blogs with signature as your blog link.
3. Register in blogger communities or blog communities (ex. indiblogger)
4. R u an orkut user. Here is another way. Register in blogger communities in orkut and publish your blog link.
5. Mail 2 all your friends and relatives.
6. Register in maximum number of site so that searh engines give more results for your keyword.

Mammu
123Tech Admin

Whats a blog?

We people use the word blog, blogger or blogging in our daily life. But most of us dont know whats a blog. Even if u r an owner of a blog you dont know what a blog exactly means.

A blog (a contraction of the term "Web log") is a Web site, usually maintained by an individual , with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. "Blog" can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject; others function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, Web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs. Most blogs are primarily textual, although some focus on art (artlog), photographs (photoblog), sketches (sketchblog), videos (vlog), music (MP3 blog), audio (podcasting), which are part of a wider network of social media. Micro-blogging is another type of blogging, one which consists of blogs with very short posts. As of December 2007, blog search engine Technorati was tracking more than 112 million blogs. With the advent of video blogging, the word blog has taken on an even looser meaning — that of any bit of media wherein the subject expresses his opinion or simply talks about something.

Types
There are many different types of blogs, differing not only in the type of content, but also in the way that content is delivered or written.Personal Blogs The personal blog, an ongoing diary or commentary by an individual, is the traditional, most common blog. Personal bloggers usually take pride in their blog posts, even if their blog is never read by anyone but them. Blogs often become more than a way to just communicate; they become a way to reflect on life or works of art. Blogging can have a sentimental quality. Few personal blogs rise to fame and the mainstream, but some personal blogs quickly garner an extensive following. A type of personal blog is referred to as "microblogging," which is extremely detailed blogging as it seeks to capture a moment in time. Sites, such as Twitter, allow bloggers to share thoughts and feelings instantaneously with friends and family and is much faster than e-mailing or writing. This form of social media lends to an online generation already too busy to keep in touch.[3] Corporate Blogs A blog can be private, as in most cases, or it can be for business purposes. Blogs, either used internally to enhance the communication and culture in a corporation or externally for marketing, branding or public relations purposes are called corporate blogs. Question Blogging is a type of blog that answers questions. Questions can be submitted in the form of a submittal form, or through email or other means such as telephone or VOIP. Qlogs can be used to display shownotes from podcasts or the means of conveying information through the internet. Many question logs use syndication such as RSS as a means of conveying answers to questions. By Media Type A blog comprising videos is called a vlog, one comprising links is called a linklog, a site containing a portfolio of sketches is called a sketchblog or one comprising photos is called a photoblog. Blogs with shorter posts and mixed media types are called tumblelogs. A rare type of blog hosted on the Gopher Protocol is known as a Phlog.[citation needed] By Device Blogs can also be defined by which type of device is used to compose it. A blog written by a mobile device like a mobile phone or PDA could be called a moblog.[6] One early blog was Wearable Wireless Webcam, an online shared diary of a person's personal life combining text, video, and pictures transmitted live from a wearable computer and EyeTap device to a web site. This practice of semi-automated blogging with live video together with text was referred to as sousveillance. Such journals have been used as evidence in legal matters.By Genre Some blogs focus on a particular subject, such as political blogs, travel blogs, house blogs, fashion blogs, project blogs, education blogs, niche blogs, classical music blogs, quizzing blogs and legal blogs (often referred to as a blawgs) or dreamlogs. While not a legitimate type of blog, one used for the sole purpose of spamming is known as a Splog.

Hope everybody understood whats a blog. As you know blog4info is an informative blog.

INDIA Really Shining

Some good news:

Q. Who is the GM of Hewlett Packard (hp)?
A. Rajiv Gupta
Q. Who is the creator of Pentium chip(needs no introduction as 90% of the today’s computers run on it)?
A. Vinod Dahm
Q. Who is the founder and creator of Hotmail(Hotmail is world’s No.1 web based email program)?
A. Sabeer Bhatia
Q. Who is the third richest man on the world?
A. According to the latest report on Fortune Magazine, it is Azim Premji, who is the CEO of Wipro Industries. The Sultan of Brunei is at 6 th position now.
Q. Who is the president of AT & T-Bell Labs(AT & T-Bell Labs is the creator of program languages such as C, C++, Unix to name a few)?
A. Arun Netravalli
Q. Who is the new MTD(Microsoft Testing Director) of Windows 2000, responsible to iron out all initial problems?
A. Sanjay Tejwrika
Q. Who are the Chief Executives of CitiBank, Mckensey & Stanchart?
A. Victor Menezes, Rajat Gupta, and Rana Talwar.

We Indians are the wealthiest among all ethnic groups in America, even faring better than the whites and the natives.
There are 3.22 millions of Indians in USA (1.5% of population). YET,
38% of doctors in USA are Indians.12% scientists in USA are Indians.36% of NASA scientists are Indians.34% of Microsoft employees are Indians.28% of IBM employees are Indians.17% of INTEL scientists are Indians.13% of XEROX employees are! Indians.

Some of the following facts may be known to you. These facts were recently published in a German magazine, which deals with WORLD HISTORY FACTS ABOUT INDIA .
1. India never invaded any country in her last 1000 years of history.
2. India invented the Number system. Zero was invented by Aryabhatta.
3. The world’s first University was established in Takshila in 700BC. More than 10,500 students from all over the world studied more than 60 subjects. The University of Nalanda built in the 4th century BC was one of the greatest achievements of ancient India in the field of education.
4. According to the Forbes magazine, Sanskrit is the most suitable language for computer software.
5. Ayurveda is the earliest school of medicine known to humans.
6. Although western media portray modern images of India as poverty stricken and underdeveloped through political corruption, India was once the richest empire on earth.
7. The art of navigation was born in the river Sindh 5000 years ago. The very word “Navigation” is derived from the Sanskrit word NAVGATIH.
8. The value of pi was first calculated by Budhayana, and he explained the concept of what is now known as the Pythagorean Theorem. British scholars have last year (1999) officially published that Budhayan’s works dates to the 6th Century which is long before the European mathematicians.
9. Algebra, trigonometry and calculus came from India . Quadratic equations were by Sridharacharya in the 11th Century; the largest numbers the Greeks and the Romans used were 10. 6 whereas Indians used numbers as big as 1053.
10. According to the Gemological Institute of America, up until 1896, India was the only source of diamonds to the world.
11. USA based IEEE has proved what has been a century-old suspicion amongst academics that the pioneer of wireless communication was Professor Jagdeesh Bose and not Marconi.
12. The earliest reservoir and dam for irrigation was built in Saurashtra.
13. Chess was invented in India .
14. Sushruta is the father of surgery. 2600 years ago he and health scientists of his time conducted surgeries like cesareans, cataract, fractures and urinary stones. Usage of anesthesia was well known in ancient India .
15. When many cultures in the world were only nomadic forest dwellers over 5000 years ago, Indians established Harappan culture in Sindhu Valley ( Indus Valley Civilisation).
16. The place value system, the decimal system was developed in India in 100 BC.

WORLD IS ENDING-BELIVE IT OR NOT

Scientific experts from around the world are genuinely predicting that five years from now, all life on Earth could well finish. Some are saying it’ll be humans that set it off. Others believe that a natural phenomenon will be the cause. And the religious folks are saying it’ll be God himself who presses the stop button…

1. Mayan Calendar
The first mob to predict 2012 as the end of the world were the Mayans, a bloodthirsty race that were good at two things:
Building highly accurate astrological equipment out of stone andSacrificing Virgins.
Thousands of years ago they managed to calculate the length of the lunar moon as 329.53020 days, only 34 seconds out. The Mayan calendar predicts that the Earth will end on December 21, 2012. Given that they were pretty close to the mark with the lunar cycle, it’s likely they’ve got the end of the world right as well.

2. Sun Storms
Solar experts from around the world monitoring the sun have made a startling discovery: our sun is in a bit of strife. The energy output of the sun is, like most things in nature, cyclic, and it’s supposed to be in the middle of a period of relative stability. However, recent solar storms have been bombarding the Earth with so much radiation energy, it’s been knocking out power grids and destroying satellites. This activity is predicted to get worse, and calculations suggest it’ll reach its deadly peak sometime in 2012

3. The Atom Smasher
Scientists in Europe have been building the world’s largest particle accelerator. Basically its a 27km tunnel designed to smash atoms together to find out what makes the Universe tick. However, the mega-gadget has caused serious concern, with some scientists suggesting that it’s properly even a bad idea to turn it on in the first place. They’re predicting all manner of deadly results, including mini black holes. So when this machine is fired up for its first serious experiment in 2012, the world could be crushed into a super-dense blob the size of a basketball.

4. The Bible says…
If having scientists warning us about the end of the world isn’t bad enough,religious folks are getting in on the act aswell. Interpretations of the Christian Bible reveal that the date for Armageddon, the final battle between Good an Evil, has been set down for 2012. The I Ching, also known as the Chinese book of Changes, says the same thing, as do various sections of the Hindu teachings.

5. Super Volcano
Yellowstone National Park in the United States is famous for its thermal springs and Old Faithful geyser. The reason for this is simple - it’s sitting on top of the world’s biggest volcano, and geological experts are beginning to get nervous sweats. The Yellowstone volcano has a pattern of erupting every 650,000 years or so, and we’re many years overdue for an explosion that will fill the atmosphere with ash, blocking the sun and plunging the Earth into a frozen winter that could last up to 15,000 years. The pressure under the Yellowstone is building steadily, and geologists have set 2012 as a likely date for the big bang.

6. The Physicists
This one’s case of bog-simple maths mathematics. Physicists at Berekely Uni have been crunching the numbers. and they’ve determined that the Earth is well overdue for a major catastrophic event. Even worse, they’re claiming their calculations prove, that we’re all going to die, very soon - while also saying their prediction comes with a certainty of 99 percent- and 2012 just happens to be the best guess as to when it occurs.

7. Slip-Slop-Slap- BANG!
We all know the Earth is surrounded by a magnetic field that sheilds us from most of the sun’s radiation. What you might not know is that the magnetic poles we call north and south have a nasty habit of swapping places every 750,000 years or so - and right now we’re about 30,000 years overdue. Scientists have noted that the poles are drifting apart roughly 20-30kms each year, much faster than ever before, which points to a pole-shift being right around the corner. While the pole shift is underway, the magnetic field is disrupted and will eventually disappear, sometimes for up to 100 years. The result is enough UV outdoors to crisp your skin in seconds, killing everything it touches.

My opinion:
According to Mayan Calendar the Fourth World will end on 22nd December 2012 and the Fifth world will start the very next date ie. 23rd December 2012. And each world will have exactly 1,366,560 days. The people in the Fifth world will be much more refined and not like people living in the Fourth world. The leaders, people, and every one in this earth during the fourth world will have jealousy, anger and son on. Please understand ending me not all the people in the earth will die ! It’s only a change !

This was said in early 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, 90’s and even in 2000 what previous person said. God and only God knows when this will end.

My opinion about the Microsoft Windows Vista.

Dear Friends,
According to me Windows Vista is a waste. Actually I prefer Windows Xp as it has more capabilities than Windows Vista. Windows Vista is just an appearance based pack but Windows Xp is an option based pack. Recently I read in a weekly that a research found that 95% of the Windows Vista users especially programmers switched back to Windows Xp. According to some polls 87% of the world uses Windows Xp while 4% uses Vista, 2% uses Mac and 5% uses Linux. In my experience Windows Vista is an utter waste product. I installed Vista and I couldn't get enough capabilities for VB, and i switched back to Xp. So my dear friends I ask u people to keep Windows Xp.

Thank You.

The All New Google Chrome

The all new google chrome has been unveiled yesterday. I think it is a fantastic browser from Google and is a great threat for leading browser companies like Mozilla Firefox. The all new google chrome has many features which attract the users worldwide. And when it comes from Google its enough.

Features of Google Chrome:
Google Chrome is a browser that combines a minimal design with sophisticated technology to make the web faster, safer, and easier.

One box for everything
Type in the address bar and get suggestions for both search and web pages.

Thumbnails of your top sites
Access your favorite pages instantly with lightning speed from any new tab.

Shortcuts for your apps
Get desktop shortcuts to launch your favorite web applications.

Sony recalls 440,000 Vaio laptops

Sony is one of the world's biggest and best-known electronics fi

Sony is recalling 440,000 Vaio laptop computers worldwide because of wiring faults that could cause overheating.

The recall concerns 19 Vaio models in the TZ series manufactured between May 2007 and July 2008 - but does not include models sold in the UK.

Sony said wires have been put in the wrong position near the hinge, while a flaw in the circuit board that controls the screen also may cause overheating.

The company said that a number of people had been burnt by the fault.

According to the company 373,000 of the Vaio laptops were sold worldwide in some 48 countries, with 67,000 sold in Japan.

Minor burns

Sony said that anyone who believed their machine was part of the recall should contact the firm to organise an inspection and rework of the wiring where needed.

And a Sony UK spokesperson said there had "been no reported incidents of this potential issue in products sold in the UK to date, and a product recall is not required".

Sony has received 209 reports of overheating worldwide, including seven incidents where people received minor burns, Associated Press reported.

In 2006, major laptop manufacturers including Dell, Hitachi, Apple, Lenovo and Toshiba were among those who recalled a total of 9.6 million Sony batteries after evidence that, in certain circumstances, the batteries could overheat and catch fire.

Zombie plague sweeps the internet

Botnet operators are keen to hijack PCs and turn them into zombies

The summer saw a surge in the number of hijacked home PCs or "zombies", say security experts.

The Shadowserver Foundation, which tracks zombie numbers worldwide, said it had seen at least a threefold increase in the last three months.

More than 450,000 computers are now part of zombie networks, or botnets, run by hi-tech criminals, it said.

The rise is believed to be linked to attacks that booby-trap websites to try to infect the machines of visitors.

Attack vector

Criminals are keen to recruit new machines to a botnet to create a resource that they can use or which can be hired out to other gangs.

Most spam or junk mail is routed through the hijacked machines forming a botnet. The collection of PCs are often used to launch attacks on other websites, as anonymous stores for stolen data and to help with phishing scams.

The vast majority of machines in these botnets will be PCs running a version of Microsoft Windows.

In June 2008 Shadowserver Foundation knew about more than 100,000 machines that were part of a botnet. By the end of August this figure had exceeded 450,000 machines.

The Shadowserver Foundation is a group of security professionals who volunteer their time to track and measure botnets to help law enforcement investigations.

The rise in numbers has been accompanied by a fall in the number of so-called command and control (C&C) servers tracked by the Shadowserver group suggesting that hi-tech criminals are concentrating their resources. As their name implies, the C&C servers co-ordinate the use of all the machines linked to them.

The jump in individual zombie numbers is linked to a series of wide-spread attacks that inject malicious code on to legitimate websites that tries to compromise any visiting machine.

In recent months many hi-tech criminals have turned to web attacks to recruit new victims rather than rely on sending viruses out via e-mail.

Typically, a machine is compromised via a vulnerability in one of the programs it runs. Inside this initial attack program will be code that directs it to contact a C&C server which then downloads software to put it completely under the control of a botmaster.

The machines in any individual botnet can be spread across many different nations.

Insect eye inspires future vision

An artificial insect eye that could be used in ultra-thin cameras has been developed by scientists in the US.

The dimpled eye contains over 8,500 hexagonal lenses packed into an area the size of a pinhead.

The dome-shaped structure, described in the journal Science, is similar to a bee's eye.

The researchers, from the University of California, Berkeley, say the work may also shed light on how insects developed such complex visual systems.

"Even though insects start with just a single cell, they grow and create this beautiful optical system by themselves," said Professor Luke Lee, one of the authors on the paper.

"I wanted to understand how nature can create layer upon layer of perfectly ordered structures without expensive fabrication technology," he said.

As a result, the team of bioengineers came up with a relatively cheap and easy method for creating the artificial eyes that may in part mimic natural processes.

Image mosaic

Insect eyes, known as compound eyes, usually consist of hundreds of tiny lens-capped optical units, known as ommatidia. For example, a dragonfly has 30,000 of the structures in each eye.

Individual ommatidia guide light through a lens and cone into a channel, known as a rhabdom, which contains light-sensitive cells. These are connected to optical, nerve cells to produce the image.

THE STRUCTURES COMPARED As light passes through the micro lens of the artificial ommatidia, it is focused on a point where photo-chemical changes in the resin automatically generate the cone and the wave-guide

The ommatidia are crammed side by side into bulges that create a wide field of view for the insect.

As each unit is orientated in a slightly different direction, the honeycombed eye creates a mosaic image which, although low in resolution, is excellent at detecting movement.

The team created the artificial eye by first creating a tiny, reusable mould with 8,700 indentations.

The pock-marked hemisphere was then filled with an epoxy resin that reacts when exposed to ultraviolet light to create a harder material with different chemical properties.

After being baked at a low temperature to set the material it can be extracted from the mould.

The result is a pin head sized dome with 8,700 raised humps arranged in a honeycomb pattern across its surface.

Each raised hump acts like a lens, focusing any light into the material below.

Perfect alignment

Over time the concentrated light reacts with the resin to form a cone that guides the light deeper into the structure.

As the light continues to burn a path through the resin it creates a tiny channel, called a wave-guide, which is similar to the rhabdom in an insect's eye.

The reaction of the polymer with the light changes the optical properties of the material meaning that all light that enters the wave-guide is channelled along its length.

The artificial eye mimics structures found in nature Enlarge Image

The result is a tiny resin dome, covered in lenses and pierced by perfectly aligned wave-guides that channel light through the centre of the dome.

As the channels are created as a direct result of light falling on the lens, the researchers believe they could gain insights into the order in which these structures originally formed in insect's eyes.

"To me it makes more sense to have a lens first," said Professor Lee. "I don't think that you formed the visual nervous system first and then it fanned out."

At the moment, the artificial eye is not connected to any kind of imaging device.

'Wonderful images'

However, it could be attached to an image sensor, similar to those used in a digital camera, to complete the setup.

This would allow the eye to be used in tiny, omni-directional surveillance devices, ultra thin cameras or for high-speed motion sensors.

America's military research group, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa), is interested in the eye and funded some of the research.

Professor Lee also thinks it may have medical applications such as imaging the gut.

"You would swallow this tiny system that also has wireless communication capability," he told the BBC News website.

"So while you are getting these wonderful images inside the body they can be transmitted back outside."

Even further down the line, Professor Lee believes that the work could help develop artificial retinas for the blind.