Google Cautioned Against Internet Filtering

Senior Vice President and General Counsel for Google Inc. has warned House Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, Competition and the Internet that even the proposed measures of fighting copyright infringement are inefficient, because even if Internet service providers blocked domains of infringing services through DNS interference, they will still be reachable via its IP address or other means like browser plug-in software.

A couple days ago the House Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, Competition and the Internet held another hearing on protecting copyright, during which the search engine giant Google provided some words of caution for legislators.

The backdrop for the event is again the controversial COICA legislation, renewed a week ago by a few Congressmen from the Senate and House Judiciary Committees. During the hearing, Kent Walker, Senior Vice President for Google, claimed that the government should aim at the worst foreign services without targeting legitimate businesses. Nevertheless, pro-copyright outfits like the MPAA and RIAA keep repeating the same nonsense about “notorious websites” and the necessity of taking action against them. In the meantime, Kent Walker argues that American current legislation is quite capable of addressing the problem of services subject to US jurisdiction, and therefore doesn’t need any further causes of action. He believes that extra enforcement tools should only be used for targeting the services residing outside the US, engaged in commercial infringement.

Besides, Google’s Senior Vice President pointed out that defining what exactly constitutes a “notorious website” isn’t that simple task, because an overbroad definition would ensnare millions of popular American sites letting users to sell products or upload material. Meanwhile, there are a lot of sites that are responsible and promptly respond to takedown notices and comply with the DMCA. Those websites shouldn’t be deemed rogue and be pursued.

Talking about using the DNS system to fight illegal activity, Google’s representative pointed out that such effort must be properly weighed against its limited efficiency and implications for core US values like innovation and fundamental freedom. In fact, when discussed, it appears that the largest real threat to US content industry that the COICA is supposed to protect is the reluctance by American rights owners to develop new innovative services the customers need so much.

ip address reveal where you are

Your IP address tells basically not where you are. So it is not usually possible to determine your position just by looking at ip address. But now scientists have developed a method of making reasonably accurate positioning by simply looking at the ip address for each unit. It could be used to deliver services that are tailored to the user's location - but it could also be used to deliver advertisements for local shops.

Scientists from the China University of Electronic Science and Technology in Chengdu and the U.S. Department of Northwestern University in Illinois and a researcher from Microsoft Research, who have presented their new method in a sensational research.Positionsbestemmelse is usually something going on each client device - either by using an integrated GPS or by looking for known wireless networks nearby. The user can of course even enter his position. But in all these scenarios, the user control over whether the position must be determined.

The new method means that the position is automatically detected as soon as you contact a Web server and thus sends its IP address - may be prevented by using a proxy server or otherwise blur address.

Scientists use three different steps to fix your position from ip address. In the first step sent a data packet to the device and the time it takes the packets to arrive are used to calculate the device located with a coarse accuracy of 200 kilometers.

In the next step is sent back data packets - but this time for computers where physical location is known. It is typically universities and companies that host their own servers. Here, we know that is the address where the server says. Researchers have drawn around 76,000 physical addresses for servers onto Google Maps.

Scientists send packets to servers in the area where the searched device is located. Then compare the Datapak pathways. If a data packet to a server with a known physical address passes the same router as a data packet to the device which attempts to determine the position, then compared transport time for the package.

The last step takes the system so out which of the known computers that is closest to the searched device. It gives a fairly good positioning of the device. On average, the accuracy of 700 meters but in some cases is as low as 100 meters. So you can eg. find out in which district the computer is located and perhaps also on the street.

It sounds like a technically complicated process, but it can probably be automated so tracking only takes a few seconds.

In their paper employs the researchers did not deal with the ethical and legal implications of their technology, which of course allows you to track all Internet users without their knowledge or consent.

A Pirate Hard Drive that provides Infinite Capacity !!!

Chinese Engineers did it again. It seems like they have adopted a trend of making copies of the latest gadgets in a larger scale and in very less time. This time, a Chinese Engineer manipulated a Samsung 500GB Hard Drive and turned it into an infinity capacity hard drive or so it was assumed.

The trend of replicating latest products, manipulating and selling them is going on with a fine pace in this era in China. Not everyone can identify which product is genuine and which product is the Replica and in this confusion, the consumers get ripped off when they choose the replica thinking it is genuine or as good as the genuine one. Whether its iPhone,Movies or any other new gadgets , almost everything gets replicated and launched in the market resulting into great profits to the replicas makers.

Replica can be launched as fast as genuine products but it always comes with some glitches in them. There are always many possibilities of glitches in the replicas , like an “iPhone” may look good from outside just like the real “iPhone” but there’s always lack of real OS in it.

The hard drive that has infinite capacity was discovered when a Computer engineer in Russia who lives nearby the Chinese border, got a 500GB Hard Drive for repairing.

The engineer was of course surprised getting a brand new Samsung 500GB Hard Drive for repairing. Although it looked great from the outside but somehow it had got some issues which stopped it from working properly.

The hard drive reports that its capacity is full and it even shows each and every file transferring to it with no problem. But the owner of that hard drive reported that when he transferred a movie which was 1.5GB in size, to his hard drive, he found only the last few minutes of the movie present in it.

There were many things that occurred under the sheets as the Chinese makers claimed to changing the capacity of the Samsung 500GB Hard Drive into an infinity capacity hard drive. In the above picture, there are two large nuts of metal which are placed in pair to support a 128MB flash drive. Moreover, the nuts were placed to give some weight to the drive and make the feel of it as similar to the real hard drive .

The tricky thing in the drive is that it’s just a simple 128MB flash drive which behaves like it provides infinite capacity. In other words, it’s a fake. The most interesting thing about it is that it stores the data up-to its capacity from the computer it’s connected to & after that it starts deleting all the data as soon as it’s left with the last part of the file. Rest of the file remains untouched and the size of the incomplete file remaining in the drive is reported as correct size.

It’s like a treasure for File-sharers, who have a strong belief on that hard drive and they are buying it without any doubt about it. They are bugged off after using it and knowing that it is nothing but useless piece of metal and waste of money.

World’s first Facebook bullying alert system ‘developed’

A British man has developed what he claims is the world’s first bullying alert system for social networking site ‘Facebook’, which scans text and flags up abusive behaviour.

The father-of-four Paddy Clarke’s software scans walls and inboxes for trigger words and phrases such as “gay” and “fat” and alerts parents when they appear -- he came up with the idea after reading a string of cyber-bullying horror stories, the ‘Daily Mail’ reported.

Clarke said he hoped his system, called “Know Diss”, will keep children safe from online bullies. “Cyber-bullying is very topical at the moment, but this software is the only one in the world to search through text on social networking sites to protect children.

“Know Diss is a very simple concept. It is also a partnership between parent and child because one cannot sign up without the other,” the 48-year-old said.

Clarke, a consultant in pain relief at Gloucestershire Royal Hospital in Gloucester, joined forces with friend Alan Saul to design and implement Know Diss, which costs 12 pounds for a yearly subscription.

Together they trawled through sites such as Urban Dictionary and watched the television series Skins to build their comprehensive database of insults.

Clarke’s program continuously searches through all text on Facebook accounts signed up to the service, including messages, picture comments and posts. It uses a database of several thousands of words to identify bullying trigger words in a number of spelling variations.

Parents and their children must both sign up by email for the software to work. The child is then sent a link for them to click in order to download Know Diss.

When a bullying phrase is detected, it is copied and immediately emailed to the child’s parent or “Facebook guardian” who can decide whether further action is needed.

An example of a “bullying” phrase which would be picked up by the system is -- “Go slash your wrists, fat boy” or words such as “gay boy“.

When triggered, Know Diss automatically sends an email to the parent which reads: “The following text has been picked up on your child’s Facebook account. Go and have a look at it.”

Home network market up 11pc in 2010

CALIFORNIA, USA: Sales of home networking devices grew 11 per cent in 2010, to $5.15 billion, on the heels of a 46 per cent jump the previous year, with all segments of the market posting increases, finds market research firm Infonetics Research in its latest report.

Jeff Heynen, directing analyst for broadband access at Infonetics Research, says: "We are expecting a challenging year for residential gateways this year, though, as operators have a lot of inventory on hand but are having trouble adding new DSL and cable subscribers. Quarter-over-quarter, the home network device market was up just 0.1 per cent in 4Q10 as residential gateway and broadband router sales slowed in Asia Pacific and Central and Latin America after a surge the previous quarter.

"This trend will keep the overall market flat in 2011 despite strong sales of Homeplug Powerline adapters, MoCA coax-Ethernet adapters, and home NAS," he adds.
The small but fast-growing MoCA coax-Ethernet adapter segment posted the highest revenue growth in 2010, up 93 per cent.

D-Link leads the highly competitive broadband router market in 4Q10. Whereas, Pace, which recently acquired 2Wire, now leads the residential gateway market.

The EMEA region leads the world in HomePlug adapter and home NAS device sales, primarily because IPTV penetration is so much higher there, particularly Europe, where telco operators typically offer a HomePlug kit to connect an IP set-top box in the home to a residential gateway.

While relatively small now, the home NAS (network attached storage) market is forecast by Infonetics to more than quadruple between 2010 and 2015 as more consumers purchase these devices to centrally store digital content to share across multiple PCs, tablets, gaming consoles, connected TVs, Blu-ray players, smartphones, and other platforms in the home.# Quarter-over-quarter, the home network device market was up just 0.1% in 4Q10 as residential gateway and broadband router sales slowed in Asia Pacific and Central and Latin America after a surge the previous quarter
# The small but fast-growing MoCA coax-Ethernet adapter segment posted the highest revenue growth in 2010, up 93% # D-Link leads the highly competitive broadband router market in 4Q10

Apps: Third of smartphone users refuse to pay

 LONDON, UK: A new study into the application use of Smartphone owners in the UK has revealed that more than a third, 34 per cent, of Smartphone users 'never' pay for applications. Despite this, 98 per cent of Smartphone owners taking part in the study had downloaded free applications on to their mobile device.The study polled 1,472 Smartphone owners across the UK, and was conducted by the company behind the MyVoucherCodes App. The research was conducted in a bid to discover more about usage habits of Smartphone owners and how the cost of apps impacts their decision to download them.

Respondents to the study were initially asked, “How often to you download paid-for apps?” to which a third, 34 per cent, of respondents answered 'never.' Just a fifth, 21 per cent, of respondents answered 'regularly;' whilst the majority, 45 per cent, answered 'occasionally.'

Those who claimed to 'never' purchase paid-for apps were asked why this was the case. The majority, 46 per cent, cited that they felt 'ripped off' when having to pay for Smartphone apps; whilst a third, 31 per cent, of those asked simply felt that all Smartphone applications 'should be free'. 13 per cent stated that they 'couldn't afford' to purchase apps.

Respondents to the study were also asked, 'Do you think that paid-for apps are of a better quality than free apps?' More than half, 58 per cent, of respondents answered 'no', whilst 12 per cent said that paid-for apps are 'occasionally' better than free apps.According to the research, just over a tenth, 12 per cent, of the respondents who took part in the study had downloaded more 'paid apps' than 'free apps' on their Smartphone. However, in contrast, 79 per cent, of the respondents admitted to having downloaded more 'free apps' than 'paid apps'. The remaining 9 per cent had equal numbers of apps, or were unsure.

Google co-founder Larry Page takes over as new chief executive

Google has a new chief executive. Company co-founder Larry Page took over the reins of the internet giant on Monday from Eric Schmidt, who was brought on board in 2001 to provide “adult supervision” to the then-young company, and who will now serve as chairman.

The company announced the move in January, ending a 10-year stint in which Schmidt ran the company through an elaborate decision-sharing system in a triumvirate with Page, 38, and Sergey Brin, 37, the other co-founder of Google.

All three are among the richest people in the world, with the two co-founders’ fortunes each estimated by Forbes to be around 20 billion dollars, while Schmidt is worth some 6 billion dollars.

Page, who was chief executive until 2001, is expected to attempt to revitalize Google and return the world’s leading search engine and mobile software company to its aggressive start-up roots, after largely missing out on the social networking trend that allowed the rise of new rivals like Facebook and Twitter.

The Michigan-born computer scientist is widely regarded as a technology visionary with an astute business mind. But his patience — or lack of it — for those he regards as his intellectual inferiors has been frequently criticized. So has his brusquely honest and often undiplomatic approach to issues, where a deft touch might prove more successful.

It may or may not have been coincidental that Google’s first major announcement following Page’s appointment was a 900-million-dollar bid for the patent portfolio of Nortel, a move described by BusinessInsider.com as “exactly the kind of move everyone said Page’s Google would start making — a bold use of Google’s huge pile of cash to solve a problem quickly.” But Google’s problems extend far beyond the relative paucity of its patent portfolio.

The company is facing a rising tide of antitrust issues in both the EU and US. It agreed last week to a 20-year oversight review of its privacy practices by the Federal Trade Commission to settle complaints about privacy violations stemming from Buzz, Google’s ill-fated social-networking initiative.

The company was rebuffed last month when a US judge rejected its plan to digitize millions of books to create the world’s largest digital library.

But the biggest problem facing Google, a company that has grown at warp speed to more than 24,000 employees in 40 countries with revenue of 29 billion dollars, is that under Schmidt it became too big to innovate nimbly.

According to analyst Trip Chowdry, the company’s sprawling R&D efforts are draining Google’s focus and resources, and some 60 per cent of projects could be shut down. “Many stupid, hobby—type projects are getting the management attention and the resources, and the problem was the old CEO never took a hard look at these projects,” he wrote in a research note.

The problem is that while many of these projects will undoubtedly prove tangential to Google’s future, one of them may yield the company’s next big hit — the surprising application that will allow Google to expand beyond its two main arenas of internet search and smartphone operating systems.

Page has set the tone for his reign by announcing that senior managers will meet daily in a public area of its Mountain View headquarters to improve their approachability. He has canvassed workers for ideas to make meetings more productive — like appointing a decision maker and refraining from using smartphones and laptops.

Canara Bank launches 4 more technology products

Bangalore: Leading public sector Bank, Canara Bank, today said it has launched four technology products, enabling cashless services to its customers.

A company release said the Canara Bank Debit Card-Platinum, a premier variant of its Debit Card offers many more benefits than the normal debit card for premier segment customers. It offers higher purchase limit of Rs two lakh per day. The card makes available complementary insurance cover and Global Customer Assistance Service provided by VISA/MasterCard. The Canara Campus Card is a co-branded debit card in association with educational institutions issued to students of identified institutions to facilitate payment of fees.

The card ensures cashless transactions that avoids hassle of handling Cash/Cheque/DD for student/Institution in fee payment. This Card can also be used by student as normal debit card in other merchant locations/ATMs, it said.

Smartphone ownership doubling in America: study

COLUMBIA: The percentage of Americans age 12 and older who have a smartphone has more than doubled in the past year, from 14 percent to 31 percent of the population according to the new national survey from Arbitron Inc. and Edison Research, The Infinite Dial 2011: Navigating Digital Platforms.The study, released today, is the 19th in a series of studies dating back to 1998.  Among the many other findings•Facebook is now being used by a majority of all Americans age 12 and over (51 per cent); this number was only 8 per cent when Arbitron/Edison Research first measured the social media phenomenon in 2008.
•A majority of American households now have two or more computers (51 per cent); as compared to 24 per cent of households in 2002.
•Usage of online radio is up significantly, with weekly usage of all forms of online radio having doubled in the last five years; self-reported weekly time spent with online radio is now nearly 10 hours (9 hours 47 minutes).
•Daily time spent with TV, Radio and the Internet combined has increased by 20 percent in the last ten years, with self-reported daily usage now at 8 hours 11 minutes compared to 6 hours 50 minutes in 2001.
•Just under one-third of all Americans (31 per cent) have plugged an MP3 player such as an Apple iPod into their car stereo systems.
•One in ten Americans report listening to Pandora Internet Radio in the week before they were surveyed.
•Among the 81 per cent of American households with Internet access, two-thirds now have a Wi-Fi network installed.
•More than one-tenth of all cell phone owners have listened to online radio streamed in their cars by connecting their phones to their car stereo system.


"When you consider the rapid growth in ownership of smartphones in context with the continued rise in the use of social media it becomes increasingly clear that these platforms are fueling fundamental changes in consumer expectations and how they use media," said Bill Rose, Senior Vice President of Marketing, Arbitron Inc.

"What's fascinating about the Internet over the past ten years is the additive effect it has had upon the American media diet, which continues to expand," said Tom Webster, Vice President of Strategy and Marketing, Edison Research. "Rather than crowding other forms of media off the plate, so to speak, digital media is being consumed simultaneously with offline media, and in venues and opportunities where media might not have been consumed previously."

Since 1998, this notable research series has reported on and analyzed consumer use of the Internet, digital platforms and their impact on radio.

"This study provides further evidence of radio's continued resilience and relevance in today's digital landscape," said Arbitron's Rose.

"The ubiquity of social media usage -- and Facebook, in particular  -- has had an enormous impact upon the ways in which people communicate with each other - which has profoundly affected not only how companies market themselves, but also how they hire and train internally," said Webster from Edison Research.

Desi brands take feisty Indian tablet PC market by storm

Bangalore: There is no doubt that India is warming up to tablet PCs. It may not be the most pulsating of the markets like that of the U.S., Europe or China, but it is picking up slowly. India's tablet PC market is estimated at 25,000 units a quarter, but holds the promise of growing quickly as 3G penetration gathers momentum. Tablets from international companies like Apple and Samsung apart, India has seen some decent tablets from some of the 'desi' players. It all started with Olivepad. And adding to the list, there's the home grown Notion Ink Adam, the $35 government sponsored prototype, and the recently announced $150 tablet from India's largest private service provider Reliance. According to industry experts, this should set the alarm bells ringing for global biggies vying for a piece of the Indian tabletPC marketA time when the iPad reintroduced tablets to the world, India got its first tablet, the OlivePad, launched by Olive Telecom in August 2010. Priced at 25,000, Olivepad became available at the end of October with the update of Android 2.2 Froyo. Olivepad packs in a lot of hardware. It is ideally suited for mobile internet and browsing with 3.5G HSUPA, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. It comes with a 3 megapixel in-built camera, a front camera and a 7-inch capacitive touch screen.

Notion Ink Adam entered the scene with the features of the Galaxy Tab in a price point better than the Olivepad. Like the iPad, the Adam also sports a 10-inch screen with a resolution support of 1024x600. Its other features include a 178 degree rotating swivel camera, a touchpad at the back, pixelQI screen to facilitate sunlight reading and a radio to go with it. It has got a dual core ARM processor based on the NVIDIA Tegra chip and ULP GPU. There is also 1GB DDR2 and 8GB onboard storage. Notion Ink Adam tablet PC is priced between $375 and $425 ( 17,000- 19,000). However, it does not have a local distribution network and is sold mainly through the company's website.

In the first half of 2010, Infibeam.com, one of India's largest e-commerce site launched Infibeam Phi tablet which is similer to Amazon Kindle device. Priced at 14999, Infibeam Phi is an 7 inch touch screen media device comes with 8GB inbuilt memory with expandable memory up to 32 GB via micro SD card. Phi runs ARM9's 600 MHz processor. Phi has Wi-Fi but doesn't have Bluetooth or microphones on-board.
In this list of 'desi' tablets, the next one to come is the $35 government sponsored prototype called Sakshat that hardly looks posh. The tablet is said to have 2GB memory, run Linux, be able to connect to the internet over WiFi, open PDFs, and even play YouTube videos.

Recently, India based IT Service Company HCL has come up with three tablet PCs with prices starting from 14, 990 for the base model to 32, 990 for the highest speced model. The HCL ME range tablets are all based on Android 2.2 OS instead of the newer Honeycomb OS. The last time HCL associated with tablet PCs was during the Indian government's effort to launch a $35 tablet Sakshat, though the deal with HCL fell through.

Adding to all these, two Indian mobile phone manufacturers Lava International and Micromax Informatics are also planning to launch their own tablet PCs in the Indian market by July-August. Both Lava and Micromax expect demand for tablet PCs to touch a lakh unit by the end of 2011.

The demand for tablet PC devices has boomed globally much beyond the initial estimates of market research firms like Gartner. Till December 31, 2010, Apple sold 15 million iPads worldwide. Driven by this, Gartner estimates worldwide media tablet sales of around 54.8 million units in 2011, up 181 percent from 2010, and surpass 208 million units in 2014. Sniffing the possible profits in the growing tablet PC market, a lot of domestic players are showing interest in rolling out their own devices. The competition has heated up, and all the players will try the hardest to take the center stage, which is an important concern for the global players as well.