Facebook And Twitter Are Under Threat Of Spammers

Including the quantity of population joining social-networking web sites rising by leaps-and-bounds, troubles included with it are rising as well. It's for this reason ever-rising recognition that social networks are an aim of cybercriminals to reproduce their malicious activities.

Trend Labs Research workers encompass established samples of an alternative Fb spam, now also benefiting from the favored micro blogging site, Twitter.

The spam e-mail that poses as being an Fb notification letter employs adult content strings to attract people addicted to launching an attachment. The .zip file attachment, twitter.zip includes the file twitter.html that has associates with harmful script that Pattern Micro treated as JS_REDIR.AE. Based on modern findings by Nielsen, social-networking and blogging and site-building account for single in all four and a-half min that folks expend on the internet. In addition to Fb even now lasting certainly one of the earth's hottest community media sites and Twitter not lag behind, cybercriminals will likely utilize these websites increasingly more to spread harmful codes.

Koob-face can be a typical instance of the worm that generates through community networking websites just like Fb, Bebo and Friendster. Koob-face may be mostly awkward for Fb lovers, and maintains a quite steady existence amongst Fb social network customers. Fb, that has in excess of 300 million customers, was the first mark of this KOOBFACE botnet. Next are 4 simple to follow guidelines that may assist you keep away from an infection by Koob-face and further social networking viruses.

Avoiding declining prey to these spams, Trend Labs recommended that you just keep away from immoral finding friends and log off from social networking site while it isn't being used. Viruses similar to Koob-face are able to only increase when you're logged on Face book or further social networking account. Remaining logged off while not in work may help reduce the danger.

Additional effects which may aid you are planning an original powerful password on every account without clicking on links in mail got unexpectedly. Never sign in to any website because of clicking a hyperlink from a message. When you do follow a hyperlink that instructs someone to sign in onwards, close up the message, after that open a new window and go to the website having a formerly bookmarked or recognized respectable link. Furthermore, set up dependable antivirus software program in your Computer.

Bhuvan: ISRO's answer to Google Earth

In what appears to be a challenge to Google Earth and Wikimapia, the Space Applications Centre (SAC) of ISRO has come up with 'Bhuvan', bringing India's name into the limelight yet again. Bhuvan, which literally means 'earth', is a web-based tool like Google Earth, but it promises better 3-D satellite imagery of India than what is currently being offered by other Virtual Globe software. Moreover, it brings you a host of India-specific features such as weather information and even administrative boundaries of all states and districts.

Bhuvan is equally capable of offering images of the globe, but the best resolution area is India, at least for the time being. "Bhuvan will be able to give you an image from only 10 meters away", an ISRO spokesman said; which means in the Indian subcontinent even a commuter moving on the road can be easily spotted. Bhuvan uses images taken at least a year ago by ISRO's seven remote-sensing satellites in orbit including Cartosat-1 and Cartosat-2.

Unique features

1. Bhuvan allows users to access, explore and visualize 2D and 3D image data along with rich thematic information on soil, wasteland, water resources etc in the Indian subcontinent.

2. It displays multi-resolution, multi-sensor, multi-temporal image data.

3. Users can superpose administrative boundaries of choice on images as required.

4. It allows visualization of AWS (Automatic Weather Stations) data in a graphic view and use tabular weather data of user choice.

5. Fly to locations (Enables users to fly from the current location directly to the selected location)

6. It features a Heads-Up Display (HUD) navigation controls (Tilt slider, north indicator, opacity, compass ring, zoom slider)

7. Allows navigation using the 3D view Pop-up menu (Fly-in, Fly out, jump in, jump around, view point)

8. 3D Fly through (3D view to fly to locations, objects in the terrain, and navigate freely using the mouse or keyboard)

9. Drawing 2D objects (Text labels, polylines, polygons, rectangles, 2D arrows, circles, ellipse)

10. Drawing 3D Objects (placing of expressive 3D models, 3D polygons, boxes)

11. Snapshot creation (copies the 3D view to a floating window and allows saving to an external file)

12. Measurement tools (Horizontal distance, aerial distance, vertical distance, measure area)

13. Shadow Analysis (it sets the sun position based on the given time creating shadows and effects of the lighting on the terrain)

14. The Bhuvan portal is designed to run on slow Internet connections.

Bhuvan's edge over Google Earth

Google Earth	Bhuvan
Zoom levels up to 200 mt	Zoom levels up to 10 mt
Single layer information	Multi-layer information
Images upgraded every 4 years	Images upgraded every year
No alternate viewing options	Options of viewing on different dates
Uses international satellites	Uses Indian satellites

Thus, Bhuvan represents, in essence, the whole India on your computer. The next version of Bhuvan is expected to be called Bhuvan ChandraBhumi, which will feature both earth and moon in resolution up to 347 m maximum in near side and 432 m far side which is taken by Chandrayaan. The Bhuvan project demonstrates the country's expertise in both information and space technology.

The Bhuvan can be downloaded from http://bhuvan.nrsc.gov.in/.

Launching Bhuvan: ISRO’s answer to Google Earth, zoom into states, districts

Google Earth's got some competition now — from the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), which today unveiled its beta version of Bhuvan (meaning earth in Sanskrit).

A web-based tool like Google Earth, Bhuvan promises to give better 3-D satellite imagery of India than is currently being offered by the US-based software giant plus a host of India-specific features like weather information and even administrative boundaries of all states and districts.

The application can be downloaded from http://bhuvan.nrsc.gov.in/

The tool would offer pictures of the globe, just like Google Earth, and navigable in the same way but currently has the best resolutions over the Indian sub-continent. It allows users to fly from space to street level, grab, spin and zoom down to any place.

It also provides tools for measuring, drawing, saving, printing and visualizing thematic information. The resolutions currently on offer are good enough to view a vehicle moving on a road quite clearly.

Bhuvan currently only offers images taken between one and three years ago even over India. It combines satellite imagery from various sensors onboard IRS (Indian Remote Sensing) satellites and transposes them on a 3-D globe. As it keeps updating its database with more recent and higher resolution images, Bhuvan eventually promises to offer real-time data and images.

Incidentally, Indian authorities have had some problems in the past with Google Earth's depiction of certain parts of the country. Recently, Google Earth admitted that it had mistakenly shown some areas in Arunachal Pradesh as part of Chinese territory and promised to correct the maps soon. The Indian government had earlier pulled up Google Earth for showing some sensitive and strategic defense locations on its maps.

Keeping in mind that its users will be mostly in India to begin with, Bhuvan is designed to be as "bandwidth-friendly" as possible and can run even on slow internet connections. However, as of now, it does not allow users to add their own data, like photographs or text, on to the images.

The beta version was released by Minister of State for Science and Technology Prithviraj Chavan at a function organised by the Astronautical Society of India.

ISRO promises to add many more value-added functions and facilities including interactive systems to make it more user-friendly and effective information portal.

After the success of its moon mission, ISRO has set its sights on Mars. Today, it announced plans of sending a orbiter mission to Mars sometime after 2013.

ISRO chairman G Madhavan Nair told reporters that feasibility studies for Mars mission had been completed and the scientific team was now evaluating the mission objectives and scientific proposals. He said the government had already sanctioned an initial amount of Rs 10 crore for the project.

The orbiter mission would be put into space by the Geostationary Satellite Launch Vehicle.

Now Delhi University gets its own networking site

New Delhi: Move over Facebook, Orkut. Here comes Delhi University's own networking site, Network DU. With over 2,000 registrations in just four weeks, this site is a virtual campus in which you can look for anyone and anything -- from old friends to scholarships and even information on paying guest accommodation.

Started by Honey Arora, a technical expert, Network DU (www.networkdu.com) has all the features of other social networking sites and more.

"Our aim is to get DU more connected through this site. In the IITs and IIMs, the alumni really help their juniors in getting internships and job placements. Network DU will do something similar. Besides friends, a student can get in touch with alumni of the university through this portal and seek help in terms of their career," Arora told IANS.

Of the 2,000 people who have registered, 1,500 are at present studying in the university while the rest are alumni. There is, however, no restriction on a non-DU member joining the network.

Arora himself is not an alumni of the university.

"I was a student of Punjab Technical University. But I, along with some others from IIT Delhi and IIM-Bangalore, zeroed in on Delhi University because I think DU is very tech-savvy," said Arora, who owns Sparks Logics, the firm which started Network DU.

With blogs, music, chat and even an online shopping link, the site gives you all that other networking sites have to offer. It also has debates raging on hot topics like "Should ragging be banned in DU?"with two students in Kirori Mal College getting arrested recently for ragging a junior.

The site also has space for classified information like contact addresses of hostels and PG accommodation around the campus. So if you are looking for a place to stay, all you need to do is log in. Besides this, it has information on the institutes in the campus, scholarships and internships.

Although he is happy with the response that the site has been getting, especially since the advertisement has only been through word of mouth, Arora said that he is planning to go to ex-DU bigwigs like Kapil Sibal and convince them to join the network.

"I am planning to go to Kapil Sibal and ask him to join Network DU and spread some good word about the site. DU has produced some of the most well-placed professionals in the country in every field. If someone like Sibal, who is active on Facebook, joins the site it will make others interested too," he said.

"However I will go to him only after we have got a stronger registration number like 5,000," Arora added.

Arora's mission does not stop at DU. He now plans to create similar networks for other universities.

"I am going to Amity University next and create a portal for their students. The officials of the private universities like Amity are very encouraging and eager to help in such
"Money is a problem now but I am looking for investors so that I can create such networks for students of major universities of the country and then connect these networks so that the whole student community can come together in a sin

gle platform and interact," Arora said.

Microsoft to challenge Google with Office Suite

Bangalore: The clash of the Titans continue, as Microsoft announced that it will soon be launching Microsoft Office 2010 which will feature broadcast and video editing in PowerPoint, new data visualization capabilities in Excel, and co-authoring in Word. Microsoft is testing a new version of its market-leading productivity suite for Windows PCs that will tie-up with new Web-based Office.
The applications offered by Microsoft will be similar to those offered by Google, a suite of lightweight online applications. Google's online spreadsheet and office related applications has been gaining popularity. To counter that Microsoft plans to take Office online, with a new series of free Office Web applications. "Office Web Applications, the online companion to Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote applications, allow you to access documents from anywhere. You can even simultaneously share and work on documents with others online," says Microsoft Office 2010 Technical Preview Website. The ad-supported web-suite will be available to more than 400 million Windows Live consumers at no extra cost.Google has been struggling to match the reputation of Microsoft office, as its own suite failed to perform up to their expectation. But Google is offering free version of this suite, thus attracting more than 15 million customers. Since then Microsoft has been under pressure to provide more free applications.Microsoft is also set to announce the launch of its internet-based operating system, called Azure. This will see it give tough competition to Google in the business of selling computing resources over the internet and by allowing developers to buy capacity to run their applications based on the amount of storage, bandwidth or any other resources that they use.Microsoft has also announced that it will reduce the number of office editions from eight to five. The Microsoft Office suite will be available in the first half of next year. So far, the company has made no announcement for an Office suite for Mac systems.

Chandrayaan-II to be launched by 2013

Kolkata: India's second lunar mission Chandrayaan-II is likely to be launched by 2013, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman G. Madhavan Nair said Saturday.

"Chandrayaan-II should take place by 2013. Our first lunar mission, Chandrayaan-I, has given us a substantial understanding about entering the moon's orbit. But ensuring the safe landing of the rover on the lunar surface is still an obstacle," Nair told reporters on the sidelines of a ceremony here.

He said: "The moon doesn't have any atmosphere so utilising parachutes will not be possible. We are now exploring other alternatives."

Nair, who was in town to receive M.P. Birla Memorial Award, 2009 for exceptional achievement in the field of astronomy and space science said the biggest impediment to the proposed Chandrayaan-II project was the impact management of the rover.

He said that ISRO would also launch a geostationary satellite to cater to the India Meteorological Department (IMD) to record the changing monsoon pattern and cloud shifts.

"This satellite will be handed over to IMD within next 2-3 years. It'll help to track the reading of cloud shifts and changing monsoon patterns," he said.

Nair said that India's Mars mission was suffering due to lack of qualified manpower available.

"The Mars mission could be delayed as we don't have enough scientific ideas coming through. In India, there is a requirement for more students to take up pure sciences and undertake research activities," he said.

'Missile Woman of India' to lead Agni V project

Bangalore: Tessy Thomas, who was made the project director of the 2,500 km Agni II missile last year has now been appointed as the project director of India's most ambitious missile, the 5000 km Agni V. the missile is slated to be tested for the first time next year.

Tessy is an expert on 'solid system propellants' which fuel the Agni missiles. She is a B.Tech from Thrissur Engineering College, Calicut and M.Tech from Pune-based Defence Institute of Advanced Technologies. Thomas has been associated with the Agni programme for around two years now. She is currently based at the Advanced Systems Laboratory.

Popularly called 'Missile Woman', Tessy was first assigned to the Agni programme in 1988 after she joined the Defense Research and Development Organization, by Missile Man and former President A P J Abdul Khalam. The missile will propel India towards having powerful ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile) capabilities. The government has sanctioned Rs 2,500 crore for the project.