Google's two-step authentication goes worldwide

Two-step verification service, which makes it more difficult for hackers to break into Google accounts, is being rolled out in 40 languages in 150 countries
Google said Thursday that it has rolled out its two-step authentication sign-in system to 40 languages across over 150 countries.
The service, which is intended to make it more difficult for hackers to break into Google accounts, has been available since February as an optional service but only in English.
The two-step verification system combines password-based authentication with a verification code. The code is generated by a Google app on the user's iPhone, Android or BlackBerry smartphone, or sent to the user by short message service (SMS) or automated voice call. The account can be accessed only after this code is entered. The verification code can be made valid for a session or for up to 30 days at a time.
The verification system was offered in September to users of Google Apps, and was introduced in English to Google accounts in February. There was no geographic limitation earlier, but Google now supports more countries for receiving codes via SMS and voice calls, for people who aren't using the Google Authenticator app on a smartphone, Google said in an email.
The option to receive the codes through SMS and automated voice calls is likely to be useful to users in emerging markets like India where most mobile users do not have smartphones.
After the user sets up a phone to receive verification codes, 10 backup codes are issued. These backup codes can each be used once instead of a verification code to sign in, and could be useful when users don't have access to their phone, for example, while traveling, Google said. While setting up the preferences, users can also provide an alternative mobile number in case the first phone is not available or lost.
Email, social networking, and other online accounts still get compromised today, but two-step verification cuts those risks significantly, said Nishit Shah, product manager for Google security.
Google has been promoting its two-step authentication after Gmail accounts were compromised in June. The company said that passwords of personal Gmail accounts of hundreds of users including senior U.S. government officials, Chinese political activists, officials in several Asian countries, military personnel, and journalists were collected in a campaign which seemed to originate from Jinan, China.

Federal government opens another Internet exchange point

In an effort to improve the poor state of local Internet traffic routing in Nigeria, the federal government Thursday in Abuja commissioned another exchange point.
Cleopas Angaye, director-general of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), who spoke at the commissioning of the Abuja Office of the Nigerian Internet Exchange Point, said high cost of access and low quality of service are some of the factors inhibiting more rapid adoption of the Internet in Nigeria.
"Therefore to speed up the spread of Internet in Nigeria, the cost of Internet connectivity and bandwidth must be reduced and the quality of service improved," he said. "One of the most effective mechanisms of achieving this is Internet exchange point." An Internet Exchange Point (IXP) interconnects Internet service providers in a region or country, allowing them to exchange domestic Internet traffic locally without having to send those messages across multiple international hubs to reach their destination.
Citing an example, Mr Angaye said that in the absence of IXP in Nigeria, Internet traffic originating from one ISP to a destination of another IXP being just miles away has to make a round the world trip, thus consuming international bandwidth which, if avoided, would save the country foreign exchange.
He said IXPs are crucial for the development of the Internet in any country, as not only do they reduce the cost of Internet traffic by keeping local traffic local, but they enable additional applications which have a considerable multiplier effect on the economy.
Mr Angaye said the primary purpose of IXP is to allow networks to interconnect directly via the exchange point rather than through one or more third party networks.
"Traffic going overseas means transit charges are paid to upstream Internet Service Providers which are not located in Nigeria," he said. "By keeping traffic local, means money stays in local economy and in essence cheaper Internet access for all consumers which in turn provides wider access. Currently, most of the content targeted to Nigerian users is posted abroad, mostly in the US, leading to significant outflow of foreign exchange. A better Internet infrastructure will attract this content to be hosted in Nigeria and will encourage Nigerian companies to host content on Nigerian servers and thus also encourage .ng domain."
Create more jobs
The NITDA official also said the promotion of local Internet content will create more jobs for Nigerians.
Bashiru Gwandu, executive commissioner of Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC), said hosting IXP in Nigeria will reduce unnecessary use of international bandwidth.
"For instance, if you are sending an email from Abuja to Lagos, it doesn't have to go abroad and come back. It can be exchanged locally," he said.
He said although consumers may not see immediate benefit, but there will be reduction in the overall cost.
Mr Gwandu said in addition to some exchange points in Lagos, there are plans to set up similar points in other areas of the country, especially Kano, Maiduguri and Enugu after the commissioning of the Abuja office.

InterDigital sues Nokia, Huawei, and ZTE

The mobile chip company says the rival companies are infringing on seven patents
InterDigital on Tuesday said it has filed complaints with the U.S. International Trade Commission and federal court against Nokia, Huawei and ZTE, charging the companies with patent infringement.
InterDigital claims that the companies infringe seven of its patents in their 3G phones, USB sticks, mobile hotspots, and tablets.
The company is asking the ITC to forbid Nokia, Huawei and ZTE from importing the relevant products into the U.S. It has also filed a complaint in the U.S District Court for the District of Delaware alleging that the three companies infringe the same patents.
InterDigital said it has tried to negotiate licensing deals with the companies but has failed to "reach an acceptable resolution."
Those talks are ongoing, thus the complaints come as a surprise to Huawei, said William Plummer, a spokesman for the company. "We have been and remain in negotiations with InterDigital related to the license of IP that might be relevant to our solutions," he said. "We're surprised that this process is being started while those talks are ongoing."
Nokia and ZTE could not be reached for comment.
The actions come shortly after InterDigital announced it was reviewing options for the company, including a sale of the business. Over the past year it has seen the value of intellectual property rise as mobile companies have begun to understand the value of such assets, it said. Both Google and Apple are rumored suitors.
InterDigital has around 1,400 U.S. patents but claims to have a patent portfolio of 19,000 issued patents and patent applications worldwide.
The complaints are likely related to InterDigital's efforts to sell itself, said patent expert Florian Mueller in a blog post. "I believe that InterDigital wants to demonstrate that it holds patents that it declares essential to a host of 3G-related standards," he wrote. "This approach would make sense for InterDigital with a view to the objective of signing license deals with the defendants, but in the current situation the complaint may also be a statement directed at potential acquirers."
As competition in the mobile market heats up, the value of patents is indeed skyrocketing. Many of the largest companies in the mobile industry are engaged in patent infringement battles and the one with the largest portfolio tends to win. Apple has sued Motorola, Samsung and HTC over their Android products. Microsoft has persuaded HTC and others to license its technology for use in their Android products, and Oracle is suing Google over Android.
In addition, Motorola may be considering a way to better leverage its patent portfolio. And, a consortium of companies including Apple, Microsoft, Research In Motion and Sony recently submitted a winning $4.5 billion bid for Nortel's patent portfolio.

Lost 1967 spacecraft FOUND CRASHED ON MOON

Probe wrecked on farside snapped 'the pic of the century'

NASA scientists believe they may have found the final resting place of a 1960s space probe which took "the picture of the [last] century" before crashlanding on the far side of the Moon.

A snapshot from the past... (click to enlarge)

The information comes in new imagery from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), sent up to circle the Moon under the Bush administration's plan for a manned return to our satellite body as a precursor to Mars missions. The LRO was intended to map the lunar surface in unprecedented detail, perhaps discovering useful ice deposits or crater-rim landing sites where solar power would be available year round.
All that became rather moot when Congress refused to fund the ambitious Moonbase plans and president Obama duly axed them. But the LRO has nonetheless produced many fascinating finds: and now, NASA boffins operating it believe they may have discovered the crash site of a previous Moon-recce craft called Lunar Orbiter 2.
Lunar Orbiter 2 had a similar mission to the LRO, in that it was sent up to help with selection of landing sites for the Apollo moon missions – many of which actually happened, unlike the recently-cancelled Constellation ones. However the instrumentation of the day was far less sophisticated than the LRO's and as all students of space history will know the first landing – by Apollo 11 in 1969 – almost ended in disaster as the lunar module's autopilot tried to set it down in a dangerous field of boulders, forcing a hairy manual intervention by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin when just 400 feet up.
Despite not being a total success in the matter of moon mapping, Lunar Orbiter 2 did achieve lasting fame when it sent back a stunning oblique image of the Copernicus crater in 1967 (above), dubbed "the picture of the century" by news media at the time. Later that year, its mission complete, the Orbiter was disposed of by commanding it to crashland on the lunar farside. Its exact resting place has never been known, but now the operators of the LROC have found what they believe is a tell-tale impact site just at the coordinates where the Orbiter should have come down.

Could this be the impact site?

It's not yet certain that this marks the last resting place of the greatest robot photographer of the last century, but the LRO scientists are working on confirmation.
"We are currently re-targeting the area under a higher incidence angle to help with crater rim measurements. Stay tuned!"

Mozilla to build mobile OS for the Web

The project, called Boot to Gecko, will use some code from Android to build a standalone operating system for the open Web
Mozilla has launched a new project to build an operating system for mobile devices that will run applications primarily on the Web.
"We want to ... find the gaps that keep web developers from being able to build apps that are -- in every way -- the equals of native apps built for the iPhone, Android, and WP7," a group of Mozilla developers wrote on a new wiki page about the project.
They call the project Boot to Gecko (B2G) and say the plan is to build a "complete, standalone operating system for the open web."
The goal appears similar to one that Google cited when it initially started work on Android. In an online discussion about B2G, Andreas Gal, one of its lead developers, said the ultimate goal was "breaking the stranglehold of proprietary technologies over the mobile devices world."
Developers today must re-write their applications to run on the various mobile-phone platforms. There have been many attempts over the past decade to build technologies that would let developers write an application once and have it run on multiple phone operating systems, but none has worked well.
With the advent of HTML5, some have suggested that an increasing number of mobile apps can run in a browser but still look and feel like a native app. But most agree that HTML5 so far falls a bit short of that goal.
The idea isn't to have apps run only in Firefox, the developers said. "We aren't trying to have these native-grade apps just run on Firefox, we're trying to have them run on the web," they wrote on the B2G Web page.
They expect to use parts of Android to accomplish their goals. "We intend to use as little of Android as possible," Mike Shaver, one of the lead developers, wrote in the forum. They will likely use the Android kernel and drivers because they offer a starting point that can already boot, he said.
The developers said they will work "in the open," releasing the source code in real time, and working through standards groups for relevant pieces.
"This project is in its infancy; some pieces of it are only captured in our heads today, others aren't fully explored," they wrote.

Oracle will be allowed to depose Google's Larry Page

Oracle may depose Google CEO Larry Page and two others in connection with its lawsuit accusing Google of patent infringement in its Android operating system, a magistrate in California ordered on Thursday.
Oracle may depose Page for a maximum of two hours, excluding breaks, solely on topics relevant to the willfulness of the defendant's alleged patent infringement, and the value of Android to the defendant, Judge Donna M. Ryu of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California said in her order.
Oracle seeks to depose Page regarding his knowledge of the negotiations between Sun Microsystems and Google between 2005 and 2010 to obtain a Java license for Android, as well as his decision to purchase the start-up Android, she added.
In a letter of July 14, Oracle said it was seeking to depose Page, former Google employees Dipchand Nishar and Bob Lee, and Tim Lindholm, a former Sun employee who has worked for Google since around 2004. The court conducted a telephonic hearing on July 21.
The court denied Oracle's request to depose Nishar. Google had countered that while Nishar was a senior director for products in the Asia Pacific region, he was "not a major player" with regard to Android or Google's mobile business.
Oracle sued Google last August, saying its Android OS violates Java copyrights and seven Java-related patents that Oracle acquired when it bought Sun Microsystems. The extent to which Android is important to Google, and its advertising revenue from the operating system, are likely to be key to determining the large damages that Oracle is expecting from the suit.
These depositions supplement the ten that Oracle has already taken.
Oracle asserted that Lindholm was involved in negotiations between Sun and Google for a Java license in the 2005 to 2006 time period as a technical advisor in a position to evaluate the necessity of licensing. Lee's name is tied to a significant number of documents, including some that indicate awareness of the need for licenses, which may be relevant to Oracle's claims for willful infringement, the judge noted.
In a separate hearing before Judge William Alsup , in a bid to poke holes in Oracle's claim for billions in damages a Google attorney said Sun Microsystems offered to license its Java technology to Google for $100 million.

Are u fan of Adobe products now using the new Apple's Mac OS X Lion?Sort out anticipated issues now.

One day after Apple's Mac OS X Lion was released into the wild, Steve Jobs' bête noire, Adobe, has released an extensive list of wounds that the big cat has clawed into its products.
The appropriately titled "Known Issues with Adobe products on Mac OS 10.7 Lion" is a 1,500-word litany of woe, listing Lion-caused problems in 19 Adobe apps, and calling out some non-app-specific basics such as the need to install your own Java runtime and how to find your username/Library folder, which Apple has chosen to disappear.
Problematic apps include such stalwarts as Photoshop CS3, CS4, and CS5; Dreamweaver CS4, and Illustrator CS5 and CS5.1. Problems range from mild, such as multiple keychain entries for Dreamweaver CS4, to fatal flaws for some features, such as the disabling of Droplets in Photoshop.
Droplet death – which is fixable in Photoshop CS5 through an update, but not so in CS3 or CS4 – is due to the fact that Lion no longer includes nor supports Rosetta, the dynamic code-translation tech that let old PowerPC code run on Intel-based Macs. The code that enabled Droplets, it seems, was written for PowerPC, and was upgraded only for CS5.
Adobe also notes that one of Lion's marquee features, the System Preference that allows you to have Lion restore an app's windows just as they were when you quit that app, doesn't work at all in Adobe products. "This feature requires new code in order to work properly," they note. "Adobe will research adding this functionality for inclusion in future versions of our products."
Not that this last bit is any great surprise. As Leopard and Snow Leopard users will tell you, Adobe software such as Photoshop never did play well with those operating systems' virtual-desktop feature, Spaces. There's apparently some under-the-hood incompatibilities with Adobe's window handling and Mac OS X.
As with all operating system upgrades, incompatibilities arise with previously trusted apps – especially apps with ancient chunks of code still lurking inside, such as Photoshop and other Adobe offerings.

Microsoft's business software sales and service eclipses sales of Windows for the first time

Proving naysayers incorrect once again, Microsoft posted a banner fiscal 2011 year in revenue, as sales of Microsoft Office, server software and Xbox continued to drive growth, even as sales of Windows leveled off, according to the company.
For the fiscal year ending June 30, Microsoft generated $69.94 billion in revenue, an all-time high for the company and a 12 percent increase in revenue compared to fiscal 2010. Of this revenue, $23.15 billion was net income, a 23 percent increase from the prior year.
For the fourth quarter of fiscal 2011, Microsoft reported revenue of $17.37 billion, an 8 percent increase from the same period a year prior. Net income was $5.87 billion, a 30 percent increase.
Microsoft Business Division's revenue for the fourth quarter grew by 16 percent for the year and 7 percent for the quarter, thanks to the recent launch of Microsoft Office 2010, which has already sold 100 million licenses. The division reported $5.8 billion in revenue for the fourth quarter and $22 billion for the full year, eclipsing revenue of Microsoft's flagship Windows and Windows Live Division, which oversees the Windows operating system.
Windows and Windows Live Division actually declined by 2 percent for the year, and 1 percent for the quarter, as demand for personal computers stagnated during this period of time. This division posted $4.74 billion in revenue for the fourth quarter and $19.02 billion for the year.
Revenue from Microsoft's Server and Tools division grew by 11 percent for the full year and 12 percent for the fourth quarter, as increased demand for Windows Server, System Center, and SQL Server continued unabated. Server and Tools reported $4.6 billion for the fourth quarter and $17 billion for the year.
The Entertainment and Devices Division posted the largest revenue growth for the company, swelling sales by 45 percent for the full year and 30 percent for the fourth quarter, thanks to sales of the Xbox game console and associated games and services. This division generated $1.5 billion in revenue for the quarter and $8.9 billion for the year.
For the fiscal year 2010 overall, the company reported revenue of $62.48 billion, and net income of $18.76 billion. That year, Microsoft recorded fourth quarter revenue of $16.04 billion and net income was $4.52 billion.
With these earnings, Microsoft bested analyst estimates across the board. Analysts expected the company to generate $17.23 billion in revenue for the quarter and $61.72 billion for the fiscal year, according to a poll by Thomson One Analytics. Net income was expected to come in at $4.9 billion for the fourth quarter and $22 billion for the year

Learn How To Transfer Photos from Facebook to Google+

Hi guyz, it's easy to move your photos from FaceBook to Google+

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Internet television enters Nigerian market

Sony a global brand and one of the electronic manufacturers in many countries had introduced Sony Internet television known as BRAVIA TV to Nigerian market. Managing Director of Sony, Mr. Osamu Miura disclosed this while briefing a cross section of journalists at Federal Palace Hotel in Lagos on the features of the new technology, disclosing that with the BRAVIA TV, owners can now watch television and browse simultaneously on the same screen. Mr. Osamu Miura explained further that with the devic, it is easy to access the latest movies, TV shows, and favorite websites, adding that one can also keep up to date with the latest news, sports results among other things via customisable widgets. The Managing Director stated the one can also make video calls over the Internet, keep in touch with friends and family. “ All you need is a compact microphone/camera to make free Skype – to- Skype calls and low- cost SkypeOut calls to regular telephone numbers,” he said “The TV can be controlled using phones such as ipone or Android phone as a remote control. Just download the free Media Remote application and your phone instantly becomes a second screen with detailed information on You Tube videos and more..” Deputy General Mnager, CTV marketing Department, Ashley John explained that the local internal service providers in Nigeria such as Glo, MTN, Starcoms among others, can provide Internet services for the BRAVIA TV, and that there was no in- built memory in the device in which this will prevent any attack on the BRAVIA television. John put the current market price for the small size of the TV in Nigeria at about N179,000, stressing that the company considered other competitors and cost of bringing the device into Nigeria before fixing the price. He said the Internet television was not meant for the elites alone, stating that Sony had products across the spectrum of society with different sizes of up to 65 to be made available very soon. The Deputy Manager said after making products available to customers in Nigeria, the company would target Ghana as potential market. He revealed that the company had technicians including Nigerians who had been trained for the after sales services in case of any problem.

Microsoft To Launch Social Networking Site?

The social networking world may be getting even more interesting.
Microsoft confirmed that it accidentally leaked an image of its own social networking platform. Called "Tulalip," the site is designed to enable users to "find what you need and share what you know easier than ever," according to the image of its home page.
Microsoft's Tulalip social media service is no Facebook or Google+ killer
Judging from the one page, users would be able to sign in to the site using their Facebook or Twitter accounts.
If Microsoft is getting ready to release some kind of social network, at least two industry analysts said it looks like they're arriving at the social networking dance a little late.
In an email to Computerworld, a Microsoft spokeswoman wrote, "Socl.com is an internal design project from one of Microsoft's research teams which was mistakenly published to the web. We have no more information at this time."
The spokeswoman did not say whether the company is going to launch either a social network or a social search site associated with its Bing search engine.
According to the Fusible.com website, the image was discovered at the Microsoft-owned domain socl.com. The site, Fusible reported, was not operational when it was found this week.
As of Friday morning, the page had been removed from the site and replaced with this message: "Thanks for stopping by. Socl.com is an internal design project from a team in Microsoft Research which was mistakenly published to the web. We didn't mean to, honest."
This development comes on the heels of Microsoft competitor Google's unveiling of its own social network, Google+, two weeks ago.
Late Thursday, Google CEO Larry Page announced that the company's fledgling site, which is still in field trials, already has gained more than 10 million users. A direct challenger of Facebook, Google+ is stirring up the social networking world with its quickly found momentum.
Ezra Gottheil, an analyst with Technology Business Research, said, "It looks like Microsoft is worried that Google is going to suck all the remaining oxygen out of the social networking room."
And Zeus Kerravala, an analyst with Yankee Group, said, "It's a bit of monkey see, monkey do for Microsoft here."
He also noted that he's not surprised to hear that Microsoft is cooking up its own social network or social search site.
"This is an anti-Google move," Kerravala said. "But in my opinion, Microsoft has become a fast follower, not an innovator... They might come out with an interesting take on social, but again, it may be too late."
Tulalip (pronounced Tuh-lay-lup) is the name of a group of native American tribes in Washington state. Microsoft is based in Redmond, Wash.

Hands on: Motorola's Droid 3 is almost an awesome phone

The Droid 3 is a solid phone with an outstanding keyboard, but it's lacking a few key qualities that would make it a truly fantastic device.Motorola's new Droid 3 certainly has some big shoes to fill.

The Droid 3, available now from Verizon Wireless, is the third phone to follow in the footsteps of Motorola's original Droid device. That first Droid set the standard for today's army of Android phones, and -- with the aid of its memorable marketing campaign -- helped turned "Android" into a household word.

So can the Droid 3 live up to the hype? I spent some time getting to know the device up close and personal to find out.
Body and display

Make no mistake about it: The Droid 3 bears an unmistakable family resemblance. Basic looks aside, though, the phone has some considerable differences from its siblings; while last year's Droid 2 and Droid 2 Global felt like incremental upgrades to the series, the Droid 3 provides a significant step forward.

The Droid 3 has a 4-inch, 960 x 540 LCD screen -- noticeably larger than the 3.7-inch, 854 x 480 displays on the previous Droid devices. The display is crisp and brilliant, with rich colors and true-to-life representation. While I might give a slight edge to Samsung's Super AMOLED Plus technology, I have no qualms about the quality of the Droid 3's screen, and I suspect most users won't, either.

The face of the Droid 3 slides sideways to reveal a newly designed five-row QWERTY keyboard. The keyboard, which features a top row dedicated exclusively to numbers, is a pleasure to type on: The keys are nicely spaced out and have a soft, rubber-like feel, and the sliding keyboard mechanism has a satisfying snap that sturdily holds the panel in position. If you like using a physical keyboard on your phone, you won't be disappointed.

Motorola's Droid 3 has a more rounded and less angular look than the Droid and Droid 2 before it. A power button is centered along the phone's top edge, with a headphone jack at the right; a charging port and HDMI port sit along the phone's left side, and a volume rocker lives on the right-hand side of the device. There's also an LED indicator on the phone's face that flashes to alert you of missed calls or new messages -- a nice touch absent in many other current devices.

Despite its larger size, the Droid 3 is not significantly heavier than its predecessors: The phone weighs in at 6.49 oz., compared to the Droid 2 Global's 6-oz. figure. The HTC ThunderBolt, for comparison, weighs 6.23 ounces, and the Samsung Galaxy S II weighs 4.1 ounces.

What's inside

Though it has only 512MB of RAM -- less than the 768MB in the ThunderBolt or the 1GB in the Galaxy S II -- the Droid 3 didn't feel the least bit laggy in my experience. Much of this can likely be attributed to the phone's dual-core 1GHz processor (a TI OMAP4430-1000, to be precise).

Even when multitasking and toggling among multiple applications, the Droid 3 handily kept up; apps loaded nearly instantly, and the home screen almost always populated itself immediately when I pressed the phone's capacitive "Home" button. Would I take more RAM, given the choice? Sure. But while the Droid 3's 512MB serving is far from a cutting-edge amount, for most users I don't think it's a deal-breaker.

The Droid 3 has 16GB of on-board storage and supports up to 32GB of external storage. An SD card, however, is not included with the phone at purchase.

Do you hate JSP(JavaServer Pages)? Try Thymeleaf! (version 1.0.0 just released)

Thymeleaf 1.0.0 has just been published. Thymeleaf is a java XML / XHTML / HTML5 template engine with an elegant syntax that conforms a perfect substitute for JSP and JSTL, especially in Spring MVC applications. Besides, Thymeleaf offers natural templating abilities, allowing your templates to be perfectly displayable web prototypes (even without starting up your server!)

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PayPal now in your pocket as eBay buys Zong mobile payment outfit

PayPal in your pocket for US$240 million
Mobile payments outfit Zong is to be assimilated into the PayPal world, following the announcement that eBay is handing over US$240 million in cash to acquire the company.
Zong runs the kind of operation that looks like someone anybody could manage: buyers enter their mobile phone numbers when they want to buy something from a site, receive a transaction code, complete the purchase, and pay for the purchase on their phone bill. Proving that it’s not such a tough nut to crack, Zong claims 250 carriers worldwide, but developed its system on a fairly frugal $27.5 million in funding.
The convenience of the arrangement – plus its attraction to carriers, who get to add another billable event to their operations at the cost of carrying the purchases for a while – has proven irresistible to eBay.
The acquisition also bolsters PayPal’s relationship with Facebook. The Social Network™ was already accepting payments through Zong, and last year began abandoned its rumoured “Facebook wallet” development work to sign on with PayPal for payments.
According to Techcrunch, Zong also claims big names including Disney’s Playdom, Big Fish Games, Sony Online Entertainment and Zynga as customers.
PayPal clearly sees mobile payments as something of a Holy Grail. When Google unveiled its mobile platform in May, PayPal responded with a lawsuit, saying that The Chocolate Factory had head-hunted developers from its own project to steal its secrets.

Hackers break into Washington Post jobs site

Hackers broke into the Washington Post Co's jobs website in two incidents last month, affecting more than a million user IDs and emails, the company said on its website.
The company said about 1.27 million users' IDs and email addresses were affected, but no passwords or other personal information were accessed.
The company said the jobs accounts of users whose email addresses were accessed remained secure.
This latest breach comes amid a spate of hacker attacks against high profile targets, including Sony Corp and Citigroup Inc.
The Washington Post said it quickly spotted the attack and took action to shut it down. It is pursuing the matter with law enforcement agencies and conducting an audit of the security of its jobs site.

Win as much as 50000 euros in the Nokia's 'Create for Millions' developer contest

Nokia sells more than one million Series 40 phones every day, and starting in the second half of 2011, the Nokia Browser will be the default browser on the most popular of those mobile phones. Nokia’s Series 40 phones, which will enable apps for the next billion mobile phone users, have experienced more than 35 per cent growth in download volumes in the past two months, making up about a quarter of the total downloads from Nokia’s Ovi Store.

Now is your chance to make the most of this growing opportunity and reach millions of Nokia mobile phone users worldwide.

Create for Millions features four categories to submit your best work for Nokia’s Series 40 phones:

• In the Know - Series 40 web apps focusing on news and locally relevant information.
• Fun & Games - Series 40 Java games and entertainment.
• Emotional Closeness - Series 40 Java or web apps for social networking.
• Access to Knowledge – Series 40 Java apps or web apps for life improvement.

What can you win?
For each of the four contest categories there are 10 cash prizes, with a top prize of 50,000 euros in each category. The winning apps will be promoted globally in various Nokia-owned channels including: online, social media, newsletters and more.

Anyim & IT professionals make preparation for the new Ministry of InfoTech

Now that the bill seeking the creation of Information Technology Ministry has been approved by the National Assembly following the recent announcement by the presidency for the creation of the ministry, there appears to be jostling among core IT professionals over who becomes the new Minister of Information Technology.

Vice-President Namadi Sambo had earlier said that the Federal Government was planning to create a Ministry of Information Technology on the occasion of the 27th Convocation ceremony of the University of Port Harcourt to boost technology in the country.

Sambo had said that there was a need to create the ministry in order to tap the potential of many talented Nigerian youths in information technology.

The Secreatry to the Federal Government, Chief Pius Anyim, (left) exchanging pleasantries with with IT Professionals during a visit to the Presidency last week in Abuja

The IT Professionals had last week during the IT Professional Assembly visited the Secretary to the Federal government, Pius Anyim where both professionals and the Presidency traded ideas on why an IT Professional should become the Minister of IT.

The creation of IT ministry when fully implemented, according to keen observers may collapse other agencies including Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, National Information Technology Development Agency, NITDA, among others.

Keen watchers who have been clamouring for the creation IT ministry believe that it will go a long way to compel government to take IT issues more seriously for the challenges ahead.

Many IT experts in the industry who have thrown their weight behind the creation of IT ministry noted that the nominee for the ministerial appointment must be software expert who will take Nigerian IT sector to the next level.

Leading voices who spoke on the need for the creation of IT ministry noted that much may not be achieved in the sector unless IT ministry is created so as to give room for accelerated development in the IT sector which could give more money than oil.

While the IT professionals have insisted that a core software expert must head the IT ministry, the President of the Nigerian Computer Society, (NCS) Prof. Charles Uwadia had said that IT ministry needs to be created in order to give IT better coordination and more attention that it was receiving.

“The ministry of IT will lead to the removal or reduction of the dependence on petroleum. It will empower our youths and create wealth. It will serve as engine for social, political and economic growth of the country.

“The Secretary to the Federal Government, Chief Pius Anyim has insisted that the Federal Government wanted the ministry to be headed by an expert in the ICT industry.

In the next few weeks or months we will see the creation of an IT ministry by the Federal Government. When this happens, we can hope to begin to use IT to make an impact on the lives of the people. The ministry will open a new vista for the ICT industry,” he said.

Bad IT management habits: Break them before they break you

A little introspection and an action plan for overcoming bad habits may be all that's standing between you and on-the-job awesomeness.

Every worker develops a few bad habits -- maybe more than a few -- as the years on the job add up. IT pros are no exception: They lose focus or jump to conclusions or put off niggling tasks that could be finished in minutes.

It doesn't have to be that way. Identifying and understanding bad work habits might require a bit of soul-searching, but the benefits of such introspection can be myriad, workplace experts say.

By taking the time to step back and understand their particular stumbling blocks, IT managers stand to improve not only their ability to work productively, but also their job satisfaction, says Michael Ehling, a business consultant and a career coach with Balance Coaching in Toronto.

"Stepping back gives you 'soak time' to think, dream, consider, ponder. Instead of running around fighting fires all the time, you get time to focus on the bigger picture," says Ehling, who has a background in IT and coaches mostly technology executives and managers. And that, he says, can spur tech managers to "develop more constructive habits that will improve productivity and effectiveness."

Computerworld asked a few brave high-tech pros to 'fess up about their worst work habits. True to IT form, these managers were less concerned with peccadilloes like nail-biting and leg-jiggling than with bigger-picture challenges like staying on task, becoming better organized and thinking strategically.

Here's a look at their views on their bad work habits and ways they plan to break them. Who knows? You just might recognize a little bit of yourself in their stories.

Bad habit: Losing focus

Gordon Jaquay doesn't deal well with interruptions. He'll stop what he's working on to answer a co-worker's question or to deal with a technology problem that arises, then find himself struggling to refocus on the task at hand.

"Getting back to your train of thought after a conversation, trying to find where you were -- whether you were coding or in the middle of a proposal -- that's hard," says the IT manager at Venchurs Inc., a packaging and warehousing company with 125 employees in Adrian, Mich. "There are so many things thrown at us in IT, it's easy to get distracted."

Tech professionals may find distractions particularly irksome, since they typically perform -- and prefer -- tasks that are logical and linear, and therefore require blocks of uninterrupted time to complete.

Cellphone, cancer link dismissed in new study

Gab away, cellphone users, because a panel of independent experts is not convinced that cellphones cause cancer in adults.
In fact, the evidence is "increasingly against" linking cellphones to cancer, the experts concluded after examining research from around the globe. Brain tumors have not increased in step with cellphone use, and animal experiments have come up empty. There may not even be a biological mechanism that creates cancer from radio frequency fields.
The study, conducted by the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection's standing committee on epidemiology, was published in Environmental Health Perspectives, a peer-reviewed journal.
The experts' conclusion might appear to conflict with the World Health Organization, which in May determined that cellphones are "possibly carcinogenic." But beyond the splashy headlines, the WHO was actually saying that there's limited evidence of cellphones causing cancer. The group placed cellphones in a category called IARC Group 2B, which also includes coffee and pickled vegetables.
Unburdened by the need to categorize, the new study clearly states that evidence of cellphones causing cancer is practically nonexistent. "We are trying to say in plain English what we believe the relationship is," Anthony Swerdlow of Britain's Institute of Cancer Research, who led the study, told Reuters.
Still, the experts are leaving themselves a bit of wiggle room, noting that current data only covers 10 to 15 years of cellphone use, and that data on childhood cellphone use is not available.
"If there are no apparent effects on trends in the next few years, after almost universal exposure to mobile phones in Western countries, it will become increasingly implausible that there is a material causal effect," Swerdlow said in a press release. "Conversely, if there are unexplained rising trends, there will be a case to answer."
For cellphone users who are still worried, there are plenty of ways to reduce radiation exposure, but those efforts may be better spent exercising and eating well, as a heart attack will probably kill you first.

Hackers falsely claim Obama dead on Fox Twitter feed

Hackers took control of a FoxNews.com Twitter account on Monday and sent six false tweets saying that U.S. President Barack Obama had been shot dead, prompting an investigation by the Secret Service.
"Hackers sent out several malicious and false tweets that President Obama had been assassinated," Foxnews.com said in a statement about the latest in a wave of high-profile cyber security breaches around the world.
"Those reports are incorrect, of course, and the president is spending the July 4 holiday with his family."
The media outlet, owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, said the incident was being checked.
"The hacking is being investigated, and FoxNews.com regrets any distress the false tweets may have created," it said.
Obama is celebrating the July 4 Independence holiday with his family at the White House and was due to host military families to watch Fourth of July fireworks in the evening.
The White House declined to comment. The Secret Service, which is charged with protecting the president, said it was looking into the incident.
"The Secret Service is investigating the matter and will conduct the appropriate follow-up," spokesman George Ogilvie said.
The first hacked tweet appeared around 2 a.m. and said: "@BarackObama has just passed. The President is dead. A sad 4th of July, indeed. President Barack Obama is dead."
The next one, "@BarackObama has just passed. Nearly 45 minutes ago, he was shot twice in the lower pelvic area and in the neck; shooter unknown. Bled out."
The false tweets were removed around noon today, a Fox News spokeswoman said, after Twitter suspended the account.
Fox News Digital Vice President and General Manager Jeff Misenti said FoxNews.com was working with Twitter to address the situation as quickly as possible.
"We will be requesting a detailed investigation from Twitter about how this occurred, and measures to prevent future unauthorized access into FoxNews.com accounts," Misenti said.
In an email statement to Reuters, a spokesman for Twitter said, "while Twitter does monitor accounts for brute-force log-in attempts and similar methods of attack, we're unable to anticipate compromises that take place due to off-site behavior."
The Twitter spokesman also said that Fox News indicated its account had been compromised.
CYBER BREACHES
A group calling itself The ScriptKiddies claimed responsibility for sending the tweets -- including "#ObamaDead, it's a sad 4th of July" -- from the "FoxNewspolitics" news feed before Twitter suspended its access.
In all some six false tweets were issued, saying Obama had been shot at a restaurant in Iowa while campaigning.
Obama was not in Iowa this weekend. He returned on Sunday to the White House from a brief trip to Camp David in neighboring Maryland.
The Foxnews.com account hacking followed a wave of highly publicized cyber security breaches, including attacks on the bank Citigroup, Sony Corp., Apple and the U.S. Senate and Brazilian presidential websites.
The FoxNews.com hacking came two days before Obama's first "Twitter town hall" where he will field tweeted questions about the economy and jobs.
Twitter's co-founder and executive chairman, Jack Dorsey, is due to moderate that Wednesday session at the White House.
Fox.com, another Fox Entertainment Group website, was the target of an attack by hacker group Lulz Security in May.
LulzSec has also made assaults on Sony, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and other targets. The attacks have mostly resulted in temporary disruptions to websites and the release of user credentials.

How to build a Game with HTML5

HTML5 is growing up faster than anyone could have imagined. Powerful and professional solutions are already being developed…even in the gaming world! Today, you’ll make your first game using Box2D and HTML5′s canvas tag.
Please follow the link below.
Happy Reading!!!


http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/html-css-techniques/build-your-first-game-with-html5/

Using EJP with Spring

EJP (or Easy Java Persistence) is a powerful and easy to use relational database persistence API for Java. It has no need for mapping Annotations or XML configuration, and there is no need to extend any classes or implement any interfaces. In it is site we can find the following statement: "EJP is, by far, the easiest persistence API available for Java."
The link below educates on how to use EJP with Spring.

http://alexsotob.blogspot.com/2011/07/umetxoak-ikusirik-lorea-ezin-bizirik.html

Microsoft offers developers early access to Windows Phone 'Mango'

Microsoft began this week an early access program for developers to get the upcoming "Mango" release of Windows Phone.
In introducing the program, Microsoft's Brandon Watson, senior director for Windows Phone, stressed in a blog post the company's desire to be transparent and its intentions to ease partnerships: "We know that one of the most impactful things we can do for developers is to help them get their hands on the actual product. For Mango, that starts today with an early access program for developers. We're still working out some final kinks in the distribution and support infrastructure for delivering Mango to all of our registered developers around the world but are inviting the most eager developers to come get Mango today, for their retail devices, as part of our early access program." Mango also has been known as Windows Phone 7.5.
Registered developers will get invitations to the Microsoft Connect site, which will give them access to Mango. "This build of Mango should also be viewed as beta quality, so there are still consumer features missing, but you can now start building apps and testing them against retail devices," Watson said, noting that developers must download the Windows Phone Developer Tools Beta 2 and read instructions before updating. Developers can register to be a Windows Phone developer by signing up at the the App Hub website.
Mango is set to feature updated versions of Office applications and the Internet Explorer 9 browser, to speed up browsing. A Skype application included with Mango will let users make Skype calls from their phones.
Microsoft first detailed Mango in April, saying it would arrive this fall with nearly 1,500 APIs and development tools improvements.

Java 7 Launch

Hey folks,
I am very glad to inform you that finally Oracle has planned to launch the most awaiting Java 7 on Thursday 7th July 2011. Oracle has also planned several celebration events / parties & in preparation of these events they have created a Technical Launch Kit which includes Java 7 presentations, code samples, and T-shirts, etc.
The Key Features are itemized below:
JDK 7 introduces several key features to improve performance, usability, and security of the Java platform. A detailed list of these features appears on the OpenJDK site.
Based on the feedback from the developer community and Sun's customers, the JDK 7 features primarily focus on the following areas.
Modularization     A large-scale effort to refactor, or break up, the Java SE platform into smaller, separate, interdependent modules. Individual modules can then be downloaded as required by the Java virtual machine and/or Java applications. This effectively shrinks the size of the runtime on the user's machine.
One benefit of modularization is that the platform is a smaller download, potentially improving start-up performance. Having a smaller memory footprint also enables significant performance improvements, especially for desktop applications. A smaller platform also means it can now fit on devices with less memory.
You can find more information about modularization on the OpenJDK site, on Mark Reinhold's blog , or on the Project Jigsaw site.
Multi-Language Support     Improves compatibility between Java and various dynamic languages, such as Ruby and Python, by providing better-than-native implementations of these languages on top of the Java Runtime Environment (JRE).
Performance     Sun understands the need to improve the performance of the Java SE platform, and several features in JDK 7 address just that. Here are two such features slated for JDK 7:
    * Compressed 64-bit object pointers
    * G1 Garbage Collector
The new Garbage First (G1) Garbage Collector is a low pause, server-style garbage collector that will eventually replace the Concurrent Mark-Sweep (CMS) garbage collector. G1's primary advantage over CMS are incremental compaction, better predictability, and ease of use. You can find more information on the OpenJDK site or on Alex Miller's blog.