2011 to have six eclipses after two millennium

After more than two millenium, the world will see six eclipses, including four solar and two lunar in 2011.

This information was given by President, Environment Research Institute, Kandaghat, Himachal Pradesh, Rajiv Sharma Soor in a statement here today. He elaborated political, natural and social effects of these eclipses to occur after 2,041 years.

”The first of the four solar eclispses will occur on January 4 from 1210 hrs till 1631 hrs, while the next on June 2 that will not be seen in India. It will be between 0055 hrs and 0437 hrs,” Mr Sharma said.

The third eclipse of the year which will be the first lunar will occur on June 15, starting at 2353 hrs till 0333 hrs. It will be visibile in India.

Though the other two solar eclipses will occur on July 1 and November 25 respectively, they will not be seen in India, he said.

The year will have last eclipse — lunar — on December 10 from 1815 hrs to 2148 hrs.

1000-Core Processor Developed, Handles 5 GB Of Data Per Second

Scientists have now invented a new-age ultra-fast processor that does 1000-core processing on a single chip.

The newly developed computer chip is the world’s fastest processor on a single-chip. It is 20 times faster than current modern desktop computers and can smoothly munch on up to 5 gigabytes of data per second.

Computers these days usually have dual-core or quad-core processors. Not very often though, but we also hear of 16-core processors. Nevertheless, a thousand-core processor on a single chip is unheard of.

Reportedly, the chip contains more than 1,000 mini-circuits, each of which acts as a processing core to turn this single chip processor into a powerful 1,000-core beast. When tests were carried out, the processor was able to munch a whopping of 5GB data per second.

Dr. Wim Vanderbauwhede of the University of Glasgow and his colleagues at the University of Massachusetts Lowell designed this processor. Dr. Wim, who led the team hopes to present his work at the International Symposium on Applied Reconfigurable Computing in March next year was quoted as saying -

“This is very early proof-of-concept work where we’re trying to demonstrate a convenient way to program FPGAs so that their potential to provide very fast processing power could be used much more widely in future computing and electronics…I believe these kinds of processors will only become more common and help to speed up computers even further over the next few years.”


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'Edible iPhone' is a hit!

Fans of Apple's iPhone who just can't get enough of the popular gadget can now travel to Japan to gobble up a tasty cookie modelled on the popular smartphone.

A small countryside bakery in western Japan has enjoyed a surprise hit with its 'iPhone cookie', a handmade chocolate biscuit decorated with colourful, edible application icons.

Green Gables in Tokushima prefecture pioneered the tasty treat in 2008 as a special birthday gift for a customer's husband, said Kumiko Kudo, the 44-year-old owner of the store.

But the biscuit gained nationwide fame after a photo of it made the rounds via microblogging site Twitter, thanks to a posting by two popular tweeters, economic writer Kazuyo Katsuma and pop singer Komi Hirose.

Since then Kudo has sold hundreds of the cookies.

"It is totally surprising to have such a big reaction," she said.

"At first, the cookie was made just to meet a friend's request and I had no intention of receiving additional orders."

In March, she presented one of her biscuits to the president of Softbank, the iPhone and iPad's exclusive cellular carrier in Japan, Masayoshi Son, who was quoted as saying: "I'm so happy. I cannot possibly eat this!"

The hand-made iCookie doesn't come cheap at 2,730 yen (33 dollars), and is only available by order and inside Japan, where the waiting time to snap up one of the biscuits has been as long as two months.


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Iran is now a nuclear state

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has downplayed sanction resolutions against the Islamic Republic, saying Iran has now become a nuclear country.

The United States and its allies have been exerting political and propaganda pressure and have issued resolutions against the Iranian nation. All their efforts have failed and Iran has now become a nuclear country, President Ahmadinejad said the in an address to the people of the northern city of Karaj on Tuesday.

The Iranian chief executive further added that world powers have two options in dealing with the Iranian nation, saying they can either go ahead with their previous path of issuing sanctions against the Islamic Republic or interact with the Islamic Republic.

"The result of the first approach is already clear. It is not the right way," he noted.

The Iranian president emphasized that cooperation and not confrontation is the only way to resolve Iran's nuclear energy program. He also pointed out that Western powers should cooperate with the Islamic Republic and recognize the right of the Iranian nation.

"We are open to cooperation based on our rights," he went on to say.

The Iranian chief executive also dismissed the sanctions resolutions passed by the United Nations against Iran as "illegal" and added that sanctions would only "strengthen the Iranian nation and accelerate the pace of our progress."

Source: Agencies

iPhone 4: Forgot Passcode

If you’ve forgotten the passcode to your Apple iPhone 4 , you’ll have to reset and restore the device.

Follow these steps to get it started:

Note: This process will wipe all data from your iPhone 4. 

1. With the iPhone 4 disconnected from your computer, power it off. Press and hold the Power button on the top of the device for a few seconds, then slide the red slider. If this method doesn’t work, press and hold the Power and Home buttons for a few seconds until it goes off.


2. With the iPhone 4 off, press and hold the Home button while connecting it to the computer you registered it from. It should then power on.


3. Keep holding the Home button until you see a Connected to iTunes message appear on the screen.


4. Open iTunes and it should provide a message about an iPhone connected in Recovery Mode.


5. In iTunes, select the Summary tab and click Restore and follow the prompts.

When the process is finished, your iPhone 4 should be available again without the need for a passcode.

Vonage App Calls Facebook Friends Free WORLDWIDE

Vonage has introduced two apps that allow you to make free phone calls to your Facebook friends  internationally.

The apps, called Vonage Mobile for Facebook, are available free for theiPhone and Android phones.

The app is very simple to use. Load it and sign in as you do for Facebook. You will be asked what information you want to allow your friends access to, and you will probably at this point receive the message “Less than 5 of your friends have Vonage mobile for Facebook.”  It then suggests that you invite some.

If you do have friends who are members, you can click their names and be connected.

Calls can be connected over Wi-Fi or over 3G, although using 3G  will use your data minutes. Connections made over Wi-Fi are free – and you save voice minutes even on local calls.

Friends who are online for Facebook chats will show in your contacts list with a blue icon. People who are not online have a gray icon.



Visit VONAGE Fan Page

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UAE: National dress for National ID

The deadline for the registration of National ID card nears and people have been baffled by this newly created note of wearing their official dress, when coming for picture and fingerprint taking.

"We want people to look really good, decent and professional in their national ID pictures," commented an EIDA official in Abu Dhabi.

Most people seem to like or embrace the idea of wearing their official dress when arriving at the typing centers, but others consider it to be the “least of their problems”, as they are more concerned with registering on time.

No immediate comment was available from EIDA on fines or penalties for people who register after December 31, 2010.

Most people, like a Nigerian trader, Paul are definitely more concerned with the speed of the registration, "I've done the pre-registration two weeks ago and waited for my appointment via SMS. The message never came.”

As the the deadline approaches, the panic and wild speculative stories increase. Many people have different tales and ideas of the penalties, if the dead line is surpassed. A Pakistani working in Bur Dubai commented, "I have heard that you cannot even order a pizza through the telephone without a National ID.”

Everyone is impatiently waiting; while amused by such guidelines, hoping to get their National ID in time, with or without the national dress please.

The Emirates Identity Authority (EIDA) has recently announced that applicants, "must come in the official dress of their respective countries," when they show up at any of its registration centers for the National ID application

Facebook 1.1 For Windows Phone 7 Released

When Windows Phone 7 launched, we heard that it will integrate deeply with social netwroking sites, particularly Facebook.

Recently, Facebook announced the availability of the official Facebook app for Windows Phone 7 version 1.1 – an upgrade to the existing version of the Facebook app for Windows Phone 7 devices.

The application update brings two important features : Facebook Places and Photo Tagging, both of which are important and key features of the platform. Besides this, the application’s graphical user interface has been improvised and it now allows smoother and effective operation of the app.

Also, the WP7 Facebook app has been programmed to work in the background, even when the screen is locked. However, it still does not bring the much-need and long-awaited Facebook chat. Also, there is no sign of the app appearing on Live Tiles – an interesting feature of Windows Phone 7 that adds value to the platform.

The Facebook app update for WP7 should be available for free download on the Windows Marketplace accessible from your Windows Phone 7 smartphone.

Facebook is one of the world’s largest social networking website with over 500 million users who access Facebook from their desktop computers, tablet PCs and even smart phones.

Onion free on purchase of tyre in India

A four-wheeler tyre seller has been offering onion free on purchase of tyre from his shop here today.

"We are offering five kg onion free on the purchase of a truck tyre and one kg on the purchase of a car tyre," Satnam Singh Gambhir, a tyre seller of Kalimati Road in Sakchi here said.

Gambhir is also the president of All India Sikh Students' Federation of Bihar and Jharkhand. He said the move was meant to show discontent among people for the heavy rise in onion price for the past few days.

The Indian government has unveiled a multi-pronged measures to check high onion prices, including removal of import duties, an indefinite ban on exports and asking state agencies to import the commodity, as retail prices continued to hover around Rs 70-80 a kg.

While wholesale market prices of the kitchen staple recorded a 40 per cent drop in the major producing region of Nashik in Maharashtra, the central government expressed confidence that it will reflect in retail prices in a couple of days.

The sudden spurt in onion prices, which had played a politically sensitive role during elections over a decade ago, forced the government to abolish the five per cent customs duty and four per cent countervailing duty to boost imports.

Apple Bans WikiLeaks App

Apple on Monday banned an iPhone and iPad app designed to facilitate access to WikiLeaks’ unfolding cache of leaked U.S. diplomatic cables, putting the company on the growing list of U.S. corporations aligned against the secret-spilling site.

“We removed the WikiLeaks app from the App Store because it violated our developer guidelines,” a spokeswoman told Threat Level, reading from a statement. “Apps must comply with all local laws and may not put an individual or targeted group in harm’s way.”

Apple declined to elaborate. The App Store is the only means of distributing an app that will run on an unmodified iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad. The unofficial WikiLeaks app was approved for sale just three days ago.

The ban follow a string of other corporate attacks on WikiLeaks in the wake of outrage from official Washington over the cable leak. Amazon cut off WikiLeaks hosting, and PayPal, Visa, MasterCard and Bank of America have all blocked donations to the organization.

The $1.99 app  displays WikiLeaks’ Twitter feed and hashtag-search in one tab, and its website in a second. By clicking around the website one can access the State Department cables, the “Collateral Murder” Apache helicopter leak site, and the hundreds of thousands of reports from the Afghan and Iraq wars.

You can do the same thing in Safari by visiting WikiLeaks.ch.

That makes Apple’s move purely symbolic — but scarcely less ominous.

WikiLeaks and its people haven’t been charged with a crime for publishing U.S. leaks, and they’d have a strong First Amendment defense if they were. And despite concerns voiced from top officials, there has yet to be a documented instance of anyone coming to harm as a result of WikiLeaks’ releases. 

No toilets costs India $ 54 billion annually

A lack of toilets and poor hygiene practices in India cost Asia's third largest economy almost $54 billion every year, the World Bank said on Monday.

Premature deaths, treatment for the sick, wasted time and productivity, as well as lost tourism revenues, are the main reasons for the high economic losses, the bank said in a report.

"For decades, we have been aware of the significant impacts of inadequate sanitation in India," Christopher Juan Costain, the World Bank's head for South Asia's water and sanitation programme, told a news conference. "The report quantifies the economic losses to India, and shows that children and poor households bear the brunt of poor sanitation."

The study "Economic impacts of inadequate sanitation in India" is based on figures taken from 2006, but experts say these remain similar now. It said the largest economic loss was as a result of poor public health.

World Bank experts say there are 450,000 deaths out of 575 million cases of diarrhoea in every year in India, where millions of people in both rural and urban areas still have to defecate in the open, do not wash their hands and cope with poor drainage systems.

The premature deaths, treatment of the sick for illnesses like diarrhoea, malaria, trachoma and intestinal worms, as well as the time lost due to illness is costing $38.5 billion alone.

A further $10.7 million is lost in "access time", the report said - time spent looking to access a shared toilet or open defecation site compared to having a toilet in one's own home.

Inadequate toilets in schools and work places also incurred losses as women and girls are often absent or refuse to attend due to the indignity of lack of privacy.

"We all hear about people worrying over Delhi Belly, but tourists are reluctant to come here due to health concerns like this and this is losing India money," he said.

Trace Mobile Numbers in India

With rapid growth in mobile phone subscribers in India and low call rates, most calls we receive on our mobile are from other mobiles. At the same time, to cater increasing user-base most operators come up with new series everyday which makes remembering a cell number increasingly hard. Also sometime we just want to trace a mobile number for reasons like unknown number in missed call list...

Have a look at this wiki page, and you can certainly trace any mobile number up-to the level of its mobile operator and state (or zone) that’s too using first 4-digit only. It (wiki page) lists all mobile number series in nice tabular manner categorizing them according to mobile operator and state (or zone).

Like other wiki pages, this wiki is also updated regularly and provides you with latest information. 

Your iPhone could be spying on you

Do you know that dozens of popular iPhone applications could be secretly spying on what you do with them.

More than half of the programmes and games for smartphones sent data back to the private company once they had been downloaded, a study has found.

It found that of the 101 applications tested, 56 transmitted the phone's individual number to a private company in some way, known as the Unique Device Identifier or UDID.

Some 47 sent the phone's location and five sent age, gender and other personal information, reports the Daily Mail.

The applications include the wildly popular Angry Birds game and music identifying software Shazam, which comes pre-installed on every iPhone.

More data was sent back about a user's location on the Apple's iPhone than Google's Android smartphone, the research discovered, even though both companies have promised not to let such practices take place.

Armed with this information, firms, including Google, track the individuals' movements and sell personalised ad for which they can make more money than regular ones.

The research was carried out in the US but it would apply to users downloading applications from anywhere in the world. Michael Becker of the US-based Mobile Marketing Association said the advantage of mobile phones for advertisers is that they are always with us.

"It's always on," he said. "In the world of mobile, there is no anonymity," he said.

The research by the Wall Street Journal found that smartphone users had no way of stopping the tracking, unlike on a computer where you can disable the monitoring software, known as 'cookies'.

Applications became wildly popular with the advent of smartphones and when Apple opened its App store in 2008. Currently more than 300,000 are available.

Google Announces Google Hacked Site Notifications

Search giant Google has just announced that it has released a new search tool called Google Hacked Site Notifications for its search engine Google. The new notification will allows users to verify if a site has been hacked during the search itself.

This is an attempt to further pep up the security of search results offered by the search engine. The search results notifications will forewarn users of the risk involved in visiting a searched result if the targetwebsite security has been compromised.

Basically, any website that’s been compromised or altered by a third party will be listed in Google Hacked Site Notifications which will eventually try to warn and prevent users from visitng that site or the webpage.

Here’s what the notification looks like:

According to Google :

---

Today we’ve added a new notification to our search results that helps people know when a site may have been hacked. We’ve provided notices for malware for years, which also involve a separate warning page. Now we’re expanding the search results notifications to help people avoid sites that may have been compromised and altered by a third party, typically for spam. When a user visits a site, we want her to be confident the information on that site comes from the original publisher.

---

Should any such site appear in the search result, a “this site may be compromised” link will appear on the webpage which will redirect users to an article in Google Help Center while the link itself will lead users to the target website.

Google does this by detecting common signs of a hacked website and if anything is found suspicious, the notification is added to the seartch results. Google will also attempt to contact the affected website, if possible, using Google webmaster tools.

As you may expect to learn, Google also mentions that once the site security has been fixed, it will eliminate or de-index the Google Hacked Site Notification from that site. Until then, there is a fair possibility that the search results if tagged by GHSN will not be treated by users so well. Or, the affected website authorities can request a review after your site has been fixed with the security flaw.

Click here to know more.

Earthquake strikes region destroyed by 2004 tsunami

A magnitude 5.1 earthquake shook parts of Indonesia Sunday morning, including areas decimated by an earthquake and tsunami in 2004.

The temblor struck at 5:56 a.m. local time (5:56 p.m. Saturday EST), according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The U.S.G.S. said the quake was centered in Northern Sumatra region and occurred at a depth of about 25 miles (40 kilometers).

A 5.1 magnitude quake is considered moderate, but the center's location was only about 40 miles (65 km) from Banda Aceh. This region of Indonesia suffered near-total devastation in December of 2004, when a massive, magnitude 9 earthquake triggered tsunamis that battered coastlines around southern Asia.

The combined toll from the quake and the tsunamis topped 200,000, with most of them in Indonesia.

Buy A Windows Phone 7 Phone, Get A Xbox Game For Free!

Microsoft is offering a free Xbox game with the purchase of every Windows Phone 7 smart phone. Interesting, isn’t it? Well, certainly, but only if you are considering to buy a Windows Phone 7 this holiday season.

Starting today, any one who purchases a Microsoft Windows Phone 7 device will get a free Xbox 360 with the device. There are four interesting game titles to choose from which include Kinectimals, Kinect : Joyride, Fable : 3 and Halo Reach.

Microsoft Windows Phone 7 is Microsoft’s latest mobile operating system that will savor smart phones manufactured by different hardware vendors which include (but are not limited to) HTC, Samsung, LG and Dell.

The devices available with the offer include Samsung Focus, HTC Surround, HTC HD7, LG Quantum and Dell Venue Pro. Microsoft has partnered with AT&T and T-Mobile networks to make its devices available in the market on contract with these carriers. Of course, they are devices which sell directly from Microsoft, unlocked.

While the HTC Surround, LG Quantum and Samsung Focus will be available through AT&T, the HTC HD7 and Dell Venue Pro will be exclusively available from T-Mobile. All the aforementioned devices feature good technical specifications and of course, Microsoft Windows Phone 7 OS.

Microsoft is trying its seeming best to comply with the mainstream competition contenders, consider the Apple iPhone or Android-based smart phones for instance which potentially seem to overshadow Windows Phone 7 sales (and popularity).

The free Xbox game bundled with every Windows Phone 7 device is reportedly $60 in value. Not bad of a deal if you are already eying to pocket a Windows Phone 7 smart phone, and perhaps, this is the right time to leap.
Click here to know more about Windows Phone 7 free Xbox game offer.

Word Lens For iPhone App, Does Real Time Translations On Screen

QuestVisual has developed an application that makes use of augmented reality and your device’s camera to get you the text translation you need – on the go, in real time.

In a further simplified context, the application, known as Word Lens for iPhone, allows users to take snap shots of anything with text and translate the text in the captured images into a language of your choice, right away on your mobile screen, even without internet connectivity.

The application translates the text in the captured images word-by-word, effortlessly making your iPhone (or any compatible smartphone) the dictionary of the future. Words may fail us for a perfect description of it, butthe justifying video after the break should certainly grab your attention.

The Word Lens app for iPhone uses optical character recognition technology and augmented reality to identify the text in the image. It then looks up for this text in the dictionary and follows up with the appropriate word-to-word translationdirectly on the image itself.


The brainchild of founders Otavio Good and John DeWeese, the Word Lens iPhone App took 2 and a half year for development and testing before it hit the App Store recently. It certainly hints that the future is all about high-end phones and augments reality apps like this one.


Imagine looking up for sign board translations on the road side or the food menu translations in a restaurant when you are in a foreign country and the language doesn’t let you get through. Well, no reason to worry ‘cause you candownload World Lens for iPhone straightaway, for free.

However, the language packages (currently available : Spanish-English and English-Spanish) will cost you $4.99 per package. Support for other languages and presuambly other platforms (Android OS) too is coming soon.

Click here to know more or click here to download the Word Lens app for iPhone.

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Google Refuses To Share Encryption Keys With India

What would you do if your Gmail services were compromised?

Let's say, not by some Gmail hack, but by the Government in a bid to assure the security of the nation. Most of us would freak out. For us, email is one of the most secure form of communication, however, the Indian government has a different perspective.

The government of India seems to believe that communication for most terror attacks and potential threats takes place over internet services which cannot be monitored by the company for these services use private encryption mechanisms.

Consider, the case of Research in Motion which was asked to set up a dedicated server in India to allow monitoring of all communication taking place over Blackberry devices in India. Skype isn’t too far behind in the scanner and now it’s none other than the big web giant Google.

Yes, the Indian government appears to be keen on monitoring gmail and data services offered by Google in the country. This would enable the government to monitor communication of Gmail users in India in a bid to reaffirm security of the country and thwart any potential threats.

Google however declined to share the Gmail encryption keys with the Indian government citing that it cannot compromise the security (and trust) of millions of users using Gmail services in India.

Also, Google explained the decision to deny key sharing with India by stating that Google services including Gmail were bound to Google Inc., which was founded and established in USA and is governed by the laws of USA, and so the Google services in India cannot (and will not) be easily altered.

Vinay Goel, Chief at Google India Products was quoted by Economic Times as saying that Google is “open to offering the Indian government access to encrypted Gmail communication in the event of a large-scale risk to human life and property” which is obviously an unpredictable affair. However, otherwise, the company will not afford to compromise the security of Gmail India users.

According to a report in Economic Times, the Indian government doesn’t have the necessary technical resources to intercept and monitor communication protected by high-level encryption methods which is why it has asked the Indian ISPs to use a toned-down encryption system that would enable the government to monitor the data easily.

While RIM is supposed to set up the server in India by the end of January 2011, it is not known how the security matter with Google India will turn-out in the coming days. By far, Google is one of the largest email providers in India and any effort to compromise the security will certainly raise possible protects and ingest agony among the user base.

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.

Alphabets - Google Style

We did this back in September, when "instant search" became available on Google.  
Basically we typed each letter in and noted 
the first result. 

A is for "Amazon"
B is for "Best Buy"
C is for "Craigslist"
D is for "Dictonary"
E is for "Ebay"
F is for "Facebook"
G is for "Gmail"
H is for "Hotmail"
I is for "Ikea"
J is for "Jewel"
K is for "Kohls"
L is for "Lowes"
M is for "Mapquest"
N is for "Netflix"
O is for "Orbitz"
P is for "Pandora"
Q is for "Quotes"
R is for "Ravinia"
S is for "Sears"
T is for "Target"
U is for "UPS"
V is for "Verizon"
W is for "Weather"
X is for "XBox"
Y is for "Yahoo"
Z is for "Zappos"

PlayStation App For iPhone And Android Coming Soon

On the subject of the upcoming Sony PlayStation Phone aka Sony Ericsson Zeus Z1, the Sony PlayStation Blog confirmed that an official PlayStation app for Android and iOS platforms was due to hit the online portals very soon.

The application will allow users to keep in touch with their PSN network, share their PSN trophies, allow users to stay updated about the latest news on PS2, PS3 and PSP and even share such information with their friends or affiliates on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter or over email.

As far as compatibility is concerned, the PlayStation app will be compatible with iPhone and iPod Touch devices running iOS 4.0 or later versions while the Android version of the app wil be compatible with Android devices running Android OS 1.6 or newer releases.

 PlayStation App For Android Phones

The very first release of the official PlayStation app for iPhone and Android platforms will allows you to :

• Check out your PlayStation Network trophies and keep up to date with your friends’ games and online status.
• Discover all the latest games, news and hardware for your PlayStation 3, PSP and PlayStation 2.
• Read all the announcements on the European PlayStation.Blog.
• Share your favourite products or news with your friends on Facebook, Twitter or via e-mail.

PlayStation App For iPhone

The PlayStation app for iPhone and Android platforms will be gradually updated to support the PlayStation gameplay on these devices. 

For now, Sony confined the news by stating that the Sony PlayStation app for Android OS and iOS will initially debut soon in UK, France, Germany, Spain, Italy and The Netherlands.

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