Tag: News

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News

Katrina Kaif Amongst India’s Most Dangerous Keywords Searched Online!

image According to the recent McAfee reports, Bollywood actress Katrina Kaif is one of the highest searched terms on the web in India and has been listed as the second most dangerous search term today! (All you Katrina Kaif fans beware!) 😛

Search term “waptrick” tops the list of India’s most dangerous title. At number three stands “Orkut” followed by “Yahoo Mail”.

Here is a list of India’s TOP 10 Most Dangerous!

  1. Waptrick
  2. Katrina Kaif
  3. Orkut
  4. Yahoo Mail
  5. Shahid Kapoor
  6. Rediffmail
  7. How to earn money
  8. Namitha
  9. Shimla
  10. Beijing 2008 Olympic games

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McAfee researched more than 2,600 popular keywords to assess the degree of risk for each.

Reports indicate that key words like “Katrina Kaif” are commonly used to lure people into clicking on them. Cybercriminals are making the most of such popular search terms online, and are enticing searchers to download files carrying malicious software, as a result, exposing their personal and financial data.

India faces an above average risk from risky search queries. So next time you are searching for any of the terms listed above, be careful about what you click on!

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News

Microsoft to Launch Windows 7 on October 22

clip_image002Software giant Microsoft has finally announced that their latest version of Windows OS- Windows 7 will be available at stores in the US starting October 22, 2009, ahead of all expectations. Microsoft had earlier mentioned that it expected Windows 7 to come out “within three years of Windows Vista.” This would have meant early 2010.

Last month, Microsoft released a nearly final version of Window 7 – Windows 7 Release Candidate and encouraged feedback from the users to test the capabilities of the OS and fix the bugs. The OS was praised for its stability and for avoiding problems that plagued Vista. Microsoft says that Windows 7 will be replacing the much maligned Vista, and will be available in time for the holiday shopping season in October.

Microsoft also says that they will also be offering discounted or rather free upgrades to Windows 7 for people who buy a new Windows Vista PC shortly before Windows 7 arrives. However, we don’t yet know when this upgrade program begins or how much Windows 7 will cost.

Microsoft will be talking more about their international plans for Windows 7 soon.

(Source: MS Windows Blog)

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News

Competition for Amazon as Google prepares to sell eBooks!

image Google is looking to launch an eBook program by the end of this year allowing publishers to sell digital versions of their newest books directly to consumers through Google. This step will bring the Internet search giant into competition with Amazon, who is trying to capture the eBook department for its newly launched Kindle.

Google is already offering 1.5 million e-texts to the Sony e-Reader (biggest competitor to Amazon’s Kindle) through their Book Search Mobile, as well as mobile phones.

Building a Digital Book Ecosystem

As reported by NYTimes, Google is now aiming to build a “digital book ecosystem” to allow partner publishers to sell access to their titles, even if buyers don’t have dedicated book readers such as Amazon’s Kindle or Sony Corp.’s Reader. This means that with Google’s new program, you will be able to read eBooks on any device – be it a PC, mobile phone or a dedicated eBook reader. You could temporarily cache them in your Internet browsers and also read them offline.

Google will start charging users to view some full text books that they’ve indexed (this is separate from the Google Book Search Library Project). Google would allow publishers to set a list price for books, although the company will reserve the right to discount titles at its own expense.

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Reviews

Microsoft “Bings” It On Early!

image The fancy looking Bing was quietly released to the public on Monday, two days earlier than expected. At the first look of it, I found the interface really colorful, attractive and classy. Although some quick searches delivers results similar to Google, there are some added features on Bing as well, that are yet to be seen on Google.

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What’s new with Bing?

  • With Bing, you could view instant excerpts that will allow you to see the contents of a page without actually clicking on it. Simply hover your mouse and read the gist.
  • It displays a sidebar detailing all related searches.

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  • Bing allows you to preview videos in search results, which is a great time-saver. By choosing their “list view” option you could get a gist of the video and check if that was the one you were looking for.

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  • Bing offers an exclusive travel search option as well with the help of which you could easily plan trips, book flights, get instant flight status, find the right hotels, etc.

The Full Version of Bing?

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Not everyone can view the full version of Bing. Outside of North America, other localized versions of Bing are missing some features, like search history options, some interactive features on home page, image saving options, etc. You could view the the full version of Bing by going to the US (English) version.

Click here to discover Bing’s versions of worldwide search.

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Microsoft is currently way behind Google in the search market. Last month Google took 64.2 % of US Internet searches, Yahoo took 20.4 % of searches, while Microsoft took 8.2 % of searches.

Microsoft is calling its new product a “decision engine,” promising to make things like buying a digital camera, booking a flight or searching for a restaurant easier by serving up results based on similar previous searches.

It will be very interesting to see how the market reacts to Bing in the coming few weeks. Bing results are definitely more relevant than Microsoft’s inferior Live search.

I personally like Bing and would consider using it as my search engine over Google. What is your feedback on Bing?

Link: Bing

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News

Yahoo! 360 Shutting Down On July 13

clip_image002 After all the discussions around the closure of Yahoo 360 from past two years, the decision has finally been taken to shut down Yahoo 360 on July 13, 2009. This means that the users will be asked to move into their new profiles on Yahoo by July 12, 2009, where Yahoo will no longer be supporting the service.

According to the announcement made, the new profile on Yahoo will allow users to connect with other people on Yahoo, and share updates and activities with the people they meet on the Web.

Melissa Daniels, Yahoo Community Manager says:

“While we know that many of you have faithfully used this service over the past few years, our goal has been to find a way to unify your social experience and connections across all of Yahoo! and anywhere you travel across the Web. So, while we’re sad to say that we will no longer be supporting Yahoo! 360°, we’re excited about this larger plan and hope you’ll transition over and be a part of it, to.”

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For those worried about their blogs on 360, Yahoo is providing two options to go with.

  1. The users can start blogging on their profile on Yahoo using the new blogging tools. These tools will allow posting of content and integration of photos from Flickr.

OR,

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  1. Yahoo is providing the option to export blogs and content to any of the supported blogging systems like WordPress, Blogger, and MoveableType, etc. They plan to generate an archive with all of user entries and photos and will send the users a link to download the archive.

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Melissa Daniels adds:

“We also want to reiterate our commitment to preserving your blog content. We have been working to make sure we put the right mechanisms in place so that you can move your content and minimize disruption. It is with this thought in mind that we’re happy to introduce a new blogging feature that has already been integrated into your profile. You can find more information on this below, or try it out by visiting your new profile at http://profiles.yahoo.com.”

Yahoo announced that the decision to close Yahoo 360 and transition users to profiles is part of their larger strategy and they were waiting until they had an alternative solution. Now that they do have the alternate solution to offer to the community of Yahoo 360 users, they are ready to officially shut down 360.

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Yahoo 360 was launched on March 29, 2005 as a social networking, blogging, and photo sharing service, where users could create their personal websites, share photos from Yahoo Photos, maintain blogs, lists of local reviews, supply profile information, and see which friends are currently online. However, this service could never really gain the popularity it could have. In September 2008, Yahoo had also shut its other social networking site Yahoo Mash.

Link: Yahoo!360

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News

The Most Dangerous Keywords Searched Online

image1McAfee recently released a report on The Web’s Most Dangerous Search Terms. The report describes how cybercriminals are making the most of the popular search terms online, and entice searchers to download files carrying malicious software, as a result, exposing their personal and financial data.

The reports also indicate that with the economic slowdown, malicious search results have risen, as the number of hits on free products, work from home options, etc. have increased.

Topping the list of some of the most high-risk searches on the Web today is “Screensavers” with a maximum risk of 59.1%. “Lyrics” and anything that includes “free” has the highest risk percentage of exposing the users to fraudulent websites and malicious software.

Statistics

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McAfee searched for more than 2,600 popular keywords and more than 413,000 unique URLs (web addresses). Here are some highlights of the report:

  • The categories with the worst maximum risk profile were lyrics keywords (26.3%) and phrases that include the word “free” (21.3%). If a consumer landed at the riskiest search page for a typical lyrics search, one of four results would be risky.
  • The categories with the safest risk profile were health-related search terms and searches concerning the recent economic crisis.
  • The riskiest set of keyword variations was “screensavers” with a maximum risk of 59.1% and an average risk of 34.4%.
  • Surprisingly, searches using the keyword “Viagra,” a popular keyword that is a frequent “visitor” in our spam filters, yielded the fewest risky sites.
  • Keywords popular in non-US countries were significantly riskier than those popular in the United States. 14 countries had keyword lists that exposed users to a higher maximum risk than average, including the Czech Republic (14.2%) and Brazil (12.1%). And 12 countries were overall riskier than the average, including Mexico (1.9%) and India (1.8%).

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Work from home scams

The chance to make good money while you “work from home” lures many people. And with the economic slowdown, and with many people losing their jobs, people end up giving these scams a try, which is a huge gamble. Work from home searches can be as much as four times more risky than the average for all popular terms. And on average, these searches are 50% more risky than other popular terms.

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So what have you been searching for online lately? Unfortunately, today, mere reliance on intuition or knowledge of past risks is not enough to stay safe on the web. Even technically sophisticated users are at risk. It is very important to have security suite installed on your PC and use safe search tools. Let’s be extra careful!

Link: McAfee report

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News

Netlog Embraces Google’s FriendConnect

Google’s FriendConnect lets everyone build their own community with in their own blogs, where sharing is the sole criteria. Anyone with any ID, OpenID, OAuth, OpenSocial, Blogger, Twitter, etc., can join this highly acclaimed blog network services with no restrictions.

netlog-friend-connect

Google FriendConnect has been embraced by Netlog. Netlog is an online platform where users can keep in touch with and extend their social network. It is an online social portal, specifically targeted at the European youth. On Netlog, you can create your own web page with a blog, pictures, videos, events and much more to share with your friends. It is thus the ultimate tool for young people to connect and communicate with their social network.

This duo combination will now bring bloggers and webmasters more users for both from their basic Netlog or Google Friend Connect communities. One can now enjoy both the services  – offered by Netlog as well as that by Friend Connect.

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Listed below are some of the basic functions:

  • Join millions of blogs using this duo combination.
  • Use either of Netlog profiles or Friend Connect profiles on subscribed sites.
  • Collaborate with mutual members.
  • Share you activities across the communities.
  • Send messages easily within both of these communities.

If you are a blogger and have integrated Google Friend Connect or the Netlog community, we would love to hear your experience. Do share your thoughts.

Link: Netlog

[Editor’s Note: This post is submitted by our guest blogger 3rdbrain who writes on ActivR on topics related to technology, CMS and gadgets.

If you, too would like to write for Devils Workshop, please check this. Details about our revenue sharing programs are here.]

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Analysis

10 terabytes on a single disc? No kidding!

clip_image002Yes, you heard that right… a single DVD-sized disc can store 2,000 times more than a single DVD for real now.

Although it is still not commercially available in the markets, but research engineers at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia, at an online news conference demonstrated this new storage technology.

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How does it work?

The technology makes use of extremely tiny gold particles called “nanorods”. The date is stored in a 3D space using different colors and different polarizations of light — the two other “dimensions”, making it a 5D storage medium.

Richard Evans, an engineering professor, explains it better:

“Using three colors and three polarizations, you can get nine data sets written in the same exact spot.”

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The new technology is backed by Samsung Electronics but it is expected to be commercially available only between five to ten years from now. That’s sad!

The next steps at the research lab:

  • Testing the technology on an actual DVD-sized disc
  • Develop an optical drive that should work with it
  • Try different nanorod materials that should shall bring down the actual cost of the discs

Competition?

A new method of 3D storage that could support 500 GB of storage on a DVD-sized disc was recently announced by GE. We have already covered this news in a separate article. You may click here to read about it in detail.

In separate questions raised by the press, the research engineers clarified that both 3D and 5D storage technologies could be made backwards compatible with existing optical drive technology. This means consumers would be able to play back their CDs, DVDs or Blu-Ray on the 3D and 5D drives.

The 3D and 5D technologies are definitely going to boost the storage capacities exponentially in the time to come.

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News

Google Chrome now Faster, Safer and Less Prone to Bugs!

clip_image003[11]After all the security issues around Google Chrome after about 8 months of its launch and the critical vulnerabilities it had stirred up, Google Chrome finally claims to have come out stronger. Today, Google announced the new version of its Chrome browser that is said to be faster, safer and less prone to bugs.

Well, that’s yet to be seen…

The existing Chrome users need not worry about updating to the new version. The browser will automatically update within a span of next 3 weeks.

For those who are new and wish to download the new version right away, can get the updates directly from the Google chrome website.

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New & Improved

  1. Some 300 stability bugs have been fixed by Google’s Chrome engineers, so hopefully, the Chrome browser will crash less.
  2. Some enhanced security features have been added to Chrome making it difficult for any malicious program entering on the users hard drive.
  3. The interactive web pages will run even faster now, even when the users have lots of tabs open.

Features

  • Improved New Tab Page: The users can now remove the thumbnails from the New Tab page by hiding whatever they wish to from the Most Visited section.
  • Full Screen Mode: Now the users can hide the title bar and the rest of the browser window by hitting F11 or selecting the option in the Tools menu and get a full screen view.
  • Form Autofill: Form autofill will show information the users have previously entered into the same form fields automatically. If at any point the user wants to clear out the information, that’s easy to do from the Tools menu.

Hopefully, this would help solve all the security problems Google Chrome had been facing in the recent past. It’s time to wait, watch and keep our fingers crossed!

(Source: Google chrome blog)

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News

Vodafone’s ZooZoos receive the PETA Award

Vodafone Zoozoo - Satisfied SmileyMost of you must be fans of the Vodafone ZooZoo ads which are aired in the IPL season 2 breaks. Here’s good news for the ZooZoos fans. Vodafone has won the first Glitter Box award which was given by PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) India. This award is given to those businesses that take the advantage of humane alternatives to the use of real animals in their advertisements.

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